Article · 8 min read

Be comfortable killing your features

Ruairí Galavan · Intercom Free Intermediate

This is the cleanest short argument that a product keeps its value by staying focused, not by accumulating features. It walks through why the feature you designed, fought for, and launched is exactly the one you defend past its usefulness, and why cutting it is part of the job. Read it when you feel guilty about removing something you built.

  • A product holds its value by keeping focus, not by piling on features
  • The features you fight hardest for are the ones you defend past their usefulness
  • Killing a feature is a normal product decision, not a failure
Open on intercom.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. When is it right to stop iterating on a feature and just kill it?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. Michael Seibel's crisp framing of holding the problem and customer tightly while holding the solution loosely, the mindset that... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · ~15 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel
  3. A punchy, contrarian classic on building a lean, sane, profitable company from the founders of Basecamp. It's the antidote to... 37signals Book · ~288 pages Rework Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
  4. Des Traynor makes the case that "no" is the product strategy, and that adding a feature for one loud customer quietly costs... Intercom (Des Traynor) Article · ~8 min read Product Strategy Means Saying No Des Traynor
  5. Doshi names the IKEA effect, how you overvalue what you built simply because you built it, which is the quiet engine behind... Shreyas Doshi (Substack) Essay · 12 min read The Product Builder's True Journey Shreyas Doshi
  6. Zerodha built its products in-house rather than leaning on outside vendors, and Kamath explains how staying close to the build... Inc42 Article · 12 min read Zerodha's Nithin Kamath On The Art Of Building World Class Products Nithin Kamath
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →