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Product Strategy Template

by Christian Strunk

Product Management & Leadership Coach

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Intro:

The whole slide deck isn’t branded. Therefore you can copy paste the parts you like out of it. Depending on your needs you can resort the agenda and add or remove points.

Most agenda point consists of:

  1. examples
  2. templates
  3. explanation & tips

Important:

IMO design and aesthetics are very important. Make sure the spaces, font sizes, colors and more are totally uniform throughout your entire product strategy. I always give my slides the same amount of love a product designer or front-end developer would give to their interfaces.

- Christian

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Agenda:

  1. Product Vision
  2. Business Goals
  3. Market & Needs
  4. Persona(s)
  5. Development Team(s)
  6. Product Features & Priorities
  7. The Roadmap
  8. Numbers & Additional Data

Note: Please keep in mind that a product strategy should be

rather a clean “pitch deck” instead of a detailed “backlog.”

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#1 Product Vision

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Examples:

  1. We believe in a world where every small business can easily accept card payments. - Card payment company

  • To provide every household in the US with affordable and sustainable electricity.

- Sustainable energy company

  • Our vision is to build the most interactive educational social network, to motivate young people to use their spare time productive.

- Educational social network

  • Google Calendar:
  • Fast, visually appealing, and joyous to use
  • Drop-dead simple to get information into the calendar
  • More than boxes on a screen (reminders, invitations, etc.)
  • Easy to share so you can see your whole life in one place

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Templates:

  • We believe (in) a [noun: world, time, state, etc.] where [persona] can [verb: do, make, offer, etc.], for/by/with [benefit/goal].

  • To [verb: empower, unlock, enable, create, etc.] [persona] to [benefit, goal, future state]

  • Our vision is to [verb: build, design, provide], the [goal, future state], to [verb: help, enable, make it easier to...] [persona].

  • Point product vision [adding multiple bullet points with key USPs of your product]

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Explanation & Tips:

The product vision statement can be phrased in many different ways. It’s most important to keep it as clear, short, and memorable as possible. You can google for more examples but keep in mind that most of the search results are company visions and not product visions.

If you’d like to learn more about the product vision creation process you can read more here: Product Vision

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#2 Business Goals

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Examples:

  1. Bakery: Stay focused on baking whole-grain bread
  2. We have proven that we bake the best whole grain bread in NY
  3. Optimize the production process to bake more bread and open 2 new stores
  4. Replace the current ingredients with bio-ingredients to get a “bio-certification”
    • The quality of the bread must not be risked

  • Payments: Create additional value beyond card payments to increase product stickiness
  • By offering business credit cards to start building a payment ecosystem
  • By adding sales and tax reports to become a compliant POS and be able to enter new markets
  • By building a service that analyzes sales data to optimize for peak times, sales prices, etc.

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Templates:

  1. Stay focused on [domain/industry, sales, quality, customer satisfaction, etc.]

  • Create additional value beyond [the product/service, focus area, domain, etc.]
  • By… goals & milestones (high level)

  • Increase/reduce [sales, customer base, revenue, complaints, bugs, etc.]
  • By… activities & goals (high level)

  • Solidify [company, product, service] as an [solution, eco system, platform, etc.]
  • By… activity & goals (high level)

Activity examples:

  • building, targeting, simplifying, supporting, delivering, empowering, etc.

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Explanation & Tips:

The goal of the examples is to provide some inspiration and ways to define business goals. Usually, they aren’t only defined by a Product Manager. Make sure you align/get to those business goals with the C-level, founders, and leadership team.

It’s always good to define the activities and goals more high level (what & why) that the team can think about how to achieve those.

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#3 Market & Needs

(Market Analysis)

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Example/Template:

Payment behavior evolution

Here you can visualize how e.g. customer behavior has changed in certain steps �(historic background).

Below you can list:

  • Customer needs
  • Increasing market demands
  • Arguments for the next

evolutionary step

  • Numbers & data (time frames,�revenues, market size, etc.

FYI: The “onion” should be self-explanatory.

The information on the left-hand side�underline the message.

Cash

Payment

Card Payment

P2P

(paypal)

Crypto

Payment

Next

Innovation

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Example/Template:

PEST Analysis:

Political

Economic

Social

Technology

  • Political situation & stability
  • Tax policies
  • Compliance & legal situation
  • Trade restrictions & rules
  • etc...
  • Economic growth & health
  • Exchange rates
  • Interest rates
  • Current inflation rate
  • Employment rate
  • Average income
  • etc...

  • Growth rate population
  • Age distribution
  • Cultural habits
  • Lifestyle attitudes
  • Generation habits (Generation Y, Z, etc.)
  • etc...

  • Technological status
  • Level of innovation & automation
  • Technological change
  • Technological adoption and awareness
  • etc...

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Example/Template:

Top down analysis for people in New York consuming bread (market size).

-> FYI: Numbers aren’t 100% accurate. This is just for visualization

~ 8.4 million people living in New York

~ 1.6 million people living in Manhattan

~ Goals is to cover 5% of the market with 20 stores

= 80,000 customers a day

= 4,000 customers per store

People buy twice a week bread. (4,000*2/7 days)

= Customers 1,142 per day

Top down analysis

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Example/Template:

Bottom up analysis to sell a specific bread in Berlin by supplying other bakeries with that particular bread (potential sales).

-> FYI: Numbers aren’t 100% accurate. This is just for visualization

1,500 bakery stores are in Berlin

About 5% would buy and resell our bread -> rather go with 2,5%

~ 37 stores

Every bakery store has about 15 sorts of bread and sells about 200 breads a day. = 13 sales per sort of bread

37 stores * 10 sales of our bread

= 481 sales per day

Bottom up analysis

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Example/Template:

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

  • All the advantages your product/service has over the competition.
  • What makes us better?
  • Elements and possibilities to expand in certain fields and areas with the product
  • What are our chances?
  • The disadvantages your product/service has against others
  • In which points are we weaker?
  • Dangerous competition, market or legal threats against the product/service
  • What’s causing trouble?

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Example/Template:

Market positioning

UPMARKET

MIDMARKET

LONGTAIL

Number of e.g. customers

Where do you want to be?

Why do you want to be here?

Why don’t you want to be here?

🎯

Volume of e.g. revenue

🎯 This example is applicable for e.g. premium/enterprise businesses.

🤔

🚫

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Example/Template:

Competition feature matrix

Feature/

Company

Your Company

Company 1

Company 2

Company 3

Feature A

Feature B

Feature C

Feature D

Feature E

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Explanation & Tips:

Market research is a big topic and takes a lot of time and efforts. I presented some examples of results/outcomes of that work.

  • PEST(LE) analysis is a way to discover and evaluate macro economic factors which (will) have an impact on your business & product
  • If you want to share some history, development or an evolution you can use the “onion” for visualization
  • The top down analysis is usually used to estimate the total market size.
  • Bottom up calculations are done to estimate potential sales.
    • In both examples you’d add the average cart size or margin per sold bread to calculate potential revenues, which I didn’t.
  • The future market position of your product or service helps to underline your growth plans & strategy. I would explain why you want or don’t want to be in a certain market segment.

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Explanation & Tips:

Useful links:

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#4 Persona(s)

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Example:

Persona (social network):

Name: Karen Hess

Age: 29

Education: MBA

Job: VP Marketing

Location: US, New York

Technology:

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

Snapchat

Personality:

Extrovert vs. Introvert

Sensing vs. Intuition

Thinking vs. Feeling

Judging vs. Perceiving

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Example:

Bio:

Karen is a passionate marketing leader & digital native living in NY. She spends over 3,5 hours a day on social media to communicate and exchanges mainly with friends. She loves baking cupcakes and sharing short videos and pictures with her friends. On top of that she loves knowing what her friends are doing.

Needs:

  • Regular communication with friends
  • Showing the world her baking skills with short videos
  • Regular updates what her friends are doing

Frustrations:

  • Slow loading times
  • Her mobile internet volume gets regularly exhausted due to social networks
  • Afraid her data aren’t “protected” enough

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Template:

Personality:

Extrovert vs. Introvert

Sensing vs. Intuition

Thinking vs. Feeling

Judging vs. Perceiving

Technology:

Social Networks

Shopping behavior (online vs. offline)

Mobile vs. desktop usage

Games & messaging

etc.

Bio:

Written text about the person in third person or in first person.

Depending on how personal it should be.

Needs/Goals:

Bullet points on things the persona needs on daily basis, to solve a problem, looking for to live a better/easier life.

Frustrations:

Bullet points on things that are frustrating her related to the product/service/solution you’re offering.

Persona:

Name: [First, last name]

Age: [Number]

Education: [Highest degree]

Job: [Job title]

Location: [Country, city]

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Explanation & Tips:

Not every company can afford a full-fledged market research. Nevertheless, you should be able to get a deeper understanding of your customers and their behaviors, needs, and pain points. In case you don’t know how and where to start I recommend having a look at your internal customer database. Alternatively, the customer support/success teams has many insights too!

Useful links:

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#5 Development Team(s)

(optional)

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Example & Template:

Team Name: #Mobile-Team (eCom)

Vision: Build the best mobile shopping experience

Mission: Empower [Persona’s] to buy products quick & easy

Purpose: Make mobile shopping easier

Focus areas: Checkout & Signup

Daniel Feyer

Junior Frontend Developer

Lukas Schliep

Senior iOS Developer

Fernando Pho

Backend Developer

Szymon Luttik

Senior Android Developer

Liam Hougton

Senior Product Designer

Christian Strunk

Product Manager

Open positions for the team:

  • Senior Python Developer
  • Senior Frontend developer
  • Product Analyst

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Explanation & Tips:

Depending on your company/team size you can list the team members. Beside the team members, I’d always list the vision, mission, purpose, or at least the main focus area of the team. Not every stakeholder knows who is doing what.

In case your a fast/hyper growing company it’s helpful to share your team growth plans and a skill map. Stakeholders love seeing that you exactly know how to grow and achieve your goals.

Useful links:

  • Skill mapping link (coming soon)

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#6 Product Features

& Priorities

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Examples/Templates:

Mobile first approach:

  • The world is mobile, so are our customers
  • Guiding principles
    • Features will be developed always on mobile first & only
    • In case a feature requires user interaction via the web we build a desktop version

Out of the box philosophy:

  • Our solutions don’t require a complicated setup
  • Opt-in functionality is one fingertip away

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Examples/Templates:

Self-service approach:

  • Features must be self explanatory
  • Customers need to be able to easily troubleshoot themselves via good documentation, explanation, UX, etc.
    • Goal: NPS > 60
    • Goal: Less than [number] support email/calls

Trustworthiness:

  • Our product simply works!
  • Software & hardware is deeply integrated
    • Goal: Increase hardware sales by 20%

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Examples/Templates:

Product Goals:

  • In crease free trial sign up by 50% until end of 2021
    • Increase conversion rate (free trial -> paid customer) by at least 20%
  • Generate additional hardware sales $2MM revenue within 12 months
  • Increase the iOS & Android App Store rating by at least 0.5 stars
  • ...

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Explanation & Tips:

I picked up a couple of key features/priorities that can be defined for a product. Please keep in mind that this looks different from use case to use case. You can also highlight a clear feature that needs to be build. Don’t forget to explain why it needs to be build and eventually what makes it so valuable/important.

Useful links:

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#7 The Roadmap

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Examples & Templates:

High-level roadmap

Today

End of 2022

Current Product

  • Feature 1
  • Feature 2
  • Feature 3
  • Feature 4

Future Product

  • Feature 1
  • Feature 2
  • Feature 3
  • Feature 4
  • Feature 5
  • Feature 6
  • Feature 7

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Examples & Templates:

Services & features to build

Backend-Service 1

Current

(status quo)

Mid Term

(end of 2020 & 2021)

Long Term

(2022-2023)

Design System

3rd Party integration

Enhancing feature

Launching new ...

Mobile “innovation”

Backend Service 2

Platform approach

Sub-

Functionality 1

Sub-

Functionality 2

Feature Name

Speeding up loading times

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Examples & Templates:

Timeline redesign (fintech)

Sales Tab

New Login

Home Screen

Setting Page Rework

New Keyboard

Q2

Q3

Q4

TX History & Sales Filter

Design & Planning

Implementation

New Sign Up

New Sales Tab

New transaction history

Filter Functionality

New Login

New Setting Page

TESTING

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Examples & Templates:

App launch (gaming)

March

June

July 1st - July 15th

Features

Buffer

Alpha Phase

Beta Phase

Launch Phase

Signup/Login

Character Selection

Level 1-10 (20)

Jan - Feb

Signup/Login

Character Selection

Level 1-10 (20)

April - May

Tutorial Videos

Press Release

Support FAQ

Release Notes

App Store Upload

Bug Fixing

Improvements

Bug Fixing

Improvements

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Explanation & Tips:

There are many ways on how to visualize a roadmap. You can use Gantt Charts, migration plans, you can do it on a monthly basis, quarterly, etc…

Most important is to visualize in the way you, your team, and your stakeholders get most out of it. Coming up with a fancy roadmap that’s hard to read/understand won’t help anyone.

Useful links:

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#8 Numbers &

Additional Data

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Examples & Templates:

Key KPIs/Metrics (eCommerce):

  • Northstar Product KPI:
    • Total order volume
  • Leading KPIs:
    • Avg. number of products added to the cart (per customer)
  • Lagging KPIs:
    • Number of sales/orders (total & per customer)

Note: KPIs can be defined for a product or each individual feature

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Examples & Templates:

P&L forecast I/II:

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Examples & Templates:

P&L forecast II/II:

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Examples & Templates:

�Sales/Conversion Funnel:

Stage 1 Awareness

Stage 2: Interest

Stage 3: Evaluation

Stage 4: Engagement

Stage 5: Purchase

100%

60%

20%

10%

2.5%

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Explanation & Tips:

The world of data is endless. You can add many financial calculations such as:

  • Profit & Loss
  • Sales Forecast & Funnel
  • Cost Structure
  • Subscription Models & Pricing
  • Many more…

Most important is (again) to present what’s needed and helpful for your product & business.

Useful links:

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Final Notes:

Bear in mind the product strategy is a living document. It needs regularly to be adjusted, especially in these fast-changing times.

The whole slide deck is one way to visualize a strategy. Obviously, there are many more ways in more or less depth.

If you’d like to dig deeper feel free to have a look at the reads or reach out to me directly:

Mail: christian@christianstrunk.com

Linkedin: @christianstrunk

Website: www.christianstrunk.com

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End of the presentation

(there’s one more slide)