11 New Methods: Product Strategy and Growth

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Understanding Your Customer

Jobs to Be Done

Jobs to Be Done reframes product development around the underlying job a customer is trying to accomplish, not the features they ask for. When you understand the job, you design solutions that actually work — and find competitors you didn't know you had.

When to use it:

• You're not sure why customers churn, switch to alternatives, or don't adopt a feature
• You want to find product opportunities that aren't obvious from your current market view
• You're preparing user research and need a sharper set of questions

Four Steps to the Epiphany

Four Steps to the Epiphany is Steve Blank's customer development framework — the process of systematically discovering and validating your business model before scaling it. It's the conceptual foundation for the Lean Startup.

When to use it:

• You're building a new product and want to validate your assumptions before investing in a full build
• You've built something but aren't seeing the traction you expected
• You're setting up a structured process for testing a new business model or market

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Prioritisation and Metrics

MoSCoW Prioritization

MoSCoW Prioritization sorts requirements or features into four buckets: Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won't Have. It's a fast, opinionated framework for cutting through debate about what to build next.

When to use it:

• You're planning a release and the scope keeps expanding
• Stakeholders are treating everything as high priority and you need a way to force choices
• You're scoping a minimum viable version of a product or feature

A/B Testing

A/B Testing is the practice of running controlled experiments where two or more variants of a product or page are shown to different user segments, then measuring which performs better. The worksheet covers experimental design, sample sizes, and interpreting results.

When to use it:

• You want to make data-driven decisions on design, copy, or product changes
• You have competing hypotheses about what will improve a metric and need to test them
• You're optimising conversion, retention, or engagement and need evidence

One Metric That Matters

The One Metric That Matters method helps you identify the single metric that best captures your product's current focus — then use it to direct the whole team's attention. Different stages of a product call for different metrics.

When to use it:

• Your team is tracking everything and aligned on nothing
• You're moving from one growth phase to the next and your metrics haven't caught up
• You want to cut reporting noise and focus effort on the number that moves the business

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Growth and Innovation

Building Your Flywheel

Building Your Flywheel is a framework for designing self-reinforcing growth loops — where each step in your model feeds the next, compounding over time. It's how Amazon, Airbnb, and Spotify think about their core engines of growth.

When to use it:

• You're thinking through the long-term growth model for your product or business
• You want to find where investment compounds rather than just adds linearly
• You're preparing a fundraising narrative or strategic plan and need to explain your growth engine

1000 True Fans

1000 True Fans is Kevin Kelly's creator-economy strategy: instead of chasing millions of casual followers, you build direct relationships with roughly 1,000 deeply committed fans who each spend about $100 a year on your work. The worksheet covers fan economics, conversion math, and tiered offering design.

When to use it:

• You're building an independent creative business and need a concrete revenue model, not vague advice about "growing your audience"
• You want to evaluate monetization strategies — Patreon, memberships, courses — for an existing audience
• You need a reality check on whether your audience-to-income conversion math actually adds up

Innovation Mapping

Innovation Mapping helps you visualise your current and planned innovation portfolio across a spectrum from core improvements to more radical bets. It stops teams from over-investing in the familiar at the expense of the future.

When to use it:

• You want to assess whether your innovation investments match your strategic ambitions
• Your organisation only funds incremental improvements and you need to make the case for more
• You're building an innovation programme and need a shared language for different types of bets

Public Innovation Labs

The Public Innovation Labs method explores how dedicated labs — inside governments, corporations, or public institutions — can create the conditions for systemic innovation rather than one-off projects.

When to use it:

• You're designing or advising a new innovation lab or centre
• You're working in government or public services and want models for structural change
• You're studying how organisations build sustained innovation capability

Futures Thinking

Futures Thinking is a set of tools and frameworks for exploring plausible futures — not predicting them. It helps organisations make better long-range decisions by surfacing assumptions, exploring alternative scenarios, and preparing for change.

When to use it:

• You're doing long-range strategic planning and need to move beyond extrapolating the present
• You want to stress-test a product strategy against scenarios your team hasn't considered
• You're running a leadership workshop and need a structured way to surface assumptions about the future

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Assessment and Readiness

Technology Readiness Levels

Technology Readiness Levels is a nine-level assessment framework — originally developed by NASA — that measures how close a technology is to operational deployment, from basic research all the way to proven in the field. It's now used by the EU, the US Department of Defense, and industries from biotech to energy.

When to use it:

• You're evaluating whether a new technology is mature enough for integration, investment, or production
• You're applying for innovation grants (Horizon Europe, DARPA, UKRI) and need to state your current readiness level
• Stakeholders disagree about how "ready" a technology actually is and you need an evidence-based common language

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What's Next

Jobs to Be Done pairs naturally with Four Steps to the Epiphany — use them together when you're validating a new market or rethinking an existing one.

Got a method you'd like to see added? Let us know on the feedback page.