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My tactic for getting past this (at least as a solo founder) has been to: 1. Talk to customers enough that you know what they actually want to achieve, and how

My tactic for getting past this (at least as a solo founder) has been to: 1. Talk to customers enough that you know what they actually want to achieve, and how specific additional features in your product will get them there 2. Ship the absolute minimal possible deliverable feature (a log of which I keep here: https://twitter.com/RozenMD/status/1364881512500404224?s=20 https://twitter.com/RozenMD/status/1364881512500404224?s=20), and mercilessly remove unused functionality after a few months of zero use.

wohlgejm 5y ago
I'm curious how you handle close to unused functionality? I find this problem acute in B2B software where only one customer adopts the feature, but it happens to be a very important one.
- mehphp 5y ago
  Personally, I feature flag them and hide it for all other customers. If the feature requires extra cost to keep going then I let the customer know the situation and charge them to keep it going.
latchkey 5y ago
Another 'tool' I've used in the past: We had customers that wanted 'permissions' for their "sub" accounts so they could have fine grained access to features. They would threaten to not use our system until this was implemented. Implementing this feature was a lower priority and more difficult to implement for us then other revenue generating features (also a good way to prioritize things). The interesting bit is they still used our system, despite the missing feature. I think because we focused on things that generated revenue. We kept good conversations with our customers and let them know when we thought we would add it. We kept delaying it and it took us 6+ months. In the meantime, we increased our (and their) revenues the whole time. Once we finally rolled out the feature, existing users didn't really care and new customers just had the feature. This strategy worked really well a number of times.
- tata71 5y ago
  How do you avoid promising or implying shit you don't intend to deliver? I'm going through this right now — people trying to use super-fine permissions (dozens of points!). Besides role-based groupings, there's no chance this fixes more issues than it causes in my case (less technical managers and workers using an SaaS). Any ideas and insight appreciated!
  - shavin47 5y ago
    Hey dude, please check this out. Basecamp had a similar issue but the underlying cause was very simple and was fixable within a day. https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.2-chapter-03#narrow-down-the-problem https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.2-chapter-03#narrow-down-the-...
  - rozenmd 5y ago
    A lot of companies just say "We've added it to the backlog, thanks!" - I'd recommend avoiding this. An honest "we don't plan on taking the product in this direction for some time" will do wonders (at least for customers worth keeping IMO).
    - tata71 5y ago
      I've been saying things like: "we'd like to hear more about how you'd use this, to help us build future versions".
      - latchkey 5y ago
        Any smart customer would know that is code for "We've added it to the backlog, thanks!" and won't ever see that feature.
  - latchkey 5y ago
    By consistently delivering on everything else that they are asking for and most importantly... helping increase their revenues (or whatever other metric you use with your customers for their success). Not delivering sometimes has a reverse psychological effect that you can use to your advantage... it keeps them wanting more.

wohlgejm 5y ago

I'm curious how you handle close to unused functionality? I find this problem acute in B2B software where only one customer adopts the feature, but it happens to be a very important one.

mehphp 5y ago
Personally, I feature flag them and hide it for all other customers. If the feature requires extra cost to keep going then I let the customer know the situation and charge them to keep it going.

latchkey 5y ago

Another 'tool' I've used in the past: We had customers that wanted 'permissions' for their "sub" accounts so they could have fine grained access to features. They would threaten to not use our system until this was implemented. Implementing this feature was a lower priority and more difficult to implement for us then other revenue generating features (also a good way to prioritize things). The interesting bit is they still used our system, despite the missing feature. I think because we focused on things that generated revenue. We kept good conversations with our customers and let them know when we thought we would add it. We kept delaying it and it took us 6+ months. In the meantime, we increased our (and their) revenues the whole time. Once we finally rolled out the feature, existing users didn't really care and new customers just had the feature. This strategy worked really well a number of times.

tata71 5y ago
How do you avoid promising or implying shit you don't intend to deliver? I'm going through this right now — people trying to use super-fine permissions (dozens of points!). Besides role-based groupings, there's no chance this fixes more issues than it causes in my case (less technical managers and workers using an SaaS). Any ideas and insight appreciated!
- shavin47 5y ago
  Hey dude, please check this out. Basecamp had a similar issue but the underlying cause was very simple and was fixable within a day. https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.2-chapter-03#narrow-down-the-problem https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.2-chapter-03#narrow-down-the-...
- rozenmd 5y ago
  A lot of companies just say "We've added it to the backlog, thanks!" - I'd recommend avoiding this. An honest "we don't plan on taking the product in this direction for some time" will do wonders (at least for customers worth keeping IMO).
  - tata71 5y ago
    I've been saying things like: "we'd like to hear more about how you'd use this, to help us build future versions".
    - latchkey 5y ago
      Any smart customer would know that is code for "We've added it to the backlog, thanks!" and won't ever see that feature.
- latchkey 5y ago
  By consistently delivering on everything else that they are asking for and most importantly... helping increase their revenues (or whatever other metric you use with your customers for their success). Not delivering sometimes has a reverse psychological effect that you can use to your advantage... it keeps them wanting more.