The Flywheel Effect and Catalytic Customers

Jim Collins popularized the idea of the flywheel effect in Good to Great. The metaphor is simple but powerful: success doesn’t come from one big push, but from steady, repeated effort that builds momentum. Each turn of the wheel makes the next one easier. Over time, what once felt heavy and slow begins to move almost on its own.

The same applies to innovation. Breakthroughs rarely come from one lightning bolt of inspiration. They come from repeated cycles of listening, building, testing, and refining until the wheel starts to spin on its own. The challenge is keeping that wheel moving in the right direction—toward ideas that matter, not just more noise.

This is where Catalytic Customers make the difference.

Why Most Feedback Stalls the Flywheel

Most companies collect feedback as if more is always better: more surveys, more interviews, more star ratings. But volume isn’t momentum. If the input is shallow, contradictory, or disconnected from real needs, every push feels like you’re forcing the wheel against its natural grain. Progress is slow. Teams get exhausted. The wheel doesn’t spin.

How Catalytic Customers Keep It Turning

Catalytic Customers are the ones who keep the wheel aligned with impact. They are:

• Engaged enough to notice where things don’t quite work.

  
  

• Enabled with the experience and context to offer feedback that’s useful, not just opinionated.

  
  

• Disposed toward being constructive—pushing you to improve, not just to complain.

  
  

When you bring them into your product cycle, their feedback sharpens the edges of innovation. Each round of interaction with them adds real torque to the flywheel: fewer wasted experiments, more clarity about what to build next, stronger conviction about what to discard.

The Compounding Effect

The beauty of this approach is that it compounds. The more you listen to Catalytic Customers, the more refined your innovation process becomes. The more you act on their feedback, the more they engage. Over time, this creates a virtuous cycle: they push your wheel forward, and the momentum attracts more of the right kind of input, not just more noise.

Making the Flywheel Real

Companies often talk about being “customer-led,” but they spread their energy across too many voices, most of which don’t help the wheel turn. Focusing on Catalytic Customers doesn’t mean ignoring everyone else—it means identifying the people whose input creates leverage. Their momentum builds the system that eventually carries the rest of the category along.