I've been asked countless times what the "secret" to building successful products is. People expect some complex framework. A fancy methodology. Maybe a proprietary system with an acronym.

The truth? It's embarrassingly simple.

Talk to your users. Then actually listen.

That's it. That's the trick.

I know it sounds obvious. But here's the thing, most founders don't do it. They think they do. They say they do. But they don't. Not really.

The Mistake Almost Every Founder Makes

When I started building products, I made the same mistake everyone makes. I had an idea. I thought it was brilliant. I spent months building it in isolation, convinced I knew exactly what people needed.

Spoiler alert: I didn't.

I launched to crickets. The few people who did try it gave feedback that made me realize I'd built something for a problem that didn't exist, at least not in the way I imagined it.

That failure taught me something important. The gap between what we think users want and what they actually want is massive. And the only way to close that gap is to get out of your own head and into theirs.

Why "Talking to Users" Is Harder Than It Sounds

Here's the thing about user feedback, it's not just about collecting it. It's about how you collect it, when you collect it, and what you do with it afterward.

Most founders fall into one of three traps:

Trap 1: Asking the wrong questions.
"Do you like this feature?" is useless. People are polite. They'll say yes to avoid awkwardness. Instead, ask about their problems. Their workflows. Their frustrations. Don't lead them to your solution. Let them show you the problem.

Trap 2: Only listening to the loudest voices.
Your most vocal users aren't always your most representative users. The person sending you five emails a day might have very specific needs that don't reflect your broader user base. Balance matters.

Trap 3: Collecting feedback but not acting on it.
This is the most common one. You gather all this insight, nod along, and then… nothing changes. Feedback without action is just performance.

How We Do It at Chartrflex

At Chartrflex, we've built user feedback into everything we do. It's not a quarterly thing. It's not a checkbox. It's the foundation.

Here's our approach:

1. Weekly User Conversations

Every week, someone on our team talks directly to users. Not through surveys. Not through support tickets. Real conversations. Video calls, phone calls, whatever works.

These aren't sales calls or support calls. They're discovery calls. We ask about their day. Their workflow. What's annoying them. What they wish existed. Sometimes we don't even mention our product.

The insights from these conversations have shaped almost every major decision we've made.

2. Rapid Iteration Cycles

We ship fast. Not because we're reckless, but because we've learned that the best way to test an idea is to put it in front of users.

Our cycle looks like this:

• Identify a problem (from user conversations)
• Build a minimal version (days, not months)
• Ship it to a small group
• Watch what happens
• Iterate or kill it

Most features get killed. That's fine. Better to learn fast than invest months in something nobody wants.

3. Staying Close to the Problem

It's easy to get disconnected as a company grows. The CEO stops talking to users. The product team relies on secondhand reports. Decisions get made in conference rooms instead of in conversation with real people.

We actively fight this. I still jump on user calls. Our engineers watch user sessions. Everyone on the team understands who we're building for: not as an abstract persona, but as real people with real problems.

The 2026 Playbook

This year, we're doubling down on this approach. Our 2026 strategy is built on two pillars: execution and user growth.

Execution means shipping. Constantly. We're not interested in building features that sound impressive on a slide deck. We want features that solve real problems: and the only way to know what those are is to stay connected to the people using our product.

User growth means exactly what it sounds like. But sustainable growth. The kind that comes from building something people actually want to use and recommend. Not growth hacked through tricks that don't last.

The common thread? Users. Everything comes back to them.

Practical Advice for Founders

If you're building something right now, here's what I'd tell you:

Start talking to users before you build anything.
You don't need a product to have conversations. You need a hypothesis. Go validate it. Talk to 20 people in your target market before you write a single line of code. You'll be shocked by what you learn.

Make feedback loops short.
The longer it takes to get from idea to user feedback, the more likely you are to waste time building the wrong thing. Shorten that loop as much as possible. Ship something small. Learn. Adjust.

Don't fall in love with your solution.
Fall in love with the problem instead. Solutions change. Problems are more stable. If you're attached to a specific feature or approach, you'll miss better options when they emerge.

Document what you learn.
User insights are valuable. Don't let them disappear into the ether after a call. Write them down. Share them with your team. Build a knowledge base of what you know about your users.

Watch behavior, not just words.
What people say they'll do and what they actually do are often different. Combine direct feedback with usage data. Look for patterns in behavior that confirm or contradict what you're hearing.

The Unsexy Truth About Building Products

There's no magic formula. No growth hack. No secret that's going to shortcut the work of understanding your users deeply.

The founders who win are the ones who do the boring, unglamorous work of talking to people. Listening. Iterating. Staying humble enough to admit when they're wrong.

It's not exciting. It doesn't make for great Twitter content. But it works.

At Chartrflex, this is how we operate. It's how we've built a product that people actually use. And it's how we'll keep building in 2026 and beyond.

The simple trick to building products people want? There is no trick. Just do the work.

Josiah Kavuma is the CEO of Chartrflex, where he focuses on building software that solves real problems for real people. You can follow Chartrflex's journey as we continue to ship, learn, and grow.