Want your product launch to win? Nail the “why,” align your team, disrupt smartly and keep the strategy alive with constant clarity.
In Navigating the honeymoon phase of a new product launch, I stressed how important it is for product leaders to lay a strong foundation during the initial phase of product launch, or risk losing momentum and time due to rework, reestablishing credibility with your stakeholders and experiencing misalignment on key goals and even the overall strategy.
Now I want to dig in deeper on strategy.
Launching a product is one of the most exciting (and daunting) moments in a company’s lifecycle. I’ve led teams through this process multiple times and have seen firsthand that the difference between a successful launch and a frustrating misstep often comes down to strategy. Strategy isn’t just having a vague idea of “what we want to build,” but a clear, repeatable and well-communicated strategy that aligns stakeholders, guides decision-making and withstands the inevitable challenges.
These are the principles I’ve developed over the years while leading product strategy at companies like Chronosphere and Splunk. My hope is to give other leaders a practical framework for approaching launches with discipline and confidence.
Start with the why and build alignment
One of the most common mistakes product leaders and the C-suite alike often make is assuming a strategy already exists. An idea exists, but an idea isn’t a strategy. Before building roadmaps or sprint plans, take a step back and think: Why are we doing this?
A strong strategy rests on three foundations.
- Market opportunity: Something has shifted or been overlooked in the market. Maybe existing vendors are overpriced, or an entire segment is underserved. Articulating the gap crisply is step one.
- Why us: Equally important is explaining why your company is best positioned to seize that opportunity. Is it brand reputation? Unique technology? Distribution reach? Stakeholders need to hear a credible reason why this isn’t just another good idea, but an idea that will succeed.
- How: How is your company realistically going to get there? Stakeholders and project teams are looking for something simple, believable, compelling and convincing. This should be the 10-second version of the core pillars or standout capabilities of the roadmap. This is not the detailed roadmap.
When I joined Chronosphere, for example, I knew getting engineering leaders invested early was critical. Their analytical perspective challenged me to refine assumptions and by the time we rolled out the strategy more broadly, it was already stress-tested. This early buy-in also turned them into my biggest champions, reinforcing the message across the organization.
According to research by consulting and training firm LSA Global, companies that align product strategy with corporate strategy see significantly higher growth rates than their peers. But alignment doesn’t happen by accident — it requires intentional conversations with stakeholders, often individually, before group settings, to avoid groupthink and uncover true expectations.
Balance disruption with pragmatism
Every product team wants to be disruptive, but disruption has to be strategic. I’ve seen teams try to reinvent every aspect of a product, from the UI to the backend to the go-to-market strategy, only to burn out. The truth is, not every part of a launch needs disruption.
Instead, I map out distinct phases for the first few years and identify where we will disrupt versus where we will follow. If a competitor is doing something right, I’m not afraid to take notes. In fact, in many cases, users have limits to how much disruption they can accept in a new product, and you must understand those limits. Ask yourself, are you another player in the market with some differentiation, or are you creating a market for something materially new? The former will have a higher mix of table stakes features relative to disruptive features versus the latter. Understanding and embracing the reality of which one of those you are doing will help you balance your investments in disruptive capabilities vs. table stakes.
Key takeaway: Disruption is only valuable when the market craves it.
South Park’s “Underpants Gnomes” episode captures this pitfall well:
- Phase 1: Collect underpants
- Phase 2: ?
- Phase 3: Profit
Without clear links between disruption and value creation, a strategy collapses into wishful thinking.
Make the team co-owners of the strategy
Strategies fail when they’re imposed. They succeed when teams feel ownership. At Chronosphere, before bringing stakeholders into the fold, I first iterated with engineering leaders. This not only improved the plan but also created internal advocates who could carry the message forward.
Giving teams skin in the game helps do two things:
- Strengthens the strategy itself, because people closest to the work sharpen the assumptions.
- Ensures the strategy lives beyond the leadership team, because employees repeat it with genuine, authentic conviction.
When stakeholders see excited teams, they trust the direction more. Excitement is contagious, and in my experience, it’s the best signal that a strategy will survive the ups and downs of execution.
Repeat success criteria, make it your mantra
Another hard lesson I learned at my former company, Splunk, was that success criteria can drift. Midway through a product’s lifecycle, stakeholders sometimes “remember” different goals than the ones we agreed on. The product under my purview exceeded revenue targets for several years, but because I hadn’t consistently repeated the strategy and success metrics, late-stage perceptions shifted. As a result, the product was seen as less successful than it really was.
That experience taught me the importance of ruthless clarity and repetition. A strategy should be explainable in five minutes without slides. I rehearse it until I can deliver it to a busy executive in an elevator ride. Then I repeat it — at all-hands, in board meetings, during one-on-ones — until people can recite it back.
Neuroscience shows repetition is how people internalize ideas. In the context of product launches, repetition ensures the vision doesn’t get diluted as teams sprint toward delivery.
Iterations and updates to strategy are expected
Your strategy will be an evolving organism; very rarely can you consider it done and dusted the first time you craft it. Expect pivots, missed targets and unexpected obstacles. What matters is that you can evolve your strategy as you learn more.
However, while it is true that a strategy will evolve, a well-thought-out strategy will change when the underlying assumptions or real-world data change, and hopefully those will change infrequently.
Strategy as the anchor
Crafting a winning product strategy isn’t about writing a perfect document. It’s about building a living framework that aligns people, withstands pressure and guides tough decisions.
Every launch I’ve been part of has reinforced this: Ideas are plentiful, but disciplined strategies are rare. The leaders who can articulate a compelling “why,” repeat it until it sticks, balance disruption with pragmatism and bring their teams along for the ride are the ones who consistently turn launches into lasting successes.
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