Start with the why: work backwards from the customer
Steve Jobs said it on stage in 1997. It is even more true now that the technology part takes an afternoon.
Part of our series on taste and shipping fast. The talk is in our Video section: Steve Jobs on working backwards (WWDC 1997).
In the same 1997 Q&A where he talked about focus, Jobs said you have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. He added that he had made the opposite mistake probably more than anybody else in the room.
Starting from the technology is exactly what AI tools invite. "Look what the model can do" is a technology. "A customer who no longer spends Friday afternoon reconciling invoices" is an experience. The second one tells you what to build. The first one tells you only what is possible.
How to work backwards, in practice
Write the announcement first. One paragraph, as the customer would describe the change to a colleague. If you can't write it without technical words, you don't know the experience yet.
Name the person. Not a segment: a person you have spoken to, with a job title and a bad afternoon.
Describe today. What do they do now, how often, and what does it cost them? This is your competition, and it is usually a spreadsheet or a habit.
Say why now. What changed that makes this possible or necessary this year?
Only then, the technology. Now open the agent. You know what you are asking for, and you can tell when it got it wrong.
Talk before you prompt
Five honest conversations with the people you want to serve will change your plan more than five hundred prompts. Ask about the last time the problem happened, not whether they would like your idea. People are kind about ideas and precise about their own afternoons.
Our Video section has a Startup School talk on how to talk to users that is worth the twenty minutes.