Feature Requests: The Language of "Nice-to-Have"

In a tech company, everyone has ideas. But if you ask for everything at once, you'll never ship anything. This is called Scope Creep. Learning how to categorize and suggest features is a vital skill.

Categorizing Requests

When discussing new ideas, teams usually use these three labels:

1. Must-have (Requirement): The product cannot launch without this. It is "mission-critical."
2. Should-have: Important, but we could survive a few days without it.
3. Nice-to-have (Feature Request): A great idea that would improve the product but isn't urgent.

How to Suggest Features Politely

Engineers and PMs are often stressed about deadlines. Use "soft" language to suggest ideas without sounding like you are demanding more work:

• "I'm wondering if we could add a search bar here?"
• "It might be worth considering a dark mode in the future."
• "Would it make sense to allow users to export their data?"
• "This is just a nice-to-have, but what if we added emojis?"

Responding to Requests

If someone asks you for a feature and you don't have time, use these "Silicon Valley" phrases:

• "Let's put that in the backlog for now." (We'll do it later).
• "That's out of scope for this sprint." (We aren't doing that right now).
• "Let's park that idea until after the launch." (Let's stop talking about it for now).

Alex's Tip: Before you ask for a feature, ask yourself: "Does this help us reach our North Star Metric?" If the answer is no, it's probably a "nice-to-have" that can wait.

These three words are constantly confused.

• Revenue is the money a company earns from selling its product. (Top line.)
• Profit is the money left after all costs are paid. (Bottom line.) Many fast-growing startups have high revenue but are not profitable.
• Valuation is what investors believe the company is worth. A startup can be worth $1 billion on paper (a unicorn) while losing money every month.

So never say our revenue is our valuation or we are profitable because our valuation is high. These are three separate ideas.

Capital and equity

• Capital is money used to grow the business.
• Equity is ownership. Founders and early employees often receive equity (shares) as part of their compensation.
• Bootstrapped means a company grows without outside investment, using its own revenue. Mailchimp famously bootstrapped for years before selling for $12 billion.

Common mistakes

1. Saying burn for revenue. Burn is money spent, not earned. Say our monthly burn is $50K, not our monthly burn is $50K in sales.
2. Calling every round a Series A. The first institutional round is usually the seed. Series A comes after early traction.
3. Confusing valuation with cash. A $1 billion valuation does not mean the company has $1 billion in the bank. It is an agreed belief about future value.

Practice

Calculate and correct:

1. A startup has $900,000 in the bank and burns $75,000 per month. What is the runway?
2. Fix the sentence: "Our burn rate is the money we earn each month."

Answers:

1. $900,000 / $75,000 = 12 months of runway.
2. Correction: "Our revenue is the money we earn each month. Our burn rate is the money we spend."

You now have the money vocabulary that every startup conversation relies on. In the final lesson of this course, you will learn how to ask clear, professional clarifying questions in standups and meetings.