The lead users of a product are those who use it the most. They are also the first to ‘break’ the product, or find limitations in it. Increasingly, they’re more likely to blog about those weaknesses or limitations, and even fix some of them.

It has never been easier to be near those who will adopt your product. Using some simple techniques borrowed from Anthropology, you can find out exactly what your consumer needs, and how to implement it. All you need to do is find the earliest adopters and lead users of a product in your niche and observe what they are saying about the product. Once you’ve developed a product from their advice, you’ll find a lot of other consumers adopting that product as well.

Why does this happen? The needs of lead users are the future needs of mass consumers in a given niche.

The key is to follow the advice of the most voracious adopters first. Bring your product to a shared work location like Portland’s Cubespace, where dozens of supporters will be poised and ready to give constructive feedback and advice. Ask this group of people what they find themselves frustrated with. What current limitations do they face in technology? Follow them around for a day, and, with their permission write down what they do. What is efficient? What is not? What products do they keep coming back to again and again?

Then, pick a problem and engineer a solution. Market that solution, and test it with the lead users. If it fails, it’s probably not going to move to the next stage of early adopters and routine users. Who were the lead users of Twitter? Why did they find Twitter to be useful? Did it help them communicate during their travels to tech conferences around the world?

Product development is about asking a lot of questions, and engaging yourself with your consumer’s needs. You can’t just get a group of geniuses together in a conference room and tell them “lets develop a product!”  I’ve done that countless times, and it is really fun, but creating a product seperately from the consumer’s input is generally a hit-or-miss process that often ends up in tears.

Embed yourself in your target market. Invest your time researching the consumer’s needs. This product is for them, not you. The more you make it for them, the more they will like you. Product development is engineering success by engagement and inference.