Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / Turning Community Feedback Into Product Roadmaps in Public
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment in every community manager's life where a member posts the same feature request for the fifth time, and you feel the collective sigh from the product team. But a small startup I've been following took a radically different approach—they just posted their entire product roadmap in a public Discord channel and said, 'Here's where we're going, here's why, and here's where your request lives.' Luna: That sounds terrifying. Like, here's all our unfinished thinking for the world to see. Lucas: It is terrifying, and that's exactly why most companies don't do it. But this company—let's call them FlowNote, a project management tool with about 12,000 users—found that the payoff was enormous. They reduced duplicate feature requests by about 70 percent in the first month because members could see, 'Oh, that's already in the exploratory lane, I don't need to post it again.' Luna: Wait—'exploratory lane'? So they didn't just dump a single list of everything they might build. Lucas: Exactly. They used a three-lane framework: committed, exploratory, and parked. Committed means we've allocated engineering time and we're building it—shipping date is within 90 days. Exploratory means we like the idea, we're researching it, but no guarantees. And parked means we've considered it and decided not to build it right now—maybe never, but we'll revisit if the signal changes. Luna: I love that they named the third lane 'parked' instead of 'rejected'. That's a really smart psychological framing. Lucas: It's crucial. Because if you call it 'rejected', you kill the conversation. But 'parked' implies it's on the lot, the keys are in it, we just don't have a driver right now. That keeps members engaged—they might come back with more data to move it to exploratory. And FlowNote found that the parked lane actually became the most active discussion area. Luna: Because people want to argue for their feature being unparked. It's like a friendly lobbying process, but entirely transparent. Lucas: Right. And the product team would comment in the thread: 'The reason this is parked is because our user research shows only 3 percent of active users would benefit, and it would delay the committed items by two months.' That level of honesty builds trust. One member even replied, 'Fair enough, I'd rather get the core improvements on time.' Luna: So the act of explaining why builds trust even when you say no. That's a lesson that applies way beyond software—any brand community could do this. Lucas: Absolutely. Let's take a non-tech example. There's a yoga studio in Portland—I think it's called Ember Yoga—that uses a public Trello board for class schedule planning. Members can see which class times are being considered, which ones are confirmed, and which ones were tried and dropped due to low attendance. They even have a 'member suggestion' lane where anyone can propose a new class type. Luna: A yoga studio with a product roadmap. That's brilliant. How did members react to seeing a class they loved get parked? Lucas: The owner told me that initially, a few people were disappointed, but because the board showed attendance numbers, they understood. One member said, 'I loved the 6 AM Vinyasa, but I see only four people came—I get it.' And then she started bringing friends. The public data actually motivated members to show up for classes they wanted to keep. Luna: So the roadmap becomes a call to action, not just a status report. That's a really powerful shift in the relationship between the brand and the community. Lucas: It's a co-ownership model. The community stops being a passive audience for product decisions and starts being a data source and a lobbying group. And the key is that the company has to be genuinely open to influence. If you put up a roadmap but never change it based on feedback, the community will see through it fast. Luna: That's the risk, right? You can't fake transparency. It's either real or it backfires. Lucas: FlowNote had one moment where a committed feature got delayed by two months due to an unexpected technical issue. They updated the Discord channel with a note: 'We hit a snag, here's what happened, here's the new ETA.' The community response was overwhelmingly supportive. One person said, 'Thanks for telling us before we asked.' That's the kind of trust you can't buy. Luna: Before we go on, I want to circle back to something you said about trust. These conversations—about roadmaps, about decisions, about why things get parked—they're exactly the kind of honest dialogue that makes this show possible in the first place. Lucas: Yeah, we've always believed that the best marketing doesn't sound like marketing. It sounds like people being straightforward with each other. And that's why we keep this show ad-free—so we never have to compromise that honesty for a sponsor message. If that approach resonates with you, and you want to help us keep it going, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: It's a small way to say 'I value this kind of conversation,' and it genuinely helps us stay independent. Alright, back to roadmaps—you mentioned FlowNote had a near-disaster with a delayed feature. Any other pitfalls? Lucas: One big one: the 'exploratory lane' can create false expectations. Some members see a feature in exploratory and assume it's coming, so they get upset when it gets parked later. FlowNote solved this by adding a disclaimer at the top of the channel: 'Items in exploratory are not guaranteed. We will explain our reasoning if they move to parked.' Luna: So the explanation is the key to managing disappointment. Don't just move it—tell them why. Lucas: Exactly. And that leads to another insight: the parked lane can be a source of future innovation. FlowNote had a feature that was parked for six months, but a community member kept posting user stories and mockups. Eventually, the data shifted, and the feature got unparked and built. That member became a beta tester and later a reference customer. Luna: So the public roadmap turned a frustrated user into an advocate. That's the dream scenario for any community manager. Lucas: Right. And it works because the system gives people a clear path to influence. They know exactly where their request is, what the criteria are for moving it forward, and how they can help. That's much more satisfying than a black box where requests disappear. Luna: I'm curious—does this approach work for every community size? I could see it scaling well for a few thousand members, but what about a community of 100,000? Lucas: Great question. FlowNote's community was about 3,000 active members. For larger communities, you'd need more structure—maybe a dedicated roadmap subchannel with a weekly digest, and a moderation team to summarize feedback. But the principles are the same: transparency, explanation, and a clear path to influence. I've seen it work for a 50,000-member gaming community, but they had to add a voting system to manage the volume. Luna: Voting system—like upvoting feature requests? Doesn't that just create a popularity contest? Lucas: It can, if you let it. But they weighted votes by engagement level—members who had been in the community longer and contributed more got heavier votes. It wasn't perfect, but it prevented a few loud voices from dominating. The important thing is that the roadmap was still the single source of truth, and every feature had a thread where you could see the discussion. Luna: So the roadmap becomes a living document that evolves with the community. I think that's the real takeaway—it's not about the tool or the number of lanes, it's about the commitment to being open. Lucas: Exactly. Whether you're a yoga studio with a Trello board or a SaaS company with a Discord channel, the act of sharing your thinking—the committed, the exploratory, and especially the parked—transforms your community from a focus group into a genuine partner. And that partnership is what makes a brand community durable. Luna: I think that's the note to end on. Next time you're wondering whether to share your roadmap, remember: your community probably already knows you're considering things. You might as well let them help. Lucas: And if they help, maybe they'll even forgive you when a feature gets parked. I'll take that bet.