The Best Prioritization Is No Prioritization

In the course of conversations with startups that I’ve invested in, that I advise, or that I simply encounter, it’s very common to get into discussions about prioritization. Some common situations that I hear about all the time: We don’t know how to balance incremental features that our current customers want versus more differentiated / futuristic features that would help us sell. We don’t know how to balance tech debt or supportability investments versus business-oriented features. Our platform consists of 3 main products. One of them has the most revenue opportunity, one of them has the most upset customers, one of them has the most scaling problems. We’re figuring out which one to focus on first. The advice that I give in almost every case – the best way to prioritize is to not prioritize. Prioritization Sucks Prioritization sucks for a few reasons. First off, frameworks are BS. People have written breathless blog posts about product prioritization frameworks like RICE or the Kano…