How do you track feature requests?
I'm looking for a way to share to users what features are being worked on for my app. I know a few options are Trello, GitHub Issues, or Jira type things. But I came across the idea of using a forum.
I saw Atom use Discourse as a support forum: https://discuss.atom.io/, so thought I'd try that. It took about 15 mins to deploy and get it running with Digital Ocean -> https://mailroom.letter.so
It could be a good way to discuss features with people, but I think a survey is probably better as nobody likes signing up to an extra thing. Does anyone have experience with this or what works best to talk to users with?
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we are using Upvoty.com and really like it so far! here is what it looks like for our users: https://www.reflection.app/feature-request
bonus, its made by a fellow indiehacker: @mikeslaats
@mikeslaats you got me :) Nice feature set for this requirement.
Can you please explain what a board is? Also can we use one account for multiple products for a company? If so how?
Hey 👋, a board is one view/list of feedback posts. So for example you can create a board for feature requests, another for bugs, etc.
Right now we don’t have a multi-product dashboard, but, we have multiple clients who have more accounts for their products and if one of the accounts is a paying customer, we just set the rest to “free”. So, you won’t be charged per account 🙌 (later on we can migrate them all together into 1)
Thats great!
It would be great to have a plan between 25 and 99. As we fit somewhere in between.
Send me an email at [email protected], let's see if we can work something out 🙌
ah yeah I remember this @mikeslaats I didn't get back to you in Twitter yet, drowned by life..something like that woudl be good..how does tracked users work? Can I untrack people? I would probably switch after hitting the 99$ a month cost unless my product is selling a lot too - that puts me off jumping right in
Hey hey! Don't worry :) A tracked user is a user that participates by either giving feedback, commenting, or upvoting. The UNLIMITED plan has unlimited tracked users. We only count users for 6 months by default. If they are inactive for a period of 6 months, they don't count as a tracked user anymore. Also: you can remove your users yourself. You're in control 💪
Thanks David! 💪
What about something like Canny.io?
thanks for the suggestion Rosie, it looks good but I don't want to pay $50 a month having not made a penny yet. Love this on their pricing page though - "Costs less than building the wrong features"
Maybe I could just email people who have signed up to ask them questions, like on PH Ship - that's probably perfect but $70 a month is also a lot
Same here, I would love to use Canny but its just too expensive.
https://appsumo.com/announcefly/ has a free plan I'm currently looking into it for https://versoly.com/.
I just tried this an its basically useless. The "freebie" plan that you get with this deal doesn't allow you to have a public roadmap page so it was a waste of time to sign up. Also the minute I signed up I got 4 automated emails from "Reece at Announcefly" which felt excessive. Now I have to manually email them to cancel my account.
Edit: It took 3 back and forth emails to get him to delete my account.
Sorry about that, I just saw it and it looked good.
What a joke.
Not your fault! Thanks for the suggestion.. just wanted to give you/everyone a heads up that their deal is a bit misleading. 👍
haha wow 4 is bold!
Not for users, but internally tracking features on Trello is great. They are all listed out in different stages of development, and over time detail is added/refined, then prioritized, then developed. Its free, its easy to organize, lots of features including uploading attachments, comments, tags, its really efficient and intuitive.
Do you direct your users to that Trello board to view/submit/upvote feature requests? If so, do you find that they usually have a Trello account already?
Oh no, and I'm not sure if that's the best approach, users generally do not know what they want, they may suggest a feature, but in reality if you were to implement it they wouldn't want it/use it to the degree that they make it initially seem like they would.
The best strategy I think is one of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, that is to speak with users constantly and study the market to understand what problems users have, and what features you should develop to address and solve those problems come up with testable hypothesis that can be verified, and really focus on addressing user problems to deliver the maximum value (Users pay the innovators to propose and implement solutions to problems - often ones they did not even foresee themselves, or know they even had. To expect it to be the other way around doesn't make much sense).
I think that proactive approach is what drives success, to rely on user submitted feature requests to drive development is a reactive (inefficient) model.
Thanks for the reply. I think I was confused by your original comment since the post is asking how to track "feature requests" which generally means requests from users.
Yeah I interpreted that as, how does your team identify/track/manage/prioritize feature requests internally - I didn't really consider sharing/soliciting opinions on, feature development progress with users; here is why:
From one perspective I could see how it could be useful, but I also think that keeping development cycle a secret and the surprise reveal factor is also valuable. Think apple - they always keep their product developments secret, and then reveal a new product once its ready and perfected, using this model, obviously there will be end users that don't like it, but the value is really derived in the fact that apple has a lot of really smart people that identify problems and execute fantastic solutions that wouldn't occur to other people and that they would probably disagree with initially, and then grow to love.
I think it would fundamentally change the structure of the development process entirely if their feature suggestion and progress on feature development were public and open to vote (Making public internal disagreements can damage brand reputation, give away competitive advantage derived from business process and method secrets, and invite competitors to copy innovative products instead of being first to market with them). Whether this change produces desirable outcomes is a subjective and contentious point, but generally things designed by committees do not have a great reputation.
Great points! You've convinced me. Really appreciate it 👍
Feature requests from paying customers get considered immediately. Feature requests from non paying customers get considered if the feature would have the benefit of improving the platform for all customers.
I track these in trello
I like public trello boards. A few apps I use (e.g., Front) have them)
Yeah I've gone with the public Trello board https://trello.com/b/3riGcPLX/letter-product-roadmap-🐾 as it has voting too. I saw Monzo had used this too, and on their board, they link to their forum for users to add more detailed requests..so using Trello and Discourse in that way for now cos it's pretty much free (might change discourse to Spectrum though). @mikeslaats, this might be useful for you to see.
I'd rather use upvoty.com, but I find limitation based on number of users a bit scary, especially for a paying user - there's probably more people like me that don't sign up on upvoty for this reason. Maybe that's not a problem for you if companies are signing up and paying, but maybe there's a different way to encourage upgrades. It's a tricky one, maybe limit it in a different way, e.g. limit to:
just ideas, but that's why I didn't sign up
@graeme thanks for your feedback. Absolutely appreciate it.
This is actually why we have an unlimited plan. I know $99 isn't for everyone, but if you have more than 1,500 tracked users (which is included in our middle plan), you probably have a big product and a lot of clients as well. Then the $99 unlimited plan would fit perfectly.
Most users are signing up for the 'super power' plan of just $25 a month and will never reach 1,500 tracked users. Especially since a user will not be counted as a tracked user anymore once it's inactive for a period of 6 months.
Trello is really great but has its limitations in managing and communicating feedback. With my previous startup, I was using Trello as well.
You can always hit me up at [email protected] to talk about how we can set up the best plan for you 🙌
Feel free to check out Upvoty (www.upvoty.com). Very reasonable pricing and everything you need: feedback boards, product roadmap, and a changelog.
You can manage feedback with custom statuses, tags, moderation, private boards, custom domain, widgets, sso user integration, etc. 🙌
You can try makerkit.co, they offer a free plan and plenty of customization
Take a look at https://noorahq.com - similar to Canny but with fixed pricing, so no surprises down the line if you scale up.
Take a look at getacute.io by @perseaalexandra. Not only it allows to gather feedback easily (from your app or Intercom), it also allows to easily prioritize feature requests so you can decide what you should work on next.
canny.io!
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