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# Stakeholders
- URL: https://www.cesarrg.com/talking-to-customers/
- Published: 2022-11-22T09:10:18.000Z
- Updated: 2023-07-17T06:41:06.000Z
- Author: César Rodríguez
- Tags: Design

#38 - Nov.2022

Are you confusing stakeholders with users of your product? Seems like a trivial question but I find many times that teams are not clear on the nuances of this difference.

Don't get me wrong; there is a very thin line between being impacted by your product (stakeholder) and an actual user. Separating both, in particular for products used within your organization, can be challenging...but very much needed.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/f4/10f4a52f-1b7d-4284-b66d-0fccfd9dc5da/content/images/2022/11/Stakeholders.png)

Considering stakeholders as users can take you to places where you are not focusing on real outcomes but rather on strategic & business constraints. Pure stakeholder-led prioritization can take you out of the route. 

Priorities should be driven by the outcome of solving real problems for users. Your probing and [discovery](https://www.cesarrg.com/product-discovery/) efforts should be focused on them, hearing and empathizing with people actually using your product.

Does this mean stakeholders are out of the equation? Surely not. They play a key role in bringing inputs on the constraints, assumptions, and risk assessment. They are just not the main source you should use to deeply understand a problem [your user](https://www.cesarrg.com/customer-do-not-really-care/) is facing.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/10/f4/10f4a52f-1b7d-4284-b66d-0fccfd9dc5da/content/images/2022/12/sign_CRG2.png)

💡

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