I hate complainers, but I love complaints.
Complaints don’t necessarily come from complainers, and complainers don’t necessarily generate (the right kind of) complaints.
Complaints from the right people, though, are magic bullets. It’s all about proper context.
When you’ve made something new — something that might not work — and someone complains about it, you’ve just had the eureka moment. They care enough to take time and effort to make the complaint. They care enough to say, “I want, no I need this to be better.”
They care because they can see themselves using it, and once they see that, you’ve won the war’s first battle. It means you’re on the right track. Your thing strikes a nerve. That’s all you want and all you can know for version 1.0.
Now your job is to listen and determine how you can make it better. Not necessarily to “do what they say,” but to take in what they say, align it with where you’re trying to go, and do the work.
Go out and seek complaints because most of your competitors are looking for compliments.
This is how you win.