If you were naïve, you might believe somebody who told you to follow this simple recipe: (1) define your products, then (2) select your markets, then (3) determine your prices, and then (4) figure out how you are going to sell your products at that price to those markets. But life is not so simple. Not only is the process iterative, but the process can start at any one of these four “recipe steps.” In fact, they are not even steps but four strategic decisions that are heavily interdependent. Here is the reality:

• A company could first envision a product and then determine its target market.
• Or it could first envision a target market (or a problem or opportunity within that target market) and then determine what products best meet the needs.
• Or it could first envision a new sales or marketing technique and then determine the best products to sell and the best markets to sell to using those techniques.
• And of course once the company launches a product, it often discovers problems, and needs to pivot. Pivoting requires you to rethink what products to deliver, how you will deliver them, who the target market should be, and pricing could change as well because both the value proposition and the cost structure could change.

Related Questions:

How do I change the products I'm selling?

How do I decide on what my market should be?

How do I choose prices?

How do I change the number of units that I expect to sell?