Ask HN: Head Of/VP/CXO at a startup? Help me validate this idea. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Head Of/VP/CXO at a startup? Help me validate this idea.

2 pointsv1l5 comments

A common question that seems to get asked of product teams, especially in early & growth stage startups is: "when is <insert feature> shipping?" or "did <...> already ship?". A similar thing that happens is non-prod/eng teams not being aware that a thing they were waiting on is already shipped.

I know many of you will say this is a communication problem and not a tools problem. While that's largely true, I believe that tools can make this better visible.

I have an idea for a tool that connects the dev team's code repos to the project tool they use and in a neat dashboard answer the above questions. I also have ideas for how to abstract one level up from just tickets.

I need help understanding if I'm thinking of a solution looking for a problem or if something like this could actually help deliver value to some stakeholders -- especially non-prod/eng folks in a company, execs, and possibly even customers.

Release Notes?

VSCode is a good example. After the latest updates, the Recent Changes are surfaced when we open the editor.

That combined with a What's New? link should answer this question any time.

If the issue is customer/end-user view versus internal view of changes, you could put them in a separate section of the Recent Changes release note.

For status tracking in the pre-release/dev/testing stages (for eg., to answer your when is featureX shipping? question, wouldn't something like GitHub tags suffice?

How much of what you're suggesting is kept manually up to date?

All of it. It comes down to process followed by the dev team.

But, it is done at the time of writing the PR or requirement. For eg: "Add paid subscriptions" feature request. If you have, say, a markdown document that outline the feature request, it would be a simple matter to have a script pull specific tags to build your release note. A ProdMgr would own the release note anyway. So, it doesn't really matter.

My 2 cents, anyway. Others might have a different view.

agree, are you an engineer? Manager or IC?

Founder, CEO/CTO

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