Vision, Mission & Strategy doc

In Setting milestones & priorities, I talk about how we operationalize priorities, starting with our Vision, Mision & Strategy doc. I read all sorts of resources to find a framework and outline that felt right.

At the end, it comes down to a very simple structure. But simple is hard so it honestly took me a while to get there!

Here’s an in depth look into the structure of that doc (and an outline + template to copy!)

Vision and Mission

These should not change for a year or so

Mission

  • What are we trying to achieve?
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PLX: To make the movement of money, anywhere as affordable, quick and simple as possible

Vision

  • What does the world look like when we achieved it?
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PLX: Redefined financial access for the borderless world leveraging crypto, especially for those who need it the most

Target Audience

Specifically who are you building for?

Primary Focus

  • Who is the prime target today
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PLX: Remote workers, freelancers, business owners (with more info in geography focus, and value props they care about)

Near Future

  • Who’s up next?
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PLX: Secret 🙂

Strategy

What’s the plan to achieve our mission or win?

3 Areas

  • 3 Pillars or Area of focus. 3 only! Focus!
  • Make this catchy!
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PLX: Ours has the starting letters spelling out P L X (our internal nickname for Parallax)

Anti-Priorities

  • What are saying NOT YET to?

Rationale

  • A deeper explanation (for the readers!) as to what makes the strategy strong. According to “Good Strategy vs. Bad Strategy”

Differentiators & Moats

What moats do we build over time? What makes it hard for anyone to come in and replicate what we are doing? How do you compare across competitors?

Moats

  • We break down 4 main moats that make us strong against incumbents and other startups.

Competition Differentiation

  • Choose your visual of choice. For us, this is a table with competitors on the left, and each column signifying what competitors do or don’t have.

Goals & Tactics

Goals: How will we measure progress? Tactics: What do we need to build to get there?

Goals

  • This breaks down into 2 core goals (at the seed stage)
    • GTM goal
    • Product goal
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PLX: At a high level, we need to
  1. grow efficiently with XYZ LTV:CAC ratio + XYZ MAU growth goals)
  2. have strong demand (XYZ ARR, XYZ volume)

Timeline & Tactics

  • A rough, working idea of what we will and could be building per quarter and the growth milestones per quarter that we need to achieve based on a forecast

Notes & References

A dump of info or more in-depth analyses in the process of creating the doc, for the avid reader and analyzer!

Anything to improve with the above? Drop me a note!