Developing Solutions Based on Client Feedback

Recently, a founder approached me for guidance on his Enterprise SaaS startup aimed at Financial Services. He wanted my feedback on his idea to gauge if it would work for banks and financial institutions. His reasoning? He believed I would have strong insights into the space since I've worked with many banks as my customers. I asked him how long he’d been building the product. He said about a year. Then, I asked him how many banks or NBFCs he had spoken to for feedback. He said he hadn’t approached any yet, as he was still refining the product—relying on feedback from people like me to shape it. Here’s why this approach is broken: 1. Banking is vast. Having banking clients doesn’t mean I understand every nuance of the industry. Banking is so diverse that even lifelong bankers don’t know it all. It’s like assuming an engineer can fix every electronic device at home just because they’re an engineer. Relying solely on someone with indirect experience won’t give you the full picture. 2. The most valuable feedback comes from your end buyer. The person within the bank who ultimately signs the cheque is the one whose opinion matters most. While feedback from industry experts can be insightful, it should only supplement your primary research with potential customers, not replace it. Co-creation with your customers is the best way to ensure that your product aligns with real market needs. Talk to your potential customers directly, show them your product as you build, and keep refining based on their feedback. This approach helps avoid the painful realization, months or years later, that your product doesn’t resonate with the market. The essence of this approach is outlined in "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries, a must-read for founders looking to build something customers actually want. #startups #business #entrepreneurship

User Feedback Loops: the missing piece in AI success? AI is only as good as the data it learns from -- but what happens after deployment? Many businesses focus on building AI products but miss a critical step: ensuring their outputs continue to improve with real-world use. Without a structured feedback loop, AI risks stagnating, delivering outdated insights, or losing relevance quickly. Instead of treating AI as a one-and-done solution, companies need workflows that continuously refine and adapt based on actual usage. That means capturing how users interact with AI outputs, where it succeeds, and where it fails. At Human Managed, we’ve embedded real-time feedback loops into our products, allowing customers to rate and review AI-generated intelligence. Users can flag insights as: 🔘Irrelevant 🔘Inaccurate 🔘Not Useful 🔘Others Every input is fed back into our system to fine-tune recommendations, improve accuracy, and enhance relevance over time. This is more than a quality check -- it’s a competitive advantage. - for CEOs & Product Leaders: AI-powered services that evolve with user behavior create stickier, high-retention experiences. - for Data Leaders: Dynamic feedback loops ensure AI systems stay aligned with shifting business realities. - for Cybersecurity & Compliance Teams: User validation enhances AI-driven threat detection, reducing false positives and improving response accuracy. An AI model that never learns from its users is already outdated. The best AI isn’t just trained -- it continuously evolves.

Stakeholders feedback = Ready-Made Solutions? We built it, and they still weren't happy... but are they wrong? Early in my career, I used to put a lot of weight on stakeholder feedback. They requested a feature? Built it.  They disliked something? Changed it. Here's what I have learned: instead of focusing on those individual solutions, listen for the patterns hidden within the feedback. Sometimes, what stakeholders say they want isn't the whole story and the solutions offered are just symptoms of an underlying problem. In a recent project, stakeholders kept asking for a specific reporting feature.  At first, I was ready to jump in and build it. But then, I decided to pause and reflect. What problems were they trying to solve with this report? Turns out, everyone felt a disconnect from the KPIs. The report was just a symptom. The real issue was a lack of understanding and alignment on what success looked like for the product. By identifying this “pattern” (everyone wanting better visibility into KPIs), we were able to brainstorm a more strategic solution – a revamped dashboard with clear metrics everyone could access. Stakeholder feedback is gold, but it's not always a blueprint. Use it to identify recurring themes and underlying issues. This will lead to more impactful solutions that address the root cause, not just surface-level problems. What are your experiences with stakeholder feedback? 

3 Out of 4 Projects Fail Due to Misdiagnosis... here’s how to change that. The Doctor Framework: In a consulting world crowded with “solutions,” what if the secret to true client impact was a shift to diagnosis first? The Doctor Framework is designed to help senior executives-turned-consultants leverage their expertise in a solutions-based sales approach. Here’s why this method is a game-changer for creating long-term client relationships and real outcomes: 1. Diagnose the Pain 🩺 Much like a doctor would with a patient, this phase is about identifying core issues... not just symptoms. Research shows that 80% of s uccessful client interactions hinge on active listening (HubSpot, 2021). For consultants, that means asking pointed questions and focusing on what the client’s really saying... often between the lines. This phase sets the tone for trust and accurate problem-solving. 2. Verify & Prioritize 📋 Too often, consultants jump to solutions without fully verifying the core problem. In fact, 75% of misaligned projects stem from a misunderstanding in the initial discovery phase (PMI, 2022). Encourage clients to prioritize their biggest hurdles and validate the diagnosis before prescribing. This ensures they’re bought into the process, which paves the way for collaborative solutions. 3. Co-Create the Solution 🤝 People support what they help create. Rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all answer... work with clients to co-create their roadmap, personalizing it to their needs. This consultative approach builds trust and client ownership, leading to better buy-in and outcomes. According to LinkedIn, solutions tailored with client collaboration improve client retention by 42%. 4. Start with Small Wins 🏆 Quick wins build momentum. In fact, research from McKinsey shows that starting with small but impactful projects leads to a 30% higher likelihood of client re-engagement. The goal is to: - secure initial buy-in - build credibility - set the stage for longer-term partnerships. Propose a quick-hit project to deliver immediate results, reinforcing the client’s confidence in both the process and the partnership. 5. Become the Trusted Advisor 🔗 Once the foundation is laid, follow-up and deepen the relationship. Check-in regularly, provide added value, and actively look for new opportunities to expand your impact. By positioning yourself as a long-term ally, not just a vendor, you’ll move from “consultant” to “advisor.” Statistics reveal that 90% of clients who see consistent value are more likely to refer additional business. Ready to level up your consulting approach? Implement the Doctor Framework and start creating meaningful, lasting relationships. Anything you'd add?

The easiest part of building #optimization and #decisionintelligence solutions is writing the code. Yet, I've found few references dealing with the more critical parts of successfully delivering the right solution. Here's my step-by-step approach to increasing the likelihood of delivering a solution with high business impact. 1) Understand the business process: Expanding your view from the problem presented to the process in which it is embedded allows for more holistic solutions and de-risks solving the wrong problem. 2) Interviews with business users and stakeholders: Understanding how users perceive their business process gives a better picture of the communication flow. This is important for change management as you roll out your solution. In addition, it provides a first glimpse to assessing the client's "tech maturity" which influences how you architect your solution. 3) Present an initial solution in plain English: Write a document with a clear problem statement, a high-level description of the solution, and the expected metrics improvements without technical jargon. This serves a double function as an exercise to have mental clarity and a means to #communicate and align with stakeholders. 4) Build a "scrappy" prototype and get it to stakeholders: This is one of the best ways to keep stakeholders engaged, validate that it's on the right path, and streamline change management. The prototype should include the solution, a method to evaluate the relevant metrics, and an interface for stakeholders to interact with your solution. 5) Build a metrics tracking mechanism: Create a dashboard that will be used to review the latest performance metrics of interest so that you can clearly build the story of how your solution is improving them over time as you iterate. 6) Build a CI/CD pipeline: After the prototype's initial validation, build a pipeline that allows you to ship new releases quickly to stakeholders. Establish cadenced checkpoints and demos to get feedback and review metrics. This is an important part of your change management. 7) Pilot: Once the metric improvements have been achieved, run a pilot where you follow how your solution is used as part of the business process. Make any final necessary tweaks to secure adoption. 8) Documenting and closing: Once adoption is satisfactory, close out the project by properly documenting your artifacts for your stakeholders. Include a section identifying other potential improvements to the process and an estimate of their impact for future work. Successful projects go far beyond models and algorithms, they ensure business impact and adoption. This is how we'll make #decisionintelligence the most widely adopted #AI in business. What steps would you also include?

I joined a client call today. The client, Emma Brooks (not her real name for NDA reasons), had a vision. She wanted to build an AI-powered customer feedback tool. She had mapped out features, budgets, and expectations. The problem? She expected the project to fit within $10K, but if we built it from scratch, it would cost $20K+. She needed something fast. Something effective. Something scalable. Most agencies would have taken her plan, given a high estimate, and built what she asked for. We took a different approach. We stepped into her shoes and thought about what would actually make her successful. Custom development? Too expensive. A new marketing site? Not necessary. A complex AI model? Overkill. Instead, we used CollabAI, our open-source AI tool, and customized it to fit her needs. We replaced costly development with a lean, modular approach. A headless CMS cut marketing site hours from 50+ to just 8. We helped her launch faster, stay within budget, and build a roadmap for growth. By the end of the call, her $10K budget stayed intact. Her launch timeline dropped from months to six weeks. She left with a business plan, not just a product. Three Lessons From This Call → Think Like the Client, Not the Developer She didn’t need software. She needed a business solution. Most agencies focus on building products. The best ones focus on making clients successful. → AI Should Be a Bicycle, Not a Train Clients know they need AI. Most don’t know how to use it. They don’t need a train or even a car. They need a bicycle. Something simple. Something they can ride today. We customized CollabAI instead of building from scratch. She got AI-powered automation without breaking the budget. She can start small and scale later. → Speed to Market Beats Perfection Emma could have waited months for the perfect AI system. Instead, she’s launching in six weeks with a lean, functional solution. Success comes from iterating fast, not over-engineering. Agencies that move fast, cut costs, and think like clients will always win. Today’s call was proof of that.

There is only one type of company that will survive in the future. And no, this has nothing to do with AI. It’s the companies that collect, manage, and act on customer feedback. A few years ago, I was preparing to roll out a new program focused on enablement, education, and engagement. Instead of building it in a vacuum, I interviewed 20 different customers to get their feedback on what I was planning. Not only did this shape the final design, but when I rolled it out, I shared back with the broader customer base how their peers’ voices had directly influenced what we built. That one decision did three things instantly: 1️⃣ Showed we cared. 2️⃣ Illustrated that we listen. 3️⃣ Encouraged even more customers to share in the future. And the program? It became one of our most successful launches. Feedback isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s your survival strategy. Because when customers tell you what’s working and what’s not they’re giving you a free roadmap to: ❗ Fix broken experiences before they become deal breakers. ❗ Double down on what’s driving loyalty and expansion. ❗ Spot emerging needs before your competitors do. But here’s the part most leaders miss: every team in the business can tap into customer feedback and act on it. ✅ Marketing can refine messaging by listening to how customers describe their wins and struggles. ✅ Sales can tailor discovery questions based on feedback about what attracted (or repelled) prospects. ✅ Support sees trends in recurring tickets that point to product or education gaps. ✅ Services hears firsthand how onboarding and implementation shape customer confidence. ✅ Product can prioritize the features that customers say would truly move the needle. ✅ Customer Success uncovers both risks and expansion opportunities through ongoing conversations. ✅ Finance can better forecast retention and growth by understanding feedback-driven health signals. The insights are everywhere. The real power comes when companies can connect the dots across all teams and turn feedback into coordinated action. And this is where I see the biggest roadblock: Companies struggle to manage feedback across the business in a meaningful way. It’s siloed, scattered, and often disconnected from strategy. So let me ask: Is this a challenge you’re seeing in your organization too?

The Client I Almost Lost (And What It Taught Me) Most web designers lose high-ticket clients for the same reason. And it’s not a bad design. Not weak code. Not poor pricing. It’s ego disguised as expertise. I learned this the hard way. I was working on a dream project. Big client. Big vision. Big pressure. So I poured everything into it. → Custom animations → Smooth transitions → All the clever little touches It looked incredible. To me. Then the client said: “It looks amazing. But it doesn’t feel like us. It doesn’t help us sell.” And just like that… The project was on the line. Here’s the mistake I made: I built what I thought would impress. Not what they actually needed. I assumed features meant value. I thought fancy meant functional. I believed design = conversion. I was wrong. Most agency owners fall into the same trap: ✖ More features = more value ✖ Trends > strategy ✖ Pixel-perfect > revenue-driven That’s when I built my Client-First Framework. No fluff. No flash. Just what works. Here’s how it works: ► Clarity Before Creativity Ask: What’s the #1 goal of this website? Then build everything around that. ► Copy Over Code The message matters more than the motion. Words sell. Code supports. ► Feedback-Led Revisions Build with your client not just for them. Collaborate. Refine. Align. The result? ✅ The client stayed. ✅ They doubled their leads. ✅ They referred 3 new clients within 90 days. That one mistake became my biggest lesson. It didn’t cost me it leveled me up. The real takeaway? Stop building websites that impress other designers. Start building websites that make your clients money. Big difference. Bigger results. PS: This story cost me a client but the lesson built my business. Sometimes the loss is the leverage.

I've seen too many enterprise software companies get caught with customers in the 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗽: • Promise too much = lose focus • Listen too little = lose trust I was super lucky to have two incredibly product-minded co-founders in Ted and Joshua. Of the many things I learned from them, one that has really stuck with me is that while customers understand their pain points better than anyone, they're not best positioned to solve that pain - they're too close to it and just don't have as many data points across variants of that pain, resulting in a failure of imagination as to the optimal solution. Customer feedback is absolute gold, but that doesn't mean every nugget should get directly translated into the product roadmap. The topic came up during the AMA after our Logicbroker All Hands last week - here's what I shared with my team:  1. 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 - Make sure the customer is heard and build a 3D model of their pain in your head by probing into the granular details of what they're dealing with 2. 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 - Thank them for the feedback and communicate how this will inform related product research as we work towards an optimal solution 3. 𝗘𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - Have we already solved this pain point, but in a counterintuitive way? Educate the customer on how other clients are successfully handling this today. Encourage them to try it out and share back additional feedback to round out our understanding 4. 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 - Advocate for clients by employing methodologies like RICE (Reach x Impact x Confidence / Effort) to map feedback to prospective projects in a structured way that will automatically reprioritize initiatives as incremental data points are collected over time  5. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 - In subsequent client QBRs, share new learnings around initiatives their feedback has matured. Be transparent about where they fall in the company's priorities and update on new related releases that may partially address their original pain point  Valuing customer feedback and protecting the product roadmap are not mutually exclusive. These two goals are inherently intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Building every client request will degrade the product, but ignoring client feedback will also degrade the product - it's a fine balance. Customers don't need a 'yes' - they need to be able to trust that you're listening and leading with purpose.

Customers don’t just share feedback; they offer valuable insights. Turning feedback into action is crucial for growth. Listening to your customers can transform your business for the better. Customer feedback is a goldmine. It shows you what’s working and what isn’t. By gathering feedback, you unlock opportunities for improvement. You discover what your customers love and what they dislike. This information is essential for making informed changes. 1️⃣ Start by collecting feedback through surveys and reviews. --> Ask your customers about their experiences. --> Use simple questions to get clear answers. 2️⃣ Once you have their insights, analyse the data. --> Look for patterns and common themes. This helps you understand the bigger picture. 3️⃣ Next, prioritise the feedback. --> Focus on the most pressing issues first. Not all feedback is of equal importance. Some insights may lead to significant changes, while others might be less critical. 4️⃣ Once prioritised, create an action plan. --> Decide which changes to make and how to implement them. --> Involve your team in this process. Their input can help shape effective solutions. 5️⃣ After implementing changes, follow up with your customers. --> Let them know you’ve listened and acted on their feedback. This builds trust and demonstrates that you care. Remember, feedback isn’t just noise. It’s an opportunity to grow and improve. Turning feedback into action can result in better products and happier customers. ✴️ Your business thrives when you listen and take action. Make customer feedback an integral part of your strategy. It will pay off in the long term. ✴️ And if you need help in setting up an effective customer feedback loop - I'm only one DM away 🙂 #LeadershipByAgata