A key expansion strategy is moving 'upper funnel' from treating specific, acute conditions to offering a holistic, preventative platform. For Hims & Hers, adding diagnostics ('Labs') created a new entry point for users to understand their overall health, not just solve one problem.
For a mature product, a key growth lever can be removing identity friction. By allowing users to bring their existing accounts (e.g., Gmail) instead of forcing a new one (e.g., Yahoo.com), you lower barriers, solve the 'cold start' problem, and can dramatically increase adoption by delivering immediate value.
Instead of passively waiting for experience teams to request an API, platform teams should proactively identify business opportunities. Go to other teams with proposals for new services that can unlock use cases they haven't even considered, positioning your team as a strategic partner, not a cost center.
Don't force your sales team to learn and sell a completely new product. Instead, integrate the new capability into an existing, successful product, making it "first" or "default" for that channel. This reduces sales friction and complexity, leveraging established momentum for adoption.
A founder of an athletic underwear brand faces a classic strategic choice. One path is to focus narrowly to dominate a niche, like Spanx did. The other is to expand into adjacent products (like sports bras) to create a complete brand system. This highlights the core tension between operational focus and building a broader brand platform.
To grow an established product, introduce new formats (e.g., Instagram Stories, Google AI Mode) as separate but integrated experiences. This allows you to tap into new user behaviors without disrupting the expectations and mental models users have for the core product, avoiding confusion and accelerating adoption.
A competitive moat can be built by moving beyond simple service delivery (e.g., shipping medicine) to a closed-loop system. This involves diagnostics to establish a baseline, personalized treatment plans based on results, and ongoing re-testing to demonstrate improvement, creating a sticky user journey.
Instead of building a single-purpose application (first-order thinking), successful AI product strategy involves creating platforms that enable users to build their own solutions (second-order thinking). This approach targets a much larger opportunity by empowering users to create custom workflows.
The future of biotech moves beyond single drugs. It lies in integrated systems where the 'platform is the product.' This model combines diagnostics, AI, and manufacturing to deliver personalized therapies like cancer vaccines. It breaks the traditional drug development paradigm by creating a generative, pan-indication capability rather than a single molecule.
To create transformational enterprise solutions, focus on the core problems of the key buyers, not just the feature requests of technical users. For healthcare payers, this meant solving strategic issues like care management and risk management, which led to stickier, higher-value products than simply delivering another tool.
If your product category becomes commoditized, redefine your business around your core expertise. A kombucha maker isn't just selling a drink; they are in the 'probiotics' or 'gut health' business. This strategic reframing can unlock higher-margin opportunities like consulting and R&D.