In tech product innovation, we often default to a simple question: Who's writing the cheque? But that question alone will quietly kill your product.
The real question is sharper, and slower to surface: Who needs to show up first, so the cheque-writers will follow?
The Crowd-Puller Effect
A simple example: the quotation engine
Consider a quotation engine. The paying customers are the suppliers who pay to be listed and to access leads. They are the revenue. But suppliers will only pay if buyers are actively using the platform to request quotes. And buyers will only show up if the experience is fast, useful, and free of friction.
Buyers
Suppliers
Why this pattern matters
This pattern shows up everywhere in IT products: marketplaces, ad-supported platforms, two-sided SaaS tools, even internal enterprise systems where the user and the budget owner are entirely different people with entirely different needs.
Recognising it changes how you build. You stop optimising for one customer and start architecting for an ecosystem.
Three Principles for Innovators
Map every customer, not just the buyer
Identify each party that touches your product and what they need to stay engaged. The cheque-writer is rarely the only person who decides whether your product lives or dies.
Weigh their impact on the business
Some users generate revenue directly. Others generate the conditions that make revenue possible. Both belong on the strategy map. Both deserve a roadmap line item.
Design the non-paying experience with the same rigour
If the crowd-puller leaves, the paying customer is next out the door. Treat their experience as core product, not an afterthought funded by goodwill.
Innovation isn't just solving a problem.
It's understanding whose problem you must solve first — so the rest of the business model can stand up.