At a roundtable meeting during the Marketo User Summit last week, CMO Sanjay Dholakia shared a few insights from a customer roundtable earlier in the day. He described that event as an opportunity to learn from some of their larger customers – what they’re doing, what they’re struggling with, what they need, etc.
But at our roundtable, what followed was a discussion of exactly which customers are most important to listen to. It depends on what you’re trying to learn, of course, but focusing on your biggest customers may not give you the insights and future product roadmap direction you need.
Instead, perhaps it’s better to focus on your lead customers – those regardless of size that are innovating the most. That are hacking your product to make it do what they want it to do. They may not all be big, they may not even be paying you a lot of money. But they’re executing on the cutting edge of innovation, and could very likely give you much more of the product direction you need.
