iPhone co-creator Tony Fadell: “Data does not equal insights”

How did you test your consumer story for the ipod given Apple's culture of secrecy? We tested on each other. We smart people around you don't have to go out to the masses and have them do surveys and everything else. Data does not equal insights. And data when people haven't paid for things is not real data. When you do version one of anything, it's mostly opinion driven decisions, not data driven decisions. So if you get more opinions, you just get lower common denominator. Right? And you just say, oh, I'm going to average between all the opinions. No, you have to have a strong opinion and maybe a few people around you who can be mirrors and help you refine those opinions. But not until after you've shipped it can you get actual data and consumer insights. You have to have a very strong conviction on what it is you're building and why you're building and the story around it. Because there is no data you can get for it. You need to get it out there, ship it, and then modulate off of that with data, but also insights and still opinions, because you have to move it forward and leapfrog yourself as you go.