“Being obsessed with your product and customers should be number one focus area for CEOs”

Quote by Brad Feld via Sravish Sridhar of Kinvey at #SVBCEO

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Foursquare running on its third year with $70 Million in fresh venture funding, 3400 % growth rate last year, passing 10 Million members, a BILLION check-ins, and 500 000 merchants on board, it’s fair to say there’s a lot going on for CEO Dennis Crowley and his team. These are also the times when it’s ever important to stay focused on the company’s long term vision, as close to the product and its customers. Here’s a great example of how Foursquare keeps focusing, growing and delivering:

For a couple of weeks ago I had a Twitter discussion with my friends about why Foursquare has totally changed my travel and places discovery, and become my number one travel, hotel and restaurant discovery guide. With new list function it’s also easy to put together list of ones favorite places or a wish list. Ps. For those wishing to explore Barcelona Scott Sage style, save the list

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Leading to an improved search functionality request:

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Having Dennis bouncing back within seconds asking for example:

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Followed by my 140 character feature request:

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With no time wasted, the request was forwarded to Foursquare Product Development team.

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How’s that for creating user engagement and improving your product and user experience? Here’s the entire feature request conversation:

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Dennis + Foursquare + LEWEB 2011 = TRUE

Wish to learn how to create true engagement in SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile) services? Dennis Crowley will repeat his much appreciated last year’s visit to LeWeb in Paris, and here’s why you should join to listen him share his insights with Loic on the LeWeb Opening Day December 7th:

Those who know me and follow me, know that I speak very strongly for the “Opt-In” Internet. With Foursquare you don’t even have to get into the discussion about good and bad creepiness. It has by so far never broken my trust, or forced me be more public about my location, but instead keeps incentivizing and engaging me with the service, thus making me share more tips, as my location. I so wish more of the companies being started today would stop obeying the rules of false engagement using Opt-out, basically forcing me to like and share to be able to even sign up for a service! It’s like no one anymore dares to trust that its service can create demand and true engagement.

While waiting to unlock your LeWeb11 Foursquare batch, read my takeaways from previous LeWeb and watch LeWeb 2010 interview with Dennis Crowley.

Paula is Digital Product Advisor and Top 100 Women in Tech in Europe, focusing on Mobile only (first) products, and Go-to-market and Internationalization strategies. She has to date mentored over 150 digital technology companies, and rated as one of the very best startup mentors in Europe. Contact Paula to help your company grow its digital business. Read more about her work, connect @Twitter, @LinkedIn. “You never learn anything when you speak, only when you listen” – Roelof Botha / Douglas Leone, Sequoia Capital