"But customers don’t buy features, they usually buy something that solves a real or perceived need. That’s the comparison you and your investors should be looking at - what do customers say they need or want?"
What customers say they need or want != What customers need or want.
At least not necessarily. For instance, they might say they want "something like X already offers but better" when they'd prefer something that's quite unlike X (and much more better).
you're absolutely right, and that is the real problem I see with much of what Steve Blank professes.Particularly when talking about under-developed markets.
However, in this instance re:competitive analysis, I agree with Steve. If competitive analysis is focusing on a feature for feature comparison, I can understand why that doesn't jive.
It is the entrepreneurs job to interpret hearing what the customers want into something that they didn't know they want, but must have.
Agreed. Your customers may not know what they want, but the feature comparison chart doesn't solve that for them. Having your new product be a huge feature superset of all of your competitors doesn't get you anything. It may give your product all of those features, but it will probably give your product all those weaknesses too plus an extra complexity that most customers won't want.
What customers say they need or want != What customers need or want.
At least not necessarily. For instance, they might say they want "something like X already offers but better" when they'd prefer something that's quite unlike X (and much more better).