Blog
The CTO as prisoner
3 min read
Read article
Product management
Building the right things
Product strategy
UX/UI design
Team & leadership
Smooth Sailing
You've done your discovery, built an MVP and finally got some paying customers
And now, the real climb begins. When adding more features didn't make it better for the user, hiring more people didn't reduce the workload, and you are struggling to find direction in the sea of ideas. You're not alone in this, we know your struggles and our sister company Smooth Sailing can and will help.
Bringing structure to your product decisions
You are growing, and you're turning that early traction into a real company. Here is how we help you put scalable processes in place.
UX/UI design
You need to turn that scrappy MVP into a self-servicing user experience that scales to many loyal customers. We craft pixel-perfect Figma designs and code them in HTML. User-friendly and looking neat.
Discover moreReady to talk?
Ready to turn your MVP into an experience users love?
Product management
You need to navigate through the sea of ideas and make smarter, faster decisions focused on reaching your goals. We help you to prioritise and set you up for success.
Discover moreReady to talk?
Want to bring structure and clarity to your product decisions?
Team & leadership
You need to build a well-oiled product machine, so we'll hire and empower the right people. Just like madewithlove does, but with focus on CPO, product managers, UX research and design.
Discover moreReady to talk?
Looking to build the product team your company needs?
Why companies call us in
Building the right thing is harder than building the thing right. These are the moments teams realise they need product help.
“We have too many priorities on our roadmap.”
“We don’t know if we’re building the right things.”
“Try to excite them, rather than limit madewithlove’s space, and trust their expertise. It can be scary, but these people know what they do.”
Jonas Van Eyck, Project Leader at African Drive
“We have data but nobody is using it to make decisions.”
“We’re drowning in feature requests and can’t say no.”
“The madewithlove CTO’s expertise was instrumental in implementing a prioritisation system that allowed our engineers to focus on core initiatives while managing tickets more effectively, significantly…”
Isabelle Ulfsdotter Netus, Head of Product at Izix
“Our roadmap changes every sprint.”
“We’ve lost sight of priorities.”
“Sometimes your struggles go beyond the technical. What should you build in order to scale? Smooth Sailing knows the way.”
Happy clients
We work with companies that want to get their product strategy right. Here are examples of how our approach translated into real results.
VDAB
Guiding recently graduated students in their job search
We partnered with MONO to design and develop Vick, a digital platform that guides recently graduated students in their job search. We built both a web application and API infrastructure, integrating multiple databases and creating innovative features like password-free login.
Read case study
FROM 150+ SAAS AUDITS
52% of teams track zero product metrics
Half can't answer whether the feature worked.
Find your north star metricLatest insights
Thinking and writing about product, roadmaps, and the craft of building the right things.
Blog
Customer support in the AI era
2 min read
Read article
Blog
The cost of the quick fix
3 min read
Read article
Need product leadership?
Whether you need help sharpening your roadmap, running discovery, or building out your product team. Tell us where you're stuck and we'll figure it out together.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about our product management service.
Smooth Sailing is our sister company, founded by the same people with the same philosophy. Madewithlove focuses on the engineering side: staff engineers, fractional CTOs, technical audits. Smooth Sailing focuses on the product side: product management, UX/UI design, and product leadership. The two companies work closely together, which means you can bring in both sides when you need them without coordination overhead.
Yes, and that is often the most valuable engagement. A lot of the teams we work with have a PM who is stretched too thin or operating without the right frameworks. We can coach your existing PM, take over parts of the workload temporarily, or act as a senior product partner who challenges thinking and improves the process. The goal is always to make the existing person stronger, not to sideline them.
It depends on where you are. Some companies need help getting control of a chaotic backlog and establishing a prioritisation process. Others need someone to lead discovery, talk to users, and translate findings into a roadmap the engineering team can actually build. We start by understanding the real bottleneck and then define what kind of involvement makes sense.
That feeling is almost always a signal that the product vision is not sharp enough. When everything is a priority, nothing is. We work with founders and product teams to get clear on what the product needs to do for the business in the next six to twelve months, then build a roadmap around that focus.
Yes. Smooth Sailing covers the full product scope, including UX research, interaction design, and UI design in Figma. We can take a feature or flow from discovery through to polished designs ready for engineering.
Exactly. That is the stage where product management starts to matter most. The instincts that got you to your first customers stop working when you need to scale. You need a process for deciding what to build next, a way to involve users systematically, and a roadmap that engineering and business can both commit to.
Yes. Smooth Sailing can help you define the roles you actually need, assess current team members, and recruit CPOs, product managers, UX designers, and researchers. When madewithlove is also involved in recruiting on the engineering side, you can build both sides of the product organisation at once.
Most engagements run between three and twelve months. A short engagement might be enough to establish a roadmap process and coach your PM. A longer one usually involves ongoing strategic partnership, discovery work, or helping build out the product function. Like everything we do, we plan our exit from day one.