AMA: BILL Senior Director of Product Management, Tara Wellington on Product Strategy

The two things you need to ensure that you can get your exec team on board with your strategy is (1) Clear communications plan (2) A strong, well researched factbase standing behind your strategy. (1) For clear communications: Start your communications plans early! I bring my exec team in at the very beginning of the product strategy creation process. I hold a product strategy kickoff event to let everyone know we are embarking on a product strategy exercise. I share the timeline for completion, the process we will use, and the milestones where we will update the exec team on the progress and give them a chance to weigh in. During the development of the strategy I usually do 3 exec check-ins: (1) Kickoff, (2) Review the research and options, (3) Review the product strategy recommendation/decision. I usually hold these each about 1 month apart to keep people engaged and the momentum high. Before the final meeting on the strategy recommendation/decision. I often do 1:1s with key stakeholders to familiarize them with the research and recommendations so that they are already aligned before we go to a larger alignment meeting. (2) Your product strategy process should always include the development of a factbase. The factbase helps you build your case for the strategic option you are selecting. Having a deep, well researched factbase ensures that you not only developed a data backed strategy, but also drives the believability of your strategy. It is key to include 3-5 data points when initially communicating your product strategy recommendation. This can help to drive alignment with your strategy via facts, vs. arguing with execs over opinions. Always come back to the research.

I would argue that a market problem IS a product strategy problem. Your product strategy should be a clear direction for the product to win within the constraints of the market context and customer context. If you are not growing with the current product strategy, I would start by evaluating each element to where you are struggling: * Market elements * Maturity - how mature is the market? Are people ready for adoption? * Market saturation - how strong is the competition? * Size - is the market big enough for there to be strong growth? How are you defining it? * Location - where is your market? * Product / Market fit elements * Does your product meet the expectations of the customers? * Does your product differentiate from competition? * Is your product actually solving a problem within the market? * Are people willing to pay for solving this problem? * Go-to-market elements * Do customers know about your product? * Do customers understand what the product can do for them? * Can customers adopt and use the product easily? * Are you priced correctly? * Product elements * How is your retention? Are you losing more customers than you are gaining? * How is your expansion? Can you grow through ARPU in addition to new customers? * How is your activation? Are people actually using the product? Any one of these elements could be throwing off your growth. I would start by digging into these series of questions to find the elements where you might be having issues. Then you can develop a list of hypotheses to test.

I start confidence building with a product strategy before I even write the strategy. You want people to be bought into the process of developing the strategy - this will help them have high trust in the results of the process. Once they are aligned on the process, make sure to include them through the development process, and then through the socialization of the product strategy itself. If you have done this process well, you should be aligned at the start of your product strategy execution journey. From there, I would switch from reporting on the progress of the strategy, and would take the reporting down one level. Most strategies have different strategic focus areas or initiatives - focus your reporting and execution on these areas. I would report on these focus areas on a weekly or monthly basis depending on the cadences of your business. Focus on the success or learnings from these initiatives - rather than questioning the product strategy on a short term basis. I would revisit your product strategy every 6-12 months to ensure that it is continuing to serve you. Sometimes there are major market shifts or customer shifts that require shifts in strategy. Other times, you realize the strategic focus areas of the product strategy are not having the impact you would like. However, product strategy needs some time to be realized, so make sure in the short term to be focusing confidence building and reporting on the focus areas vs. the strategy itself. 

I have observed that the word strategy can be intimidating as well as misunderstood. In its simplest form, product strategy is a process of defining what your options are, and then selecting which option has the greatest chance of success. The most important step is getting REALLY clear on what your options are - which requires a deep factbase that includes market research, customer research, and product insights. The process that I use is a simple 4 step process that you can apply to most strategic decisions you need to make within a business: (1) Build your factbase (2) Define your options (3) Determine which option is best supported by the factbase (4) Make your decision & socialize. When I run this process at BILL, it usually takes between 6-12 weeks depending on the depth of factbase that we need. You should be spending the majority of your time working on your research so you can have a solid factbase as the foundation for data driven decision making. Here is an example approach you can apply to your own product strategy. * Kickoff: Hold a strategy kickoff so everyone knows you are starting the process - include key stakeholders and walk them through the scope of the strategy and the process you will use to develop it. Let everyone know how and when they can contribute or get updates during the process. * Key Questions: Build a list of your hypotheses and key questions to answer. This will help you understand what you need to learn with your factbase development. * Factbase Development: Start your factbase development. The depth of the factbase will depend on the scope of the strategy - I always include market research (market trends, TAM & SAM sizing, competitive analysis), customer research (both qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys - across current and prospective customers), product insights (this is only necessary if you already have a product live - it includes all your product analytics like conversion, activation, engagement, retention, known feedback, etc.) * Define Optionality: Once you are 50-75% through your factbase, start defining the options you see emerging. Your options should be distinctly different directions you could take. As defined, they should be mutually exclusive options, even if you do decide to take elements from each in your final decision. I usually do 4-5 options. Option definition should include: * 3 year look back vision - this can be a statement or visual of where that strategy lands you in 3 years * Target customer * Target “jobs to be done” * Core value prop for the customer * Business/market opportunity * Competitive advantage (why you have the right to win in the market) * Strategic focus areas (key things this strategy requires you build) * Select an Option: As you continue to finish your factbase, start mapping the research to the options that you have. As you finish your factbase, you should start seeing one option have more supporting evidence than the others. * Write up your Strategy & Socialize: Once you have selected which option you want to pursue, write up your case. Use your research as the supporting evidence to defend your strategy decision. Socialize with key stakeholders. 

You have a few options in this scenario: 1. Early market maturity: Work to create and/or accelerate the market creation. For this to be a viable product strategy you need to have a product/market fit as well as a GTM approach that will allow you to find and penetrate early adopters. This strategy will also require the time/money to hold the company over as the market matures and gains strength. If you pursue this strategy, I would get clear on what the barrier is for customer adoption. Is the problem not big enough? Do they not know there is a solution? Is the technology too expensive at the moment? Is there a trust issue? Can you find the early adopters? Once you find the main barriers, you can work specifically on bringing those down. 2. Pivot to a more mature market: Refocus on a more mature market, and hold onto your technology until you start to see signs that customer adoption could pick up. For this to be a viable strategy, there has to be a belief that the market will mature without direct intervention from you. It is also risky if being the first mover in the market is the main competitive advantage you have. Holding does give competitors time to catch-up or beat you. 3. Create a stepping stone product: If customers are not ready to adopt your product due to one of the reasons above, you can focus on an “on-ramp” product that provides customer value today, and then can be used to introduce customers to the “industry first solution.” And examples of this could be, customers are not ready for fully autonomous cars, so start by introducing them to parking assist while they are driving. In order to make your decision, I would follow the product strategy process I outlined for the question, “What is your end-to-end process for crafting a product strategy?”