Are your customers rich enough? How are they changing? What else could you sell them? Orient yourself in regards to your company’s strategic landscape. Which of your partners are likely to become competitors, are likely to succeed, are likely to fail? What are your natural advantages, how is your supply chain changing, how does your company actually operate? What are your best competitors awesome at, what is their structural weakness, are they healthy or weakening on their own? Strategy is sticking to a simple plan: keep the team focused, push the plan monotonically forward, do not get distracted by shiny objects. If you can set an impactful plan and hold to it for a few years, you are way ahead of the game.
Stay SaaSyA simple product description is 2 words, an adjective and a noun, like electric car or smart phone. Ask your target customers how they would describe your product. Anything more complex than "A kind of X to accomplish Y" is to complex. It is your job to deliver innovations but let your customers describe them. Simple is a competitive advantage, description is easier, more memorable, and spreads faster. To avoid sounding bland, try being anti-something, target smaller audience, be visibly distinctive.
Andrew ChenSimplify and clarify the few goals and metrics that your entire company should align on. Life Time Value gives a complete picture. Net Promoter Score because it measures value-creation. Retention because cancellations indicate lack of Product Market Fit. Top-line growth because high revenue growth implies other things are going well. Efficiency because it means you have found real Product Market Fit and longevity. Rule of 40 because you cover both the growth and profit phases of the company's life.
Jason CohenSolve your own problems and sell the solution. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it, and who you do it for. To make money outside of a job, build and distribute a product. 401k, real estate, saving, and soulless jobs are a think of the past. You need a product or service and you need distribution, an audience. Are you doing the things that will compound into achieving your goals? If you don’t create a product to sell, you will continue selling a product for someone else. Build a product you’ve used before, but better. Build a product you want but doesn’t exist. The complainers of the world are missing one crucial piece of the puzzle: money is a unit of value and value is a measure of how much people care about what you do.
Dan Koe