Creating a Culture of Innovation—with Catalytic Customers at the Core

A few years ago, we sat across the table from a product executive at a fast-scaling SaaS company. Their roadmap was full—voice-of-customer surveys had been run, trend decks analyzed, competitors mapped. “We know what the market wants,” they told us.

But just a few quarters later, three of their top product bets had failed to gain traction. Adoption lagged. Engagement metrics were soft. Internally, the tone began to shift from boldness to caution. New initiatives slowed, risk appetite shrank, and the mantra of “move fast and break things” quietly gave way to “optimize what’s working.”

This story is not unique. In fact, it’s all too common.

Because innovation isn’t something you do once—it’s something you sustain. And as we often remind our clients:

It’s easier to kill a culture of innovation than to create one.

Cultures of innovation are not created by big idea summits or single breakthrough products. They’re built day by day—through who you listen to, how you make decisions, what you reward, and what you protect.

And if you want to build an innovation culture that lasts, you need to ground it in something far more stable than trends or internal intuition. You need to anchor it in your Catalytic Customers.

From Risk to Relevance: The Innovation Dilemma

Ask any executive team if innovation is important and you’ll get enthusiastic agreement. But dig deeper and you’ll often uncover confusion—about what it really means, who owns it, and how to keep it alive beyond a single product cycle.

Innovation cultures break down when they become disconnected from real, evolving customer needs. They fizzle out when internal momentum starts replacing external relevance.

That’s why we believe the most enduring cultures of innovation are built not on internal inspiration alone, but on an ongoing relationship with a specific kind of customer: the Catalytic Customer.

Why Catalytic Customers Matter

Catalytic Customers are not average users. They’re not influencers. They’re not early adopters just chasing the new-new thing. Instead, they are:

• Highly engaged with your category—they think deeply and care passionately

  
  

• Knowledgeable and experienced—they’ve tried alternatives and can articulate trade-offs

  
  

• Forward-looking, not just reactive—they sense what’s missing and what’s next

  
  

• Constructively critical—they don’t just complain; they diagnose

  
  

• Motivated to improve things—because your product touches something that matters to them

  
  

These are the customers who will send you thoughtful emails at midnight after a product update. Who will sketch out a new onboarding flow unprompted. Who will test your beta and tell you why it failed, not just that it did. They are your canaries in the coal mine and your co-pilots in the cockpit.

And yet, most companies don’t know who they are, or how to work with them in a systematic, sustained way.

That’s a missed opportunity. Because building a culture of innovation without Catalytic Customers is like building a bridge without a river: impressive, maybe—but disconnected from reality.

How Leaders Can Build (and Protect) a Culture of Innovation

To embed Catalytic Customers at the heart of your innovation culture, executive teams must lead from the front. Here’s how to do it—not in theory, but in practice.

• Appoint a Catalytic Customer Lead

  
  

Innovation needs ownership. Identify a senior leader whose job it is to build and maintain your Catalytic Customer ecosystem. This isn’t a marketing function or a user research role—it’s a strategic capability that bridges product, insights, and customer experience. Ideally, this leader reports directly to someone in the C-suite and is tasked with influencing roadmap conversations.

Make it someone who understands product-market dynamics, not just personas.

• Create Ongoing Catalytic Engagement Programs

  
  

Forget the idea of the or ad hoc (or worse, annual) research exploratory. Instead, build longitudinal relationships with 12–30 Catalytic Customers across your key segments. Engage them in:

o   Quarterly product co-creation sessions

o   Roadmap alignment reviews

o   Rapid validation loops with prototypes and early feature tests

o   Advisory councils or ambassador programs that evolve with your roadmap

This is not a PR exercise. It’s not about pleasing customers. It’s about making better, more informed bets.

• Redefine Innovation Metrics

  
  

If you measure innovation by number of patents filed or features shipped, you’ll get more of both—but not necessarily progress. Instead, tie your metrics to customer outcomes and organizational learning, such as:

o   % of roadmap informed by Catalytic Customer insight

o   Time from customer signal to internal test

o   Number of validated unmet needs identified each quarter

o   Team confidence scores in making strategic bets

When you know who you’re building for—and why—you’ll stop mistaking motion for progress.

• Design Protected Spaces for Risk-Taking

  
  

It’s hard to take creative risks when failure carries reputational costs. Innovation cultures need psychological safety and process clarity. That means:

o   Dedicated innovation tracks that don’t require short-term ROI

o   Sandbox environments where small teams can partner with Catalytic Customers

o   Clear executive endorsement for smart failure

o   Post-mortems that look for insight extraction, not blame assignment

When teams know they can explore bold ideas and have access to rich customer guidance, magic happens.

• Tell the Right Stories Internally

  
  

People repeat the stories they hear. So if your internal mythology only highlights big wins and launched products, teams will optimize for visible success. But if you highlight stories where Catalytic Customer insight led to a critical pivot, or where a failed test uncovered a powerful unmet need, you normalize curiosity and experimentation.

Reward learning, not just launching.

• Archive and Operationalize Insight

  
  

Finally, don’t let customer insight live in one researcher’s head or an aging slide deck. Build a living system for capturing and sharing what you’re learning from Catalytic Customers—complete with transcripts, videos, quotes, test results, and decision rationales.

Tag it. Organize it. Reference it. Make it easy for future teams to tap into what your organization has already learned.

This is how cultures endure.

The Payoff: Innovation That Sticks

Innovation doesn’t work when it involves chasing novelty. Successful innovation means staying relevant in a world that keeps changing. Catalytic Customers help you do that by showing you where the category is headed, where your product falls short, and where the next opportunity lies.

They are not just “influencers.” They are force multipliers—helping your teams think better, build smarter, and move faster.

Don’t just listen to your loudest customers. Listen to your most catalytic ones. Put them at the center of your innovation culture—and protect that culture like it’s your company’s most valuable asset.

Because it might be.