How public roadmaps accelerate growth & improve your product
Stop worrying about competitors creepin' on you. Make your product roadmap public.
Before we get started, a note: my new year’s resolution was to make these articles mediocre and monotonous. Some will say I’ve already achieved that, others will say it’s a worthy pursuit. Slap a reply to this email and let me know how bored you were.
Okay, now that we’ve got the once-per-article self-deprecation out of the way, let’s get to the substance…
Public-facing product roadmaps are one of the best mechanisms a Growth team can have at its disposal. They facilitate user feedback, help identify the highest-impact initiatives, and improve conversion & reduce churn – all of which accelerate growth and result in a higher-quality end product. Yet, for some reason, public roadmaps are few and far between.
Let’s start by talking about why y’all are scared, then dive into all the benefits & how to provide your Growth team with a new tool in its toolshed.
Y’all stay scared of competitors
I’d say 80-90% of founders I’ve talked to about creating a public product roadmap are worried about competitors knowing what they’re up to… Just. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Competitors aren’t sitting around trying to find your roadmap and, frankly, you shouldn’t be digging for theirs either.
Remember: your roadmap is populated by insights and strategic thinking. You’ve already got a bunch of background info that made each roadmap item come to life, so you’ve got a leg up on your competitors. If they catch up to you, that just means you need to build faster – you’ve squandered your lead.
Also, roadmaps are the ideas – but execution matters just as much (if not more). Surround yourself with a talented team, empower them with customer insights, and trust them to execute in a way that distinguishes you from your competition.
What a public roadmap entails
Before launching into the benefits of making your roadmap public, it’s important to know all the pieces that go into it.
Here are the main ways your users should be able to interact with your roadmap:
Submit ideas: Provide a place for users to submit ideas on what you should build next.
Upvotes: Allow users to vote on what to build so you can see the demand for each idea.
Follows: Give users the ability to follow the status of a feature, and get updated on when a feature ships.
Comments: Create space for comments and feedback.
Here are the roadmap items you should include:
Next six months: Anything you plan to launch in the coming six months should be outlined in your roadmap.
Only features that affect existing users: Avoid items focused on first-time user experience, such as “improved product onboarding.” (Unless that improved onboarding will allow for better teaming – that helps your existing users! Position it that way!)
And here are the details you, the company, should provide about each roadmap item:
Feature details: All the deets about the feature you’re building.
Feature status: The current status of the feature. (For instance: considering, ideating, designing, prototyping, developing, completed.)
Expected delivery date: The date you estimate the feature will go live.
Work completed: Requirements document for the feature, design files, prototypes, etc.
Wondering where you can find all this? Check out Conflux (cheap option) or LaunchNotes (fully-loaded option).
Why public roadmaps are the s%&t
Wow. Guess I truly have lost my mind in 2022, throwing expletives into subtitles… Anyways… there are three main reasons you should make your product roadmap public.
[1] User feedback creates a better product
Bringing user engagement and feedback into your roadmap alerts you of blind spots that you may have missed during ideation, and does your design & product teams a favor by building a list of potential beta testers for each feature. Want to get user feedback on a prototype? Email everyone that voted for the feature on your roadmap!
Plus, by allowing users to submit new feature ideas, they’re doing a lot of strategic thinking for you! Sure, it’s your job to sift through these ideas and identify the most promising ones to build – but now you’ve got hundreds (thousands?!?) of people proposing ways the product can be improved.
[2] Better prioritization
By enabling users to vote on your product roadmap, you’re able to quantify demand for each feature. This is a massive input concerning user prioritization, as you can estimate the impact your build will have on product adoption.
The one thing you cannot buy back is time. Using the roadmap to identify which features will have the biggest payoff now is huge, as it continues to separate you from your competitors.
[3] Improved conversion & reduced churn
Showing your upcoming roadmap reinforces that you’re continuing to build towards your company's mission, and you’re aware you still have a ways to go. You’re not complacent.
As a result, you get increased conversion and reduced churn. Users see that new features are coming soon – which are either shortcomings they’ve identified or new features that will differentiate you from competitors – and are more compelled to make a first-time purchase or stay on the platform for longer.
Where to put your roadmap
We’ve gone over what they include and why they’re important; now let’s get down to where they should live:
Embed it within your product: This ensures that your roadmap is seen by as many users as possible, and gives them a place to request features when they’re top-of-mind.
Call it out during onboarding & lifecycle emails: If you’ve got less than 10,000 users, I’d recommend highlighting your roadmap to as many people as possible. Show users where they can request features during onboarding, and include a CTA to the roadmap in one of your first lifecycle emails.
Final thoughts
The benefits of a public roadmap far outweigh concerns about competition; roll it out and watch how your decision-making around features and prioritization, along with the quality of the final product, improves in the coming months.
-Zac
This text was really exciting to read, thanks for sharing, Zac! We've also included it into our week's dose of community insights on product growth.
Love the pics btw! :))