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Depending on the exercise/usecase, there are many strategy frameworks that can be used to brainstorm approaches.

  • a simple Pros and Cons analysis

The following is a short summary of questions to think through while solving for a strategy exercise/formulating a product strategy:

Eg: What should X do next? Should we build or buy a product like Y?

Before brainstorming, make sure you are clear on the goal of the exercise and for a more closed ended question, the KPI that would indicate success. (Refer to Understanding the problem for some clarifying questions if the problem is very vague and narrow down the scope, if required)

  1. The Company
    • What does the company do? If the company builds multiple products, what does the product do?
    • What is the company mission? i.e, why do they do what they do?
    • If a specific strategic choice must be assessed (Eg: Should opentable expand into meeting room reservations?), does it align with the company mission?
    • Core company/product strengths
    • Company/product weaknesses
  2. The Customer
    • Who is the company/product’s core user segment?
    • Why do they use this product? (core purpose)
    • Does the exercise cater to company’s existing userbase or are we going after a brand new user segment?
    • For B2B – what are the other products used by the user persona as a part of their day to day? (think a day in the life of this core user)
  3. The Competitors, Adjacents and Alternates
    • Brainstorm top 2-3 companies that are in this space and assess their:
      • core strengths
      • weaknesses
      • market share captured currently
    • For a very open ended strategy exercise (Eg: what should we do next), it helps to brainstorm adjacent markets and alternates more deeply
  4. The Climate
  5. On a need be basis, Collaborators
    • external partners or contributors needed to successfully execute on the strategy (Eg: distributors for a physical product launch, API marketplace partners etc)
  6. On a need be basis, the costs involved. This could be:
    • Implementation cost
    • GTM – acquisition costs
    • Establishing partner relations/ecosystem
    • Opportunity cost – are there other more strategic paths forward as compared to what the exercise proposes?

After brainstorming a few or all of the areas highlighted above, summarize the list of strategic choices available that also make for a differentiating product.

Prioritize/Recommend the top strategic choice that i) leverages company/product strengths ii) takes advantage of company strength and also the competitors’ weaknesses iii) is critical for future ecosystem foothold

Lastly, but very important – how will we reach these customers? (Go to Market)

As closing notes, a few themes that come up in the strategic choices for a company/product:

  1. Build services on top of the existing product/platform (Eg: Stripe’s evolution is a excellent example for this. And perhaps for all of the points listed here!)
  2. Cater to a core user need in other parts of their day to day user journey (Eg: Kindle physical reader for Amazon, the online book store originally)
  3. Product gets better the more people use it (Eg: Duolingo, Google Translate, Recaptcha)
  4. Competitor controls the entry point of your core business (Eg: Launching Google Pixel Phone)
  5. Disrupt an alternate business where users go currently (Eg: Amazon’s long term plan for launching physical Amazon stores – many products like clothing and makeup are hard to shop online without trying out first, having a physical footprint helps in these retail segments)
  6. A new target user segment that is critical for the company to scale any further or to have a stronger ecosystem foothold (Eg: Wealth management startups that are targeting teenagers with new fintech products)
  7. Eliminate or reduce the highest cost area of the business (Eg: many automation and AI products)
  8. Competitor manages a big piece of the consumer journey (Eg: industry wide efforts across competitors to reduce reliance on Bloomberg terminal that is an absolute must have for traders)

By deepikabg