One of the hardest parts of running a growing SaaS business is deciding what not to build. As your customer base grows, so does the flood of feature requests. That’s a good thing. It means people care. But it’s also a trap.
At appointmed, we serve over 2,500 practices in the German-speaking market, and receive a ton of requests every month. Many of them make sense. Some don’t. But even the reasonable ones often only benefit a very specific subset of customers. For everyone else, they’re just extra buttons and settings cluttering the interface, making the product harder to use.
So, how do we handle this?
The Trap of Taking Feature Requests at Face Value
The key to building a great product is to listen to customers. That’s no secret. But this is where many companies lose their way.
It’s easy to see a feature request and think, “They’re asking for this, so let’s build it. Only takes us a day.”
But that’s not how great products are made. Instead of taking requests at face value:
- Write them down and track demand.
- Look for patterns. Are multiple people trying to solve the same problem in different ways?
- Work backwards from the real need. Customers often ask for a specific feature, but what they really want is a better way to achieve an outcome.
Sometimes, what users ask for isn’t practical. Other times, there’s a far better solution they haven’t thought of. Your job isn’t just to give them what they request. It’s to give them what they need.
When Products Try to Please Everyone
A common mistake is treating every request as a must-have.
Over time, this leads to bloated software, packed with endless settings, toggles, and features that few people use. Instead of feeling simple and intuitive, the product becomes overwhelming.
We’ve all seen this happen. Look at older enterprise software. Products that started out solving a core problem but kept adding layers of complexity to satisfy every request.
Eventually, they became so cluttered that they required training sessions just to use them. That’s not the kind of product we want to build.
The Business Impact: Simplicity Wins
At appointmed, we serve therapists, not tech experts. Most of our customers are non-technical, and yet, after just 15–20 minutes in the app, they feel like pros. That’s because we’ve deliberately kept the experience simple, avoiding unnecessary complexity while still delivering what matters.
For everything else that borders complexity, we have helpful tooltips, a guided onboarding, and a comprehensive help center to ensure users can find answers without frustration. The result? Happier customers, fewer support tickets, and a product that continues to grow without becoming harder to use.
The Real Challenge: Going Beyond the Request
The goal is to go deeper than surface-level requests. A great feature should solve real problems without getting in the way of other users. The best products feel effortless. They don’t overwhelm with options. They give customers what they need. Often before they even realize they needed it.
That’s the kind of product worth building.
