Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age

by Roman Pichler

Summary Table 3 summarizes how the life cycle stages shape the product strategy. TABLE 3: The Product Life Cycle and the Product Strategy Life Cycle Stage Strategy Development Develop a valid strategy: a strategy that results in a product that is beneficial, feasible, and economically viable. Introduction Adapt and improve your product to achieve product-market fit (PMF). This may require incremental changes such as improving the customer experience, adding new features, and refactoring the architecture. But it may also make a more drastic change or pivot necessary. Aim to achieve the break-even point for a revenue-generating product by the end of this stage. Ensure that your business model is scalable. Growth Sustain the growth by penetrating the market and fending off competitors. Keep your product attractive, and refine it. Manage the growth by unbundling your product or by creating variants, for instance. Ensure that your product is profitable (if it is meant to generate revenue). Maturity As growth stagnates, extend the life cycle and revive growth by taking the product to a new market, for example, or bundling it with another product or service. Alternatively, milk your product by serving the late majority. Defend its market share and focus on profitability for revenue- generating products. Decline Reduce cost to keep the product profitable for as long as possible, then start phasing it out.