After nearly a decade in business and building nearly 100 business websites, I can implement pretty much any feature my customers want (and are willing to pay for!) on their business website. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a customer who is interested in knowing all the bells and whistles I can add to their site; they are interested only in the features that will help solve the problems they have. Imagine that. We are all unique -- and therein lies the problem. My vision of the perfect business website is often different from that of my customers; I must choose between pursuing my vision (product-focused) or help my customers pursue theirs (customer-focused). Should we let our vision (of the product or service) drive our customer development? Or let our customers drive our product development? Not surprisingly, the designer-visionary-engineer types tend to favor the product-centric approach, while the sales-marketing-people types tend to favor the customer-centric approach. The decisions depend largely on your personality, risk tolerance, and financial resources. Steve Jobs spent millions building the iPod before the world realized it wanted an iPod; then he did it again with the iPhone and the iPad. He was a visionary. He risked millions in product development and earned billions in return. And he changed the world. But for every Steve Jobs, there are thousands of wannabe's that have gambled and lost their life-savings, homes, and even their marriages -- all because they believe in the "If you build it, they will come" mantra. I am no Steve Jobs. So I let my customers drive our product development. I will talk more about this in my next blog post.