Software Side Hustles Anti-Patterns: Lacking a Clear Product Strategy

A common mistake that software side hustlers make is jumping straight into coding, without a Clear Product Strategy.

Non-Medium Members: You can read this article for free on my new “Software Side Hustlers” Substack Newsletter. Also, this article is included in my upcoming book: “Software Side Hustles: Anti-Patterns”.

“What is your product strategy?”

Many experienced software engineers and managers struggle to answer this question clearly and simply.

Let’s take a look at how Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and the world’s most successful software side hustler, explained his product strategy in a September 2024 interview (you can actually watch the video).

“I view the product strategy less as any one specific thing and more as how do we iterate and learn as quickly as possible how to make each thing better for for the people we’re trying to serve right. so if like I define our strategies we can learn faster than every other company we’re going to win. We’re going to build a better product than everyone else because we’re going to get it out first or early; We’re going to have a good feedback loop; we’re going to get get a bunch of feed back we’re going to learn what people like better than other people, and then over time by the time, you get to you know whether it’s version three or four or five I mean…