4 posts tagged with "Product Strategy"

TL;DR​

Vertical SaaS is SaaS built for a specific niche. If you’re building software for wedding photographers, ecommerce pet brands, or boutique gyms — you’re building vertical SaaS.

It’s the opposite of a generalist tool like Notion, Google Sheets or Slack.

This piece unpacks what vertical SaaS is, how it's different from horizontal SaaS, and why it's a massive opportunity for founders in the next decade. Plus: a breakdown of vertical SaaS examples, public companies, and embedded payments plays.

Finding Product-Market Fit: Lessons From Doing the Hard Way ( My Skull vs Concrete)​

"Product/market fit occurs when you feel like you're strapped to a rocket. Not because you landed a $15K pilot, not because 50 people told you your idea is great, and definitely not because a company said they would pay $1,000 (but meant $100, yep these all actually happened, to add to it that stakeholder left, so remember who you interview and sell to and what happens if they leave really matters). PMF isn't revenue, even bad products or services can make money.

It's repeat usage. Retention. Pull from the market, not push. Not customer acquisition costs that's more than Life time value.

How do I know?

• I’ve chased vanity signals, people want to be nice, they’ll tell you they’d use it. They lie.
• I’ve burned months building features that I wanted to believe were painkillers, but were vitamins and or the unit economics didn’t work, thinking I could brute-force my way to product/market fit.

This post is what I wish I'd read earlier. A no-BS guide to product market fit stages, lean product development, and the frameworks that actually help you get traction.

What is a Product Strategy Framework?​

A product strategy framework is a structured approach to planning, developing, and launching products that will actually sell. It's basically the roadmap that gets you from cool idea moment to actually making something for your customers and they actually love it (which usually means pay.)

Now this is mostly aimed at creating Product Strategy Framework's and not finding Product Market Fit or Problem Solution Fit, you should of course you should you apply a very similar rubric to new product too. Which in it's most basic form is:

• Who is this product for? (your target market or user personas)?
• What problem are we solving and what value will the product offer?
• Why will users care (what's our unique value proposition or differentiator)?
• How will we succeed?
• When and in what order will we roll things out (major milestones or phases, a.k.a. your product roadmap)?

And it should go without saying talking too 100s of clients, customers, users and finding common problems is always always always the way to start this.

Think of the product strategy framework as the bridge between your product vision and your execution strat like the product roadmap and development sprints. It's not about listing every feature you'll ever build; it's about setting guardrails/KPIs and context. This way, even when your team is busy building and iterating, they understand the context and ultimate goal. This differs from a public product roadmap in it's much more inclusive and covers off internal private things, ideas, more precise timelines, team planning, asset allocations but still high level.

Tl:dr A product strategy framework is essentially a structured approach to defining what you're building, why you're building it, who it's for, and how you'll make it successful. It's the high-level plan that connects your product vision to the nitty-gritty of development and go-to-market execution.

Source

Ever wondered why some tech companies nail product development while others leave their users guessing? You can find some answers in, which companies publicly broadcast their roadmaps, which is a pretty effective marketing tool as well as one that actually helps product direction, feedback and engagement. It’s also crucial for building trust with users and bringing them along for the journey.

However, it can be a double edged sword, too much information will likely, from my experience, not be the best for your developers. If you announce features with a strict deadline, all you’re doing to do is overpromise and underdeliver.

Even small firms can benefit from a public roadmap (something I’ll go into greater depth in our next blog post) but start High level and engage your users to actually help you prioritise. Things like a feature leader board, can you help engagement but you needn’t commit to all, and also help you start conversations.

What is a Public Product Roadmap?​

A public product roadmap can serve as a strategic communication tool that publicly outlines your product plans. It’s almost always a visual representation reveals what a company is currently working on, recent releases, and their general product strategy—which anyone can freely view.

Benefits of Public Roadmaps​