When I took on the role of CTO at Brown & Blue Circles, my first instinct was simple: build the software that customers ask for.

Then someone I respect in the industry told me a story.

At an annual user group meeting for a well-known software product, users voted on the five features they most wanted. The development team delivered all five within six months. At the following year’s meeting, they asked how those features had been received.

Every month, it seems, I find a new platform for market research that collects data or produce tables, charts or maybe a dashboard. However, I notice that the tools for tabulations are often limited and inflexible in terms of what you can generate.

When I took on the role of CTO at Brown & Blue Circles, my first instinct was simple: build the software that customers ask for.

Then someone I respect in the industry told me a story.

At an annual user group meeting for a well-known software product, users voted on the five features they most wanted. The development team delivered all five within six months. At the following year’s meeting, they asked how those features had been received.