Article · 9 min read

The art of removing features and products

Neil Rahilly · Mixpanel Free Intermediate

This treats unshipping as a craft with real upside, not just cleanup, and shows how to use usage data to decide what goes. It is helpful for the founder who has the instinct to cut but wants evidence and a repeatable method before pulling the trigger. Practical on how to actually communicate a removal.

  • Removing a feature can improve the product, not just tidy it
  • Let usage data, not attachment, decide what stays
  • Plan the communication before you unship anything

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 →