Strategy is a blue-collar job
On crafting strategy
Hi all —
Strategy is hard. You’re solving a multi-dimensional problem with incomplete and conflicting information. And it’s hard enough to understand what’s going on today - predicting what’s going to happen tomorrow? That’s magic.
We all know why strategy matters. It guides decision-making. It helps us make difficult trade-offs. It focuses effort in the “right” places. And if done right, it creates a business that grows really big and wins in the market for a while.
So that’s the outcome of good strategy. Great. We all agree: it’s valuable to have a good strategy.
And we generally know the components of a good strategy. The book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy is excellent. It claims that a good strategy includes three parts:
A diagnosis of the problem or opportunity. Given everything that’s going on in the market right now, what are the critical factors?
A guiding policy: A general approach to the problem outlined in the diagnosis above.
A set of coherent actions that accomplish what you’ve set out in the guiding policy.
Great! So we know what the outcome is and what strategy looks like. So we’re set, right?
Oh, wait.
Just because we know what strategy looks like and why it matters, doesn’t mean we know how to make it happen.
E.g., I know what a good stiff arm looks like, but I definitely can’t do this:
Here are four things I’ve learned about what it takes to create strategy, from the trenches:
Earn the right to focus on strategy
Tech entrepreneurs aren’t dumb. Many are too smart for their own good.
One mistake I’ve seen smart B2B software entrepreneurs make is focusing heavily on crafting business strategy too early. Before they’ve found a semblance of product-market fit, before they’ve gotten meaningful revenue and traction.
They don’t like ambiguity, and need to have a plan for how they’re going to win.
They forget the golden rule: To win, you must first survive.
And to survive, you have to get revenue. Get product into customers’ hands. As a byproduct, you’ll figure out which parts of your original thesis make sense, and which parts don’t.
You want to be in the position where you have meaningful revenue and growth but need to refine your strategy because you’ve learned a ton.
You don’t want to be in the position where your strategy is theoretically brilliant but totally unproven.
Get your hands dirty
Strategy is, in part, a blue-collar job. You’ve got to roll your sleeves up and get into the details.
I’m convinced that so many businesses have terrible - or non-existent - strategies because the suits in charge of strategy don’t get their hands dirty.
They read articles, theorize, say important-sounding words, and dress the part. But they don’t do the unsexy work that strategy really requires.
Because the sparks that get forged into a real strategy for your market are found in the last forty seconds of your 27th customer call this week. Not in the latest HBR article.
You earn the right to theorize. Get into the details. Onboard your next 50 customers. Do support. Sell. Use competitive products. Do the dirty work, and be a sponge when you do it.
Zoom in, zoom out, change angle
Getting your hands dirty is “zooming in”. When you’re zoomed in, strategy isn’t obvious. You have to zoom out and think. This is the sexier, more fun part of strategy.
The brainstorming, evening whiteboards, riffing with teammates. Yes, even reading articles. Exploring different angles: Where are competitors headed? What do customers really need? What’s missing? What could be sustainably differentiated?
What’s real? What’s hype? What’s changing? What’s not?
You are looking for something that is both real - based on what you’ve learned while zoomed in - and doesn’t yet exist.
Strengthen via negativa
Learned this one from Nassim Taleb. A strategy with many components and assumptions is more fragile than one with fewer.
I wrote a 10-page strategy document. Sat on it for a week. Then re-read it.
I realized that most of the document wasn’t helpful. In fact, the length was covering for my lack of confidence. Something core was missing in my logic. I spent a week figuring that out, and the doc is now just a few tight paragraphs that I’ve got conviction in.
It’s far from perfect, and will continue to get refined. But it’s real. And that’s what we all want, right? To build something real.