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Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel

AMA: Hopin Director, Product and Solutions Marketing, Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

June 1 @ 10:00AM PST
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Hopin Director, Product and Solutions Marketing, Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel on Developing Your Product Marketing Career
Top Questions
What advice do you have for a current product marketing manager who's looking to grow his/her career in product marketing?
What type of opportunities should current product marketers seek out in order to best position themselves to lead the product marketing function at a company?
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
Product Marketing has so many different specialties that it’s almost impossible to be a master of all of them. My advice is to pick a product marketing swimlane and develop a strategy or project that you can completely own and run with. This way, you become the go-to person at the company for mes......Read More
779 Views
3 requests
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
One of my favorite parts of being a Product Marketer is that a lot of the work that we do is highly visible and can affect completely different parts of the organization. For example: buyer personas of course help sales sell your product, but they also help your engineering team figure out who th......Read More
1581 Views
1 request
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
As mentioned before, product marketing is one of the most cross-functional roles of any in most companies. And as such, you’ll be getting requests for projects and deliverables from every angle. The first thing I try to understand is: what responsibilities fall under me vs. another team (ie: is t......Read More
4525 Views
4 requests
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
One of the best pieces of advice I got before joining Hopin, was to take the necessary time I needed to be a "sponge" and let things soak in, before going straight into "solve-mode". Of course, that's easier said than done :)  When joining any startup as the first product marketer, you'll be g......Read More
28960 Views
2 requests
What would be the best roadmap to become a successful PMM?
I had been managing a large organisation with over 4500 ppl, and nowadays I would like to shift my career to product marketing, and without owning the title previously i don't have courage to even apply a pm position. What road should i take to feel that i am ready?
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
There’s probably a thousand different combinations of answers to this question, depending on who you ask. I’ve seen incredibly successful PMMs come from all sorts of backgrounds - everything from engineering, to education, to real-estate backgrounds, and everything in between. However, I think th......Read More
930 Views
1 request
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
An A+ product launch example to me includes the following characteristics or elements: What stage of the product launch the candidate was involved in.  1. Clear delineation between the PMM and PM’s responsibilities for the product launch and where there was overlap. 2. Examples of cross functio......Read More
4621 Views
3 requests
What can I include in my marketing portfolio to standout from the crowd as a product marketing candidate.
I'm new to Product Marketing. In the interviews that I've done, I am being asked to present a marketing portfolio.
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
This is a great question, and one that I ask most of the candidates I interview at some point in the process. The kinds of materials I like to see are dependent on the job they’re being hired for, but generally speaking pitch decks, sales one-pagers, competitive battlecards, messaging docs, launc......Read More
10578 Views
5 requests
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Sharadhi (Gadagkar) Patel
Handshake Director, Product MarketingJune 2
Absolutely! While there are probably several key metrics to what makes a successful Product Marketing team, there are so many different paths to getting there based on a number of factors that are oftentimes not in our control. This, combined with the fact that Product Marketing is still very muc......Read More
1013 Views
1 request