I was once asked: What’s the secret to building a successful product?
At the time, I hadn’t deeply reflected on what drove our product’s success. My instinctive, System 1 response was: “We were very close to the customer.”
After giving it more thought (System 2 in action), I realized that gut response was spot on: distance to customer is the key to building successful products.
System 1 & System 2: Daniel Kahneman’s framework on intuitive vs. deliberate thinking
What is “Distance to Customer”?
Distance to customer is a measure of how directly a product team interacts with the end user — how much first-hand exposure they have to customer needs, pain points, and feedback.
The Forward Deployed Engineer Model
In a LinkedIn post, Lenny Rachitsky shares a conversation with Nabeel S. Qureshi (ex-Palantir), who describes the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) role. An FDE is a unique blend of software engineer and customer partner. They’re embedded directly with the customer, translating needs into solutions in real time and building trust with the customer.
Distance to customer for a Forward Deployed Engineer? Zero.
Implications for Product Teams
While most product teams don’t have FDEs, they do rely on other feedback mechanisms: support tickets, feature requests, sales inputs, and so on. But with each layer removed from the customer, the risk of distortion grows. The key is to:
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Shorten the distance wherever possible: direct interviews, customer shadowing, usage analytics.
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Watch for signal-to-noise degradation: not all feedback is equally useful.
Bring the customer in
If you can’t send engineers to the customer, bring the customer to the team.
In my experience, customers love talking directly to developers. It builds trust, excitement — and better outcomes.
Think about it: wouldn’t you love to speak directly to the chef at your favourite restaurant and share your thoughts?