vector research partners ( aka V4RP )
The Guide to Going Multi-Product: 11 Tactics for Tackling Your Next Bet
Founders and product leaders from Atlassian, Stripe, Gong, and more share their strategies for going multi-product — from managing extensive product lines to launching entirely new bets.
When to Go Multi-Product
Wait Until You’re “Pedaling at Half Speed”
Timing is one of the hardest parts of going multi-product. Expand too soon, and you risk losing focus. Wait too long, and you miss growth opportunities.
Max Rhodes, CEO of Faire, compares it to biking after a long uphill climb: “Don’t expand until you feel like you’re pedaling at half speed, comfortable with the progress in your core market.” Faire spent years strengthening PMF in its core product before expanding internationally and adding apparel.
Tara Seshan, early product lead at Stripe, sums it up simply: “Find the intersection of the moment and the opportunity.” Stripe stayed single-product until payments were fully working, fending off leads while maintaining high product quality.
Go Multi-Product Early Only With a Bulletproof Case
Sometimes early bets make sense:
- When a second product enhances the first: At Watershed, Seshan built multiple products early to create an integrated sustainability platform — carbon accounting alone wasn’t enough.
- To train growth muscles: Atlassian launched Confluence in its second year to complement Jira. Early multi-product experience helped the team learn cross-selling, pricing, and resource allocation.
Key questions before an early multi-product bet:
- How costly is it to test this hypothesis?
- How lean can we be?
- How soon will we know if it’s not working?
- Why must we do this now, not later?
Deciding What Else to Build
Cover More of Your Customers’ Workflows
Ryan Glasgow, founder of Sprig, draws from Figma’s strategy: after finding PMF with designers, they created FigJam to cover ideation and brainstorming, reducing tool-switching for users.
Ask yourself: what ancillary jobs can your core product solve? Avoid building tangential products that don’t connect with your audience.
Don’t Ignore Competition
Nate Stewart, former CPO at Cockroach Labs: competitors matter. Knowing where they’re strong and where you differentiate helps position new products and prioritize strategic investments.
Don’t Over-Index on Data
Some decisions require instinct. Tara Seshan cites Cash App: Jack Dorsey bet on empowering underbanked users long before spreadsheets could validate the market. Analytics get singles and doubles — intuition drives home runs.
Reframe Multi-Product as “Product Completeness”
Eilon Reshef, Gong co-founder, recommends focusing on product completeness rather than just adding products. The goal is solving the full business problem and competing successfully.
Use design partners continuously to refine your suite, even as the company scales. Gong’s multi-product lineup has evolved over 10 years with input from early and ongoing partners.
How to Execute a Multi-Product Roadmap
Allocate Resources by Risk
Noah Desai Weiss, former Slack CPO, recommends the 70:20:10 model:
- 70%: Core business
- 20%: New bets gaining traction
- 10%: Moonshots
This balances current performance with future opportunities and protects your core product.
Start Lean, Scale Incrementally
Thomas “Tido” Carriero, Segment and Dropbox veteran: start new products with small teams (3–5 engineers, a PM, a designer). Scale only once customer traction is validated through sales or qualitative feedback. Avoid bloated teams for unproven products.
Keep Pricing and Packaging Consistent
Giancarlo Lionetti, Zapier CRO, notes consistency across GTM motions helps sales. Atlassian applies the same pricing and packaging framework for every product — simplifying customer understanding and internal operations.
Be Prepared to Kill Your Darlings
Not every 20% or 10% bet succeeds. Todd Jackson, former Dropbox VP of Product & Design: if a product isn’t moving the needle, shut it down. Example: Dropbox retired Carousel to focus on SaaS revenue, a decision that helped the company achieve IPO-ready revenue predictability.
Rein in Shiny New Bets
Nikhyl Singhal, former Credit Karma CPO: don’t get distracted by new products at the expense of your core business. Strengthen your platform, teams, and processes first — then expand product lines. Hypergrowth is about scaling the core while adding new offerings, not chasing every bright idea simultaneously.
V4RP’s research shows that going multi-product is a mix of timing, customer insight, intuition, and disciplined execution. Balance your bets, focus on your core, and expand thoughtfully — that’s how founders consistently win at multi-product growth.
