Productboard: What it really means to be customer-centric with SK

As a product manager, there is nothing more exciting than seeing the feature you built be greatly received and widely adopted by your users. But how do you ensure that your roadmap will be valuable to both existing and prospective customers? 

“If you only listen to your existing customers they will keep your roadmap buzzing for a while, but in the long run it may not help you grow or become madly successful,” cautions SK, VP of Product at Productboard. To unlock true growth, you need to be sure you are striking the perfect balance between building for both existing customers and prospective customers. 

He elaborates that in addition to existing and prospective customers, there are additional segments that fall underneath each and if you, for example, “focus too much on what the buyer wants that will be at the expense of the end-users and what delights them.”

SK gets specific on the strategies he has implemented to ensure his team is considering all customer segments, including OKRs around meeting with customers and color-coding to monitor the division of work related to each. Finding this equilibrium between all segments promotes well-rounded growth and innovation within the company. 

Listen to SK's episode of People Driven Product to learn what it means to actually be customer-centric and the tactical strategies his team uses to ensure they are building for all customer segments.