In startups, writing a roadmap can be humbling.
A roadmap is a commitment - a promise to yourself, your team, your investors, and your customers that you will deliver certain capabilities within a certain timeframe. But many - if not most - teams are unable to live up to those promises. It's not that they aren't trying hard enough, but that building product is a lot more complicated than most roadmaps account for.
There are lots of reasons why roadmaps fall apart:
Startups are especially prone to fragile roadmaps. When you’re just starting out, it can be really hard to say ‘no’ to any opportunity. There’s so much product to build before you feel like you’ve achieved something valuable, and with your attention split across many different areas of potential, it feels really hard to cut out the distraction so that you can focus in on what you and your team can actually achieve. But of course, that’s exactly what you need to do.
An experienced product manager can help you navigate these tough decisions. We've seen similar problems before and have a wealth of tools and techniques we can apply to unpack the difficult problems and help you make confident and evidence-backed decisions about product strategy, feature sets, and scoping.
For most startups though, product managers aren't in the first 10 hires. A senior product manager based in Canada can expect upwards of $150k per year, and at that price, many founding teams have to spend their budget on roles that directly influence revenue - engineers to build the product or sales staff to sell it.
So how do teams get by until they can afford a full time product hire?
Often, teams survive with a few people pitching in off the side of their desks. Maybe an engineer plays PO for the scrum team while a founder handles the roadmap. But this model isn't usually sustainable for the long haul - your talented team needs to get back to the things they do best, whether that's pitching to VCs or architecting your core application.
An experienced product consultant can help your team focus on the highest priority opportunities to keep your team on track until your company is big enough to warrant a full product organization.
I can help your team address problems including:
I offer a range of affordable options for startups who need help making difficult product decisions. I'd love to learn more about your product and what I can do to help you move it forward.
Get in touch