Number 2 is kind of abstract. There are a lot of ways to interpret "putting your customer's interest before your company's." You could make the software cheaper, for example, but you probably won't.
I've thought a lot about how far to bend to customers demands the past few weeks as I've been working on a fairly large project geared toward companies that are used to influencing product design and direction. In enterprise sales, when the Vice President of Marketing at a company ready to pay a few million dollars says, "Can I check my data from your website while I'm on my jet?" what are you supposed to say? Sure, we could rig some complex system to download the data for him, but that's a terrible use of our time.
On the other end of the spectrum is Apple's dealings with consumers. Apple very rarely does things people ask for-- I wish I had a card reader on my MacBook Pro, for example, but I don't. They're geniuses at distilling the most useful things that most people will use and then developing them to absurd levels of perfection beyond what the rest of the industry is used to.
I'd much rather build a product with a few amazingly awesome features that help a wide number of people than one with tons of OK features (including the ability for one person to view reports on their private airplane!).
Both of these ends of the spectrum can be argued for putting the customer's interest first.
"There are a lot of ways to interpret "putting your customer's interest before your company's." You could make the software cheaper, for example, but you probably won't."
I have to agree on the interpretation problem here. But, I think an important thing to learn in business is that sometimes lowering your price is bad for your customers. You may have more of them because of a price drop...but you'll almost certainly serve them less effectively. It took me way too many years to learn this simple fact (and Joel Spolsky hadn't yet written his very good article on the subject when I was learning it).
I've thought a lot about how far to bend to customers demands the past few weeks as I've been working on a fairly large project geared toward companies that are used to influencing product design and direction. In enterprise sales, when the Vice President of Marketing at a company ready to pay a few million dollars says, "Can I check my data from your website while I'm on my jet?" what are you supposed to say? Sure, we could rig some complex system to download the data for him, but that's a terrible use of our time.
On the other end of the spectrum is Apple's dealings with consumers. Apple very rarely does things people ask for-- I wish I had a card reader on my MacBook Pro, for example, but I don't. They're geniuses at distilling the most useful things that most people will use and then developing them to absurd levels of perfection beyond what the rest of the industry is used to.
I'd much rather build a product with a few amazingly awesome features that help a wide number of people than one with tons of OK features (including the ability for one person to view reports on their private airplane!).
Both of these ends of the spectrum can be argued for putting the customer's interest first.
(sorry for the digression)