Context
The $5M Revenue Problem Hidden in Your Backlog.
We had 47 features in our product backlog when I joined as CTO/COO. Eighteen months later, we had 28.
Revenue didn’t drop. It tripled.
This isn’t a story about doing less. It’s a story about the roadmap discipline that separates stalled B2B SaaS companies from those that scale profitably. And it’s a discipline that most product teams get catastrophically wrong.
When “Customer-Driven” Becomes “Customer-Chaos”.
When I arrived at one of the first companies I worked in a turnaround (SaaS B2B around $1M ARR, Post-PMF), the product roadmap was a monument to every stakeholder conversation from the past two years.
Here’s what we had:
– 47 features in various stages of “committed,” “planned,” or “under consideration”
– 12 “P0” initiatives (apparently, everything was priority zero)
– Engineering sprints dedicated to 8 different product areas simultaneously
– Sales team promising features that didn’t exist to close deals
– Customer success drowning in feature requests they’d committed to
The symptoms were obvious:
– Velocity had collapsed, we hadn’t shipped a major feature in 9 months
– Gross margin was stagnant at around 45% (for a SaaS company, that’s terrible)
– Engineering morale was at an all-time low
– Customer satisfaction was declining despite us “listening to customers”
Everyone was working hard. Nothing was moving forward.
The diagnosis? Feature debt.
Core Thesis
Feature Debt: The Silent Killer of SaaS Companies.
Everyone knows about technical debt. But feature debt is worse.
Feature debt is the accumulation of commitments, half-built capabilities, and “strategic initiatives” that consume resources without delivering value.
It compounds in three ways:
1. Coordination Costs Explode
Every additional feature in your roadmap creates dependencies:
– Engineering has to maintain it
– Product has to prioritize enhancement requests
– Sales has to explain it (or why it doesn’t work as expected)
– Customer success has to support it
At 47 features, we were spending 60% of engineering time on maintenance, support, and minor improvements. Only 40% went to new development.
2. The Best Features Get Starved
When you’re trying to advance 12 initiatives simultaneously, the features that could actually move the business get the same resources as the ones that won’t.
We had two features that drove 80% of our expansion revenue. But they got the same allocation as features used by <5% of customers. Resource allocation by democracy is roadmap suicide.
3. You Train Customers to Expect Mediocrity
When you ship 20 features at 60% quality, customers learn not to trust you.
When you ship 5 features at 95% quality, customers become advocates.
We had built a product where everything “kind of worked.” Nothing was exceptional.
The Roadmap Massacre: How We Cut 40% of Features
In the first 90 days, I led what the team called “the roadmap massacre.” Here’s the framework:
1. The Revenue Accountability Audit
I asked product and engineering to categorize every feature in the backlog:
Category A: Revenue Drivers
– Features that directly drive new customer acquisition
– Features that drive expansion revenue (upsells, cross-sells)
– Features that measurably reduce churn
Category B: Operational Necessities
– Compliance requirements
– Critical infrastructure (security, performance, reliability)
– Technical debt that blocks Category A development
Category C: Everything Else
– “Nice to have” features
– Competitive parity features
– Features requested by <10% of customers
– Strategic bets with unclear ROI
Result: 68% of our backlog was Category C.
2. The Ruthless Cut
I killed every Category C feature. Immediately.
Not “deprioritized.” Not “moved to Q4.” Deleted from the roadmap entirely.
The pushback was intense:
– Sales: “But we promised Customer X this feature!”
– Product: “But Competitor Y has this!”
– Customer Success: “But this customer asked for it!”
Response was the same every time: “Show me the revenue impact. Not the story. The number.“
If they couldn’t show that a feature would:
– Generate $XXX in new ARR, OR
– Prevent $YYY in churn, OR
– Enable expansion in existing accounts worth $ZZZ in potential ARR
…it was gone.
We went from 47 features to 28 features in 6 weeks.
3. The Resource Reallocation
Here’s what we did with the freed-up engineering capacity:
– 40% → The Two Revenue Kings: Doubled down on the two features driving 80% of expansion
– 30% → Technical Debt: Paid down the architectural debt blocking scalability
– 20% → New Category A: Built ONE new revenue-driving capability per quarter
– 10% → Operational Excellence: Security, performance, reliability
No more peanut-buttering resources across 12 initiatives.
The Results: What Happened When We Said No
Month 3:
– Engineering velocity up 45% (fewer context switches)
– Customer satisfaction up 12 points (shipped features actually worked)
– Sales cycle shortened by 18 days (clearer value proposition)
Month 12:
– Gross margin improved from 45% to 58%
– The two “Revenue King” features now drove +$250K in expansion ARR
– We shipped ONE major new feature that unlocked a new customer segment worth $1M in ARR
Month 36:
– Revenue: 3X growth
– Gross margin: Up 17 points
– EBITDA: +11%
– Product NPS: First time in net positive
We tripled revenue not by building more. By building less, better.
The Hard Truth About Product Roadmaps
Most SaaS roadmaps fail because they’re designed to avoid conflict, not drive outcomes.
You say yes to:
– The sales rep who needs one feature to close a deal
– The vocal customer who threatens to churn
– The competitor feature that “everyone has”
– The executive’s pet project
And you end up with a roadmap that satisfies everyone and compounds nothing.
The alternative:
Build a roadmap where every feature has to justify itself with a revenue number, not a stakeholder story. Kill anything that doesn’t clear the bar.
Accept that this will make people uncomfortable.
Then watch what happens when your team can finally focus.
The Framework: How to Audit Your Own Roadmap
If you’re a B2B SaaS company between $5M-$50M ARR and growth is slowing, run this diagnostic:
Question 1: Revenue Concentration
What percentage of your revenue comes from your top 3 features?
If it’s >70%, you have clarity. Double down.
If it’s <50%, you have a focus problem.
Question 2: Resource Allocation
What % of engineering time goes to:
– Your top revenue-driving features?
– Maintenance and support?
– “Strategic bets” with no clear ROI?
If maintenance >50%, you have feature debt.
If strategic bets >20%, you have discipline debt.
Question 3: The Honesty Test
Ask your engineering team: “If you could kill 30% of our roadmap with no consequences, what would you kill?”
If they have an immediate answer and it’s longer than 30%, you know what to do.
Question 4: Customer Clarity
Ask 10 customers: “What’s the ONE thing we could improve that would make you advocate for us?”
If you get 10 different answers, your value proposition is diluted.
If you get 3-5 consistent answers, you have a roadmap.
Where This Applies
This roadmap discipline is most critical if you’re:
– Post-PMF ($5M+ ARR) and growth is slowing
– Gross margin <60% for a SaaS business
– Engineering velocity declining despite hiring more people
– Customer satisfaction flat or declining despite shipping features
– Sales team selling vaporware to close deals
You don’t have a product problem. You have a prioritization problem.
And prioritization starts with having the courage to say NO.
Conclusion: The Roadmap Reset
The best product decision I made as COO wasn’t what we built.
It was what we stopped building.
Cutting 40% of features gave us:
– Focus for engineering
– Clarity for sales
– Quality for customers
– Profit for shareholders
Your roadmap isn’t a democracy. It’s not a wish list. It’s not a CYA document for stakeholder management.
It’s a capital allocation decision. Treat it like one.