About Jake McKee
I’ve spent my career helping the people building products understand the people using them.
For more than 25 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of product development, customer relationships, and community.
My work has taken me inside organizations including LEGO, Apple, Southwest Airlines, EA Games, and Canon.
Along the way, I’ve learned that research and data are enormously valuable. But they become even more useful when the people making product decisions have firsthand experiences of their own.
That’s the work I help companies do today.
The longer story
I kept seeing the same problem.
Even the best product teams were making decisions based on summaries. Bullet points from Sales. Ticket data from Support. Feedback filtered through three layers before it got to the people building the product.
By the time they heard from customers, the real signal was gone. They were building on assumptions about assumptions.
The fix wasn’t more data. It was firsthand understanding. Direct conversations and real relationships. The kind that actually change what gets built.
I started doing community work in 1996, before most people knew what that meant. My first big win was helping LEGO connect with its adult fan community, which turned out to be worth close to $85 million. That community helped save the company during one of its hardest periods. Wired Magazine wrote about it.
From there, I spent years helping brands like Apple, EA Games, Southwest Airlines, and Canon figure out how to listen to customers and bring them into product conversations.
“Jake isn’t the community guy, he’s THE Community Guy. He might be one of the first to recognize the power of connecting and empowering a company’s biggest fans.”
How the work is grounded
Two methods I use along the way.
The work always starts with your product decision. These are tools that help me understand where customer understanding is breaking down and who is worth getting to know.
The Customer Conversation Compass
The five places customer understanding breaks down between a customer and your product decisions. It helps us see where to focus.
See the five pillarsThe Crucial Few
In every audience, a small group of customers matters far more than their numbers. This is how we find the people worth building lasting relationships with.
Learn about the Crucial FewTell me what you're building and where you're stuck.
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