This Week #0: Advice on growth, product, and leadership
Sep 2019
You can differentiate across 20+ dimensions—price, quality, experience, trust, tribe, story—or you can choose not to differentiate significantly and win by scaling faster. The best companies combine multiple dimensions, but some winners succeed purely through execution velocity.
Related
Ideas from across Lenny's archive that connect to this one
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022You can't just claim you're 'better.' Better for a small company means simplicity and speed to value. Better for an enterprise means customization and bells and whistles. Your positioning must articulate why you're the best solution specifically for your target customer type.
Gibson Biddle on his DHM product strategy framework, GEM roadmap prioritization framework, 5 Netflix strategy mini case studies, building a personal board of directors, and much more
Jun 2022Product strategy should balance three elements: delighting customers (10X better experiences), building defensible advantages (hard to copy), and creating business value (margin enhancing). The tension between delight and margin is where strategy lives—you must constantly trade off customer joy against business sustainability.
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
Jun 2022Most teams ask 'why does everyone love our stuff?' which yields opinions, not differentiation. Instead, begin by identifying what you must beat to win: the status quo (spreadsheets, pen and paper, interns) and the short list of alternatives. Only then can you identify capabilities that actually matter.
Where Great Product Roadmap Ideas Come From
Jun 2019Don't assume competitors' product decisions reflect strategic insight. Copying what competitors do is listed as a rare source of great ideas because they may be following trends, reacting to pressure, or simply guessing—not executing a masterplan you should replicate.
Gibson Biddle on his DHM product strategy framework, GEM roadmap prioritization framework, 5 Netflix strategy mini case studies, building a personal board of directors, and much more
Jun 2022When Netflix faced growth challenges, Reed Hastings shifted from prioritizing simplicity to prioritizing customer choice—offering an ad-supported tier even though it added complexity. Sometimes market conditions force you to serve different customer segments differently, even if it contradicts your original strategy.
Import your highlights, and we'll find the connections you've been missing.