What is customer pull?

Customer pull is the opposite of technology push. Instead of agreeing on a solution internally, building it and hoping customers show up at launch, the team talks to customers first, tests its riskiest bets with real prospects, kills what nobody pulls and builds what survives. The evidence is commercial: signed purchase orders, committed pilots, reorders.

How long does an engagement last?

A typical engagement lasts 12 weeks of embedded work with the team. The plan runs to month six, when the product reaches paying customers and the team runs the playbook on its own.

Franck Debane sits in the customer interviews with your engineers himself. There is no handoff to a junior consultant.

How many companies do you work with?

Forward takes on four to six engagements a year, so each team gets the time it needs.

When is the engagement a success?

When your team can run the playbook again without Forward, and stops asking permission to kill a bad idea.

From customer interviews to paying customers

Forward Partners embeds with your engineering, product and marketing teams until the product reaches paying customers, or we kill it together. A typical engagement lasts 12 weeks.

For VPs and Directors of Innovation, New Products and Marketing in industrial groups who must deliver a viable product within the next 12 months.

Book a 30-min discovery call

The shift: technology push to customer pull

In a technology push, the team agrees on a solution internally, engineering builds it, and customers show up at launch and do not buy. It takes about 18 months and ends in silence. In a customer pull, the team talks to customers first, tests the risky bets with real prospects, kills what nobody pulls and builds what survives. Forward installs that second way of working inside your team, on a live launch.

How the plan runs

Month 1
Talk to 20 to 30 customers first

Engineering, product and marketing sit in the room with customers before the internal kickoff. Franck sits in the interviews with your engineers.
Month 2
Test the risky bets early

Who wants this, would they pay, can we build it. Ideas with no customer pull are killed before engineering commits a sprint.
Months 3 and 4
Build what survived

Each iteration goes back to the same customers for feedback, so the product is shaped by the people who will buy it.
Months 5 and 6
Ship and iterate

The product reaches paying customers. Customer pull shows up in signed purchase orders and committed pilot deployments.

What you walk away with by month six

A validated product concept, tested with 20 to 30 real prospects before engineering commits a single sprint.
Customer pull, evidenced: signed POs, committed pilots and reorder signals.
An operating team: engineering, product and marketing trained to run the customer-pull playbook on the next launch.
Engineering capacity protected: ideas with no customer pull are killed in weeks, not in year-two budget reviews.

The plan in practice

How Nissan's Lab builds with customers

Nissan Europe 12 weeks

Before: 4 strategic options with no product.

After: 6 MVPs with users.

Ivan Ollivier, General Manager, Innovation Lab

How Renault's Car Data Lab builds EV features its drivers actually use

Renault 3 years and counting

Before: Features chosen from the data.

After: Features built with real drivers.

Thomas Andre, Innovation Lab Lead, Car Data

How Butagaz put its own employees in front of customers to find new growth

Butagaz 12 weeks, 2018

Before: Innovation owned by a central few.

After: 11 employees ran projects like founders.

Olivier Eudeline, Director of Innovation

See all client transformations

Questions buyers ask

What is customer pull?: Customer pull is the opposite of technology push. Instead of agreeing on a solution internally, building it and hoping customers show up at launch, the team talks to customers first, tests its riskiest bets with real prospects, kills what nobody pulls and builds what survives. The evidence is commercial: signed purchase orders, committed pilots, reorders.
How long does an engagement last?: A typical engagement lasts 12 weeks of embedded work with the team. The plan runs to month six, when the product reaches paying customers and the team runs the playbook on its own.
Who does the work?: Franck Debane sits in the customer interviews with your engineers himself. There is no handoff to a junior consultant.
How many companies do you work with?: Forward takes on four to six engagements a year, so each team gets the time it needs.
When is the engagement a success?: When your team can run the playbook again without Forward, and stops asking permission to kill a bad idea.

Looking for training rather than an engagement? See the training programmes.

Is your next launch a fit?

We need a VP who owns the P&L impact, a live launch with a market-facing deadline, a team willing to talk to customers from week one, and the commitment to act on what you learn. If you don't meet these, we'll tell you.