Endless amounts of products are offered to the market, that nobody asked for. A well shaped product strategy is fundamental to enable building something, that people actually need or want. This talk illuminates how a propper product strategy looks like and what the crucial success factors are. How it helps translating business goals and vision into product design and business model, that take customer needs and market affordances into account.

1. PRODUCT STRATEGY FOR STARTUPS
GOOGLE LAUNCHPAD, VILNIUS
DECEMBER 12. 2019
@BENNOLOEWENBERG

2. Source: Yuicero

3. Source: Bloomberg
Sole product feature
can easily be superseded
manually …

4. Source: Otto Waalkes – Tomatobrotomat
… resembling a 1970s joke
about a huge & completely
useless food processor

5. Sources: Juicero, Nestlé
Lock-in business model
like coffee caps …

6. Sources: Kale&Me, Yuicery, Dean&David
… ignoring a market with
a plethora of alternative offerings

7. PRODUCT FAILURE
“There are thousands of products out there
that nobody asked for.
How can we make sure we build something
that people actually need ?”
Source: Holger Eggert

8. not feeling like it
due to weak right wrist joints ?

9. Photo: Benno Loewenberg
MARKETING CANNOT FIX STATEGY

10. @BennoLoewenberg
DE-TERMINATION
Product Strategy ≠ Product Management
Product Strategy ≠ Product Roadmap
Product Strategy ≠ Planning
read: does NOT equal

11. PRODUCT STRATEGY
“A system of achievable goals & visions
to align & focus team & tasks around desirable
outcomes for both your business and your customers.”
“It is influenced by external variables such as
customer needs & market affordances.”
Sources: Melissa Perri & Vince Law

12. Graphic: @BennoLoewenberg
Key Features
Differentiators
Business Model
Product Roadmap
Vision
Market
Customer Needs
PRODUCT
DESIGN
BUSINESS
GOALS
PRODUCT
STRATEGY

13. Graphic: Ash Maurya (commented)
Value Proposition
Outcome: What you are doing
Purpose: What you aspire to be

14. YourMission
YourVision
TheJobsThatYouBuildFor
TheProductYouBuild
Measure&Improve
StayingLean
Graphic: Des Traynor (commented)
so it does not become
a bloated “solution”

15. »TO TEST IF YOUR PRODUCT IS NEEDED,
STUDY THE JOB THAT IT DOES«
Source: Des Traynor

16. VAGUE ASSUMPTIONS
“I’ve experienced this problem, so others must also”
“We’ve already got funding, so it must be a good idea”
“We’re almost ready to launch so it’s a bit late to go back
to research”
Source: Dyhana Scarano

17. POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
¿ What is the overall goal related to a certain problem
a person is trying to achieve ?
¿ Is that problem worth solving ?
¿ How do people solve this problem today ?
¿ How might we solve this problem for the user
and how much of the overall goal ?
Source: Tony Ulwick

18. TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS
Based on the insights you observed
Write a statement that is testable [as a prototype]
Make predictions of what you think the outcomes will be
Source: Dyhana Scarano

19. Your business has many hypotheses
Are consumers currently
doing this?
Can I create a product
that will improve upon it?
Can I address the market
successfully?
T E S T E D B Y
Evidence
of investment
T E S T E D B Y
Product Market Fit
for your MVP
Analytics for
Marketing Experiments
T E S T E D B Y
Graphic: Des Traynor

20. »FIND YOUR PRODUCT-MARKET FIT,
BEFORE YOU RUN OUT OF MONEY«
Source: Florian Hofmann
That. Is. All.

21. Graphic: Lean Startup Co (commented)
Product Strategy
lives here

22. PROCESS
Source: Benno Loewenberg aft. Lean Product Process
1. Determine your target customer
2. Identify unserved customer needs
3. Define your value proposition
4. Specify your Minimum Viable Product feature set
5. Create your MVP & test it with customers
6. Iterate to improve Product-Market Fit
Product Strategy
lives here

23. Graphic: Manoj Ranaweera
VALUE WITH EACH ITERATION
Minimum Viable Product

24. ONLY DESIRABLE IS VIABLE
Graphic: Cooper & Vlaskovits
Minimum Desirable Product

25. Graphic: Seema Chawla (commented)
Minimum Viable
Minimum Desirable
Minimum Usable
Innovative / New

26. »STRATEGY DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN«
Source: Pragmatic Marketing

27. Graphic: Melissa Perri

28. Graphic: Melissa Perri & Mike Rother (commented)
We can only
see this far now

29. Graphic: Melissa Perri & Mike Rother (commented)
next

30. Graphic: Melissa Perri & Mike Rother (commented)
MVPs !

31. Graphic: Melissa Perri

32. Source: Roman Pichler
NOT CARVED IN STONE
Check your product strategy on a regular basis.
Due to changes of relevant factors such as:
+ Product performance
+ Internal changes
+ Competition
+ Trends

33. Sources: Pichler & Maurya
PUT IT TO THE ACID TEST
Validate your product strategy on a regular basis:
1. Choose the most “unknowable” (aka riskiest assuption)
2. Determine how to best address it
3. Conduct the activity to do so
4. Validate if to continue, to alter strategy or to stop

34. Graphic: @BennoLoewenberg aft. Moore, Pichler & Sisney
PRODUCT-
MARKET FIT
LAUNCH END OF LIFE
EARLY
MARKET
MAJORITY
MARKET
REJUVENATION
LIFECYCLE
TIME
DEVELOPMENT
The
Chasm

35. Graphic: @BennoLoewenberg aft. Lex Sisney
STRATEGY
PILOT IT
NAIL IT
SCALE IT
RENEW IT
MILK IT
OR
KILL IT
TIME
DEVELOPMENT
PRODUCT-
MARKET FIT

36. This is the lofty, futuristic goal for where your company or division is heading. Think long term.
Product Strategy Canvas
VISION
In will be
time frame Company, division
Vision statement
CHALLENGE
TARGET CONDITION CURRENT STATE
The first big goal to tackle on your way to the vision. Think in terms of user journeys, ideal states, objectives and KPIs that relate to the product lifecycle.
In order to reach our vision, we need to by .
measureable objective time frame
In order to reach our Challenge, we first need to
measureable objective
This is a smaller, measurable objective that teams can start exploring today. What’s the status today as it relates to the target condition?
After measuring, we know our current state is
measurements of current state
Source: Melissa Perri – Product Strategy Canvas

37. TARGET GROUP
Which market or market segment does the
product address?
Who are the target customers and users?
NEEDS
Which problem does the product solve?
What benefit does it provide?
PRODUCT
What product is it?
What makes it stand out?
Is it feasible to develop the product?
BUSINESS GOALS
How is the product going to benefit the
company?
What are the business goals?
VISION
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
THE PRODUCT VISION BOARD EXTENDED
What is your purpose for creating the product?
Which positive change should it bring about?
COMPETITORS
Who are your main competitors?
What are their strengths and weaknesses?
REVENUE STREAMS
How can you monetise your product and
generate revenues?
COST FACTORS
What are the main cost factors to develop,
market, sell, and service the product?
CHANNELS
How will you market and sell your product?
Do the channels exist today?
www.romanpichler.com
Template version 05/17
Source: Roman Pichler – Product Vision Board

38. Source: Frahm et. al. – The Product Field

39. Source: Blank & Osterwalder – Value Proposition Canvas

40. THE USER PERSPECTIVE COUNTS
“Talk to your users –
build and test for actual users and for real context of use”
( friends and family are not your users )
Source: Benno Loewenberg

41. Source: Smalt

42. Source: Smalt

43. DON’T LOVE THE SOLUTION
“Success is not delivering a feature;
success is learning how to solve the customers problem”
“Don’t [try to] find customers for your product,
find a product for your customers.”
Sources: Mark Cook & Seth Godin

44. Source: Alice in Wonderland

45. KNOW WHAT TO GO FOR
“Have a vision of what the future looks like.
Have belief in your product strategy,
and then build a product based on that.”
Source: Des Traynor

46. »RESEARCH IS 75 % OF STRATEGY«
Source: Tara Hunt

47. VALIDATE, VALIDATE, VALIDATE
“The strategy should emerge from the insights
and the insights come from in-depth research.
Just throwing tactics at the wall
to see what sticks is risky business”
Source: Tara Hunt

48. What is Customer Jobs? What is a Job to be Done (JTBD)?
A Job to be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she evolves
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IILLLLUUSSTTRRAATTIIOONN TTOO SSHHOOWW WWHHAATT IISS,, AANNDD IISSNN’’TT,, IIMMPPOORRTTAANNTT TTOO CCUUSSTTOOMMEERRSS..
Graphic: Intercom (commented)
THIS is what your biz makes !

49. OFFER BENEFITS, NOT FEATURES
“People don’t buy products;
they buy better versions of themselves.”
“Customers don’t want your product,
they want what new behaviors it enables.”
Sources: Samuel Hulick & Alan Klement

50. BENNOLOEWENBERG
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