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Illuminating Product Strategy

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Illuminating Product Strategy

@ibscribe
Aug 9, 2020
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Illuminating Product Strategy

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“We’re looking for a head of product…”

I get a lot of messages that start this way. So when I saw one in my Twitter DMs last week, I started composing my usual response. But as I was typing, another DM came through…

“…but not you.”

I paused. A series of messages from a former colleague came through, asking for advice in her current situation. She’s part of the leadership team at an enterprise SaaS startup, and while they have an active search for a head of product, the exec team is actively mis-aligned on why. She explained that there were 2 camps forming:

  • group A believed the company had a clear product strategy, and they needed to hire a seasoned operator to just execute it

  • group B believed the company actually lacked a coherent product strategy, and they needed to hire a clear thinker to define it

Her request to me was simple:

“do you have any insightful questions that would illuminate the product strategy, or lack thereof?”

Did I!

I immediately launched into a 3-part answer (side note: it’s always a 3-part answer).

  1. clear problem…for which the product was a solution

  2. clear user…for whom the problem was worth solving

  3. clear metric…by which the value swap was measured

Wait…did that answer her question? Or did I just share a factoid that I like reciting? (future topic / pet peeve: interviewees who answer questions with aphorisms like this).

My framing helped answer whether there was a viable product, but it didn’t do much to clarify what, if any, product strategy existed. I thought a bit more about my favorite ways to “pressure test” strategy for enterprise SaaS products:

  1. what is your primary customer acquisition channel?

  2. can your go-to-market team explain product value?

  3. what levers drive user adoption / account growth?

  4. how does product usage tie to a buying decision?

  5. can your target customer quantify purchase ROI?

  6. do you have a filter for saying “no” to feature asks?

  7. is the core motion distilled into a primary loop?

  8. are market timing and behavior trends on your side?

If you can answer all these, then in my opinion not only do you have a product strategy, but it’s also aligned from a cross-functional perspective. I haven’t heard back yet, but my hope is this line of thinking helped bring groups A and B together.

I’d love to hear from readers about the different ways they craft and confirm strategy - please chime in via comments👇. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing.


further reading / references

  • Good Strategy Bad Strategy is full of sanity checking tips

  • How to be Strategic explains the secret sauce in 3 steps

  • love the strategy formulation machine from Hiten Shah

  • here is an incomplete compendium of “strategy smells”

  • enterprise SaaS plays can be thought of as a series of loops

  • the Product Lexicon highlights vision vs strategy vs …

  • what happens when a sales team really gets product value?

  • distribution follows the power law (one channel outperforms)

  • this First Round Review article lays out a “product strategy stack” which connects many dots


childish drawing / interpretation

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Illuminating Product Strategy

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Illuminating Product Strategy

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Kiran N
Nov 14, 2020

thank you. What does the last point mean- does your core motion distil into a primary loop?

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Varun Maker
Aug 11, 2020

The timing of this post is spot on. I was working on spot checking our strategy, literally this week. Couldn't have read this at a better time - thanks!

I just have one question -

>>how does product usage tie to a buying decision?

Could you shed more light on what you mean by this?

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