“How should I approach product strategy?”

Why product strategy is so convoluted, and real-world examples of how it can be approached.

Often when bringing new products from 0 to 1, there’s a propensity for teams to want to jump from an idea to a solution and dig their heels right into engineering work, only to realize it probably makes sense to have a vision, strategy, and roadmap to help focus efforts to achieve the greatest impact.

Of the three, the idea behind developing a product strategy and what that actually looks like frequently gets misinterpreted.

But why is product strategy so confusing and convoluted?

1. It’s often confused with and articulated together with product vision

2. It’s often approached from the top-down vs. bottom-up at large (and small) organizations (i.e. leadership or investors want to have a product strategy before clearly understanding a problem and who it’s being solved for)

3. There’s no “gold standard” — product strategy can take many shapes and forms.

My intent with this piece is to distinguish between product vision and product strategy and provide some real-world examples of how product strategy can be approached.

Product Vision vs. Product Strategy

Product Vision:

THE “WHAT”. What is the future you are trying to create in 2–5 years?

Product Strategy:

THE “HOW”. How will you achieve this vision? What approach will you take? How will you achieve your goals (product + company goals)? Why is this a good approach for the team to take?

Marty Cagan and The Silicon Valley Product Group wrote a great piece that distinguishes between the two that you can read here.

Product Strategy — Example Approaches

Reverse-Engineer Product Market Fit:

Rather than “throwing it out there and seeing what sticks”, the team at Superhuman, an email client service designed to make customers feel “superhuman” due to its speed and features, started using…