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by ukulele 3063 days ago
This approach is cutting off a major strategic artery. Sales & marketing can do much more than just pushing what they're given; they should be a valuable pulse on the customer, and the truest feedback you can get for an upcoming feature is whether or not someone will pay you for it.

Particularly for larger or more advanced features, it makes much more sense to run engineering partly in parallel with sales & marketing (with feedback between the two) rather than in serial. Product and innovation cycles in the company are much tighter that way, and more accurate.
1 comments
isostatic 3063 days ago
Sure, but the conversation should be

Customer: "We want your product to do $FEATURE, there's nothing else that does it / other products that do it have these problems" Sales: "Thanks, we'll have a look at that and see if it's possible in the future"

or

When many customers want $FEATURE, it's something to consider

What shouldn't happen is

Sales: "Buy this product, it's great, and in the future it will have $FEATURE" Customer: "Great, we want $FEATURE, when will it be ready"

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