“the highest chance of feature adoption and customer retention comes from features that align with the job that the customer needs to do with the tool... features that did something outside that scope were often ignored and complained about like we considered integrating other systems that they may have used or building communication features between teachers but those things were underused or unused at all”

Build only features aligned to the specific job-to-be-done your tool exists for

Audit every feature request against the single job your tool solves. FeedbackPanda existed to help teachers ship written student feedback faster. "Communicate with other teachers" sounded reasonable but had zero adoption — outside the job. "Share feedback templates across teachers" sat directly inside the job and exploded adoption + network effects. The pull to add adjacent features is always there; the discipline is to refuse anything that doesn't make the core job faster or easier.