061: Software Is For People

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Many companies are seeded from the same basic concept: customers have a problem to be solved and the people on the Product team know how to solve it. This customer-centric approach is what gives a product much-needed early traction, helps build a loyal community, and lets customer-and-company alike feel as though they're moving in the same direction.

As a company matures, however, the distance between the Customers and the Product team can begin to grow: it's no longer engineers jumping on Zoom calls with customers, it's a Support Team translating issues into a ticketing system which the engineers will then consume weeks later in an adjacent vacuum. This gap - this layer of abstraction - can create a breakdown in customer empathy and can quickly lead Product teams astray.

This week on the show, the crew talks about their own experience dealing with customers. And, how hard it can be to manage expectations in either direction, whether it be the little customer with the "high urgency" tickets; or, the lone engineer who's super excited to build a custom feature even if it's not on the roadmap. None of it is easy; and, the less communication we have with our customers, the harder it seems to become.

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With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

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