03:41
product strategy
Product people's most common excuses for not doing product strategy — "I don't have time" and "we don't have a company-level strategy" — are rationalizations that mask a deeper fear: knowing they aren't good at strategy and dreading how others will receive what they produce.
The number one excuse, from senior PM to director level, is "I don't have time for it" — framed as being too busy with operational day-to-day work, firefighting, and "playing whack-a-mole," combined with the claim that the strategy already exists implicitly ("I have it in my head," "the plans and goals reflect the strategy").
The second most common excuse is that the company itself lacks a clear company-level strategy, so PMs feel they can't be expected to produce a product strategy — even as the CEO asks for one or says a presentation "isn't strategic enough."
The reality is you do not need an entirely crisp company-level strategy to set product strategy, and even a very clear one would only give tiny directional guidance.
Step one without a clear company strategy: use common sense and make assumptions — how much the company cares about revenue growth, specific user segments, or active users (even free ones).
Step two: look for cues in all-hands meetings, when the CEO speaks, in investor decks, or company-level updates — signals like "this is a priority" — and use those as one input into product strategy.
The main thing product strategy actually requires is insights and creativity about your specific product, target segments, and how to differentiate against competitors — company-level strategy cannot help with this, and this is described as the genuinely difficult part of strategy.
Working on strategy is scary for two reasons: deep down PMs know they aren't very good at strategy, and they fear rejection — how people will receive what they produce.
The fear-driven excuse-making is compared to a writer going through writer's block: instead of naming the fear, people invent excuses for why they aren't doing the work.
The prescribed fix is to recognize the fear, accept it as reality, and then work to combat it — rather than continuing to tell yourself you'd do strategy if only you had time or a company-level strategy.
The "I have it in my head" / "our plans and goals already reflect the strategy" line is framed as part of the time-excuse, not a separate claim — it lets a PM avoid ever externalizing or articulating strategy explicitly while still claiming to have one.
The lack of a company-level strategy is reframed as a smaller obstacle than assumed, since even a clear one would only supply minor directional input — the hard, undelegable part of product strategy (competitive differentiation, segment insight, creativity) sits entirely with the PM regardless of what leadership has articulated.
The two-step method proposed (bottom-up common-sense assumptions + top-down cues from leadership communications) treats the absence of formal strategy as an information-gathering problem rather than a blocking dependency.
By naming both root causes as fear (of one's own competence, and of others' judgment) rather than a bandwidth or organizational problem, the video reclassifies a workload complaint as a psychological avoidance pattern, comparable to writer's block.
«product people they generally have a few excuses for not working on strategy»
— 00:02
«I don't have time for it»
— 00:08
«well you know what we don't have a company level strategy so how can they expect me to create a product strategy»
— 00:48
«the reality is that you do not need an entirely crisp company level strategy to set your product strategy»
— 01:24
«the main thing that you need is insights and creativity around your specific product»
— 02:18
«working on strategy is very scary work»
— 02:53
«deep down we know we are not very good at strategy»
— 03:00
«we're afraid of rejection»
— 03:06
«just like an author going through writer's block what happens is we just invent excuses for why we are not doing it»
— 03:10
«recognize that fear once you recognize the fear accept that this is reality and then work to combat it»
— 03:18
Reception
Viewers are highly enthusiastic, praising the content as practical, insightful, and deserving of more recognition.
A tight, quotable three-and-a-half-minute talk that reframes two ubiquitous PM excuses as fear-avoidance and offers a concrete two-step substitute for a missing company-level strategy.
03:41