It’s tempting to believe people want your product. But that’s not quite true.

What they really want is to reach their goals.

Think about it: every human being has a set of needs:

• To eat when they’re hungry
• To get from point A to point B
• To land a job
• To find a place to live
• To win a tennis match
• To feel attractive
• To meet their soulmate

These goals are deeply human. They existed long before your product did-and they’ll exist long after.

Your product, on its own, is not the goal. It’s just a means to an end.

Like a sword in World of Warcraft, it’s valuable not because it’s shiny, but because it helps the player on his quest.

Take AirBnB. On the surface, it’s a platform for short-term rentals. But the reason it resonates is deeper: it gives people the chance to travel and feel at home anywhere in the world. That’s the real quest.

So if you’re creating a product, your role isn’t to push features. It’s to understand what mission your customers are on, and position your product as the ally that helps them succeed.

That means:

• Discover what your customers are truly trying to accomplish.
• Learn how to have open conversations about those goals.
• Build enough trust that they believe your product will actually get them there.

Because here’s the truth that often gets overlooked: the product is never the hero of the story.

The hero is always the customer.

And the companies that thrive are the ones who never forget it.