---
title: "Product strategy best practices [with examples]"
description: "Product strategy requires being great at saying no, not maybe or later, to maintain a cohesive product with well-defined parameters. When a product gains traction, good ideas for features come from customers, colleagues, and oneself, each with reasons to say yes. The post presents 12 common arguments used to sneak features in, such as selective data analysis, feature blackmail, and appeals to anecdote or raw numbers. It argues that even good ideas should be rejected if they do not fit within the product’s purview, as every addition adds hidden complexity and weakens product definition. Saying no to good ideas is the hard part of product decisions, distinguishing a repository of features from a true product."
---

# Product strategy best practices \[with examples\]

[Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom) · Oct 8, 2026

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

Product strategy requires being great at saying no, not maybe or later, to maintain a cohesive product with well-defined parameters. When a product gains traction, good ideas for features come from customers, colleagues, and oneself, each with reasons to say yes. The post presents 12 common arguments used to sneak features in, such as selective data analysis, feature blackmail, and appeals to anecdote or raw numbers. It argues that even good ideas should be rejected if they do not fit within the product’s purview, as every addition adds hidden complexity and weakens product definition. Saying no to good ideas is the hard part of product decisions, distinguishing a repository of features from a true product.

## Context

The post is written for product builders who face pressure to add features from customers, colleagues, and themselves. It addresses the challenge of maintaining a cohesive product with well-defined parameters when inundated with good ideas.

## Approach / What changed

The post argues that product strategy requires saying no to feature requests, even good ones, and provides 12 common arguments used to sneak features into a product, explaining why each is flawed.

## Takeaways

- Saying no to good ideas is harder than eliminating bad ones; real product decisions require rejecting valuable proposals that don’t fit the product’s purview.
- Scope of work should never justify including a feature; even tiny additions add hidden complexity not accounted for in quick estimates.
- Making features optional weakens product definition and leads to a messy interface with conditional design and configuration overhead.

## FAQ

### How should I handle a customer threatening to quit?

The post argues that no single customer is more important than a good product. Delivering extra value to one customer comes at the cost of taking value away from many others, and it leads to consulting-ware.

### Is making a feature optional a good compromise?

The post warns that making features optional leads to death by preferences. It hides complexity from default screens but surfaces everywhere else, resulting in a messy interface with conditional design and weakening the product definition.

### Should I build a feature because competitors have it?

The post advises against it. Competitors may be trying something out, planning to kill it, or simply wrong. Obsessing over competitors' features relegates you to delivering yesterday's technology tomorrow.

**Tags:** [Product Design](https://yomu.fyi/topic/product-design), [Product Management](https://yomu.fyi/topic/product-management), [Strategy](https://yomu.fyi/topic/strategy)

- Source: [Intercom](https://www.intercom.com/blog/product-strategy-means-saying-no)
- Source URL: https://www.intercom.com/blog/product-strategy-means-saying-no
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-08T18:00:24.042Z

[Read original post](https://www.intercom.com/blog/product-strategy-means-saying-no)