When first working on a new software project, most people I see just want momentum.

They want to see the key features developed and feel like they're getting closer to their vision.

The thing is as you get closer to selling the software some other things become apparent.

One of them is how to segment your application's features into subscription plans.

Logically this is easy, but technically it requires adding "gates" around each feature and then checking that a given user is permitted to access it. Sometimes it also requires checking that the user has not exceeded their quota for using that feature.

When you have to go back and add these checks later, it's time consuming and error prone. But if you do it from day one, it's a lot easier.

This is mainly because developers will add the checks as they go, rather than having to remember where the boundaries of the feature are later.

There will be tweaks to do, but this represents a lot less effort.

The other benefit with segmenting the software in this ways is that you can disable certain features while they're in development, without holding up other updates.

Software is flexible and you can change just about anything. But efficient use of time and money is important and feature segmentation is one of those things that's better done from day 1.