Customer Zero

When I was at LinkedIn, we talked about the concept of customer zero: for example, our head of recruiting at the time was a theoretical target customer for many of our LinkedIn recruiter products. That offered him (and he earned) a strategic seat at the R&D table, providing input on the roadmap, sharing feedback on prototypes, and convening key recruiters across other companies. In that spirit, brainstorming other "customer zero" roles at companies where the person in the role has a unique opportunity to influence the business beyond their functional role.