Why prioritising product features is so hard? Sometimes it feels that totally wrong features are getting to the roadmap.

Interesting question, I will answer it from the experience working in fast-growing startups.

Choosing the right features to develop is hard for new products & startups. It's caused by limited resources, a probability to be biased, not enough data, lack of alignment, absence of product strategy, and high uncertainty:

• High uncertainty

Startups are constantly in the process of searching for fit: Market x Product x Channel x Model fit. So, while the founding & new business unit team is busy with testing and figuring out how to find all those fits, the product team is busy with choosing the right features to build to empower those fits.

• Limited resources that add pressure

Startup PMs don’t have the time to slowly build many small features and test which of them brings the most value or bet on a huge feature, risking months of development. The less funding a startup has, the fewer product dev iterations it can have.

• High probability of bias

Startup teams tend to be very biased towards features they believe in, especially when big-name users tell “we will pay for THIS”. So product prioritization can be influenced by biased opinions, based on promises of future purchases.

• Not enough data

Not having enough data to prioritize one feature over another, both from the impact or difficulty to building perspective is a typical problem. How could it be easy to prioritize if it can come up to basically guessing based on several clients' feedback?

• Lack of alignment

Different teams will have varying opinions as to what is “important” to build. It adds even more pressure on prioritization, so sometimes the roadmap is filled with what executives want but not what users needs.

• Absence of Product Strategy

Sometimes product strategy with a clear roadmap does not exist at all, so features will fill urgent needs rather than help achieve strategic goals. Chaotic product growth is something many startups have.

All above makes prioritization a difficult process with a high level of possible mistakes, when not "the best" features go in the roadmap. I hope, it helped.