When Hubert Palan founded Productboard, he had one goal: Help companies make better product decisions by understanding their customers on a deeper level. Now, with over 6,000 companies—like Zoom, Salesforce, and Toyota—using the product management platform, it’s clear that customer obsession is more than just a buzzword for Hubert and the Productboard team; it’s the driving force behind their business.
In this episode of the Next Gen Builders podcast, Hubert sits down with Francois Ajenstat to share how relentlessly focusing on customer pain points has helped them build a product that not only serves but delights its users. He dives into the lessons learned related to balancing customer feedback, prioritizing product roadmaps, and sometimes saying “no” to customers to best serve them.
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Why customer obsession matters
From the start, Hubert knew that building great products wasn’t just about managing tasks or tracking progress—it was about genuinely understanding the customer. When he founded Productboard, he didn’t want to create just another project management tool. He wanted to fill a gap he experienced firsthand as a product manager: the need for a tool that put customer needs at the heart of every decision.
“We’re helping product makers and product builders make the right decisions about what to build next, based on a deep understanding of their customers and their needs,” Hubert explains.
For Hubert, this customer-first approach was born out of frustration. In his previous roles, he had access to the typical suite of tools to organize workflows, assign tasks, and track milestones. However, none of these platforms helped him capture the most critical facet of building products—customer pain points. He quickly realized that product teams could easily lose sight of what mattered without a clear understanding of customer needs.
A common pain point Hubert observed was that teams were building products based on internal priorities or technical specifications without factoring in how users would actually experience those features. For example, the product team might deliver a product on time and within scope. Still, it won't make users happy if it doesn’t solve a real user problem—such as streamlining a complex workflow or fixing a recurring issue. The disconnect between what’s built and what users need was exactly the gap Hubert aimed to close.
The goal should always be to integrate internal priorities and customer desires, ensuring that you aren’t just building products—you’re building the right products. Productboard has seen this approach help teams reduce wasted development cycles, prioritize features that deliver real value, and foster deeper relationships with their customers.
“The goal isn’t to make sure something is built to spec. It’s to make sure that what we build is going to delight the customer.”
Building a customer-centric culture across teams
In Hubert’s mind, customer obsession doesn’t end with the product team—it’s a mindset woven into the entire organization's fabric. Whether it’s engineering, marketing, or customer success, everyone must share the same deep empathy for the customer. Hubert believes this is essential for delivering products and experiences that truly resonate with users.
Early in Productboard’s journey, an advisor from Apple’s quality assurance team helped shape their approach to customer-centricity. Apple’s philosophy isn’t just about meeting technical specs—it’s about ensuring the product delights the customer. This lesson stuck with Hubert and influenced how he built Productboard’s culture, focusing on delivering functional solutions—while exceeding customer expectations.
At Productboard, this philosophy means that customer conversations and insights are shared company-wide. In his previous roles, Hubert noticed how product teams lacked a clear understanding of their customers’ needs, which led to internal priorities taking precedence.
“It’s not just the individual people making product decisions; the entire company needs to understand and have empathy for the customers they’re serving. For a company to be customer-obsessed, everybody needs to share that understanding of what people need.”
By breaking down silos and making customer insights accessible to everyone, Productboard ensures that each department makes decisions with the customer in mind.
The art of prioritizing customer feedback
One of the biggest challenges product teams face is determining how to prioritize customer feedback without getting overwhelmed by the volume of requests. With so many voices providing input, it’s tempting to try and please everyone. However, Hubert has learned that this approach can dilute your product's vision. Instead, the key to prioritization lies in understanding that you can’t act on every piece of feedback immediately—and he believes that this is not only acceptable, but necessary for long-term success.
“You have to say no,” Hubert explains. “The market is not homogeneous, not everybody is the same. And you need to make the hard choice about who you’re going to serve and when.”
This doesn’t mean you should disregard valuable customer insights. For Hubert, the art of prioritization is rooted in transparency. When a customer requests a feature or provides feedback that doesn’t align with your company’s current focus, it’s critical to communicate your reasoning behind not acting on it. By explaining why you’re not building a particular feature now—and how it may or may not fit into future plans—you can manage expectations while maintaining trust.
Hubert emphasizes that setting clear priorities is as much about discipline as it is about vision. His team constantly balances short-term customer needs with their long-term product strategy. That means prioritizing features that will drive the most significant impact for individual customers and the market.
“At every stage, we have to think carefully about where we’re focusing our efforts,” Hubert notes. “Saying no helps us stay on course and deliver the most value to our customers, even if that means delaying some features.”
This disciplined approach enables Productboard to deliver on its promise of providing a product management platform that solves real problems—even if it means making hard decisions about when and how to implement customer feedback. Hubert’s commitment to balancing customers’ immediate needs with the broader product vision ensures that Productboard evolves strategically, without compromising quality or customer satisfaction.
“Saying no is actually in your interest. It’s about being disciplined and focusing on what will have the biggest impact.”
How AI enhances customer understanding (but doesn’t replace empathy)
As companies grow and product teams get more customer feedback, the challenge shifts from gathering data to making sense of it. Hubert views AI as an invaluable tool for helping product teams streamline efforts and sift through feedback efficiently. However, he emphasizes that while AI can identify trends, it cannot replace the human element in product development.
“AI helps us see patterns in customer needs,” Hubert explains, but he feels strongly that the technology alone isn’t enough. Ultimate decisions—such as what to build, how to prioritize features, and which customer problems to solve—should still rely heavily on human judgment and empathy.
At Productboard, AI accelerates gathering insights, but human experience and intuition transform those insights into products that customers love. Hubert believes that AI’s role is to scale feedback analysis, while human insight ensures that the products meet customer needs and delight them.
Listen to Hubert’s story
Customer obsession is more than a product strategy—it’s a mindset that can transform how you make decisions. By embedding customer understanding into your company’s DNA, you’re not just building products to spec—you’re building products that delight. Hubert’s journey proves that saying “no” can be just as powerful as saying “yes” when building products.
Want to hear more from Hubert on how to implement a customer-obsessed approach in your own organization? Listen to the full episode of Next Gen Builders to dive deeper into his strategies and lessons learned.
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