Product Strategy & Marketing

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

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

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) └─────────────────────────────┘

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

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.

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):

• Headline — product name, one-sentence customer benefit

• Dateline + subheadline

• Opening paragraph — who is the customer and what problem is solved

• Problem paragraph — the current pain in detail

• Solution paragraph — what the product does

• Customer quote (fictional) — how it changes their life

• Company/founder quote — why this matters

• Getting started — how to begin

• 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

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

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.

Product Marketing Context

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

• Product Overview — one-liner, what it does, product category, business model

• Target Audience — company type, decision-makers, primary use case, jobs to be done

• B2B Personas — user, champion, economic buyer, technical influencer (with pain + value promise)

• Problems & Pain Points — core challenge, why alternatives fail, cost of the problem

• Competitive Landscape — direct, secondary, and indirect competitors + how each falls short

• Differentiation — key differentiators, why customers choose you

• Objections & Anti-Personas — top 3 objections + who is NOT a good fit

• Customer Language — verbatim phrases for how customers describe the problem and your solution

• Brand Voice — tone, style, personality (3-5 adjectives)

• 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.

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

Key Strategic Questions

• Horizontal vs Vertical? — Serve many industries or dominate one deeply?

• High-Touch vs Self-Service? — Drives CAC, LTV, and scaling ability

• Niche vs Broad? — Start narrow, expand over time

• Premium vs Budget? — Rarely can do both

• First Mover vs Fast Follower? — Category size determines which matters

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

Related Skills

• go-to-market-strategy — Launch planning and execution

• pricing-strategy — Pricing decisions and packaging

• sales-and-revenue-operations — Sales team, RevOps