| I think this is a solid critical reflection that at least in enterprise relates well. When it comes to your customers, I believe that you want to understand as much as you can, as early as you can, about what they are actually trying to do and about how they are actually faring with what you have sold them. I'd argue that the success of your initial customers is more important than the features for your next deal, and that feature investments should reflect that. The problem, as the OP said, is in estimating the difference between the incremental feature requirements of your initial customers and what your strategic feature set will be. There may be no difference, and your strategy is to ship features in order satisfy each new customer as you get it. Perhaps you can design for that. Chances are though that your first customers are not wholly repsentative of your strategic, target market. So, in the early stage, you have to make choices about allocating dev for tactical "now" or for strategic "later". In the early stage, if there is not enough "now", there is no "later". The question is when to begin budget for later. I'll argue that you are attempting to build a business, not a suspense movie, and that you budget a fixed amount for "later" from day one. Plan to succeed. I agree with the recommendation of a strong Professional Services function as an buffer for dev, but will note that culturally you have to work hard to not silo. Your Support and ProServe teams become a primary channel of learning for dev. As a business, though, you may have to give away ProServ hours. All in all my biggest takeaway here is that you attempt to "hire" customers strategically. As you journey together, will this customer want to go where you will want to go? What time is it when your "Big Customer" sits on your roadmap? ... "Hire" customers strategically is easier said than done when there's salaries on the line -- accordingly look at how you compensate Sales and budget away from early stage big deals. |