How do you advocate for adding a new feature to the roadmap when it's something competitors have launched and customers are asking for, but internally it isn't seen as a priority?

This is always tough, for Trello this was trello.com/templates, it's something we had thought about doing for a long time but we didn't want to be overly prescriptive about how people should use our product. That being said, we got a lot of inquiries about templates - and a LOT of other tools provided templates - so it became something that felt like we should consider adding. Like I've said in a few other answers, I think the best way to convince internal stakeholders that something should be a ...Read More

I would start by understanding why it’s not seen as a priority - does this feature align with your overall product strategy? Perhaps this is an area that the company has made a conscious choice not to enter. However if this is simply a prioritization issue for the Product team, I suggest you quantify the impact. How many customers are asking for this and how many accounts or how much revenue are you losing by not having this option for your customers. Also, can you estimate if a customer adoptin ...Read More

A critical piece of information is missing from this question: why isn't it seen as a priority internally? There are several valid reasons not to launch something even if your competitor has it and customers want it - the main one that comes to mind is that it takes you too far out of your core audience and core use case which would then require a significant investment not only in product to maintain that new line, but also in GTM to spin up a motion to build that new funnel. It could be a simp ...Read More

This comes down to how leaders at your organization make decisions. For this specific scenario, I wonder which functions within a company are not aligned that this feature is a priority. That would also depend on your company culture and if the company is product-led or sales-led. For instance, if this is a feature that customers are asking for, it is a deployment blocker and stalling new sales, I would want the leaders across Product/Eng, Marketing, and Sales to discuss why it is not a priority ...Read More

First I try to understand why it isn’t a priority. I’ve seen this happen a lot. Many times, it’s because our brilliant product managers are trying to build a better way to “do it.” Other times, it’s because the feature doesn’t really make sense for the market, and it’s just a marketing ploy. For example, imagine that your company offers cellular connectivity to non-phone devices (think, a water meter in middle-America). In the telecom world, 5G is a really hot topic. And it’s a great technology ...Read More