Main Takeaways: - Measure what matters – Establishing the right metrics and KPIs early on can provide tremendous clarity. Driving towards the wrong goals can result in team misalignment, at best, and a failed product strategy, at worst. - Distinguish the highest impact ideas from the good ideas - Most companies have lots of good ideas. PMs must separate the great from the good, and craft product strategies that yield the highest impact outcomes for their customers and business. Iterate, based on customer feedback & data – Great product strategies should evolve over time, with the ongoing incorporation of customer feedback, data, and stakeholder input. Strategies developed in a vacuum are unlikely to succeed, as are strategies that fail to evolve with the changing needs of customers.

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Creating Actionable Product Strategy by
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5. Creating actionable
product strategy
Praveen Subramani
Director of Product Management at Turo

6. Praveen Subramani
Director of Product Management at

7. Interests: consumer tech, mobility,
energy, environment, marketplaces

8. 1. What is actionable product strategy?
2. Measure what matters
3. Distinguish highest impact ideas from
“good” ideas
4. Iterate based on feedback & data - all great
strategies must evolve!
agenda

9. What is actionable
product strategy?
part 1

10. VI S I O N
S T R A T E G Y
T A C T I C S
W H Y
W H A T
H O W
Strategy bridges
vision & tactics

11. 1
1
Product strategy articulates the steps to go
from where you are, to where you want to be.

12. Why does product
strategy matter?
Product strategy creates a cohesive narrative
about what your company will focus on to address
its most important opportunities.
Great product strategies get stakeholders – your
team, customers, investors, & partners – moving
in the same direction towards common goals.

13. Actionable strategy
provides direction,
without limiting
options
Effective strategy is specific enough to provide
direction and clarity, without being prescriptive,
or closing doors to other viable alternatives.
Great strategies empower your team to innovate
and create, rather than dictating exact ways to
solve a problem.
M A C R O
Less Actionable: grow revenue 2x YoY
More actionable: grow revenue 2x YoY
by launching new premium paid
subscription product and converting
existing customer base
M E D I U M
Less actionable: improve seller quality
More actionable: improve seller
quality by holding sellers accountable
to transparent performance metrics
M I C R O
Less actionable: improve conversion
of sign-up flow
More actionable: improve conversion
of sign-up flow by identifying key
drop-off points, reducing transaction
friction, and improving value prop

14. Measure what
matters
part 2

15. Your strategy is
your compass
A broken compass is worse than none. You may think you’re
moving in the right direction – but your feedback loop is off
– only taking you farther from where you want to be!
Guide your team towards outcomes that actually matter.
Measuring the wrong things leads to misalignment at best, or
outright failure at worst.
Focusing on clear & actionable goals drives prioritization:
It’s just as important to articulate what are you not doing

16. “Grow revenue” is
not an actionable
strategy
Focus on relevant & actionable outcomes.
Too often, leaders get lazy and articulate strategy as
“grow revenue” or “grow customer base.”
Revenue & customer volume are critically important metrics, but
often hide important details when used in isolation. They’re also
not very actionable, as they provide no direction.
Also important to balance business / financial metrics with
customer-focused metrics.
Examples: CSAT - customer satisfaction, Product ratings / reviews (e.g.
App / Play store), NPS – net promoter score

17. Break down metrics
to make them more
actionable
Classic e-commerce funnel:
gross revenue =
# searches x
search conversion % x
average transaction value (aka “cart size”)
Each of these can be broken down even further.
e.g. search conversion = app opens → search → search
results → product description page → checkout

18. Choose where
to focus
A strategy to grow searches could be very different from a
strategy to grow average transaction value.
M O R E I D E A L L E S S I D E A L
Choose relevant reasons to focus, such as:
● Potential impact to customers & business
● Customer feedback & pain points
● Untapped opportunities (e.g. known part of funnel is
unhealthy)
● Ability to execute (e.g. expertise of team, feasibility,
technical scope, time-to-market)
● Alignment with company vision / mission
Less ideal reasons to focus:
● Competitive pressure (may be relevant if customers
want it, but not always)
● HIPPO - highest paid person’s opinion

19. Complement
metrics with
counter-metrics
Counter-metric: a related metric or outcome that you
don’t want to adversely impact as part of your strategy.
search conversion % # searches
M E T R I C C O U N T E R - M E T R I C

20. Some common
metrics P R O D U C T T Y P E C O M M O N M E T R I C S
Social media platforms
❏ Daily / weekly / monthly active users
❏ Content engagement (watch time, usage time, likes, etc.)
Search engines,
e-commerce, marketplaces
❏ Traffic / visits
❏ Searches
❏ Conversion, e.g. purchases or click-throughs ÷ searches
Enterprise SaaS
❏ Lifetime value
❏ Customer retention rates
❏ Product engagement (# licenses / users within org)
Media products
❏ Share (%) of paid subscribers
❏ Content engagement (read / watch time)
Customer-focused metrics
❏ CSAT – customer satisfaction (e.g. with a support request)
❏ NPS – Net promoter score
❏ App / Play store ratings & reviews

21. Measure what
matters

22. Distinguish highest
impact ideas
from just good ideas
part 3

23. Distinguish highest
impact ideas
Most companies abound with good ideas,
but good ideas alone are rarely enough.
Your role as a PM: hone in on ideas that deliver the
highest impact for your customers & business,
in the least amount of time.
The ability to distinguish high impact ideas from just
good ideas is critical to being an impactful PM.
Stay humble. The best ideas may not always be yours!
Source: XKCD

24. Validate ideas
quickly Run experiments and tests to validate ideas quickly
and develop signal about potential impact. Your
intuition may not always be right.
Before committing major resources (time / money /
effort), brainstorm if there is an easier or faster path
to execution
💡 Tip: validating ideas doesn’t need to involve complex technology:
❏ Can you validate an idea manually or in partnership with
operations teams?
❏ Are there existing customer behaviors or patterns that could be
catalyzed or facilitated?

25. Ensuring impact
& questions
to explore
❏ Why should we build this now?
❏ Do our customers (current or prospective)
actually want this?
❏ Could we do this later (or never) and achieve
equivalent or better results?
❏ What else could we be doing with this time /
money / resources?
❏ How might we validate this idea more quickly?
❏ Could we model / simulate impact of this before
building?
❏ Are we building this to please an internal
stakeholder, but with limited customer benefits?

26. Don’t be afraid
to say no
Maintaining positive, collaborative relationships with
stakeholders is critical, but it’s also important to say
no – always gracefully & diplomatically
Saying “no” can help your team:
❏ Avoid distractions & stay focused on highest impact initiatives
❏ Balance building products that suit needs of internal & external
customers (sometimes aligned, but not always)
❏ Align stakeholders on a convergent strategy
❏ Remember: strategy also helps define what you’re not doing!
One diplomatic way to say “no”:
❏ propose & build momentum around alternate idea(s) to address
an opportunity – shifts dialog from negative to constructive
Keep debates constructive, and focused on ideas, not people.
And stay humble – your ideas will not always be the highest impact!
“People think focus means saying yes to
the thing you've got to focus on. But
that's not what it means at all. It means
saying no to the hundred other good
ideas that there are. You have to pick
carefully. I'm actually as proud of the
things we haven't done as the things I
have done. Innovation is saying no to
1,000 things.”
– Steve Jobs

27. All great product
strategies must evolve
part 4

28. Seek data from
a wide variety
of sources
Customer feedback
Actions speak louder than words. Consider both behavior and
verbatim feedback, e.g. through interviews or surveys.
Quantitative analytics & data (e.g. dashboards)
Track progress towards key metrics, and identify new blind spots as
you learn more.
Customer-facing teams
Check in with customer support, sales, account management, and
marketing teams to ensure your strategy stays grounded & relevant.
Internal stakeholders
Collaborators– esp. outside of product development – may have a
different take on success than the team that built & launched it. Get a
pulse check from other teams as you iterate on your strategy.

29. Stay open to
evolving strategy Use new data, feedback, and signals
to evolve your strategy.
If data is leading you in a new direction – even if it
contradicts your original hypothesis – stay open to it!
Sometimes this can involve minor iterations on an
existing strategy. In other cases, it may involve major
strategic pivots.
Example:
Hypothesis: Feature X will increase Premium tier subscription
rate by 20%.
A prototype / MVP feature X with minimal usage &
engagement might contradict that hypothesis

30. Listen to your
customers!*
For certain enterprise / B2B products, a small group of
customers or users may represent a substantial opportunity,
and thus influence your strategy more.
For consumer products, verbatim qualitative customer
feedback often helps contextualize quantitative data.
(data = behavior at scale).
Use structured user research if you can (e.g. interviews,
surveys), but don’t be afraid to get unstructured feedback as
well (phone calls, product reviews, social media, etc.)
* But don’t make them shout!!

31. 1
1
Summary
1
Actionable product
strategy helps align and
focus teams on highest
impact opportunities
2
Measure what matters
3
Distinguish highest
impact ideas from
“good” ideas
4
All great product
strategies must evolve.
Iterate!
● Product strategy bridges
vision to tactics – the
“what” layer
● Effective strategy connects
where you are today to
where you want to be
● Great strategies also help
prioritize (what are you not
doing?)
● Bad metrics = navigating
with a broken compass
● Breakdown metrics to make
them more actionable;
choose where to focus
● Consider customer-focused
metrics, in addition to
business / financial metrics
● Complement metrics with
counter-metrics
● Good ideas aren’t enough.
Consider impact, customer
benefit, time-to-market, &
tech complexity.
● Validate ideas quickly
through experimentation
– may not always involve
technology
● Saying “no” (gracefully &
diplomatically) can be a
good thing
● Collect new data as quickly
as possible
● Don’t stay ruthlessly
anchored to a strategy, if
data or customer feedback is
guiding you elsewhere
● Listen to your customers!

32. Thank you!
Questions?
praveen@turo.com
Illustrations from drawkit.io

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