Strategic Roadmaps and Subscription Growth: the August edition
In August 2026, Pinnacle Product Institute welcomed Bruce McCarthy and Phil Carter to speak with our audience as part of Product Conversations. The edition brought together perspectives on communicating product direction, aligning stakeholders and building stronger consumer subscription businesses.
Why these perspectives belonged together
Subscription growth depends on customers continuing to find value in a product. A roadmap helps a team communicate which problems it intends to address and why those priorities matter. We selected Bruce and Phil to connect those choices with the growth and customer-value questions facing subscription product teams.
Bruce McCarthy — Strategic roadmaps and stakeholder alignment
We invited Bruce to connect product priorities with a shared strategic direction. His expertise was relevant to our audience’s questions about explaining roadmap choices, aligning stakeholders around outcomes and maintaining clarity when priorities need to change.
Phil Carter — Customer value and sustainable subscription growth
We invited Phil to connect product investment with the health of a subscription business. His expertise was relevant to practitioners assessing how customers experience value, where growth is constrained and which priorities can support stronger retention and sustainable commercial outcomes.
Connecting the roadmap with recurring customer value
The pairing framed two related questions: how can a team align people around its direction, and how can that direction support a subscription business customers want to stay with? A useful connection is to make the intended outcome behind an investment explicit, then assess whether customers are receiving the value the team expected. That gives roadmap discussions a clearer link to customer behaviour and business performance.
Questions to carry into your own practice
Which customer problem explains your next roadmap priority? Do stakeholders share the same understanding of the outcome? Where do subscribers stop experiencing value? What evidence would justify changing your plan? These are Pinnacle’s editorial reflection questions, rather than quotations or a transcript of the speakers’ remarks.
Continuing Product Conversations
The August edition continued our 2026 series of conversations with product experts whose perspectives complement one another. The companion Product Expert Feature introduces Bruce and Phil and explains why each was invited. Their earlier appearances are also part of our archive: Bruce’s April 2025 feature and Phil’s June 2025 feature.
We thank Bruce McCarthy and Phil Carter for joining Pinnacle’s audience in August 2026.