Stop listening to your users (and start hearing them)

What they say is a symptom. Your job is to find the disease.

This is part of The Unsexy. A series for capable people who are ready to trade the excitement of new ideas, for the power of unsexy, consistent output.

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Let’s dismantle a myth that keeps smart people stuck.

It’s the idea that real product insight is a rare gift, some kind of visionary magic. You and I both know the type, especially from the breathless tech press coverage of the 2025 AI boom. The lone genius who just knows.

It's a lie. A convenient, romantic lie.

Actionable insight is never a gift. It's the predictable output of a disciplined process.

I used to believe in the myth myself. Then I watched a founder I know use a simple, 3-step protocol to turn a chaotic flood of user complaints into a single, powerful insight.

No magic here, but a system. And today, I’m giving it to you.

A Mother, Four Baby Bottles, and the Real Problem

The scene: A founder is interviewing a new mother. The mother is frustrated, listing her complaints.

• Bottle A: Had a great anti-gas vent, but at only 60ml, it was useless after two weeks. A waste.

• Bottle B: Had its vent on the side of the cap. In the middle of a 3 AM feeding, she’d have to fumble in the dark to get the orientation right.

• Bottle C: Had a square lid that was a nightmare to seal. One night, exhausted, she thought she’d sealed it. She hadn't. Milk spilled everywhere as she went to feed her crying baby. Disaster.

• Bottle D: Had a bottom vent that required a separate, easy-to-lose plug.

It’s tempting to hear this and start solving for features. A bigger bottle! A top-centered vent! A round lid!

The founder didn't. She just listened. And when the mother was done, she didn't offer a solution. She offered a synthesis.

First, she asked: "It sounds like the most frustrating moments happen during high-stress situations, like a middle-of-the-night feeding. Is that right?"

The mother’s eyes lit up. "Yes, exactly."

Then, the founder went deeper: "So, a perfect bottle wouldn’t just be one with better features, but one that removes the chance of an unexpected error when you're exhausted?"

Finally, she played back the root cause: "What you’re really looking for isn't just a bottle that solves for gas. You're looking for one that is absolutely, unquestionably reliable."

That word changed everything.

Reliable.

It was the one word that explained all the other symptoms.

That single insight: Reliability > Features, made every subsequent decision, from product design to marketing, simple.

This wasn't a stroke of genius, but the output of the protocol.

The 3-Step Insight Protocol

Here’s the exact system. Whether you have a thousand customers or just an idea, you can run this.

Step 1: Just Listen.

Your only job here is to collect the raw, messy complaints—the "phenomena"—without polluting the data with your own brilliant ideas. For now, your urge to solve is the enemy of understanding.

🔳 Your Move:

If you have users: Record your next three customer interviews. Your only deliverable is a list of the top five most specific, emotionally-charged complaints from each one.

If you're starting out: Go to the Reddit or Amazon reviews for the #1 product in your market. Your deliverable is a document with the ten most detailed 1-star reviews. This is your raw data.

Step 2: Find the One Word.

Your objective is to move from many "whats" to a single, powerful "why." Assume all the complaints are just symptoms of one underlying disease. Your job is to find the unifying theme.

🔳 Your Move:

Read your list of complaints. What's the pattern? Cluster them. Is there one word (eg: speed, status, control, convenience, reliability) that sits at the heart of most of them? Formulate a single-sentence hypothesis about the real problem. "The user isn't asking for more features, they're asking for more control."

Step 3: Play It Back.

A hypothesis isn’t true until the user says it is. The final step is to take your "why" back to your audience and see if it lands. Their reaction is the only metric that matters.

🔳 Your Move:

If you have users: Go back to one of them. State your hypothesis cleanly. "I've been thinking about our conversation. It sounds like the core issue isn't really about [the feature], but more about [your root cause word]. Does that feel right?" An enthusiastic "YES!" is a validated insight. A polite "Hmm, maybe," means you go back to Step 2.

If you're using public data: Go back to the forum where you found the complaints. Start a new thread: "Reading reviews of Product X, it seems the real problem isn't [common complaint], it's really about [your hypothesis]. Does anyone else see this?" The upvotes are your resonance test.

I’ve run this protocol dozens of times. It doesn't always yield a million-dollar insight. But it always, always yields clarity.

And in the chaotic work of building something new, clarity is the rarest thing in the world.

So let them call it magic. Let them have their 'visionaries.'

You and I know the truth.

Insight isn't a gift you wait for. It’s a system you build. A disciplined process for finding the one problem worth solving while everyone else is distracted by the symptoms.

In a world drowning in easy answers, this is the only advantage that matters.

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Hi!

I'm Yuehan. After a decade spent building businesses in both the West and China, I'm sharing my most valuable, road-tested lessons right here on Substack.

Since I'm starting from scratch on this side of the world, your support means a great deal. If this piece resonated, a restack or a simple ❤️ is massively appreciated.