Strategy is becoming increasingly important in technology and a critical skill for product managers. As your product grows and competitors emerge, how can you sustain success? Ryan will share why strategy matters, how to create one, and best practices for how it integrates into your product development process. Learn about this often misunderstood concept and why for growing products it's often the difference between success and ultimate failure. Presented 4/6/2016 at Product School: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crafting-your-product-strategy-with-weebly-tickets-23057057279

1. Crafting Your Product Strategy
By Ryan Glasgow
rglasgow.com ▪ @ryanglasgow

3. The Basics

4. Three Layers
Vision
Describes the desired future
position of the product or
customer.
Components:
➔ Vision statement
➔ Business goals
Strategy
A unique and valuable
position, involving a
different set of activities.
Components:
➔ Strategy statement
➔ Guiding principles
➔ Areas of focus
➔ Personas
Tactics
All the decisions and
activities required to turn
the strategy into reality.
Components:
➔ Product specs
➔ User stories
➔ Mockups
➔ Code

5. Throughout history, strategy often
determines the winner when
competition is involved
Recent Examples:
➔ Southwest Airlines
➔ Ikea
➔ Apple’s iPod
➔ Warrior’s small-ball lineup

6. What is Strategy?
➔ How you plan to create a sustainable
competitive advantage to maximize
your position
➔ Choosing what not to do
➔ Designate and apply a focus with all
available resources

7. Strategy is not how you work
Scrum ▪ Agile ▪ Quality Assurance ▪ Efficiency ▪ Culture ▪ Company perks ▪ Technology ▪ Team

8. Every product needs a strategy
Pre product/market fit
➔ A set of assumptions for how you
want to grow and win
Post product/market fit
➔ Also a set of assumptions for how
you want to grow further and win

9. Crafting Your Strategy

10. Research
Industry
Lifecycle stage, revenue size, growth rate, profitability,
success factors, barriers to entry, vertical integration
Competition
Profiles, competitive positioning, substitutes, complements,
degree of vertical integration, strategies of key competitors
Customers
Profile, demographic, needs, obstacles/challenges, price
sensitivity
Internal
Monthly usage, daily usage, net promoter score, monthly
recurring revenue, customer lifetime value, churn
Deep dive into areas that affect the product

11. Determine your goal
Smartphone Industry:
iOS owns 94% of profits
Android owns 83% of market share

12. Strategic Advantage
StrategicTarget
Uniqueness Perceived by
the Customer
Low Cost Position
Industry
Wide
Particular
Segment Only
Differentiation
Overall
Cost Leadership
Stuck in the Middle
Focus
Goals

13. Strategic Advantage
StrategicTarget
Uniqueness Perceived by
the Customer
Low Cost Position
Industry
Wide
Particular
Segment Only
Hyundai, KiaFord, Chevrolet, Honda
Chrysler
Subaru, Tesla Dodge, Scion, Jeep
Cars

14. Diagnosis
➔ Use research to understand the
situation
➔ Look for major shifts in customer
preference or profile, competitors,
industry, trends
➔ Define one overall challenge you want
to address over next 1-3 years

15. Key Components
Where to Play
Who should be the customers that define our
target market?
Examples:
● Spending power
● Age
● Location
● Tech savviness
How to Win
What should be the value proposition that
differentiates our products and services with those
customers?
Examples:
● Product vs platform
● Simple vs robust
● Intuitive vs affordable
● Extensible vs secure
● Portable vs powerful
● Quality vs cutting edge

16. Strategy
Statement
➔ 15-words or less
➔ States your target customer and a
compelling value proposition
➔ Easy to understand and communicate
➔ Conveys clarity to to your team

17. Examples
Ikea
"Offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that
as many people as possible will be able to afford them."
SnapChat
An fun and spontaneous product to communicate with your closest friends without repercussion.
Spotify
Music tailored to your mood.

18. Guiding Principles : SnapChat
Fun Close Friends No repercussions
Filters
Easter eggs
Ghost QR code Snap time limit
24hr Story
Screenshots
monitored
No feed algorithm Disappearing chat
Key activities that execute your strategy

19. Degree of Vertical Integration
Product
➔ Create value by developing differentiated
products for specific customer needs
➔ Capture value by charging money for those
items
➔ Meeting specific customer needs
➔ Competitive advantage stems from product-
related sources such as differentiation
Platform
➔ Create value primarily by connecting users
and third parties
➔ Capture value by charging fees for access to
the platform
➔ Maximize the number of interactions
➔ Competitive advantage stems from the
network effects of connecting many users
and third parties

20. Implement
Benefits
➔ Clearly document and share the context for
your product decisions
➔ Increased autonomy for cross-functional
team
➔ Team can make better decisions
independently
➔ Ensures company alignment across product,
design, engineering, marketing, customer
support, etc
Circulate
➔ Presentation or wiki that’s presented
annually or bi-annually
➔ Regularly reviewed
➔ Integrated into daily, weekly, and monthly
communication

21. Lean Strategy Canvas
Vision
➔ Overarching goal for
creating the product
➔ Long-term business goals
Challenge
➔ Identify a long-term
business opportunity that
needs to be addressed
Target Customer
➔ Market and audience
group that your product
addresses
Value Proposition
➔ How you plan to
differentiate from
competitors and appeal to
an audience
Strategy Statement
➔ 15-words or less that
summary
Guiding Principles
➔ Focused set of key
activities that support
your strategy

22. Resources
● What is Strategy
● Good Strategy Bad Strategy
● Porter’s Generic Strategies
● The Art of Crafting a 15-Word
Strategy Statement

23. Questions?
Connect:
rglasgow.com ▪ @ryanglasgow