How You Need to Think About Product Strategy in the Age of AI
6.2K views · 2026-10-14
Product Design
AI has made shipping features cheap, which makes choosing the wrong ones more expensive than ever. Tim Herbig, product strategy coach and author of Real Progress, walks through how to build a product strategy that actually helps you say no.
Full write-up: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/how-the-best-pms-think-about-product-strategy
Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/product-strategy-in-the-age-of-ai-with-tim-herbig/
Timestamps
03:06 - Cheap features make wrong choices expensive
05:33 - The one test every strategy has to pass
07:19 - Ads
09:02 - The core questions every strategy answers
12:39 - Why AI is not a value proposition
18:41 - The Roger Martin test and the stupidity flip
25:11 - Ads
30:59 - Case study - Fair Mile, a used car marketplace
35:43 - Audience trees
42:16 - Differentiation with the 7 Powers
52:48 - How to know if your strategy worked
58:30 - Building the strategy and metrics loop
1:04:33 - What you inherit vs. what you create
🏆 Thanks to our sponsors
1. Fingerprint: Identify good and bad visitors with industry-leading accuracy - https://tinyurl.com/2s3p65p7
2. Ariso: Ship AI agents and features faster, with fewer regressions - https://ariso.ai/aakash
3. Customer.io: Send smarter messages using your product data - http://customer.io/productgrowth
4. Amplitude: The market leader in product analytics - https://tinyurl.com/b7nret7v
5. Product Faculty: Get $150 off their #1 AI PM Certification via code AAKASH150 - https://www.productfaculty.com/?code=AAKASH150
Key Takeaways
1. Cheap features make wrong bets expensive - AI made shipping fast, so picking the wrong feature now costs more, not less. You still have to get people to use everything you ship. The real question is whether any of that output moved customers and the business.
2. A strategy is only real if it helps you say no - Deck, one-pager, or framework, the test is the same. If it doesn't help teams say no to opportunities, it isn't a strategy. A healthy one has most of your team's energy going to work connected to it.
3. Every strategy answers the same core questions - A narrative for why act now, a playing field for who you serve and who else competes, and winning moves for how you deliver value and differentiate. Canvases and templates are just windows into that messy work. Start with the questions, not the template.
4. AI is a resource, not a value proposition - Everyone has access to the same frontier models, so you can't compete on the technology alone. Use AI to amplify the reason customers already choose you. Brand and data are the moats that remain.
5. Run the stupidity flip - Borrowed from Roger Martin. Flip a strategic choice and check whether the opposite is obviously stupid. If it is, you haven't made a real choice. Flip individual components like audience or value prop, not the whole statement.
6. Strategy doesn't have to cover everything - Focusing on paid users doesn't mean turning off the product for free users. The segment choice just has to fit the narrative behind it. Every component has to reinforce the others.
7. Build an audience tree - Land somewhere between too broad and comically narrow. Slice by region, buyer type, and car value until you can say no. Fair Mile lands on repeat buyers of cars worth more than 100K in Germany, and AI speeds up sizing whether that market is big enough.
8. Differentiate on what takes longest to build - Run your winning moves through Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers. Brand and network effects hold up, while process power and AI features get copied. No one buys a car from you because your marketplace has AI search.
9. Measure behavior change, not tokens - First say in plain English what you will do differently next quarter, then how you'll know it worked. Tokens used is a value exchange for the model provider, not your customers. Ask whose behavior has to change, and by how much.
10. Tie metrics to your specific choices - Generic KPIs like revenue are too noisy and too slow to tell you if a strategy worked. Fair Mile tracks share of cars sold above 100K, margin per transaction, and recommendation score among those buyers. Then map every roadmap item back to those metrics.
👨💻 Where to find Tim Herbig
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herbigt/
Website: https://herbig.co/
👨💻 Where to find Aakash
Twitter: https://x.com/aakashgupta
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/
Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com
🧠 About Product Growth
The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners.
🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications.
Full write-up: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/how-the-best-pms-think-about-product-strategy
Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/product-strategy-in-the-age-of-ai-with-tim-herbig/
Timestamps
03:06 - Cheap features make wrong choices expensive
05:33 - The one test every strategy has to pass
07:19 - Ads
09:02 - The core questions every strategy answers
12:39 - Why AI is not a value proposition
18:41 - The Roger Martin test and the stupidity flip
25:11 - Ads
30:59 - Case study - Fair Mile, a used car marketplace
35:43 - Audience trees
42:16 - Differentiation with the 7 Powers
52:48 - How to know if your strategy worked
58:30 - Building the strategy and metrics loop
1:04:33 - What you inherit vs. what you create
🏆 Thanks to our sponsors
1. Fingerprint: Identify good and bad visitors with industry-leading accuracy - https://tinyurl.com/2s3p65p7
2. Ariso: Ship AI agents and features faster, with fewer regressions - https://ariso.ai/aakash
3. Customer.io: Send smarter messages using your product data - http://customer.io/productgrowth
4. Amplitude: The market leader in product analytics - https://tinyurl.com/b7nret7v
5. Product Faculty: Get $150 off their #1 AI PM Certification via code AAKASH150 - https://www.productfaculty.com/?code=AAKASH150
Key Takeaways
1. Cheap features make wrong bets expensive - AI made shipping fast, so picking the wrong feature now costs more, not less. You still have to get people to use everything you ship. The real question is whether any of that output moved customers and the business.
2. A strategy is only real if it helps you say no - Deck, one-pager, or framework, the test is the same. If it doesn't help teams say no to opportunities, it isn't a strategy. A healthy one has most of your team's energy going to work connected to it.
3. Every strategy answers the same core questions - A narrative for why act now, a playing field for who you serve and who else competes, and winning moves for how you deliver value and differentiate. Canvases and templates are just windows into that messy work. Start with the questions, not the template.
4. AI is a resource, not a value proposition - Everyone has access to the same frontier models, so you can't compete on the technology alone. Use AI to amplify the reason customers already choose you. Brand and data are the moats that remain.
5. Run the stupidity flip - Borrowed from Roger Martin. Flip a strategic choice and check whether the opposite is obviously stupid. If it is, you haven't made a real choice. Flip individual components like audience or value prop, not the whole statement.
6. Strategy doesn't have to cover everything - Focusing on paid users doesn't mean turning off the product for free users. The segment choice just has to fit the narrative behind it. Every component has to reinforce the others.
7. Build an audience tree - Land somewhere between too broad and comically narrow. Slice by region, buyer type, and car value until you can say no. Fair Mile lands on repeat buyers of cars worth more than 100K in Germany, and AI speeds up sizing whether that market is big enough.
8. Differentiate on what takes longest to build - Run your winning moves through Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers. Brand and network effects hold up, while process power and AI features get copied. No one buys a car from you because your marketplace has AI search.
9. Measure behavior change, not tokens - First say in plain English what you will do differently next quarter, then how you'll know it worked. Tokens used is a value exchange for the model provider, not your customers. Ask whose behavior has to change, and by how much.
10. Tie metrics to your specific choices - Generic KPIs like revenue are too noisy and too slow to tell you if a strategy worked. Fair Mile tracks share of cars sold above 100K, margin per transaction, and recommendation score among those buyers. Then map every roadmap item back to those metrics.
👨💻 Where to find Tim Herbig
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herbigt/
Website: https://herbig.co/
👨💻 Where to find Aakash
Twitter: https://x.com/aakashgupta
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/
Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com
🧠 About Product Growth
The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners.
🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications.