Product development

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This talk will be in Norwegian

Strategy for Innovators – Without direction, execution is just noise

Good products often fail due to unclear strategy. Strategic thinking can help teams navigate uncertainty effectively.

Børge Østrem

Børge Østrem

Børge is a co-founder and Chief Product & Operations Officer at Unlisted, a growing SaaS company helping startups and scaleups easily manage equity and ownership. With a background spanning entrepreneurship, product leadership, innovation strategy, and software development, Børge has spent the last two decades building products and growing teams.

Before Unlisted, Børge worked in leadership roles at Capgemini and Idean (now frog), where he helped grow design and innovation teams and led complex digital projects for larger clients. He combines hands-on technical experience with innovation, strategic design, and leadership expertise, supported by studies at NHH Executive and MIT Sloan. His approach to innovation is pragmatic, trying to bring clarity into the fog of innovation.

As a former developer, designer, and sniper squad leader, he brings a practical and grounded perspective on navigating uncertainty and building successful products and companies.

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Why do so many good products fail? Why do teams with smart people, great ideas, and solid execution still end up missing the mark?

Whether you’re at a startup or a large tech company, the pattern is familiar: you’re building, shipping, iterating… but deep down, you’re not sure if it’s working. You’re not sure if it matters. That’s not a product problem. It’s a strategy problem.

In this session, we’ll unpack why execution alone isn’t enough and why lack of clear strategy is one of the most significant risks in innovation. We’ll look at how teams fall into the trap of building without direction, and what we can do instead to navigate uncertainty with more clarity and confidence.

You’ll get a practical introduction to strategic thinking for builders - from defining your position in the market and aligning around a shared goal, to making smarter bets and getting the most out of your resources. With simple frameworks you can easily implement in your organization, we’ll explore how to work more strategically.

Whether you’re writing code, designing flows, managing products, or leading a team, this talk will help you turn effort into real progress.