Many ideas start off as a rage and many don’t get too far. Well, if you are determined to build, lead and grow a profitable business, your startup needs to chalk out a map – a roadmap. It’s a way to look ahead and figure things out before you take the plunge. Roadmapping helps you see the potential pitfalls and figuring out the inevitable problems rather than rolling the dice and launching without a plan.

It helps you think critically and put your assumptions to test, before you actually invest time, efforts and actual money in developing your concept.

Here’s how roadmapping could help a startup:

• It enables you to define a singular vision and chart it down making planning easy to follow.
• Many startups work when there is a clear outline to follow. There is more synergy within the team as their thoughts and actions are aligned to a clear goal and a clear path to reach it.
• A clearly laid out roadmap will foster growth and increase productivity.
• A product roadmap communicates the reasons behind what you are building.
• It helps you hone the concept and understand the key value proposition.
• It helps you prioritize and identify important tasks and create a timeline of milestones for your project.

A roadmap essentially tells you who you are, where you want to go and how you will get there. It’s all about creating a high level plan of how to move ahead with your startup idea. Strategic roadmapping is about forecasting broad trends. It does not include the nitty-gritty details of the project. It helps you identify the high level priorities and forecast larger trends and create a plan to turn your ultimate goals to reality. Most importantly, though, strategic roadmapping gives you a chance to test your ideas before your put them to use.