Your take on feature development. Which ones should make the cut?

Question

Interested to hear from founders on how you decide which features to work on/implement. Do you implement everything users suggest, moderate user feedback or decide autonomously believing that you know what users want before they know it?

Ludovica Eleazer · Accepted Answer

A mix of listening to users and following your own path might be the key to success.

Answer

I try to focus on core features for my main target users. If they request something, I dig deeper to understand their pain points. For other users, I listen but may not implement right away. I also make some bets based on my market sense. Then I track usage and impact, iterating or removing features if goals aren't met. The book 'Inspired' by Marty Cagan has great product dev frameworks.

Indiana Joshi · Answer

It's all about mixing practical input with your vision for the product.

Dashik Boeloepnaandong Amos · Answer

I think a lot of team focus on moderated user feedback and then add their own touch. It’s a great way to stay connected to users while still pushing your vision.

Answer

its balnace.you need to listen to your users but also trust your intuition as a  founder to keep the product focused

Answer

We built codewithcolt.com for ourselves first so we didn’t have to worry about this. Now we are going to be productizing it next month. It helped us scale our development life cycle and coding capabilities without having to pay $120k-150k for a new dev… not to mention we are deploying features 80% faster. Would love your support when we launch next month on PH!

While we don’t implement all of them… we can at least see how much they would cost before we do them and how fast. Sometimes users suggest things that also don’t fit your product at all and would change it to a different user group. Jira was user friendly at first, now it has so many features that it’s really meant more for enterprises

Answer

moderating user feedback is key for me users give great insights, but not every suggestion lights with the long term vision

Alexander Moore · Answer

I focus on my core value prop for my target customers. If they request something aligned with that, I dig in to really understand the need. Sometimes I take a bet on a feature I think will help them. I measure impact and iterate or remove if needed. "Disciplined Discovery" is a good book on PM methods.

Answer

I’ve learned that implementing every user  suggestion  leads to a bloated product Moderation helps you  stay on track.

Matt El Mouktafi · Answer

For me it’s somewhere in between

Basically, I know my ICP and main value proposition. That’s what I want to focus on

If a user who’s not my ICP request something, I’ll listen but not necessarily implement it. 
If they’re my ICP, I’ll try to discuss with other user’s to see if their pain is shared and deeply understand it

And sometimes I just make some educated bet because I think I’m onto something for my market

Then for each feature, I decide what value it’s suppose to bring and I track the usage / impact on release. If the goal is not reached, I may iterate on the feature or totally remove it

One of the book I like to discover product management methods is « Discovery Discipline »

Your take on feature development. Which ones should make the cut?

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