Bezos on working backwards from the customer

Was reading Bezos (one of my entrepreneurial heros) interview and the following quote really stuck out at me:

Bezos: I would hope people would say that Amazon is earth’s most customer-centric company, and that we work backwards from customers.  Many companies sort of look at what their skills are and they work forward from their skills. They say this is what we’re good at, and this is what we’ll do. It’s a very different approach from saying here is what our customers need, and we will learn whatever skills we need.

He nailed it.  Keeping your focus on the customer is one of the hardest parts of running a company.

Instead of asking “what am I great at?”…..try “what do people want, and how do I get great at that?”

Win.