Strategy & Positioning 11 guests | 16 insights

Product Vision Creation

Design an aspirational future state that inspires teams and guides strategic decision-making.

The Guide

5 key steps synthesized from 11 experts.

Immerse in the Problem and User Friction

Start by examining every touchpoint of your product to identify where pain exists for the user. Question the necessity of existing friction and apply first-principles thinking to visualize how the world should work from the ground up.

Featured guest perspectives

"We rethought every single piece of what we were doing from the ground up, from first principles. Not locked into the way that people had been doing it. We asked how should it be? Where’s the pain and does it need to be there?"

— Lenny Rachitsky

Envision the Unconstrained Ideal

Use Column B thinking to define a magical future state that is independent of current technology. Brainstorm an unconstrained 15-out-of-10 customer experience before considering any technical or operational limitations.

Develop a Shared Narrative and Metaphor

Identify a vivid, non-technical analogy or a strategic narrative that serves as a unifying North Star. Use storytelling frameworks like 'Once upon a time' to make the destination memorable and easy for the team to pass on.

Featured guest perspectives

"If we all agree that the feeling of something should be, I'm sitting in Dolores Park with my friends on a sunny Saturday, then people will just naturally build something that feels more consistent."

— Ami Vora

"And actually when you blend stories with numbers, so if you do numbers alone or numbers with stories or stories alone, the gap is so wide in stories alone. So it's not metrics blended with stories. It's a story, just a pure story."

— Ebi Atawodi

"The one thing I say is it's this one story that the CEO uses to drive success in marketing, sales, but also product. That it becomes like a north star, strategic north star for product roadmap, for fundraising, for recruiting, really everything."

— Andy Raskin

Create a Visual North Star

Translate your abstract narrative into visual prototypes, storyboards, or mocks. Involving cross-functional stakeholders early ensures the vision is technically feasible and prevents product fragmentation during execution.

Featured guest perspectives

"You want to always ensure that there are research insights that help you feel what a user is feeling. You want to ensure that there are beautiful designs and prototypes that help communicate what this future world looks like, and you also want to root it in engineering and feasibility. And you want to be constantly, even in the vision phase, assuring that what you're marching after is something that is achievable and something that you can work towards."

— Mihika Kapoor

"A north star is a guiding light that helps align a team on the plan for the product, showing how the pieces will fit together. Without it, you're liable to miss the opportunity to innovate, are likely to neglect the long-term, and are probably turning your product into a disjointed Frankenstein lacking consistency."

— Lenny Rachitsky

Bridge the Vision to the Roadmap

Co-develop a three-year painted picture that defines bold outcomes for users and the company. Cascade this vision into an annual strategy and a rolling roadmap to ensure a balance between long-term direction and short-term execution.

Featured guest perspectives

"At the company level, we have a 'three-year painted picture,' which is a high-level picture that Miro’s Leadership Team co-develops and that defines the outcomes we want to achieve—both for our users and for Miro as a company. The painted picture informs our annual strategy, which sets the direction for the entire AMPED org for the next 12 months."

— Lenny Rachitsky

"What does the product look like in five to 10 years? Why is the world better in 10 years? And what is the most exciting version of that view?"

— Chandra Janakiraman

"Great PMs frequently remind teammates of how their work connects to the mission. They know that people don’t work at companies to pull levers, move metrics, or hit goals."

— Lenny Rachitsky

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Guest Perspectives

Deep dive into what 10 podcast guests shared about product vision creation.

Ami Vora 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"If we all agree that the feeling of something should be, I'm sitting in Dolores Park with my friends on a sunny Saturday, then people will just naturally build something that feels more consistent."

Tactical:

Identify the specific feeling you want users to experience when interacting with your product.
Develop a vivid, non-technical analogy to serve as a shared narrative for the team.
Use emotional consistency as a benchmark for evaluating product and design choices across different teams.

View all skills from Ami Vora →

Andy Raskin 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"The one thing I say is it's this one story that the CEO uses to drive success in marketing, sales, but also product. That it becomes like a north star, strategic north star for product roadmap, for fundraising, for recruiting, really everything."

Tactical:

Develop a single, high-level story that the CEO champion across all functions.
Ensure marketing, sales, and product teams are using the same narrative framework.
Use the narrative to guide fundraising and recruiting efforts for better cultural alignment.

View all skills from Andy Raskin →

Chandra Janakiraman 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"What does the product look like in five to 10 years? Why is the world better in 10 years? And what is the most exciting version of that view?"

Tactical:

Project a vision that looks beyond a two-year problem-solving horizon to a five-to-ten-year future.
Include an 'aspirational and cool' component in the strategy that generates excitement beyond just meeting metrics.
Articulate the specific ways the world will be improved in a decade because of the product's existence.

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Ebi Atawodi 2 quotes

Listen to episode →

"So four things. So it has to be lofty, it has to be realistic, it has to be devoid of any tech or limitations of today, and it has to be grounded in a very clear and potent problem. User problem."

Tactical:

Ground the product vision in a clear and potent user problem that the team cares about.
Fast-forward to the future and describe the destination as if current technical limitations do not exist.
Balance high-level ambition with enough realism to ensure the vision feels attainable to the team.

"And actually when you blend stories with numbers, so if you do numbers alone or numbers with stories or stories alone, the gap is so wide in stories alone. So it's not metrics blended with stories. It's a story, just a pure story."

Tactical:

Prioritize pure storytelling over presentations that attempt to blend complex metrics with narrative.
Utilize narrative frameworks like 'Once upon a time' to visualize the path from a current problem to a future solution.
Re-share the product vision narrative during launch phases to maintain team alignment on the original purpose.

View all skills from Ebi Atawodi →

Jason Shah 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"Well, we've always thought of Amplitude as being about supporting the full product loop. Think collect data, inform bets, ship experiments and learn. That's the heart of growth to us."

Tactical:

Identify the core cycle your product supports, such as data collection, betting, and learning.
Observe how customers are stretching your current product to find natural areas for expansion.
Align new product offerings with the central theme of the core product loop.

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Jeetu Patel 1 quote

"One was, being very clear on what is up for debate and what is not up for debate. Because what can end up happening is you can always have a pocket veto in a large company where if you ask enough number of people, people say no."

Tactical:

Declare specific strategic shifts, like becoming 'AI-first,' as mandatory rather than open for debate.
Communicate that innovation is a binary choice that every employee must make every day.
Align individual success metrics with the company’s broader strategic transformation to ensure buy-in at the front lines.

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Marily Nika 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"Even when I'm at work and I am trying to come up with a nice mission statement, when we're PMs will come up with mission statements, it's just crucial part and it's where the core begins. You want to get people excited, you want to get people inspired. There is nothing I can write that's going to be as good as what ChatGPT looks like. So what I do is I literally go to ChatGPT and I say rewrite this mission statement from me and even the first try produces something which is fantastic, so that."

Tactical:

Draft a version of your mission statement that captures your core intent.
Input your draft into an AI tool like ChatGPT with a prompt to rewrite it for clarity and inspiration.
Ensure the final output uses simple words that a child could understand.

View all skills from Marily Nika →

Mihika Kapoor 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"You want to always ensure that there are research insights that help you feel what a user is feeling. You want to ensure that there are beautiful designs and prototypes that help communicate what this future world looks like, and you also want to root it in engineering and feasibility. And you want to be constantly, even in the vision phase, assuring that what you're marching after is something that is achievable and something that you can work towards."

Tactical:

Cross-pollinate insights from research, design, and engineering early in the visioning phase.
Use visual prototypes and mocks instead of text-heavy documents to communicate the future world.
Root the vision in engineering feasibility to ensure the goal is achievable from the start.

View all skills from Mihika Kapoor →

Sanchan Saxena 1 quote

"If you become too scientific, you miss out on opportunities because you can't see those opportunities using the scientific method of discovery, because they're too tiny or they're so farfetched that people cannot even understand them."

Tactical:

Balance the 'science' of product management with 'artistic' intuition to identify upcoming trends.
Use A/B tests as a GPS to get to a destination faster rather than using them to decide the destination.
Hang out in builder communities to sniff out trends that data-driven discovery methods might miss.

View all skills from Sanchan Saxena →

Shreyas Doshi 1 quote

Listen to episode →

"Google, I think the main thing I learned was the power of thinking really big. And I know it sounds like a platitude, but really big. And I only actually realized that when I left Google and I started working with the other teams and these were all capable teams and I was struck by how many teams just limited the potential of what they could achieve."

Tactical:

Audit your product roadmap to identify if you are setting unconscious, artificial limits on your project's potential.
Evaluate opportunities based on their potential to scale significantly rather than just achieving incremental gains.
Observe industry leaders to understand how to make thinking big a normal, integrated part of how you operate.

View all skills from Shreyas Doshi →

From Lenny's Newsletter

5 newsletter posts cover product vision creation.

14 habits of highly effective product managers 1 quote

Read the post →

"Great PMs frequently remind teammates of how their work connects to the mission. They know that people don’t work at companies to pull levers, move metrics, or hit goals."

Tactical:

Include the team's mission and vision statement at the top of every strategy and roadmap document.
Use kickoff meetings to explain how specific projects bring the company closer to its mission.
Remind the team of their 'why' during regular check-ins to prevent them from feeling like lever-pullers.

First-principles thinking 1 quote

Read the post →

"We rethought every single piece of what we were doing from the ground up, from first principles. Not locked into the way that people had been doing it. We asked how should it be? Where’s the pain and does it need to be there?"

Tactical:

Examine every touchpoint of your product to identify where pain exists for the user.
Ask "how should it be?" rather than "how is it currently done?"
Become an expert in existing methods while maintaining the beginner's eyes necessary to discard them.

How Miro builds product 1 quote

Read the post →

"At the company level, we have a 'three-year painted picture,' which is a high-level picture that Miro’s Leadership Team co-develops and that defines the outcomes we want to achieve—both for our users and for Miro as a company. The painted picture informs our annual strategy, which sets the direction for the entire AMPED org for the next 12 months."

Tactical:

Co-develop a 'three-year painted picture' to define bold, long-term outcomes for both users and the company.
Run a collaborative three-step process to define the annual product strategy, culminating in a broad all-hands review.
Maintain a rolling six-month roadmap with decreasing confidence levels for future quarters to remain strategic yet nimble.

Mission → Vision → Strategy → Goals → Roadmap → Task 1 quote

Read the post →

"Next comes your vision: What does the world (or your product) look like when you’ve achieved your mission?"

Tactical:

Articulate what the world looks like after the mission is successful.
Focus on the 'end state' rather than the current plan.
Keep the statement aspirational and clear, such as 'a world without Alzheimer’s disease.'

The PM 🤝 Design Partnership 1 quote

Read the post →

"A north star is a guiding light that helps align a team on the plan for the product, showing how the pieces will fit together. Without it, you're liable to miss the opportunity to innovate, are likely to neglect the long-term, and are probably turning your product into a disjointed Frankenstein lacking consistency."

Tactical:

Define variables like scope, fidelity, and time horizon to ensure vision work is productive and not a waste of time.
Involve cross-functional stakeholders in vision reviews to build long-term buy-in and alignment.
Break the long-term vision into incremental, measurable steps that account for both today’s constraints and future plans.