#6: Defining strategy in a very wide market space - with Nina Schneider from Sherpany

Sherpany is a B2B SaaS for meeting management. The space is so wide, that there can tackle endless opportunities, which it might in turn reduce focus and end up in a mediocre product. So, how do they define a strong and focused strategy in such a wide space?

Nina is Chief Product Officer at Sherpany and she told me how they deal with this challenge and went deep into the very solid strategy formulation process they have.

We talked about:

• A very clear walkthrough of Sherpany’s annual strategy process, from high level company goals all the way to key initiatives.
• “Sausage making”: Sherpany’s code name for the alignment between top-down and bottom-up strategy definitions.
• Why the diagnosis process is more internally focused, looking at internal.
• How sherpany uses KPI trees and opportunity solution trees to map their opportunities.
• How they do positioning, not comparing with others but looking at the touchpoints they want to deliver great experiences.
• The influence in strategy formulation of selecting a narrow user group and use case to enable growth.
• During the formulation, they leveraged what the product was good for and being used for, to become even better and expand from that existing strength.
• How Sherpany is using a version of Google’s 70/20/10 to explore a bet for future growth.
• Product plays an important role in facilitating discussions like what users should we focus on, that has an impact not only in product but also in other departments.

And many other things!

You can find Nina on Linkedin or twitter.

Remember that you can find more info and material on 100productstrategies.com.

If you are eager to know more about product strategy, check out Product Direction: How to build successful products at scale with Strategy, Roadmaps, and OKRs

You can also contact or follow your host, Nacho bassino, at nachobassino.com (training, coaching, and more)