Developing the elusive sense of “Product Vision”

Life in the year 2000 as predicted at the turn of the last century.

A mini weekend blog post centered on Product Management.

One of the PMs on my team asked me how to improve at developing and presenting a product vision. It dawned on me that nobody had every taught me this — no class, no manager, no coach. And yet I always had strong opinions on the direction a product should take (right or wrong is a different, harder question ;)

Reflecting back, I had many numerous workplace lunch conversations in my 20s about the latest product launch or announcement. What was so special about this TikTok? Does it have real longevity or is it a passing fad? Does Clubhouse solve a real core problem or is it limited to the Twitter crowd who likes to voice their opinions publicly? What strategic value does Amazon see in acquiring Whole Foods — is it the demographic, the physical retail expertise or the mere presence of well-known hubs in a whole host of cities? These were always fun, casual topics and I never thought much about it, but I was always drawn to hypothesizing and dissecting opinions, then seeing how they would play out in the next couple of years. I subconsciously do this for every product, online and offline that I come across now.

I summarized my thoughts on product vision as follows:

Product vision is a muscle that can and should be exercised regularly. Think about every product you use online and offline. What works about it? What doesn’t? What place does this product occupy in your life ideally, given time to develop?

Predict the future — the attached picture is a prediction of what people in the year 1900 predicted for the year 2000. You don’t have to predict 100 years out; what do you think daily life looks like in the year 2030?

Here’s an exercise: what are the strengths and weaknesses of YouTube vs. Netflix, both “video streaming services”? What strategy would you pursue if you were put in charge of each? Ask your colleagues and take up the debate.

Shoutout to my favorite tech newsletter Statechery here. If you can regularly understand 75% of what he describes in his posts you’d pass the bar for long-term product vision/strategy at Datasaur.