5 Reasons You Should Make Your Roadmap Public

Issue 18

Most experts will tell you that making your product roadmap public is a dumb idea…

They’ll say that customers will be disappointed when priorities shift. Or, your competitors will steal your ideas.

Or, worse — your customers will say something negative about your product in front of other customers.

I used to conform to this 1-dimensional way of thinking without giving it much thought. Until I realised that the pros of having a public roadmap far exceed the cons.

So, last week, I decided to make the StoryPrompt roadmap public. Why?

Because the voice of the customer is what fuels our growth.

And by making our user community an equal partner in our vision, not only do we get to build exactly what our users need, but we also get to build:

❤️ Transparency & trust

Customers know that we’re taking their feedback seriously by actively adding it to our roadmap for consideration, not just nodding our heads.

🙋‍♀️ Community engagement

By actively involving customers in the direction of the product we’re organically building a user-led community.

⬆️ Prioritisation & alignment

When our customers have visibility into what’s most important to other users, we can justify priorities and manage expectations much better.

🤗 Anticipation & excitement

When they can see what’s in the pipeline, customers can look forward to upcoming releases which creates a buzz in our user community.

🔄 Feedback loop & iterative development

An open roadmap ensures that our product aligns closely with users’ needs, leading to a more valuable and user-centric solution.

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If you believe in community-led growth, I urge you to consider making your roadmap public. You can get it up and running in Canny (for free) in a matter of minutes. To see how we’re using it, check out the StoryPrompt roadmap.

— GH