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independence5 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
applies to

b2b and consumer, needs an existing audience

outcome not stated

confidence

high

evidence

11 claims · 10 articles · 4 receipts

window

2009-01-11 → 2026-06-21

5 builders who never spoke to each other

Make a request prove demand before you build it

Put every suggestion through a test that costs less than the feature: peel it back to the underlying problem, set a numeric bar it has to clear, run the process by hand, or place a button that promises the thing and count the clicks. Tag and review the requests on a schedule so the silent majority who like the product as it is are weighed against the few who wrote in.

The method

  1. 01

    Set a numeric bar for what counts as a high-impact feature so that risky bets have to clear it.

  2. 02

    Triage every feature request by finding the underlying problem first, then asking whether a fix would serve nearly everyone and be obvious on sight.

  3. 03

    Estimate the revenue impact of each backlog item before building it, and accept that most items are worth ten or twenty percent at best while the genuinely multiplying work is either finished or very hard.

  4. 04

    Test demand for an unbuilt feature by putting a mock button in the interface that opens a note promising to build it, count the clicks, and only build once it passes a threshold you set.

  5. 05

    Validate a feature you plan to charge more for by asking customers how much manual work they would accept, and quantify the revenue it would unlock for them.

What it returned

  • 51%

    His definition: at least 51% of customers use it regularly, or 15% or more name it among the top three reasons they chose or stayed with the product.

  • 10%

    Zue's best case for his largest two-week feature was about a 10% traffic increase and maybe 20% more revenue long term, with a plausible worst case of essentially nothing

  • $1000

    Surveyed store owners said they would happily give half an hour a day to sending abandoned cart messages by hand if it produced over $1000 of extra monthly revenue.

  • AJ works through requests in layers, peeling back to the root problem before judging how widely applicable and how immediately understandable any solution would be.

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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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

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