Isaac Dominic

I had a roadmap. Six months out. Every feature planned. Every milestone mapped. It felt responsible. It felt like I was running a real business.

Then I looked at it one day and realized I hadn't followed it in months. Not even close. Every week I was reacting to something a user request, a bug, a competitor move, a new idea. The roadmap was just a document I felt guilty about ignoring.

So I deleted it. Now I just have a list of things I might do. No dates. No promises. No guilt.

I get asked "what's next?" and I say "not sure yet, depends on what I learn this week." Some people seem uncomfortable with that. But I'm more honest with myself and my users than I ever was with a fake plan.

A customer told me my product was too expensive. Said they loved it but couldn't justify the price. I immediately started thinking about lowering it.

Then I looked at how they were using the product. They'd logged in twice in three months. Barely touched the core feature. Were essentially paying for something they weren't using.

They weren't saying it was too expensive. They were saying they weren't getting enough value. Those are completely different problems.

I didn't lower my price. I reached out and asked what they were actually trying to do. Turns out they'd misunderstood the whole point of the product. I spent 20 minutes on a call with them. They're still a customer.

We use AI to improve something in the process (mostly to speed up the process).

But whenever I see and suspect that something is generated by LLMs, I feel that the person on the other side has slopped it a bit (and subconsciously I perceive it as "something less").