
What the top role in an organisation actually consists of
The key competences required to do it
Management tools and techniques used at that level
A checklist for assessing your own effectiveness
How to run a strategy session at the highest level
Tools and techniques for developing strategy
Building a comprehensive strategic plan
Applying SWOT and PESTEL analysis
Key aspects of developing a corporate culture
Tools for building and strengthening a team
Integrating culture into daily activity
Creating and implementing a code of conduct
Fundamentals of portfolio and innovation management
Developing and launching new products and services
Evaluating and selecting innovation projects
Systems for managing the innovation process
Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy
Tools for improving sales efficiency
Analysing and optimising marketing channels
Building a sales and marketing management system
Basics of financial planning and budget management
Financial analysis and risk management
Optimising financial performance
Strategies for financial development and capital
Approaches to strategic decision making
Crisis management and resolution techniques
Risk assessment and action planning
Scenario planning and managing uncertainty
Strategies and tools for change management
Implementing and supporting transformation projects
Building change plans and monitoring them
Managing resistance and involving people
Integrating AI and digital technology into processes
Evaluating trends and selecting what is worth adopting
Implementing and managing digital projects
Developing a technology strategy
Splitting responsibility between the top two roles
Strategies and tactics of joint management
Coordinating strategic and operational tasks
Managing internal communication between them
The evolution of the product function
How it differs from technology, marketing and the founder role
Being the voice of the customer inside the company
Balancing business, users and technology
Product vision and mission
Product-market fit: finding it and keeping it
Strategic priorities and product goals
Linking product strategy to business goals
The product life cycle
BCG and McKinsey matrices
Deciding whether to invest, maintain or retire something
Balancing core, adjacent and innovation bets
Methods for researching the market and customer needs
Jobs to Be Done and Design Thinking
Customer journey mapping
Validating hypotheses before you build
Roles: product managers, designers, analysts, researchers
Building the product organisation with squads and OKR alignment
Agile and Lean as the operating model
A culture of experimentation and learning
The North Star metric and its supporting metrics
AARRR and the pirate metrics framework
Product analytics tools
Data-driven product decisions in practice
Monetisation models: freemium, subscription, transactions, licences
Growth loops and product-led growth
Unit economics and the LTV to CAC ratio
Financial accountability for the product
What happens to the product as the company scales
Supporting expansion into new markets
Managing technology and market risks
Embedding security and compliance into the product
Product as a driver of digital transformation
Innovation: AI, Web3 and platform business models
Building partner ecosystems and open innovation
Where the discipline is heading
Where to start when marketing becomes your problem
A fourteen-day audit of team, channels and effectiveness
Ten key questions to answer before spending anything
An action plan for the first thirty days
Putting together a competitive analysis quickly
Assessing competitors' unit economics
Where to get insights and how to use them
Building a strengths and weaknesses table
Building a strategy investors and partners will accept
Frameworks: 4P, STP, Ansoff matrix, customer journey
Linking business goals with marketing indicators
Structuring an annual strategy as a one-pager
Building and defending a marketing budget
Key metrics: CAC, LTV, ROMI, CLV
Reallocating budget between channels
The report your investors will actually read
Developing the value proposition
Brand architecture and portfolio management
Preparing a complete brand plan
Structuring it with indicators, initiatives and budgets
The digital funnel from lead to revenue
Channels: search, paid media, social, email, content
Performance marketing: attribution, optimisation, metrics
What a marketing dashboard must contain
Building a marketing function that fits your strategy
Roles: brand, performance, analytics, communications
Indicators and a reporting system
How marketing works with sales and product
Where AI genuinely works in marketing
The strongest tools currently available
Building AI into the marketing workflow
What to automate and what to leave to people
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Nobody starts a company because they wanted to learn unit economics. You start because of the product, and then everything else arrives whether you are ready or not.
What actually kills early businesses
Rarely the idea. Usually the founder is excellent at one function and improvising the other five. The product is good and nobody can explain who it is for. Sales happen through personal contacts and stop the moment the founder gets busy. Marketing money goes out with no way to tell which half worked. There is revenue but never cash. And the whole operation depends on one person remembering everything, which works until it very suddenly does not.
I built the people function at Preply while it went from a startup to a unicorn, and I have watched this from the inside — including the parts we got wrong.
How this course is structured
Six functions, in the order they usually become urgent. The founder's own role first: strategy with SWOT and PESTEL, culture, the decisions only you can make. Then product: finding product-market fit with Jobs to Be Done and journey mapping, the North Star metric, monetisation models and unit economics.
Then demand — marketing that pays back, measured in CAC, LTV and ROMI, and selling with AIDA, SPIN, FAB and proper objection handling. Then the money: the operating model, budgeting, the four perspectives of measurement, and what has to be true before scaling is a good idea. And finally operations, which is the function founders postpone longest and regret postponing most.
Who is teaching this
Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals.
Why it is 53 lessons
Because running a business is six jobs, and a short course would have to skip four of them. This is the longest course I teach. Take it in order, apply each part to your own business as you go, and by the end you will have a strategy, a product model, a sales approach, a marketing budget, a financial model and an operating rhythm — all of them yours rather than borrowed.
What is included
- Lifetime access to all course materials
- Active instructor support in the Q&A section
- Udemy Certificate of Completion
- Practical assignments and real business cases
- A section with additional courses, tools and resources
One thing to keep in mind
The functions you are weakest at are the ones costing you money right now, and they are usually the ones you find least interesting. Start with those sections. Enrol now and begin the first lesson today.