Balancing Strategy vs Execution at the Seed Stage.

Your strategy is worthless without product-market fit.

When I first joined the company, I thought we had product market fit. I truly believed it. Although we had just over $100k in revenue (ARR) for our product (do not base whether you have PMF based on ARR!), I felt we had it.

As the freshly minted "Head of Product" at our five-person startup, I couldn't articulate our product strategy because, honestly, I didn't fully grasp what "strategy" even meant. But I could confidently tell you what we were going to do and—just as importantly—what we weren't going to do. And that, in essence, is what strategy boils down to.

Our strategy:

What gave us our first meaningful signal (actually winning deals) was building a product tailored for the SMB market. We created something that delighted end users while giving buyers just enough without overwhelming them with enterprise complexity. Our focus? Engaging the people who would use our product daily while automating tedious tasks for the admins who made purchasing decisions. Specifically, we targeted workforces primarily tethered to desks and computers.

Once we had “our strategy”, we took a deliberate bet on it and defended it fiercely. We quickly dismissed other opportunities—like serving deskless workforces at enterprise companies with many franchises needing special integrations—to maintain laser focus on our chosen path.

Competing against larger players meant establishing clear wedges for differentiation—explaining why we were different and why that mattered to our buyers. We created that talk track and sold that vision to who ever would buy it. Through enough calls, we found the early adopters that would take a chance on us and our point of view.

As customers took a chance on our vision, not only did they buy our product, but the true believers really began to see the outcomes they wanted with it. That was the first rotation of the PMF flywheel where we knew we had a strategy that worked.

When Your Strategy Isn’t Working

A big advantage of strategy at that small of a company is that it’s pretty easy to get everyone aligned with it. Product, Sales, and Marketing all need to row in perfect unison to properly test if a strategy works. This is the #1 mistake that I see companies make. Product is building to SMB, Sales targets Enterprise customers, and Marketing is throwing spaghetti at the wall.

When your company strategy is floundering, you need to make a pivot. This might mean targeting a different market segment (smaller pivot) or developing an entirely different product (larger pivot).

Fortunately, the greatest advantage of a five-person company is that pivoting has never been—and will never be—easier.

But remember: it's absolutely essential that everyone—Product, Marketing, Sales—fully embraces and executes on whatever pivot you make.

Don’t screw up what’s working

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Don’t throw out your strategy if it’s working, but you will need to evolve it as you scale.

Bottom Line:

At a seed stage company, the CEO is the one that really defines the strategy. It is your job to stay in lock step with her/him to make sure you execute the strategy and protect it from straying off the course.

If your winning, don’t change the strategy, (but do check in on it, to see how it needs to evolve) just completely focus on executing.

If your losing, adjust the strategy accordingly — get everyone rowing in the same direction and give each iteration a fair chance to be the one that finds PMF.