Should product resource allocation across time horizons (core, emerging, long-term) follow a fixed split or shift dynamically with company phase?

Emilie Choi · Aug 23, 2021

The 70/20/10 framework modelled after Google — core business, strategic adjacent bets, venture bets — is the best methodology she has found for prioritising resources and mind share

The core business funds the rest of the business and defines the company's identity, while adjacencies and venture bets can graduate into strategic pillars, as custody and wallet did

Scope: reinforced through quarterly business reviews

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Noah Desai Weiss · Jun 16, 2023

Google's 70/20/10 portfolio model instilled a level of product ambition — asking what a 10x bigger version looks like — that is hard for early and mid-stage startups to afford but worth aspiring to

The deliberate portfolio approach forced teams to think beyond incremental work toward far-out bets

Scope: hard to afford at mid to early stage startups

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Noah Desai Weiss · Jun 16, 2023 · hedged

Google's 70/20/10 allocation is a workable way to balance near-term revenue-driving feature work against long-term strategic bets, putting roughly 70% on the former and 10% on the latter

Scope: offered as one way of thinking about it

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Kevin Niparko · Sep 29, 2023

The three-horizons framework — core today, emerging over one to two years, long-term three to five years — is the right way to frame product resource allocation, and the split between the buckets should swing widely with company phase rather than stay fixed

At Segment allocation went from roughly 90/10/0 while honing core product quality to roughly 30/40/30 during periods of expansion into new products

36:22 Allocation should swing widely with company phase not stay fixed