#strategy #AI #pm-practice #prompts # General Principles Leverage the traditional questions in [[Strategy Assessments]] # Prompts for analyzing a single strategy artifact ## Foundational analysis * Critique the executive summary. Does it clearly and concisely articulate the core problem, the proposed solution, and the key outcomes? Does it feel compelling and easy to understand for a non-technical stakeholder * Is there a clear, logical connection between the customer pain points described and the features and initiatives outlined to solve them? Identify any features that don't directly address a stated problem. * Does the strategy have clear key performance indicators and do those metrics metrics directly measure the success of the proposed strategy? Are they linked to the business goals mentioned in the document? Point out any KPIs that seem disconnected from the strategic objectives. ## GTM * Is the competitive landscape accurately and comprehensively described? Does the strategy effectively articulate a unique selling proposition (USP) or a meaningful point of differentiation? If not, suggest 3-5 potential areas for differentiation. ## Execution * Based on the proposed initiatives, what resource constraints (e.g., engineering hours, budget, data science support) are most likely to impact the roadmap? Highlight any areas where the planned work seems disproportionate to the stated resources * Critique the prioritization of the initiatives. What are the key trade-offs being made (e.g., launching an early version now vs. waiting for more features)? Identify any interdependencies between the projects and potential bottlenecks. ## Risk * Where does this strategy misunderstand core supply & demand characteristics in similar ways as Paul Krugman's 1998 prediction that the growth of the internet will slow dramatically, as expanded on in https://stratechery.com/2021/mistakes-and-memes. ## Summary ### Strategy in 6 Summarize the strategy in 6 bullets: * The 1st and 2nd bullets should cover the diagnosis of the central problem, e.g. key customer challenges, market landscape, industry trends, competitive pressure * 3rd bullet should summarize the guiding principles that outlines the general approach to overcome the challenge * The 4th, 5th, and 6th bullets should cover the coordinated steps to implement the guiding principles. Each bullet should be concise and start with a statement that is both evocative and direct. Avoid unnecessary fluff or overly dramatic language that won't resonate with the people on the ground executing this strategy. Organize the output as follows: Challenges (bullets 1 & 2), Principles (bullet 3), and Actions (bullets 4, 5, 6). ## What If Scenarios Propose a small concise set of reasonable actions for the following scenarios: * What if a major competitor launches a similar product in six months? # Prompts for analyzing a collection of strategy artifacts ## Graded framework critique **Take 1:** Using Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, articulated in this post: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/good-strategy-bad-strategy-richard, as an example of the ideal principles and framework for defining strategy, can you 1) provide critique for each source in this notebook in a table, aiming to synthesize key actions for the authors to improve their strategies, and 2) provide an aggregate and categorized critique of all the sources in a single table. **Take 2:** Provide the following: 1) separate critique for each source in this notebook in a table that includes an overall grade A to F, and 2) aggregated and organized critique of all the sources in a table. The goal for each critique to provide clear & actionable feedback for the authors to improve their strategies. Follow these general principles: 1) be brutally honest and ruthless in the feedback, 2) call out weak signals or lack of evidence and data in claims, 3) hunt for real painful customer problems in prioritized market segments. The output format should make it easy to paste into a google doc without any embedded references to source material or unsupported formatting, e.g. html tags. The critique table must include these columns: "Source" is reference to the title of the source document, "Grade" is the overall grade, "Critique" covers the synthesized critique, "Actions" are the specific actions for the author of the source. Base the critique and organize the findings using the following specific frameworks: Good Strategy / Bad Strategy as articulated in this post https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/good-strategy-bad-strategy-richard Alternative frameworks * * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Cs_model, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix. # Prompts for analyzing your customers ## Align with your org's internal segments I want to map a list of customers in the attached table with the internal segments we defined. The output should be a csv that I can paste into a spreadsheet which includes a column for the company name, a single column to display the segment. Remove any commas in the data that will interfere with a CSV import. Other variables to track in this table, each as separate columns: * Year company was founded * Offices (city, state/country) for the HQ and top 3 largest offices in other locations (if any) * Number of employees, % employee growth in the last 12 months, annual burn rate assuming employees are paid $250K/year on average. * Financing * If the company issues stock on a public exchange, list the following as separate columns: stock symbol, market cap in USD, stock growth in the last 12 months, stock growth relative to S&P 500 in the last 12 months * If the company is private, list the following as separate columns: total amount of capital raised in USD, date of most recent raise, amount of money raised in most recent raise, total valuation at last raise, list of the top 3 lead investors * Use sources like linkedin, public SEC filings ## Align with industry segments ## Clarify key challenges Create a table that lists the top 3 challenges faced by our customers. Limit the table to just companies from the list below. If there isn't sufficient information about the company in the notes, include a row that simply includes a statement on the information that is available, if any. # Prompts for testing hypothesis TODO # Prompts for Designing Customer Questions ### Leverage Teresa Torres Customer Discovery process Note: check out [[Customer Interviews]] for more background. I'm meeting with customer XYZ to discover their needs and challenges. Use these 10 principles to design high-quality specific questions: - **Start with a clear outcome.** (All questions must map to a measurable goal.) - **Focus on problems, not features.** (Uncover unmet needs, not solution ideas.) - **Ask for specific stories.** (Use "Tell me about the last time you..." to get real behavior.) - **Avoid hypotheticals.** (No "Would you...?" or "What if...?" questions; focus on past actions.) - **Separate problem discovery from solution testing.** (Don't mix questions about their problems with questions about your idea.) - **Map the customer's journey.** (Ask questions that follow their workflow to find specific pain points.) - **Identify your riskiest assumptions.** (Clearly define what must be true for your solution to succeed.) - **Test the four key risks.** (Design questions to check for **D**esirability, **V**iability, **F**easibility, and **U**sability.) - **Translate internal goals into customer questions.** (Convert what _you_ need to learn into what _they_ can answer.) - **Go deep on one opportunity.** (Focus all questions on a single, well-defined customer problem, not the whole product.)