Prioritizing Your Product Features: From Concept to Success

You’ve got this killer business idea. It’s gonna be HUGE. You can feel it.

You have all these plans and I know you can’t wait to make your product a reality. You probably already thought of extraordinary ideas, amazing features, and benefits that will change lives…

But if you want your product to be a success, slow down. Take a breath.

As much as you’d like to simply stuff every possible feature into your product – you need to be strategic about it. First, you need to know which features you need to prioritize and which features can wait.

Some features are more impactful than others – and I’ll teach you what to prioritize.
(Note: Which product features to prioritize. Not the self-help coach kind of prioritization.)

Prioritization Methodology #1: The Kano Model

The Kano Model is a method that professional product managers use to guess how much a certain feature will satisfy their customers depending on how well it is implemented. You do that by dividing your product’s features into three main categories:

• Must-Have Features (Basic Expectations): If your product doesn’t have these features, your customers will think: “???!!!”. Their absence will lead to dissatisfaction. But once you have these features, no matter how well you implement them and how awesome they work – it doesn’t influence much on how your customers love your product. Take a ride-sharing app for example: You must have a basic ‘Forgot Password’ functionality. If it doesn’t work – there’s a high chance that users will simply go away. But if you increase the ‘awesomeness’ of your Forgot Password Email – there are barely any users who will love you forever because of that.
  
• Performance Features (Linear Satisfiers): The more of these you have and the better they work – the merrier, because they directly increase satisfaction. For the ride-sharing app, these features would be pricing, waiting times, and how cool the cars are.
  
• Delighter Features (Excitement Generators): These are the goodies your customers won’t expect, but will adore. It’s like getting “just because flowers”. If you entered a ride-sharing app and the driver gave you a free water bottle, you would be unexpectedly excited and touched emotionally (or at least I would).

Woah, that’s a lot of car rides you just took, princess. Hope you had some time to think about your product!

Sometimes it’s hard to understand if a feature is Must-Have, Performance, or Delighter by Kano.
A good lifehack here is:

Think about why you want to build a specific feature.

If the answer is: “I’m running away from something and trying to avoid losses or risks” – then it’s probably a Must-Have. This means the feature is something customers expect. If it’s missing, they’ll be unhappy. It’s like a seatbelt in a car – everyone expects it to be there for safety.

If it’s: “I want to earn more money” – then it’s Performance. This means the feature directly affects how happy customers are. The better it is, the more they’ll like it. It’s like how fast a car can go – the faster, the better for some customers.

If it’s “I just want to have fun and I want my customers to love my brand” – then it’s a delighting Delighter. This means the feature is something extra and unexpected that makes customers excited or happy. It’s like heated seats in a car – they’re not THAT important, but people love them when they’re there.

Prioritization Methodology #2: Prioritizing by Benefits

Here, you list out the potential benefits of each feature, and you just see which one has the most benefits. Simple, right?

However, you need to do it systematically. There has to be at least SOME maths behind it.

First, list the potential benefits each feature provides to users and the business. For example, you can think about user engagement, retention, acquisition, revenue, alignment with strategic goals…

Here’s where the math comes in, it’s time to focus…

Then, score each feature for each benefit. For simplicity, we can use a scale of 1 to 5.

Now, simply add up the numbers for each feature 🙂. Here’s a table to make it even easier to understand. (that’s just a made-up example for a hypothetical fitness app)

In this case, they would prioritize calorie tracking, as it has the highest Total Benefit Score.

Here’s a revolutionary idea: ask your loyal clients what THEY think. Ask which features THEY would value most. After all, it’s the clients who need to be happy, right?

You can use feedback tools like “ProductBoard” and “Aha!”. They allow you to directly match the feedback with a specific feature.

Prioritization Methodology #3: Prioritization by Impact

It’s the same exact process as Prioritization by Benefits. The only difference is – you don’t list out benefits, you list out key metrics. These could be engagement, conversion rates, customer lifetime value, churn rate…

So think, what metrics of success are most important for your business? Then, you just assess (guess?) the features’ likely impacts on these metrics.

Simplifying table to the rescue in 3, 2, 1…

This is All Great, but Which one Should I Use?

Yeah, it does sound like you could just put on a blindfold, randomly point your finger toward one of the three methods, and just go with that one.

However, that would not be so smart! Here’s a simple guide to help you pick the best approach:

Use the Kano Model If:

• You Want to Understand Customer Satisfaction: Choose the Kano Model if your main goal is to figure out what will make your customers happy. This method helps you see which features are must-haves, which improve performance, and which can pleasantly surprise users.
  
• You Need to Balance Features: It’s great for making sure you have the basics covered and also adding features that delight users. For example, if you’re launching a new app, this method helps you balance essential features with ones that can really impress your users.

Use Prioritization by Benefits If:

• You Want to Maximize Value: It helps you see which features will give you the most value in terms of user engagement, revenue, or other business goals.
  
• You Have Multiple Goals: If you need to weigh different benefits like increased sales or improved user experience, this method helps you decide which features will give you the best return on investment.

Use Prioritization by Impact If:

• You Want to Focus on Immediate Results: Use this method if you’re looking to make a big impact quickly. It helps you prioritize features based on their expected effect on key metrics like user satisfaction or sales.
  
• You Need to Make Quick Decisions: If you have to choose which features to work on right now to see the most significant results, this method is ideal for getting straight to what will make the biggest difference.

Balancing Costs and ROI: It’s Not Just About the Money

Okay – now you know what features to prioritize. However, those features cost money, effort, time…

And you probably want to estimate just how much this new feature will cost you. Here are some ways you can think about it:

• Agile Story Points: A relative measure of effort. The team discusses how many story points (effort) a task requires and then they see if it’s worth going through with it.
  
• Work Days: Uhh… How many work days it will take 🙂.
  
• Resource Constraints: Small companies often don’t have all of the money in the world to splurge on various features. If you relate, you need to carefully estimate the costs of the features you want to develop.

Now that you know how much it costs – is the return on investment (ROI) higher than that?

• ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment
  
• Gain: The potential benefits of the feature, which could be: increased revenue, reduced costs, improved customer satisfaction, etc.
  
• Cost: The estimated development cost of the feature.

Most people only think about the monetary ROI… but money is not the only measure of success.

Yes, it’s the ultimate goal of the product but you can’t measure all progress with money. Some features will give you money now and some will give it later. That’s why it’s important to see the ROI in other areas too!

Building Your Prioritized Product Roadmap: The Roadmap to Success!

It’s time for the actionable steps. Once you know which features you want to prioritize, here is how you can make it all happen:

• Make a Visual Roadmap: Arrange your most important features into a visual plan, like a timeline or Kanban board. Pick a format that your team finds useful and easy to understand. Seriously, these boards are great.

• Direct Development Work: Use the roadmap to steer your development efforts. It helps your team focus on the most important features first.
  
• Update as Needed: Remember, your roadmap can change – it’s not set in stone. Be ready to tweak it based on user feedback, changes in the market, or new ideas.

Crafting Customer Journey to Product Solution

A Customer Journey Map is a visual tool that shows every step a customer takes when using a product or service. It includes all their interactions, from the first time they hear about the product to when they become a loyal user.

Basically, by mapping out this journey, you learn to read your customers’ minds – and not in a creepy way. You just learn to understand their pains and challenges.

When you combine a Customer Journey Map with feature prioritization techniques, you create magic. The map helps you see the most important parts of the customer’s experience, so you can prioritize features that improve these key moments.

For example, if many customers struggle with a certain step, you can focus on building features that make this step easier. Genius, right?

In short, if you have a map that tells you exactly what your customers want, it’s easy to make a product that satisfies them.

Takeaways

As much as we would all like to create products that have every imaginable feature inside, it’s sadly not smart. Some features and more important than others and nobody has an unlimited amount of resources. Here are the best methods for feature prioritization in startups:

• The Kano Model has three categories: Must-Haves (the necessities), Performance Features (the more, the better), and the Delighter Features (the woah! I didn’t expect this, nice!)
  
• With Prioritization by Benefits – sum up the total benefit score of each feature and see which features can bring the most benefits. Examples of benefits: user engagement, retention, acquisition, revenue, alignment with strategic goals…
  
• With Prioritization by Impact – sum up the total impact score of each feature and see which features can have the biggest impact. Examples of impact: engagement, conversion rates, customer lifetime value, churn rate…
  
• Use the Kano Model if you want to understand customer satisfaction. Use Prioritization by Benefits if you want to maximize value. Use Prioritization by Impact if you need to have quick results.
  
• Before creating your new features, estimate the costs. The cost doesn’t just have to be monetary, you can also measure it in amounts of effort and time.
  
• ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment
  
• When you start creating your features, make a visual roadmap for yourself and your team. It will make your life easier, trust me.
  
• Create your customer journey map to understand what your customers need at all times. This will also help you prioritize features.

So go forth, brave entrepreneur, and prioritize like a boss! Your roadmap (and your bank account) will thank you.