Hey there,

Welcome to the 3rd edition of the StrategyHub behind-the-scenes newsletter. Last edition I shared the 5 strategy mistakes that I see people frequently making.

Today I’d like to talk about the ways I’ve used data, feedback loops, and other tactics I teach inside of StrategyHub, to actually create StrategyHub.

I’m also going to share some thoughts on how to apply these ideas to you and your work, because I think every professional and business owner should be doing this.

My behind-the-scenes emails have each ended with a question.

Here’s what I’ve asked so far:

  • What have you tried to tackle your #1 career goal so far?

  • What would you like from StrategyHub that you haven't been able to figure out yet?

  • Is there anything specific about the development of StrategyHub you'd like me to cover?

  • What do you do to improve your ‘strategy skills’?

  • What are the common strategy mistakes you see?

(Note: I’m personalising many of these emails. The exact language you received might have been slightly different than what you see above.)

I’ve received a positively overwhelming number of responses to these emails. I’ve learned so much from you, so thank you to all who have replied.

These questions are intentionally designed.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of just assuming you know what customers need, producing an entire product around that assumption, and then later discovering that while you’ve technically created a product… you haven’t created the right product.

I don’t want to make that mistake. Which is why I’m being so proactive in asking you about what you’ve tried already, what you’ve learned from in the past, what your ideal curriculum looks like, and more.

But the data collection didn’t start with these emails. Far from it.

Here’s an overview of just a sampling of other research exercises that have shaped StrategyHub into what it is today:

  1. Reader survey

Back in February, I sent a survey to gather (a) reader demographics like industry, role, location, seniority etc, and (b) free-text responses about what readers like, don’t like, and want to see most from Strategy Breakdowns.

  1. Tech stack survey

In March, I shared the Strategy Breakdowns Tech Stack (which in itself was created after many reader requests) to share the inside-out of what tools we use to run Strategy Breakdowns. To download the tech stack, we asked readers 4 short questions to understand more about why they were interested in the resource, and what their current career challenges were.

  1. Email replies

In most editions of Strategy Breakdowns, we ask readers to reply to the email with questions, thoughts, challenges, requests, ideas, and feedback. Some other newsletters do this, but I take pride in the fact that even with 55,000 readers we never post and ghost - we write back to every single reply, and learn a tonne in the process.

Several conversation threads are 30+ emails long!

  1. Discovery calls

Earlier this year, I spent months doing back-to-back calls with readers to:

  • Learn exactly who they are and what they need

  • Understand their biggest pain points and goals

  • Provide as much value as I can in the call

  • Use what I learnt to build a product tailored perfectly to them

After a few weeks of calls, patterns started to emerge. Consistent goals. Common challenges. Clear alignment with what I had learned in previous surveys and emails.

These became the StrategyHub curriculum.

  1. Beta tester feedback

At each step of the journey (outline, draft, first cut videos etc), I shared what I had built with my beta testers to make sure it was exactly what they needed, and implemented every possible improvement they suggested.

  1. Waitlist survey

Everyone who signed up for the StrategyHub waitlist was asked a few short questions about their role, industry, and current priorities.

Why am I still doing surveys? As the product gets closer and closer to completion, the data points we collect become more and more targeted. The data from this survey allows us to meet the needs of the specific segment of readers that are most interested in StrategyHub (as opposed to those tho downloaded the Tech Stack, for example).

  1. Strategic research

Even if you conduct all of the above exercises, you still have proverbial blinders on: you’re only using 1st party data.

Data that you have gathered, cleaned, and analysed yourself.

Huge mistake.

In 2024, there are literally thousands of free tools you can use to dig into market trends, hidden data feeds, and obscure dashboards that can give you invaluable information to validate, shape, and bulletproof your strategy.

By conducting strategic research, I was able to find exact answers to mission-critical questions like:

  • What questions does my ICP look for answers to most frequently?

  • What emerging trends, terms, and topics are spiking in popularity in my niche?

  • What are the most popular communities for my ICP, and what topics/problems are they interested in right now?

  • What sites does my ICP frequently visit?

  • What additional deep demographic data can I learn from lookalike audiences?

  • What are the most popular similar products in my niche?

  • Where do they get traffic from, how much traffic, and how much does it cost them?

  • How do the best funnels in the industry work under the hood?

    and MUCH more

All this information is available for free online. Most people just have no idea where to look. That’s exactly what I teach inside StrategyHub.

Sure you can spend years of trial-and-error stitching together your own system of tools and tactics that may or may not actually help you find what you need. Or you can skip the guesswork and start using my personal insight system that I’ve been building and perfecting for the last 5+ years.

I teach the exact techniques I used to build StrategyHub inside of StrategyHub. That’s precisely why I’m so confident it’s such a valuable and practically useful product.

Inversely, I used the exact techniques I teach inside of StrategyHub to build StrategyHub. That’s precisely why I am so confident it’ll be a successful product.

StrategyHub isn’t just a ‘course’ or a ‘system’ - it’s also one big case study of how to ideate, research, and define a successful strategy.

Today’s Action Step:

Let’s now shift gears to you and your career.

What are you doing to eliminate guesswork for you and your team?
How do you use strategic research to turn assumptions into data-backed directions?

Reply to this email and let me know.

Thanks again for reading, I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Cheers,

— Tom

You're receiving this exclusive "behind-the-scenes" newsletter because you’re one of our most highly engaged subscribers (🫶) or you've asked me to keep you posted about StrategyHub (🤝).

StrategyHub will be available on October 31st (add a reminder to your calendar: Apple  •  Google  •  Office 365  •  Outlook Web  •  Outlook  •  Yahoo)

Missed any of my previous behind-the-scenes updates? Here they are:

If you'd prefer not to receive these behind-the-scenes updates, no hard feelings! Simply scroll down to the footer → click ‘email preferences’ → toggle off the StrategyHub behind-the-scenes newsletter (you’ll keep receiving Strategy Breakdowns every 2 weeks).