Guillaume Moubeche, Founder @ lemlist (0 to $150m valuation in 4 years) | Investor | Host of @ BILLIONS, recently shared something that caught my attention: "The best strategy comes from asking the best questions." He followed it with a set of swaps that are deceptively simple and instantly useful:

Not: "How do we beat competitors?"
But: "What game are only we playing?"

That framing matters because it changes what you spend your time on. Instead of reacting to the market, you define the market you actually want to win. And when Guillaume added, "Strategy isn't about being smarter. It's about being more focused than others can tolerate," it clicked for me: strategy is not a brainstorming exercise. It is a commitment exercise.

In this post, I want to expand on Guillaume's prompts and turn them into a practical way to think about positioning, product choices, and growth decisions without defaulting to competitor-chasing.

Strategy starts with questions, not answers

Most teams treat strategy like a document: a slide deck, a vision statement, a list of priorities. But the document is just the artifact. The real strategy is the set of decisions you repeatedly make when trade-offs show up.

Questions are powerful because they determine which trade-offs are even visible.

A bad question creates a narrow set of acceptable answers.
A great question widens your perspective, then forces you to choose.

Guillaume's examples are "question upgrades." Each one takes a common, reasonable-sounding question and replaces it with something harder, more specific, and more strategic.

From "beating competitors" to defining your own game

The default question is understandable:

"How do we beat competitors?"

The problem is that it quietly assumes the game is already defined and your job is to out-execute inside someone else's rules. That mindset tends to produce:

feature parity roadmaps
reactive pricing changes
marketing that mirrors category clichés
short-term wins that do not compound

Guillaume's better question is:

"What game are only we playing?"

What does "only we" really mean?

It does not mean you have zero competitors. It means you have a combination of advantages that is difficult to copy in practice.

A few ways to find it:

Unique distribution: You can reach buyers in a way others cannot (community, partnerships, a built-in channel, a workflow embed).
Unique data or feedback loops: You learn faster or personalize better because of how your product is used.
Unique constraints: Counterintuitively, your limitations can become the strategy (serving one niche deeply, refusing certain customer types, focusing on a single use case).
Unique point of view: You see the problem differently and you can explain that difference clearly.

A quick exercise I use: write your "only we" sentence in one line.

"Only we can help [specific customer] achieve [specific outcome] because [non-obvious capability]."

If you cannot finish that sentence without vague words like "best-in-class" or "end-to-end," it is a signal to keep digging.

A practical test: the copycat scenario

Ask: if a well-funded competitor copied our top three features, what would they still not be able to copy within 12 months?

If the honest answer is "not much," you are likely in a feature race. If the answer involves distribution, trust, workflow depth, or a unique wedge, you are closer to a real strategy.

From "what customers want" to building without competitors in mind

Another common question:

"What features do customers want?"

Listening to customers is essential, but this question has a trap: customers ask for improvements to what they already believe is possible. Meanwhile, competitors influence what customers think is "standard."

Guillaume's alternative is sharper:

"What would we build if competitors didn't exist?"

Why this question unlocks better product strategy

It separates "market noise" from "mission signal."

Without competitors, you stop asking "what should we match?"
You start asking "what should exist?"

This is where differentiated product bets come from. Not from ignoring customers, but from interpreting their needs through your own point of view.

Two lists that keep teams honest

Try creating two lists side-by-side:

Demand list: what customers request (tickets, calls, surveys).
Belief list: what you believe is true about the customer problem that others underestimate.

Your roadmap should not be a direct translation of the demand list. It should be a set of bets derived from the belief list, validated by evidence.

A simple filter for feature decisions

When a feature request comes in, ask:

Does this deepen our "only we" game, or pull us into a generic category checklist?
Will this create compounding value (retention, usage depth, referrals), or just short-term satisfaction?
Are we building this because it fits our thesis, or because we fear comparison?

If the main justification is "Competitor X has it," you are back to playing their game.

From "grow faster" to protecting culture as a strategic asset

The third default question sounds ambitious:

"How do we grow faster?"

But speed is not the same as progress. Growth can create hidden debt: process bloat, misaligned hiring, diluted values, and a product that tries to serve everyone.

Guillaume's replacement question is one I wish more leaders asked:

"What growth would kill our culture?"

Culture is not posters, it is behavior under pressure

Culture shows up when:

a big customer demands a custom deal
you miss a quarter and want to cut corners
you hire quickly and standards slip
you expand into a segment you do not understand

If your culture is part of your competitive advantage, then protecting it is a strategy, not a luxury.

Define your "no" list before you need it

The best time to set boundaries is before temptation shows up. A practical approach:

Identify the customer types that create chaos (extreme customization, misaligned values, abusive procurement).
Identify the growth channels that degrade trust (spammy outbound, misleading claims, pushy tactics).
Identify the hiring compromises you will not make.

Then write them down as explicit constraints.

This is where Guillaume's line about focus becomes real. Many companies could grow faster by saying yes to everything. The ones that win long-term decide what they will not do.

Focus is the strategy most teams avoid

Guillaume Moubeche wrote: "Strategy isn't about being smarter. It's about being more focused than others can tolerate." I read that as a challenge.

Focus is uncomfortable because it forces trade-offs that feel risky:

choosing a narrower ICP even when more leads exist elsewhere
building fewer features with higher conviction
letting competitors have parts of the market you could chase

But focus is also what creates clarity. Clarity improves execution. Execution compounds.

A weekly ritual to operationalize these questions

If you want to turn these prompts into action, try a 30-minute weekly review with your leadership team:

Only-we check: what did we do this week that strengthened our unique game?
Competitor detox: what decision was motivated primarily by comparison, and how would we decide without that comparison?
Culture guardrails: what growth opportunity did we consider that might damage our culture, and what did we choose instead?

Over time, this turns strategy from a quarterly event into a steady discipline.

Closing thought

Guillaume's post is short, but the underlying idea is big: the questions you tolerate become the strategy you deserve. If you upgrade the questions, you upgrade the decisions, and the business follows.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Guillaume Moubeche, Founder @ lemlist (0 to $150m valuation in 4 years) | Investor | Host of @ BILLIONS. View the original LinkedIn post →