We got together this week to talk about Feature Planning because that’s what we actually did this week!

One of the ways that your business can grow and be more profitable is to expand on the feature set of your app. We’ve got some cool features on the horizon for CodePen, and we’re going to share our planning process and how we roll out new features.

  • 1:52 We have to be a little vague about what our upcoming features are, just because it’s not a good idea to make promises and then not hit deadlines or meet user expectations. (Example: Coin)

  • 3:27 Every time we’ve launched a big feature, we’ve gotten together as a group and planned it all out. One of the things that you do when you’re planning a feature is to ask yourself, “What is the idea at the core of this feature?”

  • 4:25 Planning something out can be hard because you have the idea of a perfect product in your mind, but the perfect product is often a moving target. You want your thing to be great, but you also want to get it out quickly.

  • 5:00 Minimal Viable Product isn’t just about speed of release. It also allows you to get feedback about your product and add features that your users are asking for.

  • 5:28 The classic counter-argument to this is that if you release too soon, the product is just boring, and you won’t get that second or third look that you’re hoping for. So should you really polish your product up before launching, or ship early?

  • 6:06 We don’t release things that are “less polished”, but what we release will just having fewer “knobs and buttons”. We want to get it out there and start collecting feedback from users.

  • 6:26 We haven’t ever released a feature that we didn’t end up changing because of user feedback.

  • 7:06 Why we decided to split our new feature into two separate features after extensive planning: shortening the timeline.

  • 8:46 A lot of us are building thing that have been done before. While we’re building something, one super-important thing to do is research. Research how other people have done the same thing, or similar things.

  • 10:00 Pricing was a big deal for our product. We did research about our competitor’s pricing. We thought about our pricing, and where it should start. It’s always a good idea to check out the competitive landscape.

  • 11:53 This new feature is going to be a big part of making CodePen a better business. Not every feature will have such a big impact on our product. Some features are really just smaller tweaks to make the overall experience better.

  • 14:12 Another great reason to do due diligence and check out the competition is that it gives you a good idea about what things you want to copy, and what you might want to do differently. If someone has been doing the same thing for years, you can learn from their mistakes and successes.

  • 18:10 After planning out the feature and checking out the competition, we try to figure out what new pages (screens) we’ll need to create for it.

  • 20:03 It’s always a good idea to do wire-framing, even if it’s just pencil and paper.

  • 23:07 Another thing to think about is emails. Will the new feature generate any emails? What emails will need to be written about the feature?

  • 26:30 There’s some pretty interesting tech involved for CodePen. It’s not all just standard web application technology. So it’s really important for us to look at any brand new tech that we aren’t already familiar with, especially if it’s going to be something that we are adding to the tech we’re already using.

  • 27:36 There’s a risk of choosing the wrong technology for your feature. Is it open source? Is it actively maintained? What happens if it gets shuts down? These are important to consider when choosing technology for your new feature.

  • 30:50 What is the launch of your feature going to be like? Are you going to plan a big launch event, or just email the users? Are you going to buy ads, or create a marketing page? Figure out a plan in advance. There are lots of ways to drum up excitement for your new feature, and it seems that often developers don’t take advantage of the benefit of having great marketing for their launch. It’s a big deal, and you worked hard on it. You only get one chance to market a launch, so make it good.

  • 33:24 You should also be thinking through what customer support will look like for the new feature. What kind of emails will you be getting from your customers? What kind of documentation are you going to write? Hopefully you can write some documentation to pre-empt customer questions, and have something you can point them to.

  • 34:46 Price yourself high enough to be able to provide good support for your feature. If users are asking you questions and you aren’t responding in a timely fashion, that is a bad experience. Don’t price so low that you’re unable to provide good support and make your users happy.

We’re sorry that we couldn’t share what the new feature is! If you’d like to email us and try to guess, we might send you something if you get it right. No promises, though. ;)

Thanks for listening! Please leave us a review in iTunes, and if you have any questions, drop em in the comments section!

Show Links: