Join 📚 Felicity's Weekly Book Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Felicity's read, .
What Strategic Thinking Actually Looks Like
Strategic thinking means turning from the strategic process to the actual core questions:
**Instead of:** "What features should we build?"
**Ask:** "Which customer problems, if solved, would most directly contribute to our company's current priorities?"
**Instead of:** "Leadership hasn't told us who to focus on."
**Ask:** "Based on what we know about business goals, which segments would we focus on if we had to choose today?"
**Instead of:** "Which of [Helmer's 7 Powers](https://click.convertkit-mail2.com/8kuokvewzehoh29wkx5akhk6g2g99s3hxqgw2/owhkhwuwgz7do5tq/aHR0cHM6Ly83cG93ZXJzLmNvbS8=) is the right one to focus on?"
**Ask:** "How can we convince audiences to choose us over alternatives?"
Notice the pattern? Strategic thinking means making explicit choices within your context, even when that context is imperfect.
Why Strategic THINKING Matters More Than THE Strategy
Tim Herbig
If you’re working on a strategy for a whole product, then the superpowers that you might have can be split into 7 categories:
• **Network effects** – Each user enjoys more value as new users join the network
• **Scale economies** – Unit costs decline as volume increases
• **Switching costs** – Switching to an alternate product would be costly or painful for users
• **Counter positioning** – Where a new product’s business model or value proposition cannot easily be copied by incumbents as it would damage their existing business
• **Cornered resource** – Unique access to a valuable asset
• **Branding** – An objectively identical offering has higher perceived value
• **Process Power** – Embedded company culture and process which enable lower costs and/or superior quality
How to Write a Product Strategy in 1 Day / 1 Week / 1 Month
Aakash Gupta
*Staff Engineer* introduces an approach I call [Take five, then synthesize](https://lethain.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f7003ed301623a88fab7cf783&id=1e5e9d0544&e=a102c6f471), which does strategy by:
1. Documenting how five current and historical related decisions have been made in your organization. This is an extended exploration phase
2. Synthesizing those five documents into a diagnosis and policy. You are naming the implicit strategy, so it’s impossible for someone to reasonably argue you’re not empowered to do strategy: you’re just describing what’s already happening
Who Gets to Do Strategy? @ Irrational Exuberance
Will Larson
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
Readwise