A week or so into my first CTO gig (I was brought in to help rescue a failing startup), a team returned from a trip to the customer where they were demoing something that my predecessor had been working on for months. I asked "how'd it go"? 1/3

They responded "the customer doesn't want it. They say they solved that problem six months ago." All the feedback during development came from an internal PM—an "industry expert," someone with "extensive experience." 2/3

He was in no way a replacement for actual conversations with actual customers. 4 devs working for 6 months—money down a hole. No wonder they were failing. 3/3