Last year, a friend of mine — a product manager at a growth startup — walked into his quarterly roadmap review feeling confident. He had elegant slides, validated customer requests, and sweet-looking design concepts. As he presented, he could see the polite nods around the table. When he finished, the CEO paused and asked:
“Okay, but how does this create value?”
My friend stumbled. He talked about customer happiness. He talked about reducing friction. He talked about better experiences.
The CEO pressed again: “Yes, but how does this create value for us?”
The meeting didn’t go well.
It turned out, the CFO’s eyes were on the financial forecast. The CRO was looking at pipeline. The CEO was thinking about the next funding round.
“Customer value” wasn’t enough for them.
And if we’re honest, many of us have been in that same spot.
It’s because there is a bottom line truth that no one talks about in Product Management:
At the end of the day, nobody funds, acquires, or promotes “customer delight.” They fund growth, profit, and valuation.
So, if we can’t connect our product decisions to those outcomes, we’re not creating value. We’re just creating noise. And everyone hates noise.
In this issue:
What the heck is “value creation”?
“Value creation” is one of those phrases we throw around in meetings, strategy decks, and Product Management discussions. We want to build products that “create value.” We tell our teams to focus on “delivering value.” We promise our executives that our roadmaps are “value-driven.” We organize our teams around “value streams.”
But are we all clear on what “value” actually means? Be honest.
More importantly, are we as Product Managers fully aligned with what the execs, founders, business owners, board, and investors consider as “value”?
Because I’ll tell you: at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.
When we’re not aligned on what delivers “value”, we risk working on the wrong things. We risk talking past decision makers and hiring managers. We risk doing a lot of work — shipping features, launching initiatives, iterating endlessly — without actually creating meaningful impact for the business.
And that’s how we get sidelined, ignored, commoditized, or placed in a box.
What does “value creation” really mean? (And what does it mean for Product Managers?)
Quite simply:
Value Creation is the act of making a business more valuable.
That’s it.
We do this by increasing revenue, assets, or market position, or decreasing expenses or liabilities, resulting in improved profits, ROI and, ultimately, the company’s valuation.
Let’s unpack this on two levels.
At the most fundamental level, businesses define value in very specific, measurable ways. There are universal standards of value creation that apply across companies:
Revenue and profits: Value is created when income exceeds expenses and cash comes in the door.
Assets and liabilities: Growing assets (like intellectual property or customer data) or reducing liabilities (like debt) creates measurable value.
Company valuation: For public companies, that’s reflected in stock price. For private ones, in valuation at the next funding round.
Return on investment (ROI): How much financial return the business generates for every dollar it puts in.
These are the hard metrics that owners, the board, investors, and executives care about.
Then there’s how an individual company defines value for itself. For example:
A Series A startup might prioritize short-term revenue growth or burn multiple to get to the next funding milestone.
A growth company might prioritize winning logo clients at unprofitable pricing, betting that will lead to long-term market traction.
A large enterprise might care most about stock price movement (because that’s how its executives, especially the CEO, are compensated).
A market leader might willingly sacrifice near-term profits to gain competitive market share, betting that dominance today means profitability tomorrow.
A PE-owned company might value metrics like EBITDA multiple, Free Cash Flow to Equity (FCFE), net debt-to-EBITDA, and industry peer specific multiples.
A company might prioritize initiatives that best position itself as a ripe target for a merger or acquisition.
The definition of value shifts with context. Our job as Product Management is to understand that context and align our product strategies to it.
The trap of “customer value”
We love to talk about customer value in Product Management. And we should. We know better than anyone else that without happy customers, we have no business.
Here’s the trap: we sometimes assume that creating customer value automatically creates business value. It doesn’t. Not always.
A delightful feature that saves customers five minutes a week might feel like “value.” But unless it leads to higher retention, increased expansion revenue, stronger acquisition, or some other business outcome, it won’t move the needle.
This is why our pet “customer value” features get deprioritized or unappreciated — because we haven’t provided a strong enough money argument for it.
That’s why our job isn’t just to create customer value — it’s to create monetizable customer value. It’s to connect the dots to show how that customer value translates into business value.
What this means for us as Product Managers
So how do we take this from theory into practice? Here’s how:
Define value in our company’s terms.
Don’t assume. Ask: how does our leadership define value right now? Is it revenue growth, margin improvement, valuation, market share, or something else?Translate customer outcomes into business outcomes.
When we talk about a feature, don’t stop at “it helps customers do X.” Go further: “It helps customers do X, which drives higher retention, which improves our LTV:CAC ratio, which directly impacts valuation.”Think in terms of ROI.
Every initiative is an investment. Estimate costs and expected returns. Even if the math is rough, it shows you’re thinking like an owner.Prioritize ruthlessly.
If a feature delivers “customer value” but no clear business value, it’s probably not the right priority right now.Tell the value story.
Executives don’t just want a list of features. They want to know the story: how your roadmap creates business value, step by step.
Your action steps
Here’s how you can put this into action this week:
Understand what is truly valued at you company, in your business, for your product.
Have a 1:1 conversation with your manager or a senior leader and ask: how does our company define value right now? Listen carefully. Adjust your language accordingly.
Review your current roadmap and ask: how does each initiative create business value?
Draft a one-liner for each big feature that links customer benefit → business outcome → ROI.
In your next stakeholder meeting, practice framing your updates in terms of ROI and valuation impact, not just features and timelines. (And get feedback.)
Bottom line
Customer outcomes only matter when they create business outcomes.
Our job as PMs isn’t just to make customers happy. It’s to turn that happiness into money, growth, and market power. Anything less is hobby work.
More bluntly: Either a business is worth more because of what we shipped, or it isn’t. For Product Management, value creation means building customer outcomes that directly translate into business outcomes — higher revenue, stronger retention, lower costs, or market growth — that increase the company’s overall ROI and valuation.
So, remember: if it doesn’t create ROI, it’s not value.
If we want real influence, we have to stop hiding behind fluffy language and start speaking the language of ROI, growth, and valuation. When we get this right, we stop being feature managers. We become business leaders.
And that’s how we make an impact that gets noticed — and rewarded.
That’s all for this week.
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
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Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers.