What Product Leaders Wish Community Builders Knew About Roadmaps

# Role: Product

# Role: Community/DevRel

# Theme: Product Management & Feedback

# Challenge: Cross-Functional Alignment

Explore what product leaders want community builders to understand about roadmaps, and how the two functions can partner for GTM success.

December 4, 2025

Joshua Zerkel

Community builders and product leaders both serve the customer, but they often approach that responsibility from different angles. Community leaders focus on conversations, engagement, and advocacy, while product teams concentrate on features, roadmaps, and adoption. When these perspectives connect, companies gain a powerful advantage: roadmaps shaped by authentic customer voices and communities informed by realistic product trajectories. When they don’t connect, frustration builds on both sides.

Product leaders frequently point out that community can be a double-edged sword. Done well, it provides early signals, feedback, and advocates. Done poorly, it can set unrealistic expectations, amplify frustrations, or flood teams with unfiltered requests. Here’s what many product leaders wish community builders better understood about the roadmap process.

Roadmaps balance many inputs

Community feedback is important, but it’s not the only factor product leaders must weigh. They also consider technical feasibility, business priorities, and competitive dynamics. At Spotify, for example, user requests for playlist features are frequent and vocal, but the product team balances those inputs against licensing agreements and technical trade-offs. Community builders who understand this balancing act can help manage expectations.

Key takeaways:

Recognize that community input is one of many factors shaping roadmaps.

Help frame customer requests in the context of broader business priorities.

Educate members about how roadmap decisions are made.

Reinforce that not every idea can be implemented, even if it’s popular.

Volume doesn’t equal priority

The most-requested features are not always the most strategic. Product teams must assess which requests align with long-term goals. At Airbnb, for instance, hosts often request changes to policies or tools, but leadership prioritizes updates that support trust and safety — critical to the platform’s success. Community builders can help translate between volume and value, showing members how requests fit into the bigger picture.

Key takeaways:

Avoid positioning “most requested” as synonymous with “most important.”

Partner with product to explain how prioritization works.

Highlight when a small but strategic feature request gets prioritized to build understanding.

Use community insights to provide context, not just counts.

Timing is part of the equation

Even when a feature makes the roadmap, delivery is rarely immediate. Product teams juggle multiple initiatives and dependencies. Figma, for example, carefully sequences plugin improvements to align with design trends and platform scalability. Community leaders who communicate clearly about timing help prevent frustration and keep trust intact.

Key takeaways:

Share realistic timelines with community when product teams commit to features.

Manage expectations by emphasizing sequencing and dependencies.

Celebrate progress on interim milestones, not just final delivery.

Reinforce transparency to strengthen credibility.

Feedback needs structure to be useful

Unstructured feedback can overwhelm product teams. The most actionable input is specific, contextual, and tied to outcomes. Stripe’s product leaders, for instance, emphasize the value of detailed developer feedback, which informs not just what to build, but how to build it. Community builders can help by guiding members to provide structured, relevant input.

Key takeaways:

Provide templates or prompts for structured feedback in community.

Encourage members to share use cases, not just requests.

Aggregate themes to reduce noise before sharing with product.

Highlight high-quality feedback examples to set expectations.

Transparency builds trust, even when the answer is no

Community members don’t expect every request to be fulfilled, but they do expect honesty. Netflix, known for its culture of radical candor, applies this principle in product communication as well. When teams explain why something isn’t on the roadmap, it builds more credibility than silence. Community builders can model this transparency and help maintain trust.

Key takeaways:

Communicate clearly when a request is not moving forward.

Explain the reasoning to show respect for customer input.

Use “no for now” language when appropriate, with context on priorities.

Treat transparency as a trust-building exercise, not a risk.

Why this matters for GTM leaders

When product and community leaders collaborate effectively, they create a more accurate, customer-informed roadmap and a more engaged, realistic community. GTM benefits from both: products that fit market needs and customers who feel valued even when their requests aren’t prioritized.

Community builders don’t just surface requests — they translate them, contextualize them, and communicate them in ways that strengthen the partnership with product. That alignment leads to better roadmaps, stronger GTM execution, and greater trust with customers.

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Table Of Contents

What Product Leaders Wish Community Builders Knew About Roadmaps

Explore what product leaders want community builders to understand about roadmaps, and how the two functions can partner for GTM success.

Roadmaps balance many inputs

Volume doesn’t equal priority

Timing is part of the equation

Feedback needs structure to be useful

Transparency builds trust, even when the answer is no

Why this matters for GTM leaders

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