Context
I joined a B2B logistics SaaS business building enterprise and white-label products across multiple markets.
Products were often being built from stated requirements without enough validation from the people actually using them.
The business had technology, customers and delivery teams, but Product itself still needed to be built.
The platform served enterprise customers and partners across four regions, which meant Product decisions had to work across different customer needs, markets and operating environments.
What I Changed
I introduced discovery, validation, prioritisation, roadmap thinking and delivery practices that made customer problems part of how we decided what to build.
Instead of starting with:
"The customer asked for this."
I wanted us to ask:
"What problem are they actually trying to solve?"
Judgement
One of the tensions was how to balance immediate revenue opportunities with the longer-term health of the product.
I pushed for us to pay attention not only to what might generate revenue now, but also to what would keep customers using the product and make the experience worth staying for.
System
Over time, Product became less about collecting requests and more about creating a shared way to decide:
What problem are we solving? Who has the problem? Why does it matter? What should we prioritise? What should wait? How will we know if it worked?
Scale
The product portfolio supported enterprise and white-label customers across four regions.
I also presented product strategy, priorities and KPIs to senior leadership.
Outcome
The organisation became more customer-centred in how Product decisions were made.
The question gradually shifted from:
"What has the customer asked us to build?"
to:
"What problem are we trying to solve, and is this the right thing to build?"
My scope continued to grow as the function matured. I was promoted to Senior Product Manager after 18 months, followed by Senior Product Lead four months later.
Learning
A Product function isn't just a roadmap.
It is a shared decision system that helps an organisation decide what deserves its limited time and resources.
If you can't do everything, don't leave everything. Decide what matters most and move that forward.