Portfolio Strategy¶
This document describes how Devonshire Digital LLC decides what ventures and products to pursue, and how that decision-making is tracked over time.
Why a portfolio approach¶
The company operates multiple ventures rather than a single product line (see docs/company/company-overview.md). This is a deliberate choice: it spreads risk across distinct customer bases and product categories, and it lets each venture adopt the brand, technology, and go-to-market approach that actually fits its problem, rather than forcing every product into one shared template. The tradeoff is coordination overhead — which this repository's governance layer (docs/governance/, docs/company/) exists to manage.
Where portfolio decisions are tracked¶
Concrete portfolio decisions — which ventures exist, what products are prioritized, how ventures are evaluated against each other — are tracked in the portfolio/ directory, not in this document. This document explains the approach; portfolio/ holds the current state.
In particular, the framework used to prioritize and evaluate candidate ventures and products lives at portfolio/prioritization-framework.md. Consult that document for the actual scoring/evaluation criteria currently in use.
How a candidate venture or product is evaluated, at a high level¶
Without duplicating the detailed framework, portfolio decisions should generally weigh:
- Whether there is a clearly defined, real user problem (see
docs/company/product-philosophy.md). - Whether the company (or the specific venture) has a credible path to building and supporting the product, not just launching it.
- Whether pursuing it would meaningfully dilute focus from existing ventures without a strong offsetting reason.
- Whether evidence behind the opportunity is real (verified fact / observed evidence) versus assumed, per
docs/company/research-and-evidence-principles.md.
Adding a venture to the portfolio¶
A new venture is not "in the portfolio" until it has:
- A working name and slug.
- A stated rationale, evaluated against the prioritization framework in
portfolio/. - A directory scaffolded under
ventures/<slug>/(seescripts/create_venture.py). - An entry recorded in
portfolio/.
See the root README.md for the pointer to the venture-creation process, and docs/company/brand-architecture.md for how a new venture's brand identity relates to the parent company.
Revisiting the portfolio¶
Portfolio composition is not static. Ventures or products that no longer meet the bar (evidence doesn't support continued investment, focus is too diluted, the opportunity didn't pan out) should be wound down deliberately and documented, not just quietly abandoned. Any such decision that is material should be recorded as an ADR under docs/decisions/.