Hey, happy Monday!
I want you to know that this newsletter is a Product. It is a subject line that I carefully create each week, designed to arrive on time like a Japanese train in your email every Monday at 7:00 am. Waterfall. I promised you that when you signed up.
It is a Product, available free of charge, that aims to solve several problems, but to one problem in particular I devote the most attention.
To inspire, in a practical way, entrepreneurs and professionals like you to work radically differently. To avoid going around in circles in activities whose impact cannot be measured. To design and implement stronger businesses that depend not on luck to succeed but on the systematic habit of decoding the present and anticipating new market behavior.
This newsletter is a Product. And I thank you for consuming it.
Some even share it. Because when you are happy using a product the easiest way to make another person happy is to recommend it to him. You both gain and he will thank you forever. If you’d like you can do that now, there are buttons right under the title.
Like all products, not just free ones, you can consume it as long as you see fit. As long as it is useful to you in improving that specific area of your business or career. As long as you feel that feeling of having gotten the value you needed. If, for some reason, this Product no longer meets your need for progress, you can simply click on this is link to stop receiving these notes. It only takes one click to decide to stop getting the benefits. Unsubscribe. Poof!
Everything in STRTGY is a Product.
Social media posts are also Products. Smaller. Designed to be consumed quickly. In the blink of an eye. The purpose of these products is to get you to click the link in bio to delve into content that might offer you a different perspective on the world of business and strategy.
Our events, which we call STRTGY Meeting, are Products. Designed for those who want access to a higher level of interaction and who want to take home (or rather to the office) a tool they can apply right away…
Regular meetings with STRTGY Alumni, are Products. Session after session, we fix the tools in the best toolbox available today to accelerate innovation. I didn’t say it, they said it.
There are many more of Products, strategically distributed to emerge at the right time, to appear only if you will be ready. I take care not to bother you with unnecessary distractions.
Because, in STRTGY, everything is a Product?
Why is it important for you to be one?
Because thinking in terms of Product allows you to give incredible focus to what you do.
Like when, as a child, you would converge the sun’s rays on the sheet of paper with a magnifying glass to burn it.
The sun simply coming through the window would never have had that effect. It wouldn’t even have warmed it. It is only when the rays converge, all together, at one point, that the magic happens.
Here is my definition of Product.
Make it your own if you see fit.
A Product is an artifact, self-consistent, designed to assure those who decide to consume it, a certain important benefit in their lives.
Of course, this definition also applies to services.
In fact, my advice is to apply it precisely to services whose general definition I understood to be, “a set of activities that we sell but that the customer consistently sends in the direction in which none of the team would want to go.”
The positive effects of this mindset change will exceed your expectations.
Follow me…
I have highlighted two purposefully chosen concepts.
➀ A Product is designed to be self-consistent.
If you create tasks people will do things, more or less well, but they will do them simply because they have to.
If you ask your team to create products, they will make sure to package it properly before distributing it.
You have a Product when that artifact is built, by design, to achieve a purpose incredibly well and an infinite number of times.
In the case of our Instagram, the posts are designed to make you click the link in the bio to allow you to delve into content that would otherwise slip into the feed…
You have a Product when you have a procedure to create it. It is not accidentally generated by blossoming from someone’s ego. It has steps that ensure its quality. And to improve the quality you have to improve the procedure.
You have a Product when it is the experience is self-consistent that is, when it ends with a victory on both sides. The consumer who gets his progress wins. You win who gets your gain.
If the consumer is disappointed and you only gain from it then it is called a scam.
If the consumer is happy and you don’t make a profit: mmhmm … something is wrong.
➁ A Product is always consumed
A Product that is not consumed is simply not used.
I purposely used the concept of consumption to indicate how transient the condition of use is.
People consume a product to achieve a goal, and as they do so, they can imagine in advance what their next best version of themselves will be once the first goal is achieved. If you cannot offer a product that can intercept new needs, surely, those people will look to the marketplace for the answer to their needs.
There are no unfaithful consumers. There are products that no longer meet the needs of those who chose them. People buy progress in their own lives.
The Next Generation of Products
In a podcast recorded for Monocle 24, I listened to Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, tell about the effort in writing the IPO document. Two things struck me about the incredible story.
One. The IPO was an opportunity to reinforce the vision of an organization that has forever changed the way we think about travel. An opportunity to tell why Airbnb exists and why it must continue to exist. It was such an important moment that they decided to treat the document as a Communication Product by even designing the institutional font with which it was paginated.
Two. What saved Airbnb, even in times of pandemic, even though it had to leave so many workers at home ( here his letter very beautiful and pragmatic in which he announced the layoffs), was the focus.
The ability to take products out of context, such as transportation…
And that of focusing on the one Product that represents Airbnb’s DNA: the ability to make you feel at home anywhere in the world.
The next generation of Products will be the habit of being better.
Good work!
Make yourself heard.
