Lessons from Dinero: How to
operationalise your product strategy
with a North Star
Lessons from Dinero: How to
operationalise your product strategy
with a North Star
Working with product vision and strategy can be challenging, and operationalising it even more so. One way companies are doing this is by defining a North Star. In this article we share the success story of Dinero and their North Star, the Automation Barometer.
It works really well for aligning teams – but also when onboarding new employees to our business. It is easy for them to understand the business strategy.
A bit of background
The Product Vision Sprint in short
Working with product vision and strategy can be challenging, and operationalising it even more so. One way companies are doing this is by defining a North Star. In this article we share the success story of Dinero and their North Star, the Automation Barometer.
The North Star Framework in short
Before hearing from Dinero, let’s have a quick walkthrough of the North Star Framework. The heart of the framework is the North Star Metric, a single metric that captures and measures the core value delivered to customers and end-users. The North Star Metric should also align with the product vision and strategy, and be a leading indicator of business growth.
What makes the framework really powerful are the Input Metric. These are metrics that each team comes up with as a way to contribute to the North Star.
These often have an effect on the backlog and priorities of the teams, and help them make decisions as they develop their products and services.
If you want to learn more about the North Star Framework, or would like support in finding your North Star, you can find more information here.
With that said, let’s hear from Theis J., Chief Revenue Officer at Dinero.
Could you tell us a bit about your current North Star? What were the thoughts behind it? How does it connect to your overall vision and strategy?
At Dinero we work for the smallest companies in Denmark. Typically they are only themselves with no employees.
We want to make sure all (Danish) entrepreneurs are able to do their bookkeeping without having a lot of knowledge about how to do bookkeeping – and at the same time avoid mistakes. We believe the best way to do this is to fully automate their bookkeeping. We are the experts here.
That is why our North Star is the Automation Barometer, where we keep track of how long we are on the full automation journey.
How did you first learn about the North Star Framework? What made you want to try it out in your company?
We’ve always wanted to track our journey, so we started developing the automation barometer without knowing anything about the North Star Framework.
But as we started developing the barometer, we saw this article at Space that fitted our thoughts really well.
What are some successes and challenges you have experienced with your North Star? How would you describe the impact on your teams and company?
Successes are many. It works really well for aligning teams – but also when onboarding new employees to our business. It is easy for them to understand the business strategy.
It also works really well for prioritising which features and improvements to do, as it is totally clear where we can play to make the most impact and move the needle. We have total control of the data, and decisions are backed up with data.
An example of this can be seen in the image below. If we really want to move the needle, we have to play with manual, payment, purchase and invoices-sales, as +94% of all entries are made here.
API, Assistant, MobilePay, RecurringInvoice, Zettle, System, PensoPay and Chargebee are automatically booked, while WebApp, ledger and MobileApps are manually booked.
Within these categories – as an example, let's look at payments – we can see that we have already automated 46,99% of all payments. This makes it easy to see where we should play to move the automation needle and also makes it easier for the entire organisation to understand why we are prioritising as we are in product development.
Looking at challenges, it has taken us quite a lot of time to fully understand how the barometer works and how it can be our friend. One example is that the barometer goes up and down depending on the period you are in (e.g VAT settlements). A lot of manual entries are done during that period, so the automation goes down and it looks like the automation has lowered.
The point is that we needed at least on year's worth of data to see if we have made progress, as we have to see it month over month.
Would you recommend the North Star Framework to other companies? What advice would you give companies that are considering implementing a North Star?
Absolutely! My advice is to get started as soon as possible, but to really consider your North Star. Start small, give the North Star some thought and then pitch it to a few people in your organisation to get their reaction.
It is important that it reflects the overall strategy of the business.
We ran a Design Sprint
If you wish to learn more about how Dinero is working to operationalise their product strategy through their North Star, you can watch this masterclass, which was part of the Product Leadership Accelerator, Spring 2024.
Thank you Theis and Dinero for sharing!
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