ProductFTW #31: Product Debt

In the product world, we hear a lot about technical debt, but have you ever heard of product debt? These two concepts are often tied together, but not all technical debt is product debt, and not all product debt is technical. Both, however, have the same outcome: they slow down future development.

So what is product debt?

Product debt is the accumulation of decisions you’ve made as a product leader that, over time, start to degrade the user experience or cause friction in the product. Now, you might be thinking, “Wait, what? I make decisions every day, that doesn’t mean they’ll eventually degrade the user experience.” But here’s the catch: they could, especially if you’re not keeping track of UX trends, what competitors are doing, or what’s happening in the industry.

Here are a few common examples of product debt:

• Feature bloat: Continuously adding features without removing unnecessary or outdated ones.
• Unaddressed UX issues: Prioritizing other features above fixing strange or frustrating user experiences.
• Outdated decisions: Failing to revisit decisions to ensure they’re still relevant and helpful.
• Unnecessary customizations: Making one-off tweaks for a specific user or customer that don’t benefit the broader user base.

Why does product debt matter?

When I joined a small cybersecurity startup, I inherited a B2B portal where companies could upload data to monitor across the dark web. It was one of the first self-service tools in the space, and the company had moved fast to get it out there. But that speed came at a cost: they hadn’t spent much time thinking about the user experience. The result was a confusing product. Other startups in the space were growing quickly and outpacing us, not because they had better features but because their tools were easier to use. Despite having the same capabilities, we were losing customers because our product was harder for them to navigate.

Product debt doesn’t just hurt you financially. Like tech debt, it can slow you down. Every time you build new features, you’ll have to work around those unaddressed items, or worse, you’ll have to build them into the new features. If you don’t tackle it early, product debt will come back to haunt you.

How to address product debt

So, how do you tackle product debt before it takes over? Here are a few steps to help you keep things under control:

Audit your product
Regularly review your product to identify areas where debt has accumulated. This might involve usability testing, looking at analytics, or just stepping back and using the product from the perspective of a new user. Where are users getting stuck? Where have you added features that no one uses? Find those areas and start making plans to address them.

Prioritize debt reduction
Similar to how you prioritize reducing technical debt, you must actively work on reducing product debt. Add specific tasks to your roadmap dedicated to fixing these issues. Whether it’s simplifying workflows, revisiting old decisions, or removing unnecessary features, you’ve got to make time for debt reduction in your sprints.

User-centered cleanups
When cleaning up product debt, involving your users is a good idea. Talk to your customers, gather feedback, and see where they’re experiencing frustration. The things that seem small to you are often the most painful for your users. Fixing those seemingly minor issues can have a huge impact on overall satisfaction.

Revisit decisions and assumptions
The decisions you made when launching the product might not hold up over time. Make it a habit to revisit these assumptions regularly. Are your features still solving the right problems? Is the user flow still aligned with modern UX standards? Is the market shifting in a way that should change your priorities? A product is never “done,” the more you adapt and evolve, the better.

The cost of ignoring product debt

Ignoring product debt isn’t really an option if you want to build something sustainable. The longer you leave it, the more it compounds. Features become harder to implement, user churn increases, and your product falls behind the competition.

In my case, ignoring those UX issues in the cybersecurity startup didn’t just slow us down; it allowed our competitors to outpace us. While we struggled with an increasingly confusing product, they focused on ease of use, and today, they’re still thriving. We ended up taking an exit, but I can’t help but think that if we had addressed our product debt earlier, things might have gone differently.

Product debt is a silent killer in the product world. It sneaks up on you, and if you’re not careful, it can seriously hurt your product’s chances of success. The good news is that it’s manageable. By regularly auditing your product, involving users in cleanup efforts, and revisiting past decisions, you can keep product debt in check and ensure your product continues to thrive.

So, the next time you plan your roadmap, make sure you carve out time to tackle product debt. Your users (and your future self) will thank you for it.

About ProductFTW

ProductFTW is a weekly newsletter about product management, with a focus on real-life experiences in startups. We want to help product leaders be successful by giving realistic approaches that aren’t for giant tech companies. We know you don’t have a full-time product designer on each team. We know your software probably hasn’t been used by millions of people worldwide–yet. We’re here to bridge the content gap from building your product and team to scaling it.