How Productboard Grows

It's one of the highest valued companies in the product management tool space - so I had to go deep: from story to how they build product and competition. Here's everything you need to know

Talk to product leaders at world-class companies, and they'll tell you: Productboard is becoming an essential tool in their stack.

Salesforce, Zoom, VMWare, Autodesk… they all use it to build their products.

With an enterprise client list as long as the S&P 500, Productboard has established itself as a premier tool for product managers.

In today's deep dive, we're breaking down one of the most interesting product management platforms on the market.

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Today’s Post

I've interviewed 7 Productboard leaders, talked to 3 customers, 6 customers of competitors, and read everything available about the company. Now, I’m ready to present my analysis:

1. Productboard’s Story

2. 🔒 How Productboard Builds Product

3. 🔒 The 7 Layers of Productboard’s Growth

4. 🔒 How Productboard Wins in a Competitive Market

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Part 1 - Productboard's Story

Chapter 1 - From a Product Manager's Pain

The story begins in 2014 when Hubert Palan, then VP of Product Management at GoodData, felt the pain of scattered product feedback and roadmap planning across various tools:

"I was spending more time managing spreadsheets and presentations than actually talking to customers and building products. There had to be a better way."

In fact, the idea for Productboard came to him while trying to update product roadmaps using airplane wifi. As he struggled with disparate spec sheets and presentations, he realized there had to be a more effective solution.

This pain point led him to create Productboard with Daniel Hejl. Their vision: build a dedicated system of record for product management.

Hubert and Daniel in the early days.

Hubert and Daniel in the early days recognized a universal problem. Product managers were cobbling together solutions from disparate tools.

Engineers had JIRA. Sales had CRM. But PMs had nothing purpose-built for them.

Chapter 2 - Finding Product-Market Fit

The team launched for their public debut at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2016.

Productboard's initial focus was simple: help product managers consolidate and make sense of customer feedback. But the team quickly realized this was just the beginning.

As Hubert explains:

"Feedback itself is the answer. Consolidating insights is powerful, but teams need more than a place to collect it — teams need a way to make sense of it and act on it. Feedback, prioritization and roadmapping are not separate processes. They are just one part of a continuous loop."

The platform evolved to address three core problems:

1. Centralizing customer insights

2. Prioritizing features strategically

3. Communicating roadmaps effectively

Their early success came from product managers at mid-sized tech companies who were drowning in feedback across Slack, email, and various other channels.

Palan recognized that teams were "building what they think is right, without confirmation if they're even solving the right problems. Product teams too often lack a single place to consolidate insights, connect them to decisions and align everyone on exactly what to build."

By 2018, they were able to raise a $8M series A from Kleiner Perkins (which they extended with an additional $10M the year later).

Martin Felcman, who joined shortly after as Senior Director of Product, recalls the early traction:

"We had strong product-market fit. We were successful with digital-first, high-value SMBs and had early signs of adoption in mid-market and early enterprise segments—primarily from customer-centric B2B organizations."

The company's mission at that point was clear: unlock Productboard as a system of record and expand from serving 3-5 teams to 15-50 teams within organizations.

Chapter 3 - Evolving the GTM Engine

By 2019, Productboard had gained significant traction, raising a $45M Series B led by the historic Sequoia Capital. This allowed them to double down on their product-led growth strategy.

These investments helped evolve Productboard from a single-player tool to a collaborative platform for entire product organizations.

The team invested in transforming Productboard from a single-player tool into a system that could scale from startup to enterprise.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, digital transformation accelerated across industries, creating even more demand for structured product management processes.

In 2021, the company secured a $72M Series C led by Tiger Global, followed by a massive $125M Series D in 2022 from Dragoneer Investment Group, which valued the company at $1.7 billion.

The growth pattern was consistent: start with a passionate individual PM, expand to their team, then division, and eventually secure a global deployment. As Martin notes:

"Historically, we targeted individual PMs. Productboard had been successful with the land and expand motion—first an individual PM, then a division, then expanding to a global deal. Salesforce is a great example."

This land-and-expand approach remains true today. Their most successful enterprise deployments often start with a single passionate product manager.

As Eric Ren, Senior Director of Product Marketing explains, their go-to-market strategy has evolved:

"Our 2023 journey was about moving upmarket. Mid-last year, we decided to focus on how to speak better to digital transformation companies like Vanguard, JP Morgan, and Cartier. They have digital product teams that need to mature in their product practice."

This shift was deliberate and calculated. Productboard saw that enterprise organizations with multiple product lines not only had more budget but also faced greater challenges in scaling product practices.

Chapter 4 - Present-Day Success

Today, Productboard serves over 5,500 customers including:

• Salesforce

• Zoom

• VMWare

• Autodesk

The company has raised over $260M in funding and is valued at over $1.7B.

While tech-focused companies were the initial target, Productboard now sees significant adoption in financial services, healthcare, and retail as these sectors undergo digital transformation.

"About a year ago was when we saw great wins beyond technology into financial services, healthcare, and retail," shares Eric Ren.

This expansion required evolving their sales approach. "Enterprise sales motion is a 4-month sales cycle.”

Zdeněk Kunčar, Director of Product Design, adds context to this evolution:

"Customers look for partners—they don't want just a solution. Usually, they have a larger problem. They may want to unify how their teams operate across the company or enforce certain practices. To roll out a tool is a huge challenge."

The most successful deployments create an internal mindset shift: "If it doesn't live in Productboard, it doesn't exist."

Chapter 5 - The Future

With over $260M in funding and a $1.7B valuation, Productboard is entering its next evolution: becoming a multi-product company powered by artificial intelligence.

New offerings like Productboard Pulse use AI to automatically analyze customer feedback, identify trends, and suggest priorities.

This takes the platform beyond organization into active intelligence that guides product decisions.

Hubert sees this as the realization of a long-held vision: "AI has finally unlocked the vision I've had for the last 10 years."

"Going forward, we're going to be a multi-product company," Eric reveals. "Our first add-on offerings of… Productboard Pulse allow existing customers to expand. And we will be adding more products."

Martin Felcman emphasizes the impact of this transition on the product teams:

"There was a big change before I rejoined in 2023—the shift to platformization. Historically, Productboard had three use cases: feedback, prioritization, and roadmapping. We started seeing there was much bigger potential if we approached development differently and built capabilities as a platform."

This platform approach enables rapid expansion into new use cases like strategic planning with OKRs, setting the stage for Productboard's continued growth.

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Part 2 - How Productboard Builds Product

Productboard's approach to building product reveals why they've been successful in creating a tool that resonates with product managers worldwide.

The company's product development process is a masterclass in customer-centric product building.