AMA: CloudBees VP of Product Marketing, Shafiq Shivji on Product Launches

March 19 @ 9:00AM PT

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What common pitfalls have you seen derail product launches, and what practices help you avoid them?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

The most common one is product readiness, which is why I separate the product-ready date from the launch date and work within a defined window, as I described earlier. Be...

398 Views

1 request

What does your post-launch operating cadence look like for monitoring, retrospectives, and iteration on messaging and assets?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

To me, post-launch is more critical than the launch itself. What I've observed over my career is that a lot of energy goes into the launch moment and then things fizzle o...

400 Views

1 request

What tooling stack do you rely on for launch planning, asset management, analytics, and sales enablement, and why?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

In my humble opinion, the specific tool matters less than having a centralized system of record that people actually use.For launch planning, Google Sheets is my go-to. I...

404 Views

1 request

Which channels have been most cost-effective for launch awareness and conversion, and how do you adjust mix by audience and tier?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

In my experience at the enterprise level in B2B, PMM doesn't typically own channel selection directly. Others may have a different experience. I’ve owned the strategic in...

9107 Views

2 requests

How do you leverage customer evidence (beta quotes, references, case studies) and advocacy programs to add credibility to the launch?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

Before discussing the how, let me address a common occurrence I’ve seen time and time again: customer proof turns into a last-minute scramble during a product launch. Cus...

470 Views

2 requests

We've all been there - leadership routinely pushes back the launch days or weeks before a big launch. How do you address this with leadership?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

Early in my career, this was one of the most frustrating challenges I faced. I felt beholden to product timelines. Dates kept shifting, the GTM work was done, and none of...

1073 Views

2 requests

What metrics do you track to measure the success of a product launch, and how do you set-up processes to respond to the early market feedback?

Shafiq Shivji•

CloudBees VP of Product Marketing • 1mo

The two things that matter most are pipeline and adoption.On the pipeline side, I track the full funnel: MQLs generated, conversion to SQLs, and then conversion through e...

724 Views

1 request