How We Shipped 12 Features in 30 Days (And What We Learned)

Key Takeaways

• Shipping features fast doesn’t mean sacrificing quality—use frameworks like RICE to prioritize effectively.
• Break down features into smaller milestones to maintain momentum.
• Automation is your best friend for QA and deployments.
• Effective communication ensures your hard work gets noticed.

Introduction

Shipping 12 features in 30 days might sound like a recipe for chaos, but at SimpleDirect, we pulled it off with surprising efficiency—and without burning out our team.

If you're a product manager or founder, you know how shipping features quickly and effectively can accelerate growth, improve customer satisfaction, and keep your team motivated.

But here's the catch: speed alone isn’t enough. You need a system that keeps everyone aligned, ensures quality, and avoids technical debt.

In this article, we’ll break down exactly how we shipped 12 features in one month, the challenges we faced, and the lessons we learned. By the end, you’ll have a framework to apply to your own team—whether you're a scrappy startup or scaling SaaS.

Why Shipping Quickly Matters

Shipping features rapidly doesn’t just make your team look productive—it directly impacts your bottom line. Here’s why it matters:

• Customer Retention: Regular updates show customers that your product is evolving and that you’re listening to feedback. According to a 2023 Product-Led Growth Report, 76% of SaaS users say they are more likely to renew subscriptions if a product ships frequent, meaningful updates.
• Competitive Advantage: In today’s fast-moving SaaS market, time-to-market is everything. Being the first to roll out a new feature can mean the difference between leading the market and playing catch-up.
• Team Momentum: Shipping frequently keeps your team motivated. Small wins build morale, while long, drawn-out development cycles can lead to frustration and burnout.

But shipping fast without a clear plan? That’s where things can go wrong—fast. Let’s break down the framework we used to ship 12 features in 30 days without compromising on quality.

The Framework: How We Did It

Here’s the exact system we used to ship 12 features in one month. It’s broken down into five key steps:

1. Define the Right Goals (Not All Features Are Equal)

Before writing a single line of code, we started by defining clear goals for the month. Our guiding principle was simple: impact over volume.

We prioritized features that:

• Solved high-frequency customer pain points (based on support tickets and feedback loops)
• Enhanced adoption of existing features
• Could be shipped with minimal dependencies or risk

How we prioritized:
We used the RICE framework (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to score and rank feature ideas. Here’s a sample from our internal prioritization table:

By focusing on features with the highest RICE scores, we ensured we were spending time on things that would move the needle.

2. Break Down Features Into Smaller Deliverables

One of the biggest reasons feature development drags on is scope creep. To avoid this, we broke each feature into smaller, shippable milestones. For example:

• Feature: In-app notifications
  • Milestone 1: Backend logic for notifications
  • Milestone 2: Basic notification UI
  • Milestone 3: User preference settings

Each milestone was treated like a mini-feature, complete with its own timeline, QA process, and release notes. This allowed us to ship incremental improvements instead of waiting weeks for a "perfect" feature.

3. Daily Async Standups and Weekly Sprints

With a distributed team across four time zones, communication could have been a bottleneck. To keep everyone aligned, we relied on the following practices:

• Daily async standups: Each team member shared updates in a shared Slack channel, answering three questions:
  • What did I work on yesterday?
  • What will I work on today?
  • Any blockers?
• Weekly sprint planning: Every Monday, we reviewed progress, adjusted timelines, and re-assigned tasks where needed. Instead of rigid plans, we embraced flexibility—a key factor in hitting our 30-day target without unnecessary stress.

4. Automate Testing and Deployment

Manual testing and deployments can slow you down and introduce errors. To speed things up, we automated as much as possible:

• Automated QA testing: 85% of our test cases were covered by automated scripts, which reduced manual testing time by 60%.
• CI/CD pipelines: Every code commit was automatically tested, reviewed, and deployed to staging environments. This allowed us to deploy updates multiple times a day without developer bottlenecks.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how CI/CD impacted our workflow:

5. Communicate Updates Effectively

Shipping features is only half the battle. If users don’t notice or adopt them, all that effort goes to waste. That’s why we focused heavily on effective changelog communication.

Here’s what worked for us:

• Clear, user-focused changelogs: Instead of technical jargon, we wrote updates from the user’s perspective. Example:
  • Before: “Implemented API V2 for enhanced webhook functionality.”
  • After: “You can now automate workflows more easily with our updated API!”
• Multi-channel announcements: We shared updates via email, in-app notifications, and our blog to maximize reach.
• Real-time feedback loops: After each feature launch, we monitored user feedback (via support tickets and NPS surveys) to identify issues and opportunities for improvement.

Real Example: Shipping Our Enhanced API in 7 Days

One of the standout features we shipped during this sprint was our Enhanced API webhook system. Here’s a breakdown of how we did it:

Results:

• Reduced webhook setup time for customers by 40%
• Increased API adoption by 22% within the first two weeks
• Zero major bugs reported post-launch

Lessons Learned

While we’re proud of what we accomplished, we also made a few mistakes along the way. Here are the key takeaways:

1. Focus on fewer, high-impact features: In hindsight, we could have cut a few low-priority features to reduce workload.
2. Don’t skip user feedback: One feature had to be rolled back because we misunderstood customer needs. Always validate assumptions before building.
3. Celebrate small wins: Regularly recognizing team milestones kept morale high and momentum strong.

How to Get Started

If you’re ready to start shipping faster, here’s how to get started:

1. Create a prioritized feature list using the RICE framework.
2. Break down features into smaller milestones to avoid scope creep.
3. Automate testing and deployments to save time and reduce errors.
4. Communicate updates effectively to ensure users adopt your features.

Need a tool to streamline your product updates and changelog communication? SimpleDirect makes it easy to create user-friendly changelogs, prioritize features, and keep your team aligned. Try it for free today.

Ready to transform how your team ships features? Start with SimpleDirect today.

Meet the Author: SimpleDirect Team

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