Listen deeply, then trust your intuition, your subattentional genius to create something new, exciting and relevant. Get past the “either/or” mentality. There is a huge difference between giving them what they say they want and giving them something that elicits Apple-level devotion — and it hinges on internalizing enough to help you play around with it, a lot. First, be deeply empathic, then build a domain dreamscape about which you can be passionately emphatic and make something great happen.
It’s not like Steve Jobs didn’t listen. It’s when and how he listened, and then deeply internalized—infusing his psyche with a radically expansive sense of where the domain could go in the most insanely great direction. This probably doesn’t happen unless you absolutely love what you’re working on.
If, for whatever reason, you personally can’t get to this state of impassioned determination because you’re: (a) just plain not the target audience, (b) too time-crunched to do the work of internalization, (c) both of the above or (d) believe that this Jobsian thing is reserved for special, one-in-100-million types (note: he clearly didn’t believe that), then consider creating some sort of “passion proxy.” Hanging out with your domain’s crazy fankids may be a start. And there are undoubtedly more.
