More often than not we come across advice that warns us about having a “herd mentality” and exhorting people to be “path-breaking”and “exploring uncharted waters”. I feel this advice has its merits but is taken to extremes by people who misunderstand that following the crowd is always a time-consuming and wasteful exercise which does not produce any concrete or measurable results.I beg to differ and here are some of my observations:–

1. People who seemingly have the herd mentality provide clues to those who want build successful products/concepts that eventually reach critical mass.
2. In case of failures too, dissecting crowd response provides valuable inputs to help you figure out what not to do.

So,if you are someone who does not follow the crowd just for the sake of standing out, don’t just just shun the crowd as you might get some valuable lessons if you look more closely.