The Product Goals System for Startups in Notion

One thing that startups must avoid is misalignment - especially when your runway is not long, you need to get funding, you want to gain user growth quickly and you need to ship features that customers love to stay relevant. 

So it's important for everyone in the company to know what everyone else is working on and why. From Customer success team to the executive team, every single person needs to be aligned on the direction the company is going. 

The Product Goals System aims to provide that alignment and visibility - it will help your startup stay organised and on track. As a product and/or engineering leader, it's your responsibility to ensure your teams are working on initiatives that matter. Move forward in the right direction and achieve your product's goals using The Product Goals System.

What is included in the system? 

There are 3 templates and relational databases in this system. 

1) Top-Level Objectives

2) Key Results

3) Initiatives 

There are also multiple views to help teams visualize and track progress in a way that suits them, for eg: By quarter, by status, by time (calendar).  

💰 If you'd like to expense the purchase, here is an email template you can use to convince your manager. 

Why was this system created? 

Hello! My name is Isabel Nyo. I’ve got almost 20 years of experience in the tech industry, with startups to Fortune 500 tech companies.

I created this system because I have seen time and time again that product teams struggle with delivering customer value quickly and iteratively. Sure, they have shipped many features but when you ask a designer or a developer working on a feature, they don't really understand why they are working on something or how it relates back to the product's goals. This creates a misalignment as customer value is driven by understanding and successfully executing on your product strategy. 

This system aims to solve the problem. It's recommended for startups and agile teams, and for product and engineering leaders. OKRs are good, but as a product team, don't just stop at objectives and key results. Go the next level down and map them to initiatives. Bring every single person in the company to the journey of achieving the product's goals and be proud of their work.

How should this system be used? 

Firstly, define your product strategy. Next, create a regular cadence to perform planning and set and review top-level goals (objectives) and key results. Then, come up with initiatives that are aligned with the objectives and use key results as measurements to track progress. This system empowers a simple and action-oriented way to achieve business outcomes. 

For example:

• Top-level Goals are created yearly.
• Key Results are reviewed and scored quarterly.
• Initiatives are reviewed and updated monthly.  

Share this digital system openly with your team members so that everyone can see how they are contributing to the product goals. 

Also available in Google Sheets.