# There is no average customer: Why ease of use breaks so often - with Sharon Flaherty, CEO at Folk

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-careers-uncovered-6472278/there-is-no-average-customer-why-ease-of-use-breaks-so-often-with-sharon-flaherty-ceo-at-folk
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-careers-uncovered-6472278/there-is-no-average-customer-why-ease-of-use-breaks-so-often-with-sharon-flaherty-ceo-at-folk.md
Podcast: [Marketing Careers Uncovered](https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-careers-uncovered-6472278)
Published: 2026-04-07T20:09:35+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dave-heywood4/episodes/There-is-no-average-customer-Why-ease-of-use-breaks-so-often---with-Sharon-Flaherty--CEO-at-Folk-e3hitbc
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/10cb6cb5c/podcast/play/118108972/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-3-7%2F421609343-44100-2-2af6ab866d0ca.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/marketing-careers-uncovered-6472278/episodes/there-is-no-average-customer-why-ease-of-use-breaks-so-often-with-sharon-flaherty-ceo-at-folk
Duration seconds: 1023

## Resource

We talk a good game about making things easy to use. But most organisations are still designing for an average customer who doesn’t really exist. Sharon Flaherty, CEO of Folk, shares the moment that caused her to view the world differently, where she sees customer journeys breaking down in the real world and where can start to change the conversation. We discuss: why “easy to use” is harder than it sounds in practice how assumptions about customers quietly distort experience design why organisations underestimate the complexity of real decision-making, and how testing comes too late to matter why lived experience surfaces what data alone misses and why culture, not process, decides whether inclusion actually happens Subscribe for the Extended Cut – where we go further on what it actually takes to shift organisational thinking, why most 'customer understanding' work never changes decisions, how leaders unintentionally deprioritise experience friction, and what it really takes to move from insight to action inside complex organisations.

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## Transcript

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