The 4B Framework (100 Focus Points)
Split 100 focus points across Brilliant Basics, Bread and Butter, Big Bets and Breaking Bad.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Rathi argues that the trade-off between tech debt, backlog work, cross-team bets and company reinvention is not a PM prioritisation call at all — it's a product strategy call that belongs to the head of product and the CEO. The 4B framework names the four buckets, then forces the conversation as an allocation: 'if I gave you 100 focus points, how much goes in each bucket?' Crucially, you present the consequences of each allocation as three divergent futures, so executives choose with their eyes open.
Origin
Rathi's own framework, developed across Swiggy and Jupiter. The bucket names are deliberate branding ('you cannot brand it as tech debt, it feels very off') and knowingly cheesy — Breaking Bad is a pun.
Core principles
- 01Naming matters: 'Brilliant Basics' gets funded; 'tech debt' doesn't.
- 02This is a strategy conversation between the head of product and the CEO — not a sprint prioritisation.
- 03Allocation must be stated as 100 focus points, so trade-offs are explicit and total.
- 04Every allocation has a downside — name it out loud before committing, so no one relitigates later.
- 05Executives usually don't know what they're trading off against; your job is to show them.
- 06Big Bets are the ones that require a PRFAQ, because they can't be taken without everyone signing up.
How to run it
- 1
Brilliant Basics — the foundations
Core platforms, tech debt, infrastructure — the things engineering managers ask for bandwidth on. Brand them as brilliant and important, not as debt, or they never get funded.
Pro tip The renaming is the mechanic, not decoration: it changes whether leadership sees this as tax or as the company's foundation.
- 2
Bread and Butter — the PM's own backlog
Feature enhancements, bug fixes, experiments, versioning tools — what the product managers would come up with on their own to improve their line of business, sprint by sprint.
Pro tip Ask: if the PMs had no big ideas and were left alone, what would they build? That's this bucket.
Watch out A company fully loaded on Bread and Butter gets fewer bugs and happier customers — and zero differentiation, while competitors catch up.
- 3
Big Bets — the cross-team delta bets
Large bets leadership wants that may or may not work, and that require contribution from four or five teams coming together, not one PM.
Pro tip This bucket is where working backwards and the PRFAQ become mandatory — a bet nobody has signed up for in writing will fail.
- 4
Breaking Bad — reinvention and pivot
Redefining what the company is: X becomes X+Y, or X becomes mostly-Y. Swiggy going from food delivery to grocery delivery — 'like two companies working together' — or from food delivery company to convenience company.
Watch out Breaking Bad is often existential. If it's the priority, you must accept fewer experiments, more bugs and more downtime — and say so up front.
- 5
Run the allocation and price the consequences
Ask leadership to split 100 focus points across the four. Then build three divergent allocation strategies and narrate each resulting future honestly (e.g. 'few points on Brilliant Basics, many on Big Bets → bugs stay bugs, few experiments, but we get a shot at changing the game').
Pro tip Once allocated, the clarity cascades: PMs know exactly what they're doing and whether they owe a contribution to someone else's PRFAQ.
Watch out Having chosen an allocation, leadership must not later ask 'why were the tech systems a bit broken this time?' — that trade was made deliberately.
In the wild
Swiggy moved from food delivery into grocery delivery and reframed itself from a food delivery company to a convenience company — a Breaking Bad move. That meant explicitly under-investing in Brilliant Basics for a year.
→ The company could 'blow it out' in advance — showcase what to expect in downtime and bugs — instead of being blamed for the consequences of its own strategic choice.
Rathi narrates the alternative allocation out loud to leadership: heavy Bread and Butter and Brilliant Basics means fewer bugs, happier customers, nice tech systems — but no differentiators, no bets landing, and competitors catching up.
→ Executives choose between two named futures rather than defaulting into one by inertia.
Common mistakes
Letting PMs make the allocation call
The trade-off cascades down to individual PMs by default, who then make it tactically. But it is a product strategy question, and only the head of product plus the CEO/leadership can legitimately answer it.
Hiding the cost of the chosen allocation
Executives frequently don't know what they're trading off against. If you don't name the downside of the allocation before you start, you'll be blamed for exactly the consequence you were told to accept.
Is it for you?
Best for
Heads of product and CPOs negotiating annual or quarterly investment allocation with a CEO and exec team
Not ideal for
Early-stage startups with one product and one team, where everything is a Big Bet by definition
From the transcript
“if I gave you 100 Focus points how much will you put in each of these buckets”
“so what are the ones we call them first BB is brilliant Basics”
“you need to brand you cannot brand it as St debt so it feels like very off because these are brilliant these are important”
“these prioritization questions I don't think are product management questions so much as product strategy questions but in a lot of cases Executives don't know…”
From the episode
The full-stack PM
Anuj Rathi (Swiggy, Jupiter Money, Flipkart)