frankquestions

If you are at an early stage startup, how do you best communicate concerns with product development when that control is exercised by a founder? Specifically scope, complexity and intent seem far off the mark, especially in a high velocity environment?

A simple feature request in the form of a user-story is almost always met with "well, the user asked for X...but what I really think they wanted Y..." and in each case the scoped and defined feature is an attempt to "redefine" or "reimagine" a customer workflow...workflows that the founder has no personal experience with.

I would like to say "hey, we really should try to narrowly address the user-story...then see where we can innovate"...but each time I've pushed back with that narrative I get what I can only describe as arrogant responses about "disruption" and so forth. For me personally its tough, as I have a good deal of relevant professional experience in the subject matter and I feel like because I am also an engineer my concerns are brushed aside as those of a "techie, not the target customer persona".

What other routes can I take?