Working on the Green Plate project was one of the most interesting product project experiences I’ve had at Stanford because it brought together business, branding, and go-to-market thinking in a non-technical context. For a group of CS students, that posed a different kind of challenge. Since only a few of us came in with product experience, our team had to figure out how to approach product strategy from first principles, focusing less on features and more on market positioning, consumer behavior, and growth levers.
What made Green Plate such a unique case study was that it wasn’t a startup trying to find product-market fit, but a company at a crossroads. They had already built a premium vegan frozen meal brand with strong margins and loyal customers, but were struggling to grow beyond the niche vegan market. The central tension of whether to stay authentic to their vegan roots or rebrand to reach a broader flexitarian audience forced us to think deeply about what drives customer loyalty, how perception shapes demand, and how a brand can evolve without losing its core identity.
Unlike most projects where success depends on technical execution, this one centered on understanding market dynamics. We analyzed pricing, distribution, and branding strategies to determine how Green Plate could compete in a crowded space against players like Daily Harvest. We also explored how storytelling and packaging influence perceived value, and how that can sometimes matter more to customers than the product itself. It was eye-opening to realize how much of product management comes down to identifying the right audience and positioning the product so it feels aspirational yet accessible.
This project also gave me hands-on exposure to the parts of go-to-market strategy that I’ve always wanted to improve on. We had to think about how to expand distribution, how to build a scalable sales channel, and how to communicate value in a way that resonates with both existing and new customers. It made me appreciate that even the best products fail without a clear plan for how they reach the market.
Overall, the Green Plate project helped me understand that product management isn’t only about building solutions, but about guiding a product through the entire lifecycle, from understanding the user and defining the market, to positioning, branding, and long-term growth. It was a rare opportunity to step outside of software and apply product thinking to a real, tangible business problem that blended customer empathy with commercial strategy.
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