Build the product
Shipping, iterating & roadmap
Ship weekly, learn constantly, prioritise ruthlessly.
How do I decide what to build next?
Prioritize outcomes, not output, and use a simple scoring frame like RICE, Reach x Impact x Confidence, divided by Effort, to compare ideas honestl...
How often should an early-stage startup ship?
Ship weekly, at least, cadence is a competitive advantage because faster loops mean faster learning. You haven't really started until you launch, a...
How do I build a roadmap without over-planning?
Work in short fixed cycles with variable scope, Basecamp's Shape Up runs on six-week bets, not a rigid multi-quarter Gantt chart. Make a few bets y...
How do I keep talking to users while I'm heads-down building?
Make discovery continuous, not a one-time phase: interview a customer or two every single week, even in a build sprint. Teresa Torres's opportunity...
How do product teams keep a consistent shipping rhythm as they grow?
Separate your planning cadence from your execution cadence and lean on async updates instead of endless meetings. A predictable operating rhythm, w...
How do I say no to feature requests without losing customers?
Anchor every 'no' to the outcome you're chasing and the customers you're building for, most requests are solutions in disguise, so dig for the unde...
How do I know when something we shipped is actually working versus just launched?
Launching is an event, working is a signal, and founders confuse the two constantly. Before you ship a feature, write down the one number you expec...
We ship fast but our codebase is turning into a mess. How much should a two-person startup care about tech debt?
Some tech debt is the correct price of learning fast, and paying it all down early is a way to avoid talking to users. As a starting point: take on...
How do I run a weekly ship cadence when I am non-technical and depend on a dev agency or freelancers?
Weekly shipping is possible without your own engineers, but only if you shrink the unit of work to something a freelancer can finish and deploy in ...
Should we ship an ugly, half-working version now or wait until it feels good enough to be proud of?
Ship the ugly version, but be honest about which kind of ugly it is. As a starting point: rough visual design and missing edge cases are fine to sh...
Every user interview gives me a different feature request. How do I turn messy feedback into a real prioritisation decision?
Raw feature requests are the worst input to a roadmap because users describe solutions, not problems. As a starting point: for every request, dig o...
What is a sane way to prioritise between fixing bugs, paying customer promises, and building the exciting new thing?
Founders default to the exciting new thing and let bugs and promises rot, which quietly churns the customers you already have. As a starting point:...
How do I stop myself from adding features nobody asked for just because I enjoy building?
Building is a genuine addiction for technical founders, and it feels like progress while quietly avoiding the harder work of getting users. As a st...
When is it right to stop iterating on a feature and just kill it?
Founders keep polishing losing features because killing something feels like admitting failure, but a dead feature is a tax on every future change....
How do I set a roadmap when half my revenue comes from one big customer who keeps asking for custom features?
One big customer steering your roadmap is how a product startup slowly turns into a services shop for that one account. As a starting point: say ye...
How should our shipping process change once we hire our first engineer and it is no longer just me pushing to production?
The first hire is where 'push to prod whenever' has to become a light process, but founders overcorrect into heavy ceremony that kills the speed th...
Should I share a public roadmap with my early users, or does that just create pressure and expectations I cannot meet?
A public roadmap builds trust and pulls in feedback, but a dated one is a promise machine that makes you look slow the moment you change direction....
How do I keep shipping weekly when I am building solo and constantly interrupted by support, sales, and admin?
Solo, weekly shipping dies not from lack of ideas but from context-switching, so the real fight is protecting maker time from everything else. As a...
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