I guess I don't really understand how this works although I admit to not reading everything. Most SaaS companies are very vigilant about not having per-customer code changes - many people have lived through the hell of ending up with divergent code bases as a result of customer demands.

But I did want to mention something that I think would work well for SaaS companies which is related, and that is empowering customers to make their own changes to the core product.

We tried at one stage having a council of customers, but it's simply wasn't practical to implement all of the ideas that they came up with. That's changed now.

I think an interesting product would bundle the communications, voting (if necessary), updates, screen captures / video demos, feedback loops and so on that are involved in a decent sized group of customers consolidating their requirements/ideas.

A true mark of success might be when the product becomes self-stewarding, with customers driving a lot of the requirements.