A Complete Guide to Product Strategy
                     A Complete Guide to Product Strategy
What is a Product 
Strategy?
A product strategy is a high-level plan that 
defines your product goals throughout its life 
cycle and how it will support the organization’s 
goals.  The product strategy will also answer who 
the product will serve and how it will benefit 
them. These plans are then brought to life on the 
roadmap.
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They have a purpose
Building a product just for the sake of creating 
and maintaining something isn’t a strategy; 
that’s busywork. Products should have a raison 
d‘être and exist for something beyond 
themselves. Figuring out what that is and getting 
the entire organization to buy into that is step 
one.
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Understand customer needs 
and how they’re evolving
All products need customers, so any product 
strategy should be based on meeting their 
requirements. Since customers don’t always 
know exactly what they want, the product 
strategy must bridge the gap between what 
customers say and what they need. Just as 
importantly, customer needs aren’t static. 
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Understand your value chain 
and how it’s evolving
Products don’t exist in a vacuum. Neither do its 
users. The product strategy must incorporate 
how it fits into the larger ecosystem, determining 
where it adds value and where friction points 
remain. As that ecosystem changes, the 
product’s role within it may also evolve.
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Determine what change 
is likely to happen
Although strategic thinkers don’t possess psychic 
powers, they should cast an eye toward the 
future and anticipate likely disruptive forces that 
limit or expand the product’s opportunities for 
growth and usage.
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Measure success and 
course correct
There’s no way to know if a strategy is 
successful if no one’s keeping score. While the 
strategy itself shouldn’t be hitting specific 
metrics, tracking progress and KPIs illuminate 
progress and offer potential warning signs.
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The Power of Product 
Strategy
Your product strategy is the key to connecting 
business objectives with the product. Companies 
have many different types of strategies, all built 
on one another to align the team properly.
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Vision
Starting from the top, most companies create a 
corporate vision. It is the entire outfit’s reason 
for being. In a company’s early stages, the 
company and the product may be viewed 
synonymously.
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Strategy
With a defined product vision and mission, a 
product strategy can then take shape. The 
product strategy is the art of finding and 
exploiting leverage in the competitive landscape 
to achieve your purpose.
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Product Initiatives
Product initiatives are similar to product goals, 
but they're more conceptual. These are big-
picture ideas or trends that you'll influence as a 
result of your new product.
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