How to write a PRD (Product Requirements Document) for startups?

When do startups start thinking “I wish I had written a PRD (Product Requirement Document)”? Rarely at the outset. When it is a business owner and a few colleagues, things are easily managed. 

However, when the team grows, things start getting out of hand:

– A team member from marketing says they forgot about a couple more fields to capture customer details. And the frontend and backend developers need to rewrite the code. And then also a database where this is going to be stored needs to change. Extra time, out of budget. 

– Halfway through the sprint, you realize that a feature is more what your team thinks a customer wants compared to what the customer actually needs. 

– Or when a meeting turns into a chaotic debate of very different ideas instead of a task-oriented discussion. 

In all these cases and more, a PRD is the solution. Product Requirement Document is a high-level document that describes everything important about your product in a plain (non-technical) language. And in this blog post, we’ll outline how to make sure writing a PRD ‘s yet another step that adds value to your startup. 

PRD vs SRD?

We’ve also written about an SRD document – Software Requirements Document. However, an SRD is more of a technical guide for the development team. In contrast, a PRD (Product Requirement Document) is owned by a Project Manager, and used across different departments. They are a sales team, marketing team, analysts, testers, and developers too. Therefore, it is called a high-level document because it lists overarching facts about the app instead of diving into technical details. 

It does include some level of specifics such as product success metrics. These are again overarching goals for the product team. However they must be communicated to all teams involved so that efforts are aligned. 

There might be other documents like the Marketing Requirements Document – MRD. This one would be specific for the marketing team. It will also include generics about the product alongside specific marketing metrics. 

Moreover, there might be a BRD – Business Requirements Document. This is more like an internal business plan for a specific initiative. It is usually done in large companies with many projects. It is mainly used for significant upgrades, design overhauls, and major feature additions. 

All in all, each Startup requirement document has its purpose. Yet, in lean agile development, you should ask yourself ‘does the next step like writing a PRD increase the value?’. The problem-solving mindset is key, and this is actually the main reason for writing PRD – to always remind everyone about the user problem. 

Problem 1: Shifting into solution(s) mode instead of problem-thinking

Let’s imagine building a productivity tool for teachers. They need a quick way to manage their lessons of different lengths, have time for lesson planning, and room for homework giving. The problem: difficulty in managing a set of tasks of different lengths. 

Moving into solutions mode, the team can drift away into adding functionality for teachers to manage lesson details. Then they might add functionality on managing student details, progress, etc. These features do seem important for teachers in general. Yet, they have little to do with the problem. 

Following the scenario, the team first wastes a lot of time discussing these solutions. A worse scenario is when they start building them. The worst case is when the team actually delivers those. Not only is it a complete waste, but also removing functionality is a challenge. 

This is probably the most important reason for writing a PRD for a startup. When resources need to be allocated effectively, you always get to say: Does this discussion/idea/feature solve our user problem? 

After all, if you Develop Custom iOS app or Develop Custom Android app, you would want to make sure that every effort counts and enhances your startup. And it only counts if it contributes to the startup’s ability to align its product-market fit.

PRD: Section 1 Purpose

In this section, you need to clearly state three following items:

• A user problem that your product solves;
• Your target user description;
• The alignment of your product with the startup’s strategic goals.

Problem 2: Misinterpreting what each feature should entail

Let’s look at the picture with the three options for ‘User profile’ functionality. They clearly differentiate in complexity and implementation. If your team didn’t have the features requirements and context, which one would they choose to do? 

The first simple one does not support a picture upload. Then it features an avatar from the first letters of First Name and Last Name fields. In addition, it also has a status field. 

The other two not only require backend work, they also differ in extra feature sets. Number 2 implements a dashboard view for two user-related components. Number 3 goes for tabs and more user inputs. 

We all know that requirements change from sprint to sprint. So, what if your product needs only option 1 but implementation evolves to Number 2 or 3?

If you write a PRD, you not only define the functionality required and set those in context. For instance, “User Profile functionality needs to be the most basic one based on analysts’ research that early adopters don’t care for complex profiles.“

In addition, product features should have a rationale. For instance, “having basic user profiles creates a sense of trust and security; it indicates that interactions happen among verified users.” 

Or, “having basic user profiles creates a foundation for future personalized offers and recommendations.” 

Having a rationale like one of these makes it clear why functionality is planned a certain way. In addition, it explains the context for making this particular choice among a multitude of others.

PRD: Section 2 Features

In this part of your Product Requirement Document, you might want to include:

• Description of functionality to develop;
• Context for each piece of functionality relying on research, user testing, and other data;
• Rationale on what value this feature brings to the product and user experience. 

Problem 3: What version of your app is releasable?

Let’s begin with an analogy. When you do your own renovations, it seems like a never-ending endeavor. You care a lot and do it for yourself. So as they say: you can never finish, you can just find a moment to pause. The same goes for your app when you build your own business. 

When building an app with colleagues who are all passionate about the product and its value, achieving a moment to pause is a challenge. The Product Backlog is only going to be growing as more functionalities can be improved, refactored, or optimized. So when is it good enough so that you can release it to your users?

So how can you ensure that your product is ready for release and every team member agrees? You do it with metrics to assess five key areas. 

They are:

• Functionality – measures readiness of all features as they solve the user’s problem. Metrics: Feature Completion Rate, Task Success Rate.
• Usability – is product user-friendly and enjoyable to interact with? Metrics: User Satisfaction Score, Error Rate.
• Robustness – is product stable when operating? Metrics: Uptime, Bug Rate.
• Performance – how fast and efficient is your product? Metrics: Page Load Time, Critical Task Response Time.
• Maintainability – do issues get reported? How fast are they fixed? Metrics: Log Quality, Mean Time to Resolve.

Who is responsible?

Each of these metrics require sign off of different specialists on your team. For example: 

• feature completion rate is the responsibility of Project or Product Manager. 
• User Satisfaction Rate falls in scope of UX designer launching a post-session ratings or other questionnaires. 
• Uptime is more of a DevOps area. 
• Backend engineers will focus on Critical Task Response Time.  

As such, you synchronize the effort to bring your app to release across many roles with the help of this section in a PRD. 

PRD: Section 3 Product Goals and Metrics

The exact metrics depend on what makes most sense for your product. However, in general you want to cover the basics in these five areas:

• Functionality;
• Usability;
• Robustness;
• Performance;
• Maintainability.

Problem 4: Shifting Deadlines and Unmet Expectations

Imagine agreeing with investors on a 6-months product release. As a business owner, you seem to have planned out everything. Your team is quite enthusiastic and you feel confident about meeting the deadlines. As months pass, you realize that some tasks are taking way longer than expected. Some integrations with payment services appear to present challenges. Lastly, you are cutting it close with testing. It is due to accumulation of small delays here and there. And during that testing, a few functionalities fail. Some might be fixed quickly with an overtime of your team. However, some will take much longer as they depend on a vendor. 

This scenario does not include the fact that startups feature release is constantly changing. So, features are being added or removed as new information or developments come to light. With all this, it is almost a crime not to have a project manager do their job of putting together and maintaining project timelines with a roadmap of functionalities.  

Who is responsible?

A Product Requirement Document is overall a Project Manager’s responsibility. This last section on project timelines and a product roadmap is the project manager’s bread and butter. This is where this role truly shines embedded into a document.

PRD: Section 4 Timelines and Product Roadmap

Product Requirement Document ends with the section that includes:

• Product Roadmap (including major design handoffs, feature releases, etc);
• Project Schedule with Milestones and Release Window;
• Dependencies (vendor deliveries, integrations, etc).

Features of Effective PRD

“By questioning all the aspects of our business, we continuously inject improvement and innovation into our culture.”

By Michael Dell

Often, how to write a Product Requirement Document is the choice of the Project Manager.  Universally, there is a checklist to make sure each Project Manager has done their best:

• Is there any way to make the user’s problem clearer, more relatable?
• Do all included features in the road map directly contribute to solving the user’s problem?
• Are there any other metrics that can capture product goals better and ensure actionable insight?
• Have I delivered my PRD to all stakeholders for review and accounted for all their feedback to align the teamwork?
• Can I measure success metrics more precisely?
• Have I excluded all the jargon and ambiguity to make the document’s understood singularly and unmistakingly for all stakeholders?

The checklist depends on each Project Manager to revise and correct. After all, after each project, there is a retrospective after each project. So each Project Manager individually can analyze things to improve and focus on for best outcomes. Yet, again, there are three universal tips which always hit the mark in writing an effective PRD.

Tip 1: Focus and Priorities

Take a critical look at features included in the roadmap. Are all of them aimed at solving the user’s problem? 

The quote might seem a bit harsh but there is truth to it:

“Any damn fool can make something complex, it takes a genius to make something simple.”

Pete Seeger, Product Director at Docusign

For an MVP, for a lean startup, complexity is the main enemy. Keeping your priorities straight is the best way to deliver a great product on time and on budget.

Tip 2: Clear language

There is an SRD for technicalities and details. A PRD is so that everyone sees things in the same way and are on the same page. Nothing kills the purpose like formal language, decorated speech, or expressions filled with jargon and abbreviations. The quote above works for this point as well.

Tip 3: Measurable and Actionable Metrics

There is always a standard set of metrics, but successful companies are selective about these and often come up with their own. For example:

• Netflix has its North Star metric – total hours watched divided by total hours in a movie or series. It quantifies the product quality.
• Dropbox tracks upload frequency and content access frequency to quantify user engagement. This is quite specific to their product and is a strong indicator that measures user engagement across different devices.

To summarize, keeping things focused, simple, and measurable is the key to having a lean effective PRD.

FAQ: Writing a PRD for Startups