product-strategy-and-marketing

Product Strategy & Marketing

Unified product strategy skill — from vision and market opportunity through competitive positioning, growth loops, PLG, and product marketing context.

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Philosophy

Great product strategy asks the right questions and makes reversible decisions quickly while being thoughtful about irreversible ones.

• Start with the customer problem — not your solution
• Create optionality — platform thinking enables multiple futures
• Make trade-offs explicit — strategy is choosing what NOT to do
• Systems over tactics — growth loops compound; growth hacks don't

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Product Strategy Stack

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│          VISION             │  Where are we going? (3-10 years)
├─────────────────────────────┤
│         STRATEGY            │  How will we win? (1-3 years)
├─────────────────────────────┤
│          ROADMAP            │  What are we building? (Quarters)
├─────────────────────────────┤
│         EXECUTION           │  How are we building? (Sprints)
└─────────────────────────────┘

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Product-Market Fit Spectrum

Level 0: Problem Fit    → You've found a real problem worth solving
Level 1: Solution Fit   → Your solution addresses the problem
Level 2: PMF            → Customers pull the product from you
Level 3: Scale Fit      → Repeatable growth engine working
Level 4: Moat Fit       → Defensible competitive advantage established

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Market Opportunity Framework

TAM → SAM → SOM

Metric	What It Means	How to Calculate
TAM	Everyone who could theoretically buy	Target customers × avg contract value
SAM	Those you can reach and serve	TAM × geographic/product constraints
SOM	Realistic near-term share	SAM × realistic penetration (1-5%)

Always validate top-down with bottom-up: (realistic customers × conversion rate × ACV). If gap is >3x, revisit assumptions.

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Working Backwards (PR/FAQ)

Amazon's product methodology: start with the customer outcome, work backward to the solution.

Write an internal press release BEFORE building anything. If you can't write a compelling press release, you don't have a compelling product.

PR/FAQ Structure

Press Release (~1 page):

1. Headline — product name, one-sentence customer benefit
2. Dateline + subheadline
3. Opening paragraph — who is the customer and what problem is solved
4. Problem paragraph — the current pain in detail
5. Solution paragraph — what the product does
6. Customer quote (fictional) — how it changes their life
7. Company/founder quote — why this matters
8. Getting started — how to begin
9. Closing — call to action

FAQ (External + Internal):

• External FAQ: Questions real customers would ask
• Internal FAQ: Questions your skeptical colleagues would ask (the hard ones)

Anti-patterns to avoid:

• Writing the PR after building (defeats the purpose)
• Solution-first thinking — retrofitting a problem to your idea
• Vague customer definition ("everyone could use this")
• Skipping the hard internal FAQ questions
• Marketing hyperbole instead of specific, measurable claims

For patterns and examples: see references/ directory

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Competitive Positioning & Moats

Moat Type	Description	Examples
Network Effects	Product improves as more users join	Slack, LinkedIn
Switching Costs	Painful to leave	Salesforce, Workday
Data Advantages	Proprietary data improves product	Google, Waze
Scale Economies	Cost advantages at scale	AWS, Stripe
Brand	Trust and recognition	Apple, Notion

Positioning template:

For [target customer]
Who [customer need/problem]
[Product] is a [product category]
That [key benefit/differentiation]
Unlike [competitors]
Our product [unique value]

Competitive decision types:

• Type 1 (irreversible): Business model, platform choice — take your time
• Type 2 (reversible): Feature prioritization, pricing tiers — decide quickly

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Growth Loops & PLG

Growth Loop Types

Loop	Mechanism	Key Metric
Viral	Users invite users	K-factor
Content	Users create discoverable content	Indexed pages
Paid	Revenue funds acquisition	CAC payback
SEO	Content ranks, drives traffic	Organic traffic
Sales	Pipeline → revenue → more reps	ACV/CAC

PLG Motion Types

Motion	Best For	Key Lever
Freemium	Simple products, network effects	Free → paid conversion
Free Trial	Complex products	Trial conversion rate
Reverse Trial	High-value products	Premium feature discovery
Usage-Based	API/variable consumption	Usage expansion

North Star Metric Framework

A good North Star:

• Measures value delivered to customers
• Is a leading indicator of revenue
• Reflects product strategy
• Is actionable by the product team

Examples: Slack → DAU sending messages; Airbnb → Nights booked; Figma → Weekly Active Editors

AARRR Funnel

Acquisition → Activation → Retention → Revenue → Referral

Rule: Fix activation before optimizing acquisition. Filling a leaky bucket wastes spend.

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Product Marketing Context

Before any marketing work, create .agents/product-marketing-context.md capturing:

1. Product Overview — one-liner, what it does, product category, business model
2. Target Audience — company type, decision-makers, primary use case, jobs to be done
3. B2B Personas — user, champion, economic buyer, technical influencer (with pain + value promise)
4. Problems & Pain Points — core challenge, why alternatives fail, cost of the problem
5. Competitive Landscape — direct, secondary, and indirect competitors + how each falls short
6. Differentiation — key differentiators, why customers choose you
7. Objections & Anti-Personas — top 3 objections + who is NOT a good fit
8. Customer Language — verbatim phrases for how customers describe the problem and your solution
9. Brand Voice — tone, style, personality (3-5 adjectives)
10. Proof Points — metrics, notable customers, testimonial snippets

Auto-draft approach (recommended): Study the repo (README, landing pages, marketing copy, package.json), draft a V1, then ask: "What needs correcting? What's missing?"

All other marketing skills reference this file automatically — create it once, update as needed.

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Business Model Design

Revenue Model Options

Model	Pros	Cons
SaaS	Predictable, high LTV	Long sales cycle
Freemium	Low CAC, viral	Free → paid conversion hard
Usage-Based	Scales with customer	Revenue unpredictability
Marketplace	Network effects	High volume needed

Unit Economics

LTV = (Monthly Revenue per Customer × Gross Margin %) ÷ Monthly Churn Rate
Target: LTV > 3x CAC, CAC payback < 18 months

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Key Strategic Questions

1. Horizontal vs Vertical? — Serve many industries or dominate one deeply?
2. High-Touch vs Self-Service? — Drives CAC, LTV, and scaling ability
3. Niche vs Broad? — Start narrow, expand over time
4. Premium vs Budget? — Rarely can do both
5. First Mover vs Fast Follower? — Category size determines which matters

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Anti-Patterns

• Vision without strategy — inspiring destination, no map
• Strategy without trade-offs — if everything is a priority, nothing is
• TAM theater — unrealistic market sizes to impress investors
• Feature parity obsession — chasing competitors instead of customers
• Premature scaling — scaling before PMF
• Optimizing acquisition before activation — filling a leaky bucket
• Vanity metrics — MAU without engagement is meaningless

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Related Skills

• go-to-market-strategy — Launch planning and execution
• pricing-strategy — Pricing decisions and packaging
• sales-and-revenue-operations — Sales team, RevOps