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Article: Talking to Users — The Roadmap Reset Kim Didn’t Expect

Talking to Users — The Roadmap Reset Kim Didn’t Expect

Talking to Users — The Roadmap Reset Kim Didn’t Expect

Why building features based on assumptions nearly killed Kim’s momentum — and how customer discovery turned it around.

Click to read part 2 of this series https://smartwareadvisors.com/blogs/news/the-pivot-point-learning-to-prioritize-like-a-pro


Kim’s team had just launched a shiny new feature.

They had built fast. Designed elegantly. Engineered cleanly. Everyone on the team was proud.

There was just one problem: no one used it.

It wasn’t a minor flop. It was a full-on faceplant — weeks of effort sunk into a feature customers didn’t care about.

And that’s when Kim realized something brutal:

“We’re building for ourselves, not our users.”


The Silent Killer: Assumption-Driven Roadmaps

The failed feature wasn’t random. It had seemed like a good idea at the time:

  • A competitor offered it

  • One big customer suggested it

  • The team thought it would boost retention

But there was no real validation. No user data. No interviews.
It was, at best, an educated guess.

“We skipped the discovery phase,” Kim said. “And we paid the price.”


The Turning Point: Start Talking, Not Just Shipping

After a mentor review, Kim got this advice:

“You don’t need more features. You need more conversations.”

That’s when she discovered the customer discovery loop — a lightweight but powerful way to test roadmap ideas before writing a line of code.


The Framework: From Guesswork to Insight

Kim adopted a three-step approach that changed how her team built product decisions:

🔍 1. Problem Interviews

Talk to users before deciding on a solution. Ask:

  • “What’s the most frustrating part of your workflow?”

  • “When was the last time you tried to solve it?”

  • “What happened?”

The goal is to uncover unmet needs — not pitch features.

🧠 2. Job Stories (Not Just User Stories)

She stopped writing “As a user, I want…” and started writing:

“When I [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome].”

This shifted the focus from features to user motivations.

🌲 3. Opportunity Solution Tree (Teresa Torres Model)

Instead of jumping straight into solutions, her team mapped out:

  • Desired outcomes

  • Opportunities (user problems)

  • Possible solutions

  • Experiments to test them

Now each roadmap item had a why behind the what — and a test plan to prove its value.


Execution: Quarterly Discovery + Roadmap Sync

Kim didn’t want this to be a one-off change. She made it part of her quarterly roadmap process:

  • 5–7 user interviews per month

  • Pattern analysis to surface key themes

  • Updates to the roadmap based on validated opportunities

“It took discipline, but our roadmap is now backed by reality, not guesswork.”


Key Lesson for Founders

You don’t earn product-market fit by shipping features.
You earn it by solving real problems.

Discovery isn’t just for pre-launch startups. It’s a continuous loop — especially after MVP.

Your roadmap isn’t a vision board. It’s a hypothesis list.
And the best way to refine those hypotheses is to talk to the people you're building for.

At Smartware Advisors, we help innovators achieve product-market fit.

Schedule a free strategy session https://calendly.com/waqarhashim

#customerdiscovery #productdevelopment #startupfounders #roadmapping #uxresearch #productstrategy #buildthethingsusersneed

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