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Product Strategy & MVP Definition

For teams with more feature requests than clarity. A structured way to name the customer problem, frame the product opportunity and decide what belongs in the first release worth shipping.

When this matters

A product idea has support but no shared definition. Stakeholders describe different customers, the backlog grows faster than anyone can rank it, and the first release keeps getting bigger. Building starts before anyone has agreed what the product must prove, so every review reopens the same arguments.

I have defined product vision, roadmaps and MVP scopes for enterprise platforms used across a group of companies, and for my own products. The work is the same at both scales: make the problem explicit, then make the scope decision visible and defensible.

Decisions it helps make

  • Which customer and which problem the product serves first
  • What the product must prove in its first release, and what can wait
  • Which strategic option to pursue when several look plausible
  • How to rank competing stakeholder requests against product outcomes
  • When the evidence is strong enough to commit engineering time
A drafting board seen from above with a T-square, set squares, a protractor, a circle template, an eraser and a brush laid on gridded paper beside a sketched cube.
Drafting tools: plan before you build.Credit: "Drafting board with T square and drawingtools" by Swtpc6800 Michael Holley, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How an engagement could work

  1. DiagnoseInterviews with the people who own the problem, a review of existing material and a short written diagnosis of what is known, assumed and disputed.
  2. FrameProduct outcomes, target users and strategic options set side by side, with the trade-offs of each written down.
  3. ValidateA focused discovery plan: the hypotheses that matter most, how to test them and what result would change the plan.
  4. DecideAn MVP boundary, an outcome-led roadmap and a decision record the team can return to when scope pressure comes back.

A good fit

  • Founders shaping a first product who need an outside view before they commit to a build
  • Enterprise teams with a funded initiative but no agreed scope
  • Product owners who need to defend a smaller first release to senior stakeholders

Not a fit

  • Teams looking for a ready-made business plan or financial forecast
  • Requests to validate a decision that has already been made and cannot change

Outside this work

Market sizing studies, brand naming, fundraising material and software development are not part of this work. Where a build follows, it is scoped separately.

Working together

Scope, format and terms are agreed case by case. Work can be a short focused diagnosis or a longer period alongside an existing team.

Questions answered

What is an MVP boundary?

It is a written line between what the first release must include to test the core assumption and what can follow later. It names the excluded items and the reason for each, so the decision survives the next round of requests.

Do you work with early-stage founders as well as large organisations?

The approach applies to both. My experience covers enterprise platforms delivered with teams during employment and products I am developing myself, so I am used to very different levels of structure and budget.

Will this tell us whether the product will succeed?

No one can promise that. The aim is to make the riskiest assumptions explicit and test them early, so that the decision to invest is based on evidence rather than enthusiasm.

Does the work include building the product?

Not by default. Strategy and MVP definition stand on their own. If delivery support is needed afterwards, it is discussed and agreed as a separate piece of work.

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An 1897 architectural blueprint: white line drawings of building cross-sections on deep blue paper, with handwritten Dutch titles.
Sections for four villas, a blueprint from 1897.Credit: "Architectural drawing from the Engetrim archive, ref. obj-0000187" by Jules Bilmeyer Joseph Van Riel, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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