Feature factory vs PLG: are they different?
Over the weekend I saw quite an interesting post from an aspiring PM on Reddit asking the difference between feature factories and product-led growth. It got me thinking how many people think in boxes and non-dynamic lenses, so I thought I’d try to tackle the answer head on.
Is a feature factory the opposite of product-led growth?
These are completely opposite things but not in the way most people think.
A feature factory is a company that builds mostly based on random requests (we will build x and we can totally sign this big client!) This usually leads to spending time and waiting resources and money on things no one will use … and more often that not, that one big client then ends up churning, and you’re left with insurmountable tech debt for no reason.
The general rule of thumb is try to avoid these situations as much as possible as a product manager — but that may not always be the case.
Sometimes these deals are necessary to keep the company afloat. All product managers will find themselves in that position at one point or another. There will be situations in which these random feature requests are in fact necessary because the company needs to make money, albeit the risk of potentially serving that one customer more than the…
