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independence6 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
applies to

b2b, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

13 claims · 10 articles · 4 receipts

window

2014-08-23 → 2024-02-04

6 builders who never spoke to each other

Set the bar for writing code deliberately high

Keep the feature backlog long and refuse to work it down, because every addition multiplies the burden of supporting and explaining the product to every future customer, and removing something later is harder than never building it. Missing capabilities everyone calls essential turns out not to stop steady growth when the core job is plainly worth paying for.

The method

  1. 01

    Keep a long feature backlog but do not work it down; each feature you add multiplies the burden of supporting and explaining it to every future customer, and taking one away later is harder than never shipping it.

  2. 02

    Set the threshold for writing code deliberately high: a great many prospects refusing to buy without the feature, or a great many existing customers threatening to leave over it.

  3. 03

    Cap the scope of the product on purpose, and treat the support load a feature creates as a reason not to build it.

  4. 04

    Accept only the feature requests that fit the chosen audience, and refuse the rest.

  5. 05

    Name in advance the personas who will not like your product, so their feature requests get closed quickly instead of quietly reshaping the roadmap.

What it returned

  • 2

    Deliberate limits keep Carrd's support volume low enough that AJ's cofounder Donny handles it alone for over 2 million users.

  • The author's Storemapper backlog ran to hundreds of items and stayed there

  • Standuply rewrote the bot to add requested features, a job estimated at six weeks that took four months, and the headline new feature never became popular.

  • Casel says growth flattened while he was jumping between an email marketing idea one day and a requested feature the next.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in product

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.