My current foray as full time product person has led to a realisation about my own shortcoming. Its my lack of agility in execution. Without solid execution, progress on any type of process, product or growth plan tapers. It is a bottleneck we need to solve in order to increase the conversion from a plan to its outcome. There are different classification of execution with reference to end customer. Additionally, execution is often a team effort and requires co-ordination. The cost of getting alignment and moving in a single direction is laborious and requires specialised project management skills. A [[4 point execution framework|framework]] that plays an anchor and helps in reducing this co-ordination cost is **4 point framework**. ![[Conversion Funnel - 4 Point.png]] ### Execution activities - Volume of the funnel The volume of the funnel is determined by the diameter of checkpoints. For niche markets, the funnel size may be uniform across checkpoints but grows at the top as you gain more success and recognition, traction if you like a precise word. Whereas in legacy spaces, the top of the funnel may be larger to the bottom. The initial shape constraints the overall value of an innovation. It outline the execution approach and also shapes the leverage good execution can have on conversion rate of the funnel. For example, you build a 100x faster onion grading machine compared to human graders. Such innovations fall in the productivity bucket where the net value add to the customer increases exponentially as they push more onion through grading machine. But grading of onion for domestic trade is not standard practice. In such scenarios, the funnel falls in the category of legacy space. At the top, the target customers are all traders in onion but the conversion to customers who see value are only the ones who already grade. The game one can play over here is two types. Version 1 : Increase the conversion rate by innovating on distribution by marketing and sales motion that could convince non grading traders to also try the machine. This process would require huge expense account and multiple attempts at figuring out the right message. It totally depends on how much capital you can deploy before chances of survival become existential. Version 2 : Focus on increasing the volume processed through the machine for a trader who grades by getting newer trade leads. Version 2 execution activities have more leverage and direct impact on the customer’s bottomline. So, the execution focus should be on cultivating more buyers to buy grade wise. The innovation could be move into a pay for use model with fixed transaction fee to keep the incentives aligned. ### Product Market fit - Rate of the funnel The current flow of customers through the funnel could be defined as the density of funnel. Target number at every funnel stage to number of people progressing to next stage within a timeframe defines the rate of the funnel. In our example’s case, we are talking about number of traders who grade to number of traders who are your customers. If your customers are progressing through the funnel at a rate till the last stage. If the rate of funnel is high in comparison to the status quo. You could frame this phase as product market fit. Whenever there is change in funnel shapes or the density of funnel. We can recalibrate what product market feels. ### Growth of product - Changing volume or rate of the funnel ![[Density of the funnel .png]] We can increase the density of the funnel by either increasing conversion rate or increasing the volume of the funnel. Second approach would be to cast a wide net at the top of funnel by innovating on distribution methods and convert a sliver of them through to the bottom. First state works best for B2B businesses as they often operate in a niche. Converting a customer and progressing them through the funnel in order to achieve their outcome in an optimised manner is experiencing product market fit. Going back to our Onion grading machine example. The product has market fit when a customer increases consignment volume by decreasing the cost of processing . One approach would be to increase the pressure to affect flow of customers moving to bottom of the funnel. The quicker we convert customers the higher the growth. Second state fits with consumer app and their usage patterns. Innovation in distribution to wide set of customers and progressing through the funnel leads to viral product that has product market fit. ### Slow and fast, fast and smooth I have never progressed to the stage of executing the 4 point framework up until now. We got a version of it during my startup days but we never focused too much on executing. The setting up took most of the effort and time till now. Since, I am working on a PMF product in its 10 to 100x phase. It presents an opportunity to explore deploying initiatives to grow a product. The direct impact would be the initiatives we launch increases the rate of growth of the product. If we go back to our example, the onion grader would be converting new customers and getting them to see an impact on their revenue at a much quicker rate. The mental cognition of coordination is solved by such frameworks up until now but I am looking forward to seeing a digital agent being a manager in aligning teams to stick to framework and ensure all efforts are impactful on the whole. *** `First published` : 09-03-25 #product `status` : #roasted