Aligning Product Development with Customer Needs

Data is everything in product design. Without data, we open ourselves up to: - Biases - Opinions - Confusion - Misalignment When we are data-informed and that data is accurate, we can truly make educated product decisions. I like to think of data in two layers: a) What’s happening and b) Why it’s happening. Let’s break it down. What’s happening: - Business data tells us how the business is doing - Marketing/sales data tells us where our customers come from - Retention data tells us when and why customers are leaving us - Engagement data tells us how customers are using our product Why it’s happening: - User research gives us rich insight into why something is happening - Voice of the customer data shows us how customers talk about our product - Usability scores show us how people perceive our product or feature experience in a measurable way - Product market fit & satisfaction scores give us a simple and actionable metric to track and improve over time In terms of accessing that data, methodologies vary, but generally speaking, I always advise the following: 1. Get access to growth and retention data through business dashboards. 2. Get access to product data through your product analytics tool. 3. Set up a cadence to gather customer reviews & comments, either manually or via automated tools. 4. Set up a cadence to speak to your users continuously to answer the why. 5. Set up a recurring survey to track satisfaction and usability. If you don’t have the data structure for any of the above, speak to your product and data team to see if you can change that. If not, rely on the data that you can actually get. PS: The list of metrics is indicative: Actual metrics will differ greatly from one company to another and largely depend on the industry, niche, as well as your data infrastructure and setup. — If you found this useful, consider reposting ♻️ How are you collecting and using data in your design process? What else are you tracking?

The Paradox of Growth: The Bigger You Get, the Less You Know I came across something that stuck with me: When companies scale, they gain users — but lose understanding. Not because they stop caring, but because their customer feedback starts living everywhere — support tickets, sales calls, forums, surveys, social media, and app store reviews. That thought really made me pause. I’ve seen this firsthand. When a company is small, every piece of feedback feels personal — every bug report or review has a face behind it. But as you grow, those voices scatter across platforms and departments. Support sees the frustration, sales hears the hesitation, leadership sees the numbers — and somehow, everyone’s looking at the same customers, but no one’s hearing them anymore. That, in my opinion, is the quiet cost of growth. This is the problem Enterpret is solving — by helping teams stay in tune with their customers even as they scale. Here’s how it works: → It collects real-time customer feedback from 55+ channels — support tickets, sales calls, social media (X, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook), app store reviews, community forums, surveys, Slack, and more. → It analyzes all that feedback using AI and tells you exactly what to fix or build next. → It maps everything through a customer knowledge graph that connects feedback, complaints, and requests by channel, user, and payment data. → It even provides a chat interface where you can directly ask questions, and AI agents that flag bugs or issues automatically. That’s why teams like Notion, Perplexity, Canva, Chipotle, and The Farmer’s Dog use it — to make sure customer voices never get lost in the noise. In my view, the real lesson here isn’t about using more tools — it’s about staying close to the people you build for. Here’s how I’d approach it: ✅ Centralize every piece of feedback — even if it’s messy. ✅ Look for patterns instead of isolated complaints. ✅ Use AI systems like Enterpret to uncover the “why” behind what customers say. Because in the end, growth shouldn’t make you deaf. It should make you listen better — just faster. How does your team make sure you’re hearing what customers really mean, not just what they say? #CustomerFeedback #AIProducts #ProductStrategy #VoiceOfCustomer #Enterpret #Leadership

At Amazon, we would often spend months working on a single paragraph of the PR/FAQ for a new product idea. This was the "problem paragraph". Done well, it could lead to a successful product. Done wrong, it will lead to failure. Here is how to write a successful problem paragraph: The “problem paragraph” defines the customer problem you’re solving. Without this, you will build a product that doesn’t address a customer pain point. It shows whether you truly understand your customer's needs, not just your company’s capabilities. To write this paragraph, start by precisely identifying the customer segment that will be served by your product. Great products are built for specific people with specific needs. For instance, designing a car for single urban professionals under 35 differs significantly from designing for suburban families with three kids and a dog. If you think your product is for everyone, you’re mistaken. A strong way to begin your paragraph is: “Today, [customer segment] has [problem], which they currently solve using [methods A, B, and C]…” Next, quantify the problem: → How large is the segment? (e.g., 17 million households) → What methods do they use? (e.g., 45% use A, 25% use B, 30% use C) → What are the tradeoffs? (e.g., speed, cost, quality) Here’s an example for a hypothetical robot vacuum product: “Today, 15 million busy urban and suburban professionals earning between $100,000 and $200,000 struggle to find the time and energy to keep their homes clean. Approximately 30% of these households use traditional vacuuming, which requires up to 2 hours per week. 55% hire a cleaner at a minimum of $50/week, and 15% use robot vacuums that cost $600 plus $100/year in maintenance, while leaving behind up to 30% of dust and dirt.” This problem paragraph quantifies the customer problem in terms of money, time, and other metrics where possible (in this case, the dust and dirt left behind). The problem should always be quantified; otherwise, how can you assess the potential value of a product that solves it? Well-defined customer problems are built on data-based insights. Insights are gleaned from swimming in data and metrics. This includes customer usage metrics, process or operations metrics, user interviews, demographic data, customer feedback, customer support data and anecdotes. The more data-based and specific your insight, the more accurate and helpful your problem paragraph will be. This is why the process can take months. However, distilling these quantified insights into a single paragraph gives you the best chance at building a truly useful product. At Amazon, this paragraph was always the most debated section in a PR/FAQ. This is because getting the problem wrong is the worst mistake you can make in building a product. Everywhere else, you can pivot. But if the problem is incorrectly diagnosed, nothing else matters. (cont. in comments)

Do you sometimes feel frustration, as you are building a product to get the management off your back, rather than address the users? Here are 6 ways to become user-centric again: 1) Prioritize in a transparent way This is a great place to start. If your backlog is prioritized based on data and potential opportunity, risk, and cost, it will be easier to put forth user-centric initiatives ahead of those that came from upstairs. At the very least, you will have a good basis for an educated discussion. 2) Utilize users' perspective using user stories and personas If your team understands the users and their problems, it will be easier to craft something great that will later appeal to the same users. Just keep up the empathy of creating something by people for other people, and not get some metric magically go up! 3) Understand user problems If everyone in the company can see the themes that come from user feedback, it will be way harder to ignore it in favor of some corporate nonsense. Let those voices be heard by everyone! What if there are 100,000s of voices? Here is where this post's partner comes in: Productboard , and their new release: Productboard Pulse. It's a powerful new tool you can use either as a standalone solution or to elevate your work within an existing Productboard product management suite. This new AI will help you make sense of all the feedback and comments, quickly transforming them into actionable, user-centric tasks. Check out the comments for more details :) Now, back to the post: 4) Have the NPS and user ratings at the forefront The same goes for a single metric representing the general product sentiment. If the number is low or, worse, is going down and everyone can see that, the responsible Product Manager has to react. 5) Focus on your product goals Now, upstairs mandates might not be the only distraction you face when trying to improve your product. To survive them all, focus on one thing: your product goals. This will allow you to demonstrate you are doing what you are asked for and you can use user feedback and points 1-4 to pursue those goals. Thus, it's like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. However, you can also simply: 6) Have the confidence to say "No" Not all company/legal/management requests can be ignored. Sometimes changing the law or a wider company initiative will require you to comply and that is OK! However, there will also be times when someone will try to force your compliance. This is where you need to be confident, and exercise your Product Manager's independence, especially when there is no data to support a specific request. There you go! My 6 ways you can become a user-centric Product Manager. Do you put your users first in your product? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #usercentricity

Stop guessing your growth path. Map it instead with the Lean Canvas model. Last year a client was losing cash after a bad investment. Their Board wanted a clear plan, but management's ideas were scattered. Pressure rose as their cash runway shrank. I used a blank Lean Canvas and met with management. Box by box, we turned fuzzy thoughts into clear statements. In a few hours, the team could see the whole business on one page. A week later, decisions sped up, waste was cut, and revenue began increasing. The Board praised the new focus because just one sheet had replaced weeks of endless slides. 1. Start with the Problem box because pain fuels purchase: ⇀ List the top three headaches your market hates. ⇀ Ask customers for blunt complaints. ⇀ Rank pains by urgency and frequency.  ⇀ If the pain is weak, the plan is weak. 2. Name the Customer Segments who wake up with that pain: ⇀ Avoid lumping everyone together - be precise. ⇀ Describe one real person, not a demographic blur. ⇀ Note where they already search for help. ⇀ Specific faces drive focused solutions. 3. Your Unique Value Proposition attracts attention: ⇀ Write it like a headline your customer would repeat. ⇀ Highlight the biggest outcome, not features. ⇀ Short, clear value wins the click. ⇀ Keep it under ten words. 4. Now sketch your Solution: ⇀ Draft three bare-bones features solving each top pain. ⇀ Mockup screens or sketches quickly. ⇀ Show them to five prospects tomorrow. ⇀ Speed beats perfection in early design. 5. Channels tell you how messages travel to wallets: ⇀ Pick the two cheapest tests before buying ads. ⇀ Leverage existing communities and email lists. ⇀ Measure response time and cost per lead. ⇀ Cheap learning outruns expensive guessing. 6. Revenue Streams prove the idea can feed itself: ⇀ State exactly who pays, how much, and how often. ⇀ Compare price to the pain’s current cost. ⇀ Pilot a single pricing tier first. ⇀ Real cash beats hypothetical guesses. 7. Analyse Cost Structure for sustainability: ⇀ List the three largest costs and make them variable. ⇀ Negotiate monthly, not annual, contracts. ⇀ Lean costs preserve runway for learning. ⇀ Automate before hiring. 8. Key Metrics keep founders honest on progress: ⇀ Choose one north-star metric and two support numbers. ⇀ Link each metric to habit or revenue. ⇀ Track weekly in one simple dashboard. ⇀ What gets graphed gets fixed faster. 9. Finally, name your Unfair Advantage: ⇀ This is the asset rivals can’t match. ⇀ Lean on unique data, patents, or proven community. ⇀ Document founder expertise that speed cannot buy. ⇀ Without moats, margins leak. 10. Don't forget to summarise your high-level concept and identify early adopters too. Review our lean canvas model weekly to stay on track with your strategy. What's your favourite strategic model? ------- ♻️ Repost to help others in your network. Follow Jonathan Maharaj FCPA for more insights on accounting, finance and leadership.

I remember the exact moment I realized that most of what I'd learned at HBS, McKinsey, & in all the startup books + blogs was kinda irrelevant: I had been struggling to find product-market fit for 2 years. Did all the things you're "supposed" to do to launch a startup - customer interviews, demand validation, doing the unscalable, prototypes, pilot agreements, you name it. Did all the right things, built the "right" product, but the market just didn't seem to pull. Sound familiar? I then heard this quote that changed how I thought about startups and business generally: “Anybody who does product design has to switch between looking at the world from two different perspectives. The first perspective is what we call Supply… all about what we make, what we build, what we put out there… And the other side is called the Demand side. The Demand side is all about what you can’t control. This is about what’s going on for the customer in their life. We don’t get to decide what’s happening to the customer, what they’re trying to do, what they value… those are all things that are out there in the real world. As modern, informed product designers, we try to be very user-centric. We like to think that we’re sitting in the demand box, trying to figure out what to build on the supply side. But it turns out that in reality, a lot of the things we think are demand really aren’t.” (Listen to the full 18-minute podcast by Ryan Singer and Chris Spiek for an example that adds color to the concept, link below.) This was the point that I realized that everything I’d done and learned was on the supply side - the things I controlled: Our product, our customer research as it relates to our product, our marketing & sales. And when I thought I’d understood what customers wanted, I was REALLY looking through the supply lens - what their problems were as they related to my product idea, not what they were actually trying to do. I’m now obsessed with demand, and am blown away by how little it is understood and discussed. → Understanding demand is the ONLY way to “build something people want” & find PMF → The main problem startups have is that they obsess over supply, but THINK they are focused on demand → When you focus on demand, you can get to a product the market pulls (oddly, the path to building a great product ISN’T by focusing on product) → Successful founders often have an intuitive sense for demand, but can’t explicitly describe it → Demand is the foundation of “jobs to be done” - a wildly powerful concept that most people think they understand, but actually don't → Many problems in modern businesses are due to designing the organization around Supply (what we do), not Demand (what the customer wants to accomplish) Ultimately, what I’m building with PMF Camp is really about helping founders find demand - which makes everything else downstream easier and intuitive. Demand rules all. The most important (& totally ignored) business concept. More to come…

8 proven ways to deepen your product sense: 1️⃣ Engage Frequently with Users & Probe Deep No discovery mechanism can replace engaging in direct conversations with users as often as possible. Seek to understand your users on a deep level, "un-translate" their requests and identify the underlying problem. Regularly test your hypothesis and be open to updating your mental models. 2️⃣ Validate Your Assumptions Validate assumptions in areas such as why users choose your product, feature priority, investment they put in to learn how to use your product, impact of minor usability issues, feature discoverability, and inertia to start using your product. 3️⃣ Adopt a Beginner's Mindset As you become more familiar with your product, it's easy to forget the initial struggles of learning how to use it. Regularly walk through the product from the perspective of a novice and by observing new users interact with the product and identify patterns of struggle with certain features. 4️⃣ Align Product Choices with Customer Insights Make clear connections between customer insights and product decisions. Make sure your team understands the reasoning behind each product decision by relating it back to customer insights. 5️⃣ Strengthen Intuition via Pattern Recognition Develop user-focused intuition by observing numerous user research studies and identifying patterns. Regularly reflect on past mistakes and unexpected learnings to strengthen this intuition. 6️⃣ Category User Insights by Priority Value quality but also develop strong judgment about tradeoffs. Know the impact and opportunity cost and be disciplined about which insights are worth investing in and bring your team along the decision process. 7️⃣ Evangelize Customer Insights What distinguishes good vs. great PMs is how often they share relevant user insights. Whether it's a real-life story or a key data insight, spreading the voice of customers helps the entire team and company make better-informed customer-centric decisions. 8️⃣ Identify the Key Insight that Unlock the Problem See the connection between facts and know which pieces of info are actually relevant and deserve attention. Proactively think about the implications of each new insight and ask yourself: what past decisions would it change? What future decisions might it impact? *** 💬 What other ways to become a user-centric product builder? Share them below 👇 to inspire the LinkedIn community! #ProductManagement #Careers #UserCentricDesign #ProduceSense

Everyone talks about how important "customer feedback" is when shaping your product. But it's hard to find actual frameworks to use. Here's exactly how Ashwin and I ran prospect calls in the early stages of Decagon to get crystal clear on what we should build. There are 3 steps to the structure I’ve found works best: 1. Start with the exploratory phase Spend the first part of the call listening. Let them share their problems, pain points, and frustrations. The goal here is to identify what’s broken or inefficient in their workflow. 2. Talk through hypothetical solutions Next, discuss potential ways to solve their problems. Test ideas and assess their reactions. Do they seem excited? Indifferent? Skeptical? Use that to refine your solution. 3. Find out what they'd pay for your solution This is the part 99% of founders gloss over. Anyone can tell you they'd use your product, but the real test is whether they'd buy—and how much they'd pay for it. By the end of the call, you should be able to answer these questions:   → What problems are they trying to solve? → How useful would your solution be to them? → Is it valuable enough for them to pay? After enough conversations, you’ll start seeing patterns and you'll feel more confident in what to build.

Why does your brand team talk about simplicity while your product team adds complexity? Because they're not in the same conversation. Brand promises simplicity. Product ships 47 features. Customer experiences chaos. That's not a coordination problem. It's structural. McKinsey & Company's research on brand-led growth shows companies with tight brand-product alignment see 20% higher customer lifetime value. Not because they market better. Because they deliver coherently. Yet most companies organize like brand and product are separate functions that occasionally sync up in Slack. Brand team: "We stand for simplicity." Product team: "We're adding everything the competitor just launched." That's not strategy. That's contradiction with a shared calendar. When brand and product operate as one strategic function: _ Features prioritized by promise, not by pressure _ Roadmaps that prove positioning, not chase competitors   _ Kill decisions that protect what you stand for The companies winning in 2026 aren't building more. They're building truer to what they said they were. That's not a product management problem to solve. It's a leadership integration decision to make.

Every company says they listen to customers. But most just hear them. There's a difference. After spending years building feedback loops, here's what I've learned: Feedback isn't about collecting data. It's about creating change. Most companies fail at feedback because: - They send random surveys - They collect scattered feedback - They store insights in silos - They never close the loop The result? Frustrated customers. Missed opportunities. Lost revenue. Here's how to build real feedback loops: 1. Gather feedback intelligently - NPS isn't enough - CSAT tells half the story - One channel never works Instead: - Run targeted post-interaction surveys - Conduct deep-dive customer interviews - Analyze product usage patterns - Monitor support conversations - Build customer advisory boards - Track social mentions 2. Create a single source of truth - Consolidate feedback from everywhere - Tag and categorize insights - Track trends over time - Make it accessible to everyone 3. Turn feedback into action - Prioritize based on impact - Align with business goals - Create clear ownership - Set implementation timelines But here's the most important part: Close the loop. When customers give feedback: - Acknowledge it immediately - Update them on progress - Show them implemented changes - Demonstrate their impact The biggest mistakes I see: Feedback Overload: - Collecting too much data - No clear action plan - Analysis paralysis Biased Collection: - Listening to the loudest voices - Ignoring silent majority - Over-indexing on complaints Slow Response: - Taking months to act - No progress updates - Lost customer trust Remember: Good feedback loops aren't about tools. They're about trust. Every piece of feedback is a customer saying: "I care enough to help you improve." Don't waste that trust. The best companies don't just collect feedback. They turn it into visible change. They show customers their voice matters. They build trust through action. Start small: 1. Pick one feedback channel 2. Create a clear process 3. Act quickly on insights 4. Show results 5. Scale what works Your customers are talking. Are you really listening? More importantly, are you acting? What's your approach to customer feedback? How do you close the loop? ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1999+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]