How to set Product Strategy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8tuwvIi518

Every Product Led company believes that to build great product is combination of art and science. 

There are 3 things every product lead company does

  1. Set a measurable north star
  2. Set Strategy : behavioral science into their decision making processes
  3. Hold themselves accountable to Results : RAPIDLY they test out different hypothesis & double down on winners

 What is vision ?

 

 

Product Vision is not about the flower , it is about the customer and what we want them to become

Example of Vision of Spotify.

 

 What is North Star? It is leading indicator of future success. It is guiding light that takes from "vision" to "impact".


  

 

North Star should not be a "Vanity Metrics". They are important but you dont want to hold people accountable for.

 

For example for a delivery app https://postmates.com , north star is not "opening app" , "scheduling deliveries" , not "deliveries happening" it is about "happy deliveries" .i.e. a delivery that is delivered on time and without any flaws(breakage etc) ... They find that happy delivery drives customer retention

For CEO , the metric may be revenue , but that is not the right metrics for product

 

 

 

Once we set the north star metrics we are not done yet ... we need to set guard rails. Hence Strategy

  

What is Strategy ?

 

 Every North Star can be broken down into 4 different components

 

 

Lets see if this framework applies to Netflix of 2007

  • What Game is Netflix playing ? Attention
  • Metrics
    • Number of subscribers
    • Lagging indicator is "monthly retention" 
    • Leading indicator is "Number of DVDs in queue"
  •  They set their strategy to drive "leading indicator number of DVDs up"

 

  1.  Understand the outcome you are trying to drive
    • but understand this is a lagging indicator , it takes a lot of time to drive it
  2.  Identify the leading indicators
  3.  Then Input metrics to those leading indicators

 If you have above understanding of your product , strategy becomes a lot easier

 Because your strategy is all about hypothesis to improve these input metrics 

For Amplitude

  • North star metric is "Weekly Querying users" 
    • it is not about just active users, or dashboard views , its all about self explore 
  •  Has Teams / Pods tied up to core metrics
    • Week 1 Retention : how we get new users to stick around for next week
    • Weekly Saving Users (users who save and share analysis : Depth)
    • Time to Value  : time it takes for us to take user from time he signs to activate an account
  •  Leading indicators for each team 

  

Measuring results is all about accountability

Best way is "OKRs"

How Product Team OKRs ? 3 tips

  1. They're called OKRs and not KROs for a reason
    • we do not want metrics dictating strategy
  2. Know the difference between Input , Output and Outcomes metrics
  3. Benchmark your OKRs based on the game you're playing

 

 

 

  

Reference : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8tuwvIi518&t=1152s

 

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