Aaron Levie Quotes

Companies are very, very good - better than consumers themselves - at knowing what consumers are actually craving.

It's in our best interest to put some of the old rules aside and create new ones and follow the consumer - what the consumer wants and where the consumer wants to go.

Having the best product means nothing if the people won't buy it.

When companies try to guess what consumers want, they essentially make the choice for consumers.

When you focus on the consumer, the consumer responds.

But if people are buying the products, naturally they're gonna use them.

Yes, I sell people things they don't need. I can't, however, sell them something they don't want. Even with advertising. Even if I were of a mind to.

If you think you know the consumer better than anyone, then you're in real trouble. So we take a close watch. You spend time in stores.

You have to follow the consumer, and the consumer will be in control.

It doesn't matter how good your product solution is if users don't enjoy or understand how to use it.

To study consumer behavior is to explore human nature at its most fundamental level using the modern world as its backdrop.

Gaming provides us with some very good signals about consumers and what they're interested in.

I set up Droga5 because I really believe in the power of advertising. But I believe in the power of advertising that's in synch with what consumers want.

Using science to tell us what customers are looking for is second nature for us here.

The market and the consumer and idea trump the system.

I mean it wasn't that they sat around thinking oh gosh I needed more choices in my grocery stores the way I had come to think about it as an American growing up.

I listen to [customers] and we make adjustments because we pretty much average a collection every six weeks. We're constantly taking everything in and taking notes.

[on the theory of the firm] It is exactly analogous to the analysis of the reactions of a consumer by means of indifferent curves. Indeed, a consumer is merely a 'firm' whose product is 'utility.'

Never buy anything with a handle on it. It means work.

It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. As Henry Ford said many years earlier: "If I had listened to my customers, I would have built a faster horse." Inventions in general express Shannon entropy. They come from the supply side.

My view is that everything begins with the customer. If you know the customer, then you can match the merchandise and then you can market it. The marketing is kind of the icing. The foundation is the cake. That's the merchandise. Then the question is, "Do the customers want cake, or do they want cupcakes or donuts. What is it?"

Advertising works most effectively when it's in line with what people are already trying to do.

I love all of these new products that are coming out, things like headphones with cute, catchy names. There is also so much going on with the marketing of fashion. And then, I still love the classic stuff, like great dresses and wonderful photography.

The public is not greatly interested in saving a little money on a purchase at the expense of service.

True marketing starts...with the customer, his demographics, his realities, his needs, his values. It does not ask, "What do we want to sell?" It asks, "What does the customer want to buy?"