An operator’s guide to product strategy | Chandra Janakiraman (CPO at VRChat, ex-Meta, Headspace, Zynga)

I started noticing that there was a certain mystique and aura about product strategy. There was this perception that some people were intrinsically really good at strategy and others were not. It was almost as if there was a strategy gene. You needed to be born with to be good at it. Say someone's sitting down, okay, I'm gonna start developing a strategy for our product. Where do you begin? What does this process look like? In terms of what product strategy is, there is a smallest flavor of it. Which focuses on solving problems I call present forward, and it typically operates in a two-year horizon. We use a five stage process to get there and uh it takes about eight to twelve weeks. The reason I think this process works is there is a ton of alignment built in. It goes back to human psychology of just something that comes from you feels a lot more familiar and easy to accept. Let's talk about bigger strategy. When should you approach strategy this way? This interesting quote by Elon Musk which is a little bit more than I've been in the world.

About more than just solving problems. I think this is true of every sort of company. There needs to be an aspirational and cool component to strategy. What does the product look like in sort of five to ten years? Why is the world better in ten years? And what is the most exciting version of that view? Today, my guest is Chandra Janak Raman. Chandra is Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President at VRChat. He was a product leader at Meta. Chief Product Officer at Headspace, a GM at Zinga, and a senior PM at Amazon. And the way this podcast episode happened was an avid podcast listener.

Karthik Suresh told me about Chandra at a community meetup. And when I connected with Chandra, it was clear that I needed to get him on the podcast. Chandra is a student of strategy, and has spent his career developing what he calls an operator's guide to strategy. Which essentially pulls together the best ideas. From good strategy, bad strategy, playing to win.

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