Product Strategy Fundamentals
In my Early days as a Product Manager, the word strategy felt like one of those vague, overused terms everyone referenced but no one ever really explained. It showed up in stakeholder meetings, team stand-ups, pitch decks, and roadmap discussions.
“What’s the strategy?”
“Does this align with our product strategy?”
“We need to be more strategic about this feature…”
I’d nod along, take notes, and Google frantically afterward, trying to figure out what I had just agreed to.
A few years and a lot of learning curves later, product strategy isn’t abstract anymore. It’s a clear, practical framework I rely on that guides how I build, what I prioritise, and how I communicate product direction with teams and stakeholders.
This article, inspired by the Immersive Product Strategy course on Treford, isn’t an exhaustive breakdown of every facet of product strategy, BUT it will give you the solid foundation you need to build on. Think of it as your starting point: the core concepts you should understand before diving deeper.
The aim is to breakdown product strategy: to explain what it actually is, what it’s made up of, and why it’s such a powerful tool for product managers.
By the time you’re done reading, you’ll be able to ask better questions, speak about strategy with more confidence, and know exactly what to look out for as you keep learning.
What is Product Strategy?
Product strategy is the high-level thinking and planning that connects your product’s vision to real business outcomes.
It’s not just about what features to build or what the roadmap should look like next quarter. It’s about why your product exists, who it’s for, what success looks like, and how you plan to get there.
Think of it as your product’s north star, guiding decisions, aligning teams, and keeping everyone focused on the bigger picture. Without a strategy, you’re essentially just building in the dark, reacting to feature requests, or chasing competitors with no real direction.
Over time, I’ve come to understand that strong product strategy is a blend of five core ingredients:
Vision – This is the long-term aspiration of your product. What change are you trying to create in the world or your industry?
Business Strategy – This is how your product ties into the company’s mission, values, resources, and bottom line.
Market Opportunity – Understanding customer needs, competition, barriers to entry, and overall market conditions.
Clear Goals – measurable targets that help define success.
Actionable Initiatives – concrete steps your team will take to reach those goals.
All of these work together to form your strategy. If any one of them is missing, your strategy is likely to be incomplete or worse, ineffective. It’s the thinking, alignment, and focus that turns a product from an idea into something that delivers real value for users and the business.
The Core Building Blocks of Product Strategy
These are the foundational pieces that give your strategy clarity, structure, and direction and they’re surprisingly simple once you grasp them.
Let’s walk through the three key building blocks:
1. Vision: The Long-Term Aspiration
Your vision is the “why” behind your product.
It’s not about features, timelines, or KPIs. It’s about the future you want to create through your product.
It answers the question: If this product does exactly what we hope, what kind of impact will it make?
There’s a difference between Product vision and Company/Market vision:
Product vision is what your product aims to become.
Company/Market vision is the change you want to influence in the wider world or industry.
For example,
SpaceX’s market vision is to make life multi-planetary. That’s massive and inspiring.
Their product vision, though, might be something more focused, like building reusable rockets that reduce the cost of space travel.
A clear vision inspires your team, guides high-level decisions, and keeps you anchored when the day-to-day gets chaotic.
2. Goals: What Success Looks Like
Vision is nothing without direction and that’s where goals come in.
Goals are the measurable outcomes that translate your vision into something you can track, work towards, and achieve.
A good goal is specific, time-bound, and aligned with both the product and business strategy.
For example:
“Grow active users by 25% in the next 6 months”
“Reduce churn rate by 15% this quarter”
“Launch in two new markets before year-end”
Your goals give shape to your vision, they help your team understand what success looks like in concrete terms, not just high-level dreams.
3. Initiatives: The Work That Gets You There
Finally, we have initiatives, the actionable part of the strategy.
These are the projects, features, campaigns, or work streams you’ll execute to achieve your goals.
A good initiative is tactical, cross-functional, and tied to a clear outcome. It might involve product, engineering, marketing, sales, customer support or all of them working together.
Example:
If your goal is to increase user acquisition, an initiative might be:
“Redesign the onboarding flow to reduce drop-offs by 50% ”
You need initiatives that are rooted in reality, things your team can start doing now to move the needle.
When your vision, goals, and initiatives are all in sync, your product strategy becomes more than a plan, It becomes a system. A way to drive consistent progress, make smarter decisions, and build something that truly matters.
What Makes a Good Product Strategy?
Now that we’ve broken down the core components, let’s talk about what separates a good product strategy from one that looks good on paper but falls apart in practice.
I’ve seen (and honestly, created) both. Here are the markers of a solid, effective strategy:
1. It connects to the Business strategy.
Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A good strategy is rooted in the larger company mission, values, and resources.
It answers:
How does this product help the business grow?
Is this the best use of our time, budget, and team capabilities?
If your strategy doesn’t align with where the company is going, you’ll constantly be fighting for buy-in or worse, building something no one really needs.
2. It Understands the Market Opportunity.
A good product strategy is grounded in reality. It’s built on insights about:
Your users’ needs
Competitive landscape
Industry trends
Barriers to entry
Timing and momentum
It’s not about copying what others are doing, it’s about carving out your own edge, based on what you understand about your space or industry.
3. It’s Focused.
You can’t do everything and a great product strategy knows that.
It narrows down priorities and gives your team clarity on what not to chase (at least, not right now).
Focus doesn’t mean being slow, it means being intentional. You ship what matters, not what’s loudest.
4. It’s Actionable.
You should be able to look at your product strategy and know:
What to do next
Why you’re doing it
How it connects to your bigger picture
It should translate smoothly into a roadmap and workstreams. If your strategy feels too vague to act on, it’s not ready yet.
5. It Evolves.
Finally, and this is important, your product strategy isn’t carved in stone.
The market changes. User behaviour shifts. Your company pivots.
A strong strategy has room to flex and adapt without losing its core.
You revisit it. You refine it. You get smarter. That’s the point.
Product strategy might sound intimidating at first, but it really comes down to this:
A clear vision.
Measurable goals.
Actionable initiatives.
And the discipline to stay focused on what matters.
Of course, there’s a whole lot more to explore when it comes to product strategy. As you go deeper, you’ll uncover nuances like the different types of strategy to use in competitive versus uncontested markets, how to align your roadmap with go-to-market timing, choosing the right strategy for growth and so on.
If you’re ready to take a deeper look, I highly recommend the Immersive Product Strategy course on Treford, It’s what inspired this article, and it’s packed with practical, grounded insight to take your understanding further.
But for now, if this article helped strategy feel a little less fuzzy and a lot more clear, mission accomplished.
Thanks @Seyifunmi Olafioye. You've helped uncover this mystery for me. But in real context what will a Product look like for a product that has not gone live?