The Bicycle for the Business
The problem always starts with Salesforce.
At three different companies, I’ve watched GTM teams move fast by standing up automation in Salesforce. Sales and finance define how the business runs, but their models only tell part of the story. R&D often gets left out—we slow things down, or they want to move independently. But in any growing company, the edges eventually meet. Product connects to billing. Data powers marketing. Systems cross. Boundaries blur. And when those boundaries don’t align, everything gets harder.
At one company, Salesforce billing boxed in product design. At another, a brittle sync caused platform changes to trigger billing incidents. At Kard, when Salesforce work kicked off again, I paused. Not because I didn’t trust the team—I did. But I’d seen what happens when disconnected models start to compound.
That’s when it hit me: R&D couldn’t just build the product. We had to help build the shared understanding that surrounded it.
I didn’t always think that way. At Heroku, finance reached out to me and showed how platform changes could block billing—and how small misalignments could ripple across the company. At Snyk, I saw how misaligned platform and billing models slowed everything down, and I started getting involved earlier. At Kard, it’s been a priority for me from day one: connecting R&D to GTM, finance, and Salesforce. Right now, we’re working across four departments to align how we categorize merchants—by vertical, purchase cadence, and price positioning—so that onboarding, reporting, and analytics all speak the same language.
That shift reframed how I think about R&D’s role. We’re not just product builders. We’re the bicycle for the business: the tool that brings balance and acceleration. Balance, by aligning how teams understand the product and the customer. Acceleration, by helping the whole company move faster and with less friction.
Balance: R&D as the Keeper of Shared Understanding
One of the core ideas in domain-driven design is that software should reflect a clear, shared understanding of the business domain. That’s a great starting point. R&D should work with domain experts to develop models that reflect how customers see and interact with the product.
But inside the business, there isn’t just one model. There are many.
Sales has a model for how they sell.
Finance has one for billing and forecasting.
Marketing has one for segmentation and positioning.
Operations and support model delivery and troubleshooting.
Even a single stakeholder may switch models depending on context. This is where R&D can lead—not by owning every model, but by fostering alignment between them.
We listen across functions. R&D works with every part of the business, giving us a unique vantage point to spot misalignment.
We understand tradeoffs. We know which models fit the product’s architecture, which can be represented in data, and which might confuse customers.
We normalize and translate. We help build a shared core vocabulary that teams can map their specific needs onto.
When R&D plays this role well, we avoid years-long debates over pricing models, positioning, or product fit. When we don’t, those debates often drag on and slow the company down.
Acceleration: R&D as a Partner in Efficiency
The second way R&D multiplies its impact is by improving how the business works—not just what it builds.
R&D teams aren’t just product builders. Ideally, we’re the company’s best builders overall: experts at understanding complex systems, diagnosing bottlenecks, and designing solutions. We do this for customers every day. We can apply the same thinking to internal work.
That makes R&D a natural partner to operations teams, helping to design more efficient, scalable processes. We bring three key capabilities:
Tools and methods. Flowcharts, value stream maps, process diagrams, and design thinking are just as powerful for diagnosing inefficiencies in sales, onboarding, and support as they are in product.
Systems thinking. Engineers, designers, and product leaders naturally think in systems, not silos. This helps R&D rethink cross-functional processes, designing out inefficiencies rather than just automating them.
Automation capabilities. R&D can often build lightweight internal tools, integrations, or automations faster and more effectively than any other team.
As a business scales, these capabilities matter more. Fragmented systems and inconsistent processes become growth bottlenecks. They also make it harder for R&D to build products that fit cleanly into the wider business ecosystem.
R&D doesn’t need to own every internal process, just like we don’t own every business model. But we should partner with operations to design better ways of working—using the same skills we bring to product development.
Closing Thoughts
R&D’s role evolves as a company matures. Especially once product-market fit is within reach, our value extends far beyond the delivery pipeline.
By driving alignment around the models that describe the product, customers, and business, we help every team—from sales to finance to marketing—work from the same shared understanding.
By partnering with operations to design scalable processes, we help the entire business move faster, with fewer handoffs, less confusion, and greater confidence.
This is what it looks like when R&D becomes a bicycle for the business: balanced, efficient, and built for long-term momentum.
If your R&D team has taken on this kind of role, I’d love to hear about it. What helped you create shared understanding? Where have you improved how the business itself works—not just the product?
