Being Customer-Obsessed: A Tech Startup Story with BackEngine
In episode 22 of the Tech Startup Stories Podcast, our host Natalie Binns chats with Eli Portnoy, Founder and CEO of BackEngine, about the double-edged sword of scale, what happens when you lose touch with your customer, and how that led him to build a developer-first platform that puts simplicity, speed and clarity back into the hands of teams across the whole business.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
BackEngine began as a result of Eli’s personal experiences, the increasing complexity that comes with growth, and the distance that forms between leaders and their customers when teams scale, roles multiply, and everything gets filtered. After successfully exiting previous ventures, Eli realised he missed the direct feedback loops, the unfiltered product pain, and the clarity that only comes from hearing the customer’s voice, first-hand.
That sense of loss and frustration, combined with the chaos he saw developers and other business leaders facing daily, became the catalyst for BackEngine.
Built from frustration, shaped by empathy
Eli didn’t want to build another flashy dashboard or over-engineered toolkit, he wanted to build something developers, product managers, marketing and sales leaders would actually want to use. Something that solved a real problem without making them feel like they needed a PhD in integrations.
The result was BackEngine, a customer-first platform that helps teams build products and services with the customer at the front and centre of the entire business strategy.
Putting customer obsession into practice
At the heart of BackEngine is a philosophy that Eli returns to again and again, that the best tools come from truly understanding the people who use them. He speaks honestly about how his previous startups grew to a point where he could no longer see or hear the customer directly, and how that disconnect made him feel like he was losing the very thing that made him effective.
BackEngine is built around the opposite approach, it brings users back into the conversation. The platform is designed with empathy at its core, reducing friction, giving engineers what they need without to build customer-centric tools, and removing the guesswork from technical decision-making.
BackEngine reconnects builders with the people they are building for.
Lessons from the journey
Eli’s take on startup life is honest, grounded, and refreshingly low on hype. He talks about raising capital without noise, building trust with a highly technical audience, and staying focused in an industry that rewards constant reinvention. His reflections are filled with humour, candour, and hard-won lessons from doing it the long way, and doing it again.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Learn more about Eli Portnoy and BackEngine, or explore the platform at www.backengine.dev.
