One Page, <20 min: All You Need to Craft Your Business Strategy
See OPE framework by Wes Bush in action
Dear GTM Strategist!
Since many of us are plotting new products and services for 2025 🤠, I felt this would be a great opportunity to discuss business strategy pragmatically.
In this post, you will learn how to apply the One-Page Endgame (OPE) canvas created by Wes Bush, author of The Product-Led Playbook, to your business. The process includes 3 steps:
Define ICP and the core assumptions around it
Select 3/15 moats to create an unfair competitive advantage
Create plans (yearly/monthly/quarterly) to achieve your endgame.
The OPE canvas was purposefully created for product-led companies. I have used it for a new product I am developing and tested it with three consultants in January - founders loved it.
I am a fan of OPE for these reasons:
It is ICP-centric, and most of us win by playing narrow before we can play big time.
OPE dives into the concept of moats 🏰- how you create a defensible competitive advantage for your business.
It has a tactical component as it invites you to craft yearly, quarterly and monthly plans and allocate resources. The OPE canvas helps you achieve the goals outlined in the business strategy.
You must complete the OPE exercise before hopping to GTM Power Hour framework, where you can list your GTM assumptions and make them actionable.
Tra-ra 🎺 - here is OPE 🗺️:
And magic 🪄
… it is now filled by entrepreneur Alex Turnbull for his new venture, Helply, an AI CX agent.
Now, let’s learn how to apply it to your business.
Let’s do this!
Step 1: Set Up the Fundamentals (Your ICP on Steroids)
If you have done your ICP and positioning work as suggested in the ‘Go-to-Market Strategist’ book, the top of the canvas should be easy to fill. It’ll be even easier if you’ve implemented the GTM Strategist Checklist.
Interestingly, the canvas starts with the ‘Obvious Choice’ field. You do not want to be a “good-to-have” solution for your ICP. You must become the go-to solution.
If you are new to the process and have done no GTM work yet, answer the questions in the best possible way. For the exercise, some guesswork will do.
Which markets can you dominate as an obvious choice?
Who is your ideal customer (someone who loves the product as it is today)?
What meaningful problem do you solve for them?
What is your core product (solution) for them?
What are your primary marketing channels to generate traffic and signups (go where the audience is)?
Which geography will you target (Wes suggests focusing on regions with the most number of ideal consumers)?
In the example above, Helply aspires to become the obvious choice for PLG SaaS companies looking to automate frontline support. It strives to solve the core problems of repetitive inquiries and outdated knowledge bases. It seeks to reach its ideal customer through journey-led marketing and inbound and outbound channels. Helply wants to prioritize North America over Europe.
Step 2: Select 3 Moats to Win
For me, this is the most essential part of the canvas.
The concept of moats 🏰 was popularized by investor Warren Buffett, who likened a company's competitive advantage to a moat surrounding a castle. The broader and deeper the moat, the harder it is for competitors to breach and capture your market share. He emphasized that the best businesses to invest in have a strong "moat" that ensures durable profitability over time.
To put it simply:
What do you have (or can build) to make your business the obvious choice for the target customer and that competitors can’t easily copy?
Wes Bush defines 15 moats that you should consider in the context of product-led growth:
1. Differentiation Moat
Description: Offering a product with unique features or solutions that stand out from competitors.
Example: Slack—differentiated by its user-friendly interface and integrations with countless tools to streamline team communication.
2. Cost Leadership Moat
Description: Delivering value at the lowest possible cost while maintaining product standards.
Example: Zoom—offers a cost-effective video conferencing solution with superior reliability, outpacing more expensive competitors.
3. User Experience Moat
Description: Providing an exceptional, intuitive experience that keeps users engaged and satisfied.
Example: Notion—gained traction owing to its clean, flexible workspace for organizing everything from notes to workflows.
4. Network Effects Moat
Description: Increasing product value as more users join and engage with the ecosystem. Usually applies to social media, team tools, collaboration tools and multiplayer games.
Example: LinkedIn—with over 950 million members as of 2024, it thrives on network effects by connecting professionals worldwide.
5. Operational Efficiency Moat
Description: Achieving superior efficiency in delivering value by optimizing internal processes and workflows. Operational efficiency often requires economies of scale, which is difficult to achieve for startups.
Example: Amazon Web Services (AWS)—AWS's operational efficiency supports over 30% of the global cloud market. It leverages massive economies of scale to deliver reliable cloud computing services at competitive prices, making it nearly impossible for smaller competitors to match its efficiency.
6. Branding and Reputation Moat
Description: Building trust and customer loyalty through a strong, recognizable brand and consistent reliability.
Example: Stripe—renowned for its developer-friendly payment solutions,it built a trusted brand by prioritizing easy integrations and reliability, becoming the backbone of online commerce for companies like Amazon and Shopify.
7. Distribution Moat
Description: Establishing access to unique or extensive distribution channels to reach more customers.
Example: Clay—As of 2024, it has grown to over 100,000 users across over 2,500 companies, including notable clients like Anthropic, Intercom, Notion, Vanta, and Verkada.
8. Speed and Innovation Moat
Description: Delivering rapid product updates and innovations to stay ahead of competitors.
Example: Figma—It frequently introduces real-time collaboration features and updates, enhancing user experience and staying ahead of design trends.
9. Pricing Moat
Description: Offering flexible and attractive pricing models that align with customer needs and budgets.
Example: Canva—offers a generous free plan and a Pro subscription at $12.99 per person/ month, while Adobe's Creative Cloud All Apps plan is priced at $54.99.
10. Free Moat
Description: Reducing barriers to entry by providing a free version of the product to attract and acquire users.
Example: ChatGPT—by offering free access to its AI-powered conversational platform,it attracted over 1 million users within just five days of its November 2022 launch. It had grown to over 300 million weekly active users by December 2024.
11. Switching Cost Moat
Description: Making it costlier or more challenging for users to switch to competing products due to contractual obligations, integration with other systems or data lock-ins.
Example: Tableau— locks in users with deep integrations, custom dashboards, and extensive training investments. Switching after three months could cost businesses thousands in re-training, data migration, and lost productivity.
12. Proprietary Moat
Description: Protecting your product through patents, unique technology, or exclusive data.
Example: NVIDIA—It leads the GPU market with over 15,000 patents worldwide. One notable patent example includes groundbreaking innovations in AI computing technology, solidifying its position as a tech powerhouse.
13. Engagement Moat
Description: Building stickiness by ensuring users frequently interact with and rely on the product. Works well for communities and companies with raving fans - high loyalty and WoM (word of mouth).
Example: GitHub— created a highly engaging platform by fostering collaboration through pull requests, issue tracking, and social coding, making it a go-to tool for developers worldwide with over 100 million users.
14. Expansion Moat
Description: Increasing customer lifetime value (LTV) by making it easier for customers to expand usage or add new features.
Example: HubSpot—started as a free CRM and sales tool and later expanded to the Marketing and Sales Hub, which sells multiplier services.
15. Founder Brand Moat
Description: Using the founder’s reputation and leadership to create trust and visibility for the product.
Example: Superhuman—leveraged Rahul Vohra’s brand and insights to attract early adopters to the email platform. An extreme case is Elon Musk, who says his companies don’t need marketing.
Each of these moats helps a product-led business build and maintain a durable competitive advantage, driving long-term growth and resilience.
The fun part - you can only choose 3. Alex from Helply selected founder-brand, differentiation and pricing moats.
What will you choose? 🤠
Step 3: Plan Your Endgame and Execute It
Wes suggests starting this by stating your endgame, which is super interesting.
Some examples:
Create $1 million ARR by year-end
Get $200 validation and exit the company
Win 1,000,000 users in 3 years
Have 100 people (or five) work at your company in the next year
Just be honest here … Nobody will judge you.
The next step is to define what progressing towards the endgame will look like after a year, every quarter, and every month.
The last part of the OPE canvas asks:
What would it take to execute your plan?
Wes breaks this down to core values, capacities, strategic choices, and allocation.
A word of caution: While it is fun to add things to your to-do list, you are bound by resources, time, people, and money. Decide what you’ll drop and figure out how you’ll increase capacity.
You can’t take on more without saying “no” to other things.
Focus = saying no.
🥁🥁🥁
And congrats - you have created a pretty canvas!
You can paste it to your office wall or brag about its use on LinkedIn.
Just kidding - what you created is a powerful alignment tool for your team.
But this is not a set-it-and-forget-it exercise.
What makes the difference is how you act on it. - So here is my challenge to you:
✍️ What can you do TODAY to get one step closer to your endgame?
You know the answer, so start working on it.
Return to this canvas periodically to update it with newer insights and traction numbers. I review such materials every week before planning for the next week. Even if you don’t wholly reach your endgame, you’re better than those stuck in analysis paralysis.
Bring out your own personal innovation and speed moats.
Loved reading this post?
Which part of the OPE canvas is the most important for a business? Let’s discuss this in the comments.
Are you intrigued by Wes Bush’s OPE framework? Check out his new book - ‘The Product-Led Playbook’ on Amazon. I binged it in 2 days. Proof 🤠
These are the books I am reading in January 🗓️
And hell yes - I am re-reading my book ‘Go-to Market Strategist', which explores how to play on your strengths and build a competitive edge. Reach product-market fit quickly. 40% discounted in January on Amazon - get your copy.
Start working towards your endgame today with 100+ checkpoints I’ve compiled covering all aspects of go-to-market. I’ve tested them successfully on 750+ launches (emails, launch plans, posts, landing pages). Get the GTM Checklist today.
And I am in my maker mode, so ❌ more consultations in January - sorry.
Gotta focus 🎯 on bringing my One Page Endgame to life 🤘
 | A guest post by
|
This is the collab of the century! For a guy that loves frameworks and everything well organized, then 1-piece visual frameworks are just the "cherry on top of the cake".
Great piece of content!
Hi Maja and Wes!
I really love this framework!
The idea of making a strategic effort and imagining what the final situation will look like is incredibly useful for achieving the right balance between short-term and long-term goals, which is crucial for startups. Then, breaking it down into quarterly, monthly, and similar steps is essential for linking it to daily operations.
I’ve also been doing this for a while with the startups I mentor in an incubator, and the positive effects are remarkable: more focus and more direction. (Although not all the other advisors like it, but that’s okay.)
How do you determine the elements that will lead you to the endgame—core values, core capabilities, and core choices? Do you base them on the endgame, the short term, or a mix of both?
Also, given that the average lifespan of a startup is 18 months, do you visualize the endgame within that timeframe, or do you look beyond, toward something like: how do you imagine the situation when your product is fully developed?
Thanks and i love the work you're doing!