独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

Evolution of a Roadmap

How often do you re-align your goals and visions with that of your product and how do you do it? All you need is a Roadmap which you can refer to from time to time and make the necessary changes required for the strategic alignment and growth of your product.

In simple words, a roadmap is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it. It also serves as a communication tool, a high-level document that helps articulate strategic thinking — the why — behind both goal and the plan for getting there.

A few Roadmap templates:

To sum up on why we need a Roadmap,

How to Build a Roadmap

You need to lead your own roadmapping effort. But you should also get feedback from trusted friends and colleagues. And there is nothing wrong with designing a one-year plan first if it is too daunting to define what you want to achieve by the time you are retired. Regardless of whether your roadmap is short term or long term, your plan should include the following:

Why
Without a clear vision, you might be moving ahead but going nowhere. You must establish a “goal first” approach and a true north for where you are headed. Reaffirm your strategy every year and tweak it as necessary. But always stay grounded in what you are trying to achieve.

When
Now that you know why you are headed in a certain direction, you need to set a target for when you want to be there. Dates matter in life and business because our lives are finite. If we lived forever, time would not be much of a concern. We do not have that luxury (or curse) of permanence, so every day is special.

What
The “whats” are the accomplishments that we are striving for. Being promoted to Director or getting into graduate school are great examples of tangible achievements that we should record as goals. Once again, these can either be substantial targets or more readily reachable objectives (like volunteering at a food bank). The key is to record the actions that you must take to achieve these goals.

How
The last step is about defining the nitty gritty of how you are going to accomplish the “what”. These are the tactics that you are going to take. There is no doubt that if you set a roadmap for the next decade, you will not be able to fill all of the details in. Still, you can probably start with a few. For example, if getting into graduate school is the goal, you will need to research and apply to different programs. Those actions (the “how”) will help you gain admission to graduate school (the “what”).

Once you complete your roadmap, set it aside for a day. Then, review and share it with people you trust. Explaining your goals helps you crystallize them and can even unlock helpful resources that you did not know you had.

If you don’t have a roadmap, you are likely to suffer. The challenges of life make it easy to lose your way or whipsaw yourself in different directions. In contrast, a roadmap helps you own your destiny. It reinforces what you value and aim to accomplish with your life. That is a powerful tool, indeed.

Building a Roadmap — With Instamojo

Let us now try to implement the above-learnt concepts by building a roadmap for Instamojo

A quick background of Instamojo

Instamojo lets you collect payments instantly. Start simply by creating a link by adding details. Share with your audience, through a link. And start collecting payments in minutes!

Instamojo is a zero integration payment service that lets you collect payments with the help of just a link. You can customize your payment links to something as cool. You can not only sell your products but also your digital goods, services, event tickets and much more from a single payment platform.

The best part is that you can accept payments not only via your Kartrocket store but also via your mailers, SMS campaigns, Whatsapp bulk messaging, blogs, social networking platforms and much more.

Merchant Affiliate System — Create your own affiliate network, and let others sell for you.
Email multiple customers — Communicate with your existing customers, and send them updates about your products, and events.
iMojo Link Privacy System — Control visibility of your links, on your profile page, search engines, and sharing.
SMS Notification Alert — Get SMS notifications for each sale

Product Roadmap for Instamojo in the initial stages

Let us rewind back to the year 2014 when Instamojo was being set up and try to visualize how it would have looked like.

Instamojo started as a platform to sell digital products like eBooks, music, software etc as downloads, directly to your audience by sharing a link. Upon clicking the link, it would lead to a landing page (optimized across mobile, web & tablet) which carried information of the product like price, description, file size, file type, images and other relevant info.

This is how the home page looked like back then

Based on this we can assume the following features could have been a part of the roadmap back then

1. Create a profile for the users

2. Users being able to associate the profile with their goods and services listing with prices

3. Create a customized link and ability to share the link with customers

4. The link should be accessible by the buyers and buyers being able to view the listings of goods and services

5. Buyers being able to make the purchase and receive the items and bill

6. Sellers receive the payment made

Feature Prioritisation:

For the above-mentioned features to be plotted on a roadmap it is important to have a clear prioritization of each of the features.

1. It is important for any users to have a profile to add their details and information where the buyers can come and see

2. Sellers will now be able to create a customizable and sharable link to share with the buyers

3. Buyers can access the system and view their purchase information in their profile

4. Once the profile and account information is set up, the payment system is created for easy payment

Hence the roadmap for 2014 would look something like

Roadmap 2015:

Features:

1. Extend the goods listing to physical goods

2. Buyers should be able to track the goods delivery online

3. Integration with multiple payment options

4. Introduce user reviews and ratings for goods and services

Feature Prioritization:

1. Integration with multiple payments options to increase the ease of payment and increase adaptability

2. Enable user reviews and ratings to establish trust among the buyers

3. Extend the horizons to list physical goods and to enable the buyers to track them on their profile

To Summarize:

1. A roadmap is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it

2. A Roadmap drives self-awareness and provides a framework for success and a true north to keep working towards

3. We saw the example of Instamojo by creating a roadmap for the year 2014 and revisiting the roadmap for 2015

4. It is important to prioritise the features while defining them on the roadmap

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

How to Analyze Airbnb Performance Data in the Right Way

Exploring and Understanding Airbnb, its popularity, host listings and its future trends for the City of New York

Dealing with Bullies

We all have an innate sense of fairness — of what’s right and wrong. When that line gets crossed, I feel incensed. I get angry, at least inside. I remember it like it was yesterday. My best friend /…

The Entrepreneurial Lifecycle and Neurodivergence

A variety of different factors influence the entrepreneurial lifecycle, but one crucial element that can’t be overlooked is neurodiversity. Neurodivergent entrepreneurs have unique perspectives on…