How to prune product roadmap when users demand many custom workflows

Our early roadmap turned into a chaotic mess of custom requests from outspoken free users who wanted special integrations. We tried to build everything. That made us delay core stability updates for our paying customers.

We made a rule: no feature request goes onto the main product roadmap unless three different enterprise clients ask for it in one month. All other requests go into a backlog.

Our core application became faster and more stable. Our churn rate fell because our engineering focus matched our real revenue source.

Do not let loud community voices pull your product roadmap into directions that do not serve your paying customer base.

How do you decide which user requests deserve a spot, on your development schedule?