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 road-map. It’s a way to look ahead and figure things out before you take the plunge. Road-mapping 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 road-mapping 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 road-map will foster growth and increase productivity.
• A product road-map 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 road-map 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 road-mapping 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 road-mapping gives you a chance to test your ideas before your put them to use.