Framework
Name the Customer
The single filter that kills bad experiments before they waste resources. If a product manager cannot name a specific customer who will benefit, kill the feature.
How it works
- 1As experiments get cheaper, the danger is running more of them without a compass. Volume of experiments without customer grounding creates noise, not learning.
- 2The filter: before any feature, experiment, or initiative, someone in the room must be able to say 'customer X will love this because Y.'
- 3If the answer is abstract - 'our market,' 'the enterprise segment,' 'users in general' - that is a signal the experiment is internally motivated, not customer motivated.
- 4Alex sees this pattern in big companies and small ones alike: dashboards full of market data, nobody in the room can name the customer.
- 5The companies that win with AI will run more experiments than ever - but filtered ruthlessly through the customer lens.
Hear it on the podcast
Delightful Procurement: The CFO That Never Sleeps - Alex Yakubovich from LevelpathListen to the episodeMore from this episode
The Delight FilterEvery product decision passes through one question: does this reduce cognitive load, or does it add to it? Delight is a feeling, not a feature.Context Over ModelThe AI model you use matters far less than the quality and completeness of the context you feed it. Managing context is the real competitive advantage.The Build vs. Buy AuditEvery software contract should now be evaluated against three questions before renewal. The answers will surprise most teams.
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