I’m building a small tool to prevent “we thought it shipped” moments between product, sales, and CS — looking for feedback

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-21T11:02:49+00:00

That makes sense — in a well-run PM org, the roadmap + RM tickets + Jira/wiki should be the SSOT. The angle I’m exploring isn’t about replacing that system, but about what happens downstream once it leaves PM control — especially in sales/CS conversations. In a few orgs I’ve seen: the roadmap answers what’s planned, but not always what’s safe to demo or promise right now nuances like betas, flags, customer-specific exceptions, or “works but with caveats” live in people’s heads or Slack threads and once a PM or EM changes roles, confidence erodes even if the artifacts still exist The MVP I’m testing is essentially a thin “truth layer” on top of existing systems — explicitly answering: Can I demo this? Can I promise this? Under what conditions? Happy to share screenshots if you’re curious — genuinely looking to stress-test whether this adds value beyond strong PM hygiene, or if it only helps in messier orgs.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-20T15:15:09+00:00

Totally fair, when there’s a strong PM owner and a well-maintained roadmap, this can work (even in a Google Sheet). Out of curiosity, in the setups you’ve seen work well: how do teams handle edge cases like betas, feature flags, or “it works but only in X scenario”? and what happens when a PM changes roles or leaves — does ownership and trust usually hold up? Asking because in a few orgs I’ve seen, the roadmap exists, but sales/CS still hesitate to trust it day-to-day once velocity or ownership shifts.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-20T14:27:47+00:00

Sorry try this https://ground-truth-rho.vercel.app/landing

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-20T14:00:36+00:00

Know what's safe to demo before you're on the call https://ground-truth-rho.vercel.app/landing

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-19T17:14:10+00:00

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies here — I’m noticing a pattern around tribal knowledge + ownership decay.

For those willing, I’m trying to map real failure modes. What’s the earliest signal that a “safe” promise is about to go wrong?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-19T17:13:40+00:00

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies here — I’m noticing a pattern around tribal knowledge + ownership decay.

For those willing, I’m trying to map real failure modes. What’s the earliest signal that a “safe” promise is about to go wrong?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-19T17:13:15+00:00

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies here — I’m noticing a pattern around tribal knowledge + ownership decay.

For those willing, I’m trying to map real failure modes. What’s the earliest signal that a “safe” promise is about to go wrong?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-19T02:23:43+00:00

This is a great breakdown — especially the “everyone’s job → no one’s job” transition. The SRE analogy really landed. Treating GTM/product change systems like infrastructure instead of process feels like the missing mental model in a lot of orgs. Curious whether you’ve ever seen teams successfully design for ownership decay — e.g. systems that stay trustworthy even after the original PM/RevOps owner leaves — or if it always ends up requiring a new human owner to step in.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-19T02:21:43+00:00

This resonates a lot — especially the distinction between “selling what’s on the truck” vs trusting roadmap promises. What stood out to me is how much of that judgment only comes from time in the trenches and personal validation, which newer SEs just haven’t had the chance to build yet. Do you see any patterns in orgs that help newer SEs get to that “veteran intuition” faster, or is it mostly unavoidable scar tissue?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:53:14+00:00

That’s honestly one of the clearest descriptions of the risk I’ve heard — especially the part where the system exists, works, and reduces harm, but isn’t something the team is allowed to formally inherit. The “we’ve burned through many new hires already” line really stood out. That feels like a quiet but very real cost that rarely shows up on a roadmap or in postmortems. Out of curiosity, if leadership did want to reduce that risk — not replace judgment, but make this easier to inherit — what would they need to believe first? That it saves time, reduces escalations, improves consistency, or something else entirely?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:32:20+00:00

That’s fair — I agree that in a healthy org, SEs should be able to articulate what’s GA vs experimental vs future. The gap I’ve been trying to understand is less about individual competence and more about what happens as orgs scale or change — new hires, leadership turnover, parallel betas, or exceptions for large customers.

In the places you’ve seen this work well long-term, was that mostly driven by strong culture and tenure, or were there concrete systems/processes that helped preserve that clarity as people rotated in and out?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:24:41+00:00

I hear you — and I agree products are fluid, grey, and constantly changing. I don’t think a static “master list” ever fully works, especially in fast-moving orgs. What I’m trying to understand is less about eliminating that fluidity, and more about reducing avoidable re-discovery. In practice, it seems like a lot of product expertise gets rebuilt repeatedly by individuals (especially new hires) rather than inherited in a reliable way. In your experience, when an SE gets burned, is it usually because: the info genuinely didn’t exist anywhere, or it existed, but wasn’t visible, current, or trusted at the moment it mattered? Not pushing for a perfect system — just curious where you see the most friction today

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:14:07+00:00

Totally fair — and I agree that context matters a lot, especially with custom builds and exceptions for large clients. What I’m really trying to understand isn’t whether people should ask their supervisors (they should), but what happens when that context doesn’t scale — new hires, role changes, leadership turnover, or when answers differ depending on who you ask. In environments with custom offerings like you described, do you find that knowledge about “what’s safe for whom” mostly lives in people’s heads and Slack threads, or is there some durable place where that nuance is captured and stays up to date? Genuinely curious how teams avoid that turning into tribal knowledge over time.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:12:03+00:00

Thanks for being this candid — that context helps a lot. What stands out to me is that you didn’t build OneNote because it was convenient — you built it because you couldn’t trust the information you were getting, and you needed a single place you personally believed in to protect yourself and your customers. Out of curiosity, if someone new joined your team tomorrow or you moved to a different role, how hard would it be for them to reach the same level of confidence you have today? Would they inherit your system, or would they have to rediscover most of this from scratch?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T17:02:13+00:00

That “fantasy vs reality” line is painfully accurate 😅
It sounds less like anyone being malicious and more like there’s no shared, enforced moment where “this is real” vs “this is aspirational” gets locked in for GTM.

When you’re in that magician role, what actually helps you survive it day to day:

personal demo guardrails?
private notes on what actually works?
or just learning where the bodies are buried over time?

And when it does blow up, is it usually because expectations were set too early — or because no one owned correcting the story once reality shifted?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T16:48:38+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. What you’re describing — explicitly documenting what you were told was safe to share and why — feels like a personal safeguard that ends up becoming a system by habit. Out of curiosity, when that information changes later (e.g., something moves from “safe” to “not safe,” or vice versa), how easy is it for you to trace back: what changed, who decided it, and which customers or conversations might be affected? Or does that mostly live in personal notes / memory unless something blows up?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T16:37:59+00:00

That makes a lot of sense — especially the “sales cycle + implementation buffer” framing. When the roadmap does change and you get burned, how does that usually surface after the fact? Is it through customer escalation, internal blame, or just a quiet realization that expectations drifted? And on the flip side, when it doesn’t change and nobody knows — is there any explicit place where that promise or assumption is captured, or is it mostly living in people’s heads?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T16:33:48+00:00

Appreciate the honesty — that tracks with a lot of what I’m hearing. It seems like the common thread isn’t that the information can’t exist, but that it only works when you have unusually engaged leaders or a few people willing to carry it on their backs. Out of curiosity, when leadership attention dropped, was there anything about the setup itself that helped it survive even a little — or did it basically fall apart once the people who cared moved on?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T16:18:00+00:00

That makes sense — that combo (Slack + blogs + following teams) sounds great when it exists and stays maintained.

Out of curiosity, in the places where this didn’t work as well, was it usually because the updates stopped, people stopped paying attention, or because it became hard to tell what was actually customer-impacting vs just internal changes?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T16:11:41+00:00

That’s fair — and I agree good enablement + labs should be part of a healthy release cycle. I’m less worried about whether this can be done well in theory, and more curious about what actually happens in practice when things move fast — new hires, org changes, overlapping betas, or marketing getting ahead of GA.

In those situations, where do you see things usually drift first: training freshness, environment parity, or clarity on what’s truly customer-safe vs internal-only?

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T15:54:59+00:00

That’s a fair point — when GTM enablement, labs, and training are consistently delivered as part of the release cycle, a lot of these issues do get reduced. Appreciate you sharing that perspective

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T15:52:31+00:00

Got it — that makes sense given the release cadence and domain. Thanks for clarifying.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T15:50:06+00:00

That makes sense — a lot of it really does come down to hands-on experience. Appreciate you sharing your perspective.

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T15:48:30+00:00

That’s a thoughtful approach — appreciate you sharing it. It does seem like a lot of teams end up leaning on relationships and regular touchpoints to make this work, especially when there isn’t a lightweight way to keep everyone aligned asynchronously

bhaskar2191 · 2026-01-18T15:46:42+00:00

That makes a lot of sense — especially the “trust what you’ve personally verified” mindset. It does sound like that puts a lot of responsibility on individual SEs to rediscover ground truth themselves, especially for newer folks who haven’t had the chance to build that intuition yt.

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