When designing a product, should we heavily lean toward user feedback or create products that we truly believe will work? Henry Ford famously once said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". What's your take, makers?

Our product isn't ready for a 'beta' launch but we want to get it out as an alpha (as it is enough to showcase what we want to build). Would like to see some thoughts on some dos and don'ts and any additional thoughts and feedback?