“If you ask customers what they want they would have said a faster horse.”
An often-heard quote attributed to Henry Ford reflecting his skeptical views of consumer insights which was also held by Steve Jobs who stated that “he never relied on it.”
When I taught Market Research at the University of Arkansas, I would start with these quotes in the first class and ask what students thought. Some heads would nod, others sensed a trap, and other minds were wistfully at the Razorback’s game instead of in class.
With few takers, I would then quickly move on to two of their disasters; specifically, the Edsel for Ford and NeXT Computers for Jobs. Those inventions were total duds and expensive market misses — a black mark on an otherwise stunning string of hits. I would conclude with the litany of innovations over time that were misreads due to a lack of consumer feedback.
I would end that section of the lecture with a picture of the Pontiac Aztek and crescendo with a quote from Bob Lutz about how the entire GM organization ignored excellent market research that would have steered them clear of that eyesore.
Somewhat self-righteously, I felt I had single-handedly vindicated the discipline. You see, my apt pupils, market research is the salvation to all your product woes.
Mic drop.
As a coda to that empathetic conclusion, we can fast forward to Tesla’s Cybertruck, another creation born of a leader with a strong vision who shared that he does “zero market research whatsoever… and if you don’t love the product, you should not expect others will.”[1]
Perhaps this is another nail in the coffin for designing by “gut”, but more on that in a bit. Needless to say, I took solace in the fact that all those billionaires were wrong and some lowly pion adjunct professor was right.
Not so fast there sport.
Steve Jobs was brilliant and created a whole category that didn’t exist. Henry Ford, despite his rather well-known personal shortcomings, literally changed the world. Even our pal Elon, we must begrudgingly admit, created some of the finest cars, decades ahead of their time. So, after much consideration over the last several decades, my conclusion is clear: They are right and wrong. Let me explain.
There are some things that insights and CX can do well and some things they cannot. Let’s start where our billionaire innovators were right.
Customers Can’t Design for You
The biggest abuse of consumer insights is people thinking that customers can tell you what to build. This ranges from “How would you like to be contacted?” to “We built this thing but don’t know what they might want it for?” In this scenario, Jobs, Musk, Ford, and others are spot on. This is a waste of time, and frankly, a dereliction of duty.
Customers cannot tell you what to design. They don’t know and that’s not their job. That’s the engineer’s and designer’s job.
What insights can do is: 1) understand the customer needs (latent and manifest) and 2) determine if customers like a concept or not and why. That’s it. Of those two, needs discovery and gaining empathy is by far the most important, because if you do that well, the rest will follow.
Inspiration through Customer Empathy
It was a beautiful spring morning as dust motes made a leisurely journey, suspended in the beams of light filtering into the windows of the public library. We were working on a project focused on community infrastructure, biking, and mobility. Our first interview of the day was with an avid biker and athlete who was struck by a debilitating disease that affected her neuromuscular functioning a few years before. Her balance was now a bit unsteady, her reaction time slower, and her stamina compromised, but her determination and optimism remained undiminished.
Immaculately dressed, she described her challenges in biking; balance, getting her bike on and off a vehicle, and awareness of obstacles and threats while riding. Later in the day, we talked to some elderly bikers who had similar concerns.
We found that biking was important for their mental and social health. These folks were mentally sharp, but their physical condition presented some unique challenges. They wanted a sense of independence and to connect with the outdoors. Many felt driving was unsafe and impractical while walking was too slow. For them, the e-bikes currently available were heavy, did not help with balance, and were very difficult to load on the back of a car or truck without help.
The more we talked, the more we learned. They showed us their homes, where they worked, shopped, and lived. This context was invaluable as they pointed to obstacles such as high curbs and narrow paths that we would have never noticed on our own.
This led us to a need statement that focused on the need for a lightweight, balanced, and power-assisted form of transportation. The solution would also need to help with situational awareness. Gets your mind racing, doesn’t it? I wish I had the engineers and designers with me so they could hear it directly.
This form of customer discovery is the essence of innovation. It starts with a problem, that isn’t always clearly articulated. Customers can seldom tell you what they want, but they can tell you what’s troubling them. Ford’s customers did say faster which is the need.
Sometimes it is what is not said and what we observe that can be just as powerful as talking with people. It can start with just observation of the mundane. Observing how people use Ketchup led to Heinz’s innovative “dip and squeeze” ketchup packet.
So, while customers don’t always know what they want, they know what ails them. And that’s the perfect jumping-off point for creating and iterating on prototypes.
Product and Service Testing
Nearly 95% of new products introduced each year fail. Why? According to an article by MIT[2] it is usually because most innovations fail to solve an important customer need. These erstwhile entrepreneurs succumb to “sparkly object syndrome” and fall madly in love with their ideas. I have found that many times these go-getters go through the motions of “consumer feedback” but if they’re being honest, what they are doing is indulging in confirmation bias. They don’t want feedback on their design, at most they want information on how to better position it so you will like it.
That’s too bad. Great designers like to hear critical feedback. This is where an agile approach to product is helpful. Don’t create a finished product. Start with a concept, such as a storyboard or paper prototype. Roadshow it. Get people’s reaction. Then build something, get folks’ feedback, and repeat.
If you did your homework upfront in discovery, you are much more likely to get closer to a final innovation that people want and need faster. So often, products and services are cooked up with misguided ideas about a need, a misread of the market, or no need whatsoever.
Cybertruck, a Case Study
Tesla’s Cybertruck has been piling up on lots recently. Instead of selling the planned 250,000 a year, it has sold less than 40,000. While there are still fanboys (and they are almost all men) who think the Cybertruck a huge success, it will likely go down in history as the largest flop since the Pontiac Aztek. A vehicle that, ironically, looks somewhat similar. The reason for its failure is not based on production and marketing (which Tesla does famously zero), it’s based on a fundamental lack of understanding of who its buyers might be. Since Elon abhors market research, I’m not sure if they were even motivated to find out. But indulge me for a moment and let’s say they were.
Lack of Empathy
If you could go in the way-back time machine to before the Cybertruck was sketched, the first two questions for designers to answer would be; 1) who are Cybertruck customers supposed to be (target) and 2) what would they want (need). Instead, it seems that the Cybertruck was created with a “field of dreams” approach, in that if they built something spectacular and unique, people would flock to it. That seemed to be the case early on with millions of preorders, but what happened?
Truck Buyers Hard Pass
Early Cybertruck inflow was not from truck owners, but from customers who were very affluent and wanted to stand out with an electric vehicle and the latest technology. This is a small, but lucrative, sliver of the new vehicle market.
One must presume this was not the intention and they wanted to attract truck buyers. If Tesla did any homework on traditional truck owners (especially full-size trucks) they would have found out that they 1) are very careful with their money 2) don’t want to stand out 3) generally are late adopters, and 4) most have a disdain for electric vehicles.
While some traditional truck owners’ objections may seem irrational, many are not. The majority of truck owners tow at some point. That’s one of the reasons you buy a truck, especially a full-size truck.
In 2025, electric vehicles and towing are not good bedfellows. Depending on weight and speed, towing with an EV will reduce the range of a vehicle by 50-70%. So, unless you’re towing your boat to a nearby lake, this is a problem.
Second, is that many full-size truck owners are concentrated in rural areas with scant electric charging infrastructure and long distances. Good infrastructure exists in Los Angeles, but not so good in Hayes, Kansas. So, truck buyers mostly said “no thanks” to the super modern Cybertruck.
Finally, the look for the vehicle is polarizing. When the F-150 had a changeover in the late 90s from a very boxy look to an evolutionally more modern swept-back look with their 9th gen update, there was a revolt larger than when Jeep briefly changed the Wrangler’s headlights from round to square, before reversing course. You don’t mess with the sacred amongst these groups. Eventually, the restyled F-150 caught on, but not without some tense moments and introspection at HQ.
So for Cybertruck, that leaves the EV faithful. Unfortunately for them, Elon started to get a little bit weird. Regardless of your politics, engaging in right-wing endeavors isn’t a good look when much of your owner base is left-leaning affluent coastal technocrats. Elon alienated his owner base and the last source of customers for this unique vehicle.
In an article by the Atlantic[3], a journalist documents renting a Cybertruck for a day and being flipped off, called names, and generally abused by strangers. The vehicles were vandalized on the street and set on fire in dealer lots. Owners became embarrassed and even started to remove the Tesla logo or replace it with another manufacturer’s logo.
This lack of customer empathy has had a large toll, perhaps a fatal one.
Lack of Testing
While I can’t attest to what, if any, consumer testing Tesla did, I can tell you as a past Model 3 owner the technology was great, but my ownership experience was not. While early adopters don’t care if anyone walks you through the vehicle’s capabilities, mainstream buyers do. Early adopters are willing to endure the lack of human customer support to get to that great technology. Mainstream buyers will not. My guess? Elon, as a tech guy, created a purchase experience that someone like him would like. And Elon is most definitely not the average consumer.
The Cybertruck itself also suffered from fit and finish issues. The symmetry of the vehicle and Tesla’s lack of experience in manufacturing created noticeable panel gaps and defects. Famous social media hosts gleefully compared venerable full-size pickups like the F-150 and tested them against the Cybertruck[4]. The Cybertruck didn’t usually fare well in these matchups, with one social media host virtually destroying the vehicle while the F-150 remained damaged, but functioning.
Will Cybertruck make it?
My guess is probably not. Despite some innovative technology, it just doesn’t have the customer base to support the price, and its styling and its founder are so polarizing there is probably no coming back.
Know Thy Customer
The reason why Ford, Jobs, and Musk were successful despite a lack of reliance on research is this: they knew their customer. Until they didn’t. This fatal blind spot can be avoided by using methods like observations and talking with customers to understand their pain points and areas of delight; both said and unsaid.
Where possible it’s good to include the folks building stuff and get deep into it, preferably coming along as consumer research tourist rather than waiting for that 2-dimensional PowerPoint report. Take to heart what people say. Test your concept with people and listen to them. Iterate or start again if necessary.
While most of us aren’t building a Cybertruck, almost all of us are building something for people who have a need. Often you move faster when you are moving slower, taking the time to start with the customer and keeping in touch as you develop a product or service.
Notes
[1] https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/industry/business/elon-musk-says-he-doesnt-do-market-research-and-avoids-the-daily-news
[2] https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-great-new-products-fail
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/cybertruck-washington-dc/682232/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK_EJ3DyiiA