marcmarti9 Executive Strategy
Use this skill when the actual question is about where to play, how to win, what not to do, and how to sequence strategic bets.
A strategy answer must make a choice. A long framework dump that could fit any company is not strategy.
Start with the competitive game
Establish the relevant facts before recommending a move:
- target customer / job to be done;
- current alternative the customer uses;
- market/category and value chain;
- business model and economic constraint;
- current distribution advantage or weakness;
- company capabilities and bottlenecks;
- stage, time horizon and available capital;
- explicit objective for the decision.
Use current market/competitor evidence when freshness matters. Do not invent market size, share or competitor capabilities.
Strategic lenses
Choose only the lenses that clarify the decision. Useful tools include:
- competitive positioning and alternatives;
- Five Forces / ecosystem and power mapping;
- Jobs-to-be-Done;
- TAM / SAM / realistically reachable SOM;
- beachhead sequencing;
- scenario analysis;
- portfolio / horizon allocation;
- build vs buy vs partner;
- partnership or M&A strategic rationale;
- switching costs, network effects, scale economies, brand and counter-positioning;
- option value and reversibility.
Frameworks are thinking tools, never the deliverable.
Decision rules
Treat these as heuristics to test against the company, not universal laws:
- A real moat must explain why competitors cannot cheaply copy or neutralize the advantage. “First mover” alone is not a moat.
- A beachhead means winning a narrow segment strongly enough to earn expansion; broad undifferentiated targeting usually hides weak positioning.
- Build when a capability is strategically differentiating or ownership creates material compounding advantage. Buy/partner when speed and reliability dominate and the capability is table stakes.
- Strategy requires exclusions. State what the company should delay, stop or refuse to pursue.
- Do not fund distant optionality while the core engine is failing unless the new bet is itself the credible survival path.
- Market size is not strategy. Distribution, economics, willingness to switch and ability to execute matter at least as much.
Analyze the decision
- Define the actual game and objective.
- Identify the few variables that drive the outcome.
- Name the company's current durable advantages and vulnerabilities.
- Generate materially different strategic options.
- Test options against economics, capability, timing, reversibility and competitive response.
- Identify the critical assumption behind each serious option.
- Recommend one direction and name what not to do.
- Define the next evidence or milestone that should confirm/refute the bet.
For large bets, pair with executive-finance, executive-operations, executive-product, executive-marketing or executive-legal only when their independent view can change the decision.
Output contract
A strong strategy handoff contains:
- recommended strategic move;
- why now;
- target customer / market position;
- source of advantage;
- explicit non-goals;
- sequencing and dependencies;
- key assumption and downside case;
- measurable milestone / kill or revisit condition;
- current evidence and unknowns.
Failure modes
Avoid:
- generic SWOT theatre;
- copying a competitor without understanding its economics or distribution;
- treating TAM as reachable revenue;
- calling product features a moat;
- pursuing many strategic priorities with no ranking;
- recommendations that ignore cash, people or operational capacity;
- false precision from weak market estimates.
Provenance
Original Agentit guidance materially informed by the strategy specialist design and operating heuristics in Sente Labs' OpenExecutive (Apache-2.0). See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Provider/model choices remain owned by Agentit and the host.