Transcript: Neta Coral | Takhles Episode: Start With the Business Reason, Only Then the Solution

Host: Eyal David · Guest: Neta Coral · Back to episode

December 3, 2025 · Updated: October 21, 2026

A Takhles episode with Neta Coral of Apiiro: before jumping to a solution in a new initiative, identify why you're entering it at all. Neta describes common business reasons, such as reaching a new customer audience (even another team at an existing customer) or needing to meet RFP requirements, and explains how the reason steers the breadth of the solution. From there she moves to the research stage: technology and domain research with help from colleagues, relevant personas, consulting AI and analyst reports, being careful with buzzwords, and talking to customers who asked for the capability and can become design partners, as well as customers you lost in a POC.

In this episode

The first thing in a new product initiative is to identify the reason you're entering it. That reason steers the breadth of the solution.
Common reasons to expand: reaching a new customer audience (even another team at an existing customer), and getting a foot in the door when a customer needs a specific capability so you can qualify to respond to an RFP.
The reason decides whether you need a full-blown solution that could replace an existing system, or a point solution that's enough to say 'we have it'.
Only once you have that answer do you start the research: technology, domain, personas, AI, and analyst reports on the market and competitors.
Buzzwords in a new field are both a risk and an opportunity: everyone defines them differently, but if the space isn't well defined you can shape and define it yourself.
Customers who asked for the capability are ideal design partners, and customers you lost in a POC are a great source: they probably evaluated your competitors too and can tell you what's missing.

The business reason sets the breadth of the solution

Neta Coral: [00:00] A second thing is maybe we want to reach a new customer audience, or even a new customer audience can be another team inside the same organization that's already our customer, it can also be a new customer, so serving additional teams. And it can also be, this is also a case we run into, I'm sure, all of us, where we basically need to give some kind of, to get a foot in the door, and basically a customer comes and tells us: I need to have such and such in the system. I, I simply want, in order to be qualified to submit a response to that customer's RFP, I need to have something specific in the system. And that's also something I need to answer.

Neta Coral: [00:40] My first thing is basically to identify the reason I'm entering, entering that initiative, that new initiative, and according to that, that's how I steer the solution, the breadth of the solution I'll give it. Meaning, to take the opportunity, analyze it, and analyzing it is really to understand maybe what it's worth and what it needs to deliver. What is it worth? What kind of solution, yes, what kind of solution do I want to give. Do I now need to give some full-blown solution to the customer, one that could replace an existing system for them, or do I need to give some point solution to a specific problem, where it's enough for me to do x, y, z in order to say I have it.

From the reason to research: domain, personas, AI and analysts

Neta Coral: [01:17] So those are questions I ask myself before I basically enter this event. Once I have that answer, I can move forward on it and do, start the research, understand what I'm up against. A, technology research, like, in my case at least, I live in a field where I also have new worlds of technology that I don't necessarily know, I don't come from a development background, so it's also a new domain, maybe I need to get to know it, and also the Security aspects, again, in my case, within that domain, that's something it's important for me to get to know. Here I get help, because my field is the world of software development, so I can get help from the colleagues I have beside me. Give me some tips, tell me how things work this way and that way.

Eyal David: [01:58] But if for a second we took that away, tried for a second to adapt it, then we could basically find relevant personas and talk to them as a start, and come up with some questions?

Neta Coral: [02:10] Of course, I also suggest finding relevant personas, also, honestly, we all work with AI, let's consult it and hear what it knows. We also have a field that maybe is defined and maybe isn't, we maybe have analysts who already tried to define it, and reports came out that survey the market for us, from the main competitors in it. There's maybe some asterisk, that many times we hear Buzzwords like that when we enter a new field, and everyone talks about them a bit differently. So on the one hand you should be careful, I don't know when they tell me X what, what they mean, and if everyone defines it a bit differently, then maybe I have certain expectations from that customer who talked to me about it. And on the other hand, maybe I have an opportunity here, I can shape and define what this thing is, if it isn't well defined in the market yet.

Customers as design partners, and customers you lost

Neta Coral: [03:05] So I do that, and like you said, I also want to talk to my customers. If I have customers who came and asked me for this, that's the most ideal thing there can be, because they can be excellent design partners. I basically come and sit with them and dig with them and try to understand the problem: why don't your current tools solve it for you? Where maybe did the current tools solve it, but not well enough? So I, because I'm entering something new here, I have an opportunity to improve and do better. So existing customers are really great, and it's also important to mention: customers I lost. It could be that a customer did a POC with me and I lost them, because they said, you're not strong enough in this area, and you're missing this, that. So a customer like that, who I lost, probably isn't doing a POC only with me, they're probably also looking at my competitors and doing a POC with them, and they can also tell me.

Eyal David: [03:54] That was a Takhles episode from Product Builder. Want to hear the full conversation? Look for it in the feed, and don't forget to follow us.