Elon Musk pulled the plug on newsletter tool Revue this year. Revue was owned by Twitter. A painful decision for writers who had built on it for years. His reasoning: Revue did not contribute to Twitter's core business. On that point, we agree.

Removing is harder than adding

Even though Musk can be ad hoc, there is a useful lesson here. Removing things requires courage. Adding things is easier, but also often more expensive, especially with features.

How often do you hear: “This feature must be added”? It is a superpower to regularly ask the opposite: what can we remove?

“This feature must be added!”

When you remove things:

• It is easier to focus on what matters
• Your product becomes simpler and clearer
• You save time and maintenance costs
• Risk goes down because fewer things can break
• It is easier to differentiate from competitors

How we handle this

It is a superpower to regularly ask: what can we remove?

As a young company, you cannot always keep adding features. Resources are limited. A curse and a blessing.

When a customer asks for a feature, we usually do this:

• We research market demand and check if it fits our vision
• If it is a go, we implement it quickly and pragmatically
• We evaluate whether it creates the expected effect
• We decide to improve it or remove it

And this does not always apply only to features. Sometimes removing a customer can also be the right move.

Ironically, we did add a new feature.

New feature: rating places

Google Maps reviews by everyone and anyone… how useful is that to your specific audience? With this feature, you ask ratings from people in your own target group. It does not even have to be a general rating. Ask specific questions like: “How green is this schoolyard?” Useful for map makers and visitors alike 👏.

Hooray! Or maybe not? To practice what we preach, this feature was built quick and dirty. We will test whether it works. If not, we remove it.