From our first launch, Cyver Core has been based around market demand and pentester input. We worked with pentesters to design our original pentest platform, workflow, and report templates. Today, we’ve stuck to that ethos, making our customers a crucial part of our development process – as we build features based on market demand and customer insights. That’s why, today, Cyver Core works with our user base to set our development priority, to build our roadmap, and when prioritizing new tools and integrations.
We talked with Cyver CEO, Luis Abreu, Head of Growth at Cyver, Ophelie Brullot and Lead Software Engineer, Rodrigo Santos to discuss how customer feedback makes its way from idea to developed feature.
Discussing Features at Customer Success Meetings
“Happy customers are engaged customers,” says Ophelie Brullot, Head of Growth at Cyver Core, “That’s why we plan quarterly customer success meetings with clients to check in. The quarterly meeting is meant to ensure our pentest platform is meeting the pentester’s needs, that they have everything they need, and to answer any questions or concerns they might have. Sometimes that means opening tickets if the client hasn’t already done so – but mostly we find that clients are very proactive and if something goes wrong, they let us know right away. “
“Customers always have big ideas about what they want to see in the platform and how we could set it up – which is cool! Our users know what they want from the platform and often, we transform meetings into a brainstorm where they share not just what they need but also how it should work. I’ve never had a meeting where a customer didn’t know what they wanted or had nothing to share – and that’s amazing! ”
“Based on that, I usually have a discussion with them about feasibility and what we can do. Pentesters are, of course, very technical so it’s rare to get a suggestion that we truly can’t make happen.”
“Everyone always comes with ideas, often a lot of them! So, we always make time to prioritize asks, to put them in order of value, so customers get input on our prioritization and roadmap as well”.
“It’s really empowering to see pentesters involving themselves in the platform. I think these kinds of feedback loops are important because they empower the pentester by giving them what they need to work and they empower Cyver Core by giving us the information we need to deliver the best pentest platform possible. It’s human-to-human, it’s efficient, it allows Cyver Core to really meet our customer’s needs because they tell us what they need.”
From Feature Request to Development Sprint
After customer success meetings, feature requests are discussed with the development and engineering team to determine what we’re using, prioritization, and how it should be developed. Cyver Core works in sprints, so a high priority feature could move into development very quickly – which allows us to be as flexible as possible.
“Usually, we start by discussing what the customer needs and how we can solve that inside the platform,” says Rodrigo Santos, Lead Software Engineer at Cyver Core, “There’s a lot of discussion around how we can implement using what we already have, which allows us to minimize dev time and deliver more features. “
“Most of the time, customers request full features. But we like to look at those from the perspective of what they are solving and use input from multiple pentesters to see if we can make one feature that solves more problems – or fills multiple feature requests.” says Luis Abreu, CEO of Cyver Core, “For example, when we were getting a lot of requests for a Word export, we looked at the problem – customers wanted more flexibility and design options in their report template – we also had requests for that feature – so we improved the pentest report editor to offer more flexibility and customization options and the requests for export to Word basically stopped. Of course, we built a Word exporter too but most of our clients don’t use it.”
“We always think about the feature and figure out where it fits into our roadmap, where it makes sense, and how we should prioritize it. Sometimes that means we work on a feature very quickly – especially if it’s low complexity and solves a problem. If it’s a more complex feature, it will, of course, take more time”
“Once we start building the feature, we keep those feedback loops going,” adds Rodrigo, “I usually have calls or emails with the client to validate the feature, to make sure it still meets their needs, or to figure out the specifics of the problem they’re trying to solve. For example, one client wanted us to figure out how to link specific endpoints on their side to specific fields in the finding fields with the API, and that required collaboration with the customer to make it happen.”
“Sometimes features ship all at once. At other times, we release a feature and then take time to refine and improve small details over time to truly get it to what the customer needs – and that means the customer can use it and give us feedback that help with refinement.” adds Rodrigo, “So, we have an ongoing feedback loop from customers that allows us to continuously improve our platform and features.”
“staying on top of what the market needs allows us to deliver a better pentest platform”, says Luis Abreu, “Connecting with customers, checking on what they need, and making that happen is an important part of that and we’re proud to have customers that engage with us so we can build what they need.”
If you’d like to learn more about Cyver Core or its features, schedule a demo, or download our feature list to see more.