Just talk to customers. Deliver customer value.

👋 Hey friend,

It’s mid-December, and I’ve been thinking about how fast everything moves now.

Strategy that felt locked in September gets completely rewritten by November. Priorities that were “top of roadmap” last quarter aren’t even in the conversation anymore. Leadership asks for one thing on Monday and something completely different by Friday.

If you work in tech right now, you know this feeling.

The ground is always shifting. The pace is relentless. Every company is moving at lightning speed because if you’re not, someone else is.

And in all that chaos, it’s really easy to lose the plot.

Here’s what I keep coming back to when everything feels like too much:

First principles thinking.

Not the fancy startup version where you reinvent physics. The simple version:

Just talk to customers.

Deliver value.

That’s it.

When I’m stuck on what to build next, I talk to customers.

When I need feedback on a new design, I talk to customers.

When I need to challenge a leadership call on strategy, I back it up by talking to customers and getting data.

It sounds almost too simple. But in a year where everything felt like it was changing every other week, customer conversations were the one constant that kept me grounded.

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The thing about moving fast is that you can build a lot of stuff that doesn’t actually matter.

You can ship features because a competitor launched something similar. You can prioritize requests because a big customer asked for it. You can chase metrics that look good in a slide deck but don’t move the needle for real people.

Speed without direction is just chaos.

First principles thinking cuts through all of that. It forces you to ask:

When strategy changes every quarter, when leadership pivots priorities, when you’re drowning in feature requests, those three questions become your anchor.

And the fastest way to answer them? Talk to customers.

Looking back at 2025, here’s what I noticed:

The projects that landed well, the ones that got high CSAT, strong adoption, and actually moved our business metrics, were the ones where we spent the most time talking to customers upfront.

The projects that felt like a slog, were the ones where we were guessing, or building based on assumptions, or chasing a competitor feature without understanding if our customers actually cared.

One example: We almost prioritized a feature because leadership saw it in a competitor’s product. It looked impressive. It seemed like table stakes.

But when we talked to customers, they didn’t care about it. At all. What they actually wanted was less loading spinners.

If we hadn’t talked to them, we would’ve burned so much time building something that didn’t matter.

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Here’s how I use first principles thinking when things get chaotic:

1. Default to customer conversations

When in doubt, schedule a call. Not a formal research session. Just a conversation with someone who uses your product.

Ask them what’s working, what’s frustrating, what they’re trying to accomplish. You’ll learn more in 30 minutes than you will in three strategy meetings.

2. Use “customer problem” as your decision filter

Every time a new request or idea comes up, ask: “What customer problem does this solve?”

If you can’t answer that clearly, it’s not ready to be prioritized.

If the answer is “leadership wants it” or “our competitor has it,” dig deeper. There might be a real customer problem underneath, but you need to find it first.

3. Ground strategy debates in customer data

When strategy changes or leadership proposes a new direction, the best way to evaluate it is through customer evidence.

Not “I think customers want this.” Not “this feels right.” Real data from real conversations.

This year, I challenged a strategic priority by showing leadership that customers weren’t asking for the thing we were about to build. We redirected to something with clearer customer demand, and it performed way better.

4. Measure value delivered, not just features shipped

It’s easy to get caught up in shipping. But shipping isn’t the same as delivering value.

At the end of every project, I ask: “Did this actually solve the problem we set out to solve?”

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s “sort of.” And sometimes it’s “we learned something, but we need to iterate.”

All of those are fine. The key is measuring against customer impact, not just output.

Here’s what I’m taking into 2026:

Strategy will keep changing. Priorities will keep shifting. The pace won’t slow down.

But if I stay close to customers, if I keep asking “what problem are we solving and for who,” if I measure success by value delivered instead of features shipped, I’ll be grounded no matter how fast things move.

Talk to customers. Deliver customer value.

Everything else is just noise.

See you next Friday (and happy holidays if I don’t catch you before then),

– Stef

💬 Want to talk product? I’m mentoring on ADPList! If you’re trying to figure out what to prioritize, how to stay customer-led, or just need to talk through your 2025 roadmap, you can book a free session with me right here.

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