Distinguish Real Needs from False Wants
User demands can be categorized into two types: true needs and false wants. For example, if you ask users, "Do you like diamonds?" most will answer "Yes." If you ask, "Do you need diamonds?" most will still respond "Yes." However, when you ask users if they will buy diamonds right now, even at a discount, most will hesitate and decline. This illustrates clearly that people’s expressed interests don't necessarily reflect their true needs or willingness to pay.
At the beginning of product development, user engagement data can be deceptive. You might see thousands of users signing up or using your product frequently. But as soon as you stop providing incentives or novelty features, they disappear. This reveals that their usage was driven by curiosity or false wants, not real needs. Zhou Hongyi once aimed to aggregate entertaining community content for easy access, but it failed—because the need wasn't genuine. A user may spend three hours on your site today, yet never return next week, indicating a false need.
Many apparent user requirements aren't genuine. They represent trivial needs, easily substituted desires, or features that are attractive in theory but unnecessary in practice. Investing resources in these pseudo-needs often leads to failure. If a user is not willing to pay or continuously engage, the perceived need doesn't carry real market value.
Entrepreneurship demands genuine innovation and real market progress. The key is clearly identifying the difference between what users say they want and what they will genuinely pay for. Address real needs first, and the company will thrive naturally.
Reflection as a Senior SaaS Software Engineer
In the SaaS domain, we face similar scenarios. Often, users suggest many features they claim they "want," but only a fraction represent actual needs worth solving. As senior engineers, our responsibility is to clearly identify real user pain points rather than merely fulfilling superficial desires.
To effectively do this, we should:
Evaluate Actual User Behavior
- Monitor feature adoption, retention, and willingness to pay, instead of solely relying on surveys or casual feedback.
Validate Early
- Quickly create MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) to test whether the identified needs translate into genuine user adoption and payment.
Prioritize Strategically
- Focus engineering resources on features with tangible business impacts like revenue increase, retention, and user satisfaction.
Iterate and Improve
- Refine validated features based on real usage metrics and user feedback, discarding unnecessary "wants."
By distinguishing clearly between real needs and false wants, SaaS teams can swiftly pinpoint actual pain points and consistently deliver value—leading to successful products and sustainable growth.
Understanding users' true needs empowers teams to build products that users genuinely value and adopt.