A lot of people wonder: At Plane, how are we solving such a complex problem, in such a massive space, that should take decades to figure out?
When we build products, our first job isn’t to code. It’s to see and observe
At Plane, we follow a specific process. Every single time we asked ourselves why we keep coming back to the same approach, we realized — it’s a tiny little framework we’ve built.
Step 1 🔭 Map the problem landscape We start by drawing the terrain — what’s broken, what’s blocking, what’s slow. If we can’t outline the edges of the problem space, we aren’t ready to build.
Step 2 🎯 Put on the customer lens Then we zoom in: who are we really building for? Not “everyone with X,” but a specific customer we can describe in one sentence. That lens keeps us from drifting into “builder fantasy.”
Step 3 🔍 Do the lensing This is where the map and the lens overlap. Priorities pop out, and we cut ideas that don’t serve our chosen customer. We’ve killed many “cool” features here — and every time it saved us months of wasted work.
Step 4 🌳 Grow the product tree We lay out the work as a tree:
- trunk = the core job
- branches = outcomes
- twigs = features
If the tree bloats, we don’t fight it. We split it into a new tree. That’s how single products evolve into an ecosystem, and eventually, a platform.
Step 5 🗺️ Build the product map Every tree rolls up into a Product Map: problem → outcome → approach → success metric. A clean snapshot. If it doesn’t fit, we’ve lost the plot.
⚡ Guardrails we always return to:
- First principles > folklore
- Phase > scope
- Stay rooted in the customer > chasing shiny objects
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐩: 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞 → 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬 → 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 → 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞 → 𝐦𝐚𝐩. It keeps the work clean, the customer close, and the product scalable.
At Plane, we do this all the time! I might draw the map, but Gaurav Chanchal is often the one holding the lens steady, keeping us honest about who we’re actually serving. Sharing away our raw product map of Plane Projects.