As somebody responsible for the acquisition of users and growth of a company in terms of customer and revenue, this is a VERY salient point:
> “… we could not have accelerated Zotero’s conception, because we did not know exactly what we wanted, and so could not have written coherent prompts for an LLM.”
A surprising proportion of software products, maybe even businesses today, are solutions in search of a problem.
Sometimes that’s okay, but only sometimes. And being a solution in search of a problem requires you to get everything /else/ pretty much perfect if you want to succeed.
The fact Zotero paid attention to what people wanted, and gave it to them, and were market oriented, is demonstrably a big part of their success.
It is MUCH easier to make something people want, than to make them want something you made.
> “… we could not have accelerated Zotero’s conception, because we did not know exactly what we wanted, and so could not have written coherent prompts for an LLM.”
A surprising proportion of software products, maybe even businesses today, are solutions in search of a problem.
Sometimes that’s okay, but only sometimes. And being a solution in search of a problem requires you to get everything /else/ pretty much perfect if you want to succeed.
The fact Zotero paid attention to what people wanted, and gave it to them, and were market oriented, is demonstrably a big part of their success.
It is MUCH easier to make something people want, than to make them want something you made.