Building Compliance Products: What B2B SaaS PMs Need to Know

The Compliance Product Paradox

Compliance products face a fundamental tension: customers need them, but nobody wants to use them. This creates interesting product challenges.

User motivation is external, not internal:

What Makes Compliance Products Different

Several factors distinguish compliance product management from typical B2B SaaS:

1. Requirements Come from Regulators

Your roadmap is partly written by government agencies. New regulations create mandatory features. Compliance deadlines are non-negotiable.

2. Accuracy Trumps Speed

In most products, shipping fast and iterating is the right approach. In compliance, shipping wrong can expose customers to legal risk. Quality gates matter more.

3. Audit Everything

Every action needs a trail. Every change needs a timestamp. Every decision needs documentation. Build for the auditor, not just the user.

4. Trust is the Core Value Proposition

Customers are trusting you with their compliance posture. One failure can mean lost contracts, not just churn.

Lessons from ProScore

Working on the Reports & Dashboards Pod at ProScore taught me specific lessons:

Partner early with Compliance teams:

They understand the regulatory landscape better than you. Make them part of your discovery process.

Invest in Customer Success feedback loops:

Compliance users often don't complain until audit time. Proactive check-ins surface issues early.

Design for the worst case:

Assume every report will be scrutinized by an auditor. Assume every data point will be questioned.

Documentation is a feature:

Clear explanations of how calculations work, what data sources are used, and when reports were generated — these aren't nice-to-haves.

The Opportunity

Despite the constraints, compliance products offer real opportunity: