Software Growth

Strategic choices

Strategic choices are commitments between worthwhile alternatives that guide the whole business, including the benefits and costs of the chosen direction.

Strategic choices are the decisions that give a business a coherent direction. They tell product, marketing, sales and support which customers and outcomes to prioritize when each team makes its own day-to-day decisions.

What makes a choice strategic?

In Strategic choices: When both options are good, Jason Cohen proposes three tests: both alternatives should be reasonable, the company should accept the drawbacks of its choice, and the choices should reinforce one another.

A strategy that never says “no” is not a strategy.

Jason Cohen / A Smart Bear, February 22, 2026

A SaaS example

A scheduling company chooses independent clinics that buy online. That decision supports transparent pricing, fast setup and a standard product. It also means declining hospital contracts that require custom procurement and implementation. Hospital sales could be a good business, but pursuing them simultaneously might overwhelm this company's small team.

Another company could choose hospitals and make a coherent set of different decisions: annual contracts, implementation staff and a dedicated sales process. Neither choice is automatically superior. The question is whether the company's resources, product and customer promises fit the direction it selected.

Strategy versus a roadmap or goal

A roadmap lists intended work. An OKR defines a desired outcome and how progress will be measured. A strategic choice explains why some work and outcomes deserve priority. “Increase revenue” is a goal; “serve independent clinics through self-serve subscriptions” gives the team direction when evaluating how to grow.

For a small SaaS

Record a few choices, the attractive opportunities each rules out, and the consequences you accept. Review them when customer evidence changes. Use them when assessing feature requests or growth channels so a promising individual project does not pull the company away from its chosen market.

Sources

Back to the SaaS glossary