Product strategy is the set of deliberate choices that define who a product serves, what problem it solves, how it wins, and what trade-offs it will make over time. It is more than a feature list or a roadmap; it is the logic behind the choices a team commits to. A strong strategy helps align teams around the same direction, makes prioritization easier, and prevents a product from devolving into a random collection of features that pleases some users but serves no one exceptionally well.
A useful distinction is between vision and strategy. Vision describes the long-term future the team wants to create, the kind of world the product will exist in once it succeeds. Strategy explains the choices and the path that will get there. Vision inspires direction; strategy specifies the moves. A team with a vivid vision but no strategy often produces inspirational slides without shipped products, while a team with only strategy can execute efficiently in the wrong direction.
Strategy becomes tangible when it is written down. A strategy memo forces clarity on the target customer, the core problem, the chosen advantage, the underlying assumptions, and the explicit trade-offs the team is willing to accept. Without such a document, strategy tends to drift toward whatever loudest stakeholder asked most recently, and the product loses coherence.