defining-product-vision
Help teams articulate compelling long-term product visions grounded in user outcomes, not features or taglines.
- Provides frameworks from 101 product leaders (Notion, Airbnb, New York Times) covering four criteria for strong vision: lofty yet realistic, free of current technical constraints, and grounded in a potent user problem
- Guides users to describe the user's future world in 5–10 years rather than product features, with emphasis on emotional outcomes and behavioral change
- Includes diagnostic questions to test vision specificity, distinguish vision from strategy and roadmap, and ensure decisions can be made using the vision alone
- Flags common mistakes: vague taglines, feature lists masquerading as vision, and solutions that ignore the user's perspective
Defining Product Vision
Help the user create compelling product visions using frameworks from 101 product leaders who have defined visions at companies from Notion to Airbnb to the New York Times.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with product vision:
- Clarify the scope - Determine if they need a vision (long-term aspiration), strategy (how to win), or roadmap (what to build)
- Focus on the user's future - Help them describe the world 5-10 years out, not the product features
- Test for specificity - Push back on vague taglines that don't change behavior
- Make it visual - Encourage prototypes and concrete artifacts over abstract documents
Core Principles
Vision is not a tagline
Melissa Perri: "I once asked all the executive team at a healthcare company, what's the vision for this company? And they said, to be the backbone of healthcare. And I said, what does that mean? And they couldn't elaborate." A vision must be a concrete description of what the company will manifest in 5-10 years.
Four criteria for strong vision
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