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Today, Alex and I sat down for some roadmap planning after all the post-v2 craziness (refresher: we just launched Jovo version 2).
Our main question was: how can we consistently launch improvements while making sure that we're working towards our long-term goals and not just some local maximum?
We tried to separate our goals into two categories:
Steps
While we locked ourselves in to work on v2 for several months, and stopped shipping updates regularly, we noticed that this had effect on the "buzz" we had. There was less organic growth because we were just on less people's radars.
Even small updates can show that you're actively improving your product. For us, these updates could mean a new integration (like the new Firebase integration), a small feature, or a new tutorial.
Leaps
The problem with taking too many small steps is that you might be optimizing for the wrong things. Sometimes, you need to make big changes to be able to prepare for the larger goal in mind.
v2 was such a big change: To be able to keep improving, we needed to rebuild the architecture that has grown since 2017. And this took time and focus, limiting our ability to "generate buzz" while working on it.
What's more important?
I'm a huge believer in speed and many updates over "working on something for half a year before showing anyone." However, sometimes, large changes are necessary. To keep the "buzz" going, maybe something rhythm could be a good way of solving for both when building out a roadmap:
Step - Step - Step - Leap - Step - Step - Step - Leap.
What do you think?
- Jan
PS: Today, I was guest on a podcast by Sam Warnaars, who is also a subscriber of this newsletter. Thanks, Sam! Here is the episode: https://www.bnr.nl/podcast/voicecast/10367416/5-jan-koning-jovo-tech
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