How does customer engagement shape product development?

Peter Morelli

Co-founder and CEO · Bitdrift

Deepens understanding

Peter Morelli says spending time with customers deepens your understanding of them; he cites Salesforce making every engineer do customer support and advises founders to understand customers deeply because engineers tend to focus on technology over the customer and story.

The answer starts at 32:39.

Dan Martell

Founder & CEO · Martell Ventures

Validates assumptions

Dan Martell says direct engagement with customers validates assumptions: a real person opening their wallet shows what actually works, so founders aren't lying to themselves and can test their assumptions.

The answer starts at 17:31.

Arvind Jain

Founder and CEO · Glean

It transforms the idea

Arvind Jain says an early idea gets transformed, refined and probably changed into something completely different once you talk to customers, which is why he argues investors are backing people and persistence rather than the idea itself.

Michael Grinich

Founder · Workos

Validates pain

Michael Grinich says talking to people who had worked on the problem helped validate the pain and the interest in outsourcing it, because they called it a slog nobody likes and hard to get right.

Ben Goodwin

Co-Founder/CEO/Formulator · Olipop Pbc

Keeps focus on problem

Ben Goodwin says direct engagement with customers keeps product development focused on the problem, since asking what problem they have rather than what solution they want helps founders spot opportunities.