Product strategy

Add your direct competitor in the red column and substitute competitors inside the black and grey columns.

Follow our 5 dimensions to understand and evaluate your competitors. Product core Size of the user base Design Brand Speed How to monitor your competitors? Go to websites like crunchbase.com and keep track of their funding and the amount of money they have to hire people, invest in marketing, etc. Acquisition and partnership:** Companies they are buying or partnering with. New features:** Go to mention.com , follow your competitors on Angelist, _LinkedIn_, and social media and use google alerts to get notified when new search results are available.

Add any final thoughts on what this means for your competitive advantage and how you might move forward based on areas of low or high ratings.

Learn about the market environment. Find the most recent news related to the product, problem, or challenge. You and your team can use magazines, journals, newspapers, TV news, etc, and add them to the board. Write down sources you will explore to the last step in this session. Everyone should add their relevant findings to sticky notes on the Sticky Board, one finding per note.

Each member discusses their findings with the group. Cover information in the following categories and write down findings:

Macro-environment: Demographics factors Economic factors Social Cultural factors Environment Factors Tech Factors Micro-environment: Market size, trends, growth, ROI, Competition, etc Customer needs, segmentation, patterns, motivations. Suppliers Competitors Partners Internal Sales ROA Brand awareness Culture and values Use the board to schedule a meeting with the team.

Find recent innovation in the field and find experts and visionaries that are talking about it. What of the above categories do these recent innovations belong to? Discuss interesting concepts, why they were created, why they worked or didn’t work, and highlight unique business advantages of each that create a better customer experience. What recent campaigns or products have resonated with the market, and why?

Write down a list of old solutions in the market. Think about how they work, and how they cover each of the categories above. Which solutions failed? Why? If you are focused on creating a marketing campaign, what competition or old campaigns have resonated with the market, and why?

Describe the business in basic terms. What do you do?

Add concluding remarks here on who your customer is.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Add concluding remarks here on the customer relationship.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Add concluding remarks here on value proposition.Feel free to ask yourself:

Value proposition statement template:

Our [🛵product/service] helps [🙂user type/target segment] who wants to [job to be done] by [verb (like reducing, avoiding)] and [customer pain] and [verb (increasing/enabling) [customer gain] unlike [...]

Type of value:

Add concluding remarks here on key activities.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Add concluding remarks here from on key partners.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Add concluding remarks here on distribution channels.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Add concluding remarks here on cost structure.

Add concluding remarks here on the revenue stream. Feel free to answer the following: What and how is your customer paying you? What kind of pricing structure do you have? (fixed, based on segments, promotional, subscription, etc) Other considerations: Add a note here on margins for your business to provide context for pricing and cost structures. What's your margin? Is it a fixed margin? Are you keeping in mind shipping and returns? What can compromise your margins?

Do you have different revenue streams? How much does every revenue stream contribute to the overall revenue?

Discuss and identify here which item is the most expensive and add any details relating to variability.

Feel free to ask yourself:

Discuss potential affects on the businesses revenue with respect to revenue streams identified in the business model board.

Have the team identify any barriers they expect to encounter or have encountered already relating to cost structure. What barriers have you encountered or do you think you will encounter if your don't optimize your cost structure?

Add notes on what you believe the customer is willing to pay. What are your customers willing to pay? What's the ideal price? What's your price?

Team members should add their thoughts on strategy for the business as per discussions in this tool. Feel free to discuss the strategies submitted as a team and choose a favorite by highlighting that note. Feel free to answer the following: Based on your knowledge now, what would be the best strategy for your business/idea? How are you planning to increase your revenue or increase margins?

Summarize most important takeaway during this process and provide any final notes. Make sure you highlight final notes!

Ask everyone in your team to add features, new designs, and ideas they want to incorporate. Use a timer - ideally, you add all your sticky notes in under 5 mins. Add one feature/ service or idea per sticky note** (yellow sticky note). Don't worry about where to place it. Maybe you already have a list - if so, add one feature or idea per sticky note.

Use the timer (5 minutes) and ask everyone to organize their sticky notes by placing them in one section or another. Basic features or services:** Must-have features. Without them, the product or service doesn't exist. Think about basic features as the minimum viable product people will pay for. Often this helps you define what product characteristics and/or services must always be kept up-to-date. Ensure the basic product or solution is 1) cheap and accessible or 2) is optimized and well designed. Would my user or client be able to reach their goal without this feature or service? Would my client or user have difficulties reaching their goal? Expected features or services:** Clients will be able to reach their objective without these features and services, but the client expects these features because other organizations provide them, and without them, they feel like they are missing something. For example, in a task management platform, I'd expect to add a start or due date, but some platforms and calendars only provide the due date. I can still manage my tasks, but as a user, I feel attracted to other platforms that also allow me to track task duration. Other competitors often standardize expected features. Additional features or services:** In here, you can find two categories: 1) additional features that will help you be rooted in research. Discuss each section starting from the basic section. Ask everyone to go over all the sticky notes on the board and mark the additional and expected features and services that will become must-haves and will be considered basic features in the next year or two - by changing the sticky note color to red. Discuss findings. Ask everyone to add additional sticky notes (using the blue sticky notes) to the additional section by asking the following question: What features are currently on the board that you think should define and differentiate our product from our competition? Change the sticky note color to blue. Think about at least 1 new feature or service that you believe will be innovative and unique and will put the organization ahead of the competition. Use the blue sticky notes and add them outside the 3 sections.

Don't let this conversation go away, use all this knowledge and ask everyone to vote on two features or ideas they believe should be the ones to focus on next.

The Value Proposition Canvas is the perfect tool for understanding how customers and users make decisions. This tool will help you create offers and sales pages that they will find appealing. You will be able to easily persuade them by directly connecting with their pain points.

These are simply the jobs your customer needs to perform each day.

Think about the functional, social, and emotional tasks customers are trying to perform, problems they are trying to solve, and needs they wish to satisfy.

Ask yourself - What social, emotional, cognitive, and functional jobs does your customer do on a daily basis? Why?

Think about the negative experiences, feelings, and risks that the customer experiences while they are trying to get the job done.

Types of User Pains

User pains can generally be categorized into a few broad types:

🛌Functional Pains: These relate to the specific tasks users are trying to accomplish or the functional problems they encounter with current solutions. Examples include inefficiencies, poor usability, or lack of functionality.

🤑Financial Pains: These are concerned with the costs associated with using a solution, whether those costs are monetary, time-related, or resource-intensive. Users may feel that a product is too expensive, not worth the cost, or that it requires too much investment for the return it provides.

💁‍♀‍🙋🧑‍💼Social Pains: These involve the way a product or service affects a user’s social interactions or standing. For example, users might worry about how using a product will be perceived by others, or they might feel a product doesn’t fit their identity.

❤️Emotional Pains: These are related to users' feelings about their interactions with a product or service. This can include frustrations with customer service, the stress of complex interfaces, or anxiety about reliability.

🤫Process Pains: These pains occur when existing solutions complicate processes or workflows. Users might be frustrated by solutions that integrate poorly with other tools, have steep learning curves, or require cumbersome steps to achieve results.

What benefits would the customer expect? What would they need? What would delight customers? What things may increase the likelihood of adopting a value proposition? What would make your customer happy?

Having explored our customer's motivations, pains, and gains - we can start describing our Product and Service Features. Start with the product and service section. Product and Service Features:** The products and services which create gain and relieve pain, and creates value for the customer. Here is where you’re literally selling – like when mattress companies talk about their materials and extended warranties.

Why do these features mean anything? Why are those features important?

What value do we deliver to the customer/user?

Write your value proposition statement. This can be added anytwhere in the whiteboard or inside the conclusions section.

Value proposition statement template:

Type of value:

To effectively address user pains, consider the following steps:

Who are our customers really?

What do our customers truly value?

What jobs are our customers trying to get done?

What pains are our customers experiencing?

What gains are our customers seeking?

How are current solutions underperforming for our customers?

How can we eliminate or reduce customer pains in ways that others can’t?

How can we create gains that are superior to the competition?

What’s the minimum viable product (MVP) that would test our new value proposition?

How does our value proposition fit within the broader trends in the industry?

What assumptions are we making about our customers and market?

How scalable is our value proposition?

🔥These questions are designed to push your thinking and help you uncover new ways to add value for your customers. By exploring these areas thoroughly, you can craft a value proposition that not only meets the current market needs but also anticipates and shapes future demands.

Start by finding information online, which is the easiest way to gather data quickly.

Write down a number of places where your customers may hang out online, and make sure your team searches for recent data.

Excellent places to search are online forums, Facebook groups, comments sections of popular blog posts, Google reviews, and Amazon reviews. Comments on these sites are excellent places to observe the way your customers really feel.

Place special emphasis on posts where 👉customers define their fears, needs, habits, and personal dreams.

👈 Add all the information to the whiteboard.

🔥Tips:

After everybody is done in the previous step, review and discuss all findings. Takedown individual customer ‘attributes’ onto sticky notes. Add one attribute per sticky note.

You will know when you have enough information when you feel like you know this person. You should be able to imagine their beliefs, passions, aspirations, fears, hobbies, etc. Continue finding information until you feel like the personality of your persona is fully-formed and feels as real as a close friend.

Write down a name for this Persona or use the most common name that comes up in your customer files. This will help your team to have empathy for the customer as if it were a real person.

You may also choose to have more in-depth interviews to flesh out your Persona.

To finalize this board, choose a stock photo for your Persona.

When do they need a solution? When do they feel the pain? When could discover your solution?

Additional questions:

You want to know what they want to achieve both: Emotionally and functionally.

Turn it into a Jobs To Be Done Statement. Use this template by to create your statement: When I [Context] but [barrier] help me [goal] so I [outcome]

You can also follow create a user story.

User story:

Definition of done (acceptance criteria)

... and I know I am done when [Y]

These insights will help you create better messaging, marketing and product.

Visual map of any place where users act and interact with the solution.

By now the board should be complete. You and your team should know how your customer looks, what they say, what they think, how they feel.

If the picture is not yet clear, go back and add more details to complete the board. In this step, discuss the completed board with all participants and highlight important points.

🔥Tips:

What is the purpose of this analysis? What are you trying to evaluate or find? What major challenges are you facing?

The SWOT tool is divided into internal and external factors.

Evaluate the following strategies:

Define your goal. What are your goals for the coming year?🔥 Include at least two KPIs. Identify the departments or team members who are responsible and should be held accountable for reaching this goal.

Add your major steps, events, and milestones that must be taken to achieve your goal. How? Use sticky note or tasks If you are using sticky notes use a different color per department or team. (Define each team or Team member and their tasks and responsibilities by adding information inside the 👫Team/people section) Task or event duration can be shown by making sticky notes longer.