Building what customers do, not only what they ask for

• roadmap
• feature request
• customers want
• backlog
• priorities
• workaround

• What do customers do repeatedly outside the product to get their outcome?
• Which requests come from customers who pay and stay?
• Which request, if built, would change a business decision for the customer?
• What are people exporting, copying or doing by hand?

• repeated manual behaviour observed or reported
• requests weighted by customer value and retention
• usage data where it exists

• Building for the loudest rather than the most representative
• No visibility of behaviour outside the product

• If
  Many customers do the same manual workaround
  Then
  That is the strongest roadmap signal available — stronger than any request list.
• If
  A request comes from one large customer only
  Then
  Price it as bespoke work, do not treat it as roadmap.
• If
  Requests conflict
  Then
  Segment them; the conflict usually means two customer profiles.

Interview five customers about what they do immediately before and after using the product, and count repeated behaviours.

Read after 21 days.

• At least three of five describe the same behaviour
• The behaviour maps to something buildable in weeks

• No repeated behaviour appears — do not build on a single account's request

• A behaviour repeats across profiles → Build the smallest version and measure adoption.
• It repeats in one profile only → Build it only if that profile is the target.

Aury can carry out: read company, prepare research brief, file memory, create task. Specialists involved: product, research.

Your approval: The founder approves customer interviews before they are requested.

Requires access to real customers willing to talk.

Five interviews find strong patterns, not weak ones, and customers describe their behaviour imperfectly.

• Sourced operator experience: Founder/operator case study analysed inside Aurygine — bootstrapped B2B software company, 2026
• Sourced operator experience: Customer-behaviour discovery practice
• Aurygine synthesis: Aurygine synthesis across founder journeys

Confidence: medium. Last reviewed 2026-08-25. Your company's own recorded results override this playbook whenever the two disagree.