We talk a lot about shipping faster now, but I think the more interesting question is how fast we learn that we are building the wrong thing.
Most teams do get feedback. They do beta tests, they invite a few customers, they open a channel somewhere, and then they can say the feature was validated before GA. But if we are honest, a lot of the time the feedback comes after the important decisions are already made.
You work on something for six months. Architecture is decided, workflows are decided, the internal demo has gone well, the release date is starting to feel real. Then you run a beta for a couple of weeks, collect a handful of comments, fix the obvious bugs, maybe polish one screen, and ship. The beta was there, but it was too late to change the shape of the thing.
That pattern is everywhere. I have done it plenty of times. We call it feedback, but often it is closer to release insurance.
The problem is not that we do not ask
