In a startup, the roadmap is not a to-do list, it’s an ongoing decision about what you’re not going to work on. When the team is small, the main risk isn’t making a mistake on one bet, but spreading yourself across ten small bets that don’t change the outcome. That’s why prioritization must be a management system, not an endless discussion or an aesthetic exercise.
The first point is to separate “wishes” from “levers”. A lever is something that, if it works out, visibly changes a relevant business metric—for example, activation, retention, recurring revenue, or margin. If an initiative doesn’t have a metric it pushes, or you can’t explain why it pushes it, it’s not a priority, it’s noise. This doesn’t mean everything is measured to the cent, it means every bet has an impact logic.
From there, the most practical tool is prioritization by impact and effort, but properly understood. Impact isn’t “I like it”, it’s the size of the expected change if it works. Effort isn’t just hours, it also includes complexity, dependencies, technical risk, and coordination cost. The impact-effort matrix serves to rank, but the final decision isn’t made by the matrix, it’s made by management when they factor in opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost is the real price of choosing an initiative, because by choosing it you give up another one. In a startup, opportunity cost is usually greater than direct cost. If you put your best person on an internal improvement that saves time for two weeks, you might delay a product change that would increase retention. That trade-off doesn’t appear on the calendar, but it shows up in cash flow and growth. That’s why each initiative must answer two management questions: what do we stop doing if we do this, and what happens if we postpone it for four weeks.
A simple and effective operational method is to build the roadmap in three layers. The first layer is quarterly objectives—few, measurable, and connected to the business, for example “reduce churn”, “shorten sales cycle”, “increase activation rate”. The second layer is main bets, normally two or three, that explain how each objective will be achieved. The third layer is maintenance, the bare minimum to keep the system from breaking: support, stability, and unavoidable commitments. If maintenance eats up half the capacity, the problem isn’t the roadmap, it’s operational debt, and it must be treated as a strategic risk.
Finally, the roadmap needs a cadence. Weekly review to detect blockers and review capacity, and monthly review to adjust priorities if data changes. Changing isn’t failure, it’s management, but changing on impulse is.
The Economic Office of Galicia offers guidance to SMEs and self-employed individuals to strengthen business management, including key aspects such as internal communication, which is fundamental to the growth and competitiveness of Galicia’s business fabric.
