How to Build Your Product-Roadmap

For the last year, I’ve been building my business in 2 hours a day.

A common misconception is people think you have to go ‘all-in’ to create a viable business on the internet. Going all-in is step 10, not step 1. First, you must have something worth stepping into, it might sound (and feel) good to hand in your resignation but it’s a short-term dopamine hit and it leaves you with a long-term (money) problem.

The real win is having a brand that you can go all-in with, an established business that allows you to live the life you want. Then you have the freedom to do whatever you like. To do that, you need to create a game-plan, in tech that’s called a ‘product roadmap’.

How do you plan your first year of business alongside your day job? This is how:

Step 1: Getting your mindset right

Rewind to 2018, this was my (one-year) goals:

• Run a marathon
• Make $1 million this year
• Revonate my entire house

All of those things lacked one thing: realism.

It’s a mistake I’ve made far too many times. Here’s a realization I’ve had: Great plans are formulated by asking great questions.

I should have started with this: What do I want my Mondays to look like?

The reality is, you don’t need to build 12 products this year, have product launches every 2 seconds, and build a multi-million dollar business to feel good about your work, your future, and where you are. Well, I didn’t anyway. I thought I did until I asked myself how I wanted my life to look.

And that made me realize I didn’t need to make $1 million. Instead, $100,000 was a much simpler goal.

Ask yourself: how do you want your Mondays to look?

And you’ll likely find the answer isn’t a million miles away from where you are, so maybe the answer isn’t millions tomorrow, maybe it’s a little more this year.

That mindset, one of abundance and realism, one of knowing what will make your life better, is the best mindset to build your product-roadmap from.

Step 2: Your UVP

Building a product takes ALOT of work.

Starting from scratch is an uphill battle, instead, start from a place where you have a unique advantage, because you’ve been unknowingly working on your product for years. I call it your unique vantage point (UVP).

My first product was an evolution of what I’d been doing for years. I didn’t start out thinking I’d teach people with a 9-to-5 how to build a brand on the internet. But I’d been writing on Medium for 2.5 years and I’d learned a ton from the experience. I knew I wanted to help others like me who were struggling to write on the internet alongside their full-time job.

So I decided I’d create a product for that person: me right at the beginning of my journey.

So when thinking about creating your first product, don’t start from a blank slate, ask yourself these questions:

• What do I have experience in?
• What have I achieved in my life?
• What do people come to me for?

If you’re creating content already (and hopefully you are), if not, I wrote about that in a previous write-up, then there should be a natural evolution from the content you create to the products you build.

Your content should be the starter, your product is the main course.

Step 3: Find your ‘big idea’

If I’ve learned one thing as a Part-Time Creator it’s this: less is more.

Last year I decided to stick to one main product. I very nearly wrote a book and launched a new course last year, I announced both but decided to pull the plug later. Why? Because my attention was too stretched.

I couldn’t be everywhere at once and I felt the quality of the work would suffer. Something I didn’t want to happen. Instead, I decided to double down on the Medium Blueprint and forget everything else.

Remember: Less is more.

Better to execute one brilliant product than to have 7 half-baked ones.

Here’s how I think about prioritizing my products for 2024:

• What do I have a unique advantage in (see above)?
• What do I have the desire to create & shout about?
• What do I think I could build that would be unique?

It might take 6 months to build a product. I don’t want to be turning up every day and feeling rubbish about the process. Instead, I want to feel good about what I’m doing, I want to have a passion for the work.

So I prioritize:

1. The product I will enjoy building
2. The product I know my audience needs ( AKA it solves a problem they have).

Step 4: Time

I’ve found there is MUCH more to building a product than you first think. You might think it’s as simple as having a product in mind and building the thing. I thought the same until I launched my first product. Building the product is only half of the battle.

Here’s what it really takes to build and launch a successful product:

• Research and understand the problem you’re solving
• Plan the solution (your product)
• Building your product version 1
• Review the product version 1 and make adjustments
• Plan and design content
• Plan launch
• Write content for the launch
• Launch
• Iron out issues
• Review the product and make improvements

You see what you think might be a month to build something actually takes 6 months to plan, review, research, design, build and launch.

Hence the importance of getting the product (and the problem) right from the outset. The worst outcome is to spend 6 months building something nobody wants.

Pick something that you want to work on for 6 months, because as a Part-Time Creator, if you do it right, that’s how long it’ll take.

Conclusion

Running a part-time business on top of a full-time job and a full-time life is hard. But not impossible. And to be clear, my approach is not to work until 2 am to find the time. And it’s definitely about not spending all weekend behind your laptop and ignoring your family (a good life for me is a healthy mix of work and play).

Nope, instead, creating a part-time brand is about strategy. It’s identifying the activities that will give you your highest return and forgetting the rest. Do that and you’ll be a Part-Time Creator competing with full-time creators.