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Sean Lauer

AMA: Instruqt VP of Marketing & Product, Sean Lauer on Product Marketing Skills

July 23, 2025 @ 10:00AM PT

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Sean Lauer

VP of Marketing · AUGMENTT

👋 Sean Lauer (Charlotte, NC)

💼 VP Marketing at Augmentt. Previously VP Marketing at Instruqt, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Mural, and Global Product Marketing at Twitter.

🧪 Currently deep in an ICP, positioning, and messaging refresh and loving the mix of strategy, customer insight, and wordsmithing

🤝 Always happy to chat: marketing, product marketing, positioning and messaging, GTM strategy, technical marketing, sales enablement, customer education, and product strategy

🍦 Favorite ice cream: One Sweet Whirled (RIP, Ben & Jerry’s… bring it back)

  1. What are the most critical skills for a product marketer in an AI world?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    AI is a supplement, not a replacement (at least today). While AI tools may speed up certain parts of a PMM's job, they don't replace the critical thinking and relational skills needed to execute with impact. If you can't fit the pieces together into a narrative and a plan that gets successfully executed across stakeholders and drives impact in the market, then it doesn't really matter how you built those pieces in the first place. In other words, to quote my favorite movie The Matrix, "there's a ...Read More

    1,119 Views
    1 request

  2. What core skills should new product marketing managers learn first?

    I'm new to PMM. What should I learn first to ground me in the foundation of PMM.

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    From a hard skills perspective, learn how to build these three things: Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Positioning Messaging They are the core of any PMM's toolkit and everything you do is built upon them. If you can master the ability to create, refine, and apply them, you will be successful. From a soft skills perspective, learn how to: Collaborate Persuade Manage up PMM is the GTM glue of an organization and your success will hinge on your ability to collaborate across teams, persuade stakeholde ...Read More

    412 Views
    1 request

  3. What should be the top PMM skills for a solo marketer in a SaaS startup?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    As a solo marketer, not just a solo PMM, at a saas startup, you will inevitably wear many different hats. That can be both exciting and frustrating at the same time. It's not the traditional PMM skills that I would focus on to succeed in that setup, but rather, there are two key soft skills that you won't succeed without: The ability to context switch Prioritization Starting with prioritization, you absolutely must be able to determine what the most important things for you to work on are. That ...Read More

    933 Views
    1 request

  4. What skills do you think makes someone a more effective inbound product marketer vs outbound product marketer?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    With inbound PMM being focused on the market and the product, research skills are critical, not just the ability to gather information but also the ability to surface insights.

    The key to outbound PMM is GTM collaboration, so your ability to collaborate and manage stakeholders is vital to making an impact.

    435 Views
    1 request

  5. What is your approach to calculating TAM?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    An easy way to calculate your TAM, that I would also consider to be the PMM-led approach, is through defining your ICP:

    1. Clearly define your ICP so it's easy to understand which prospects/customers are in or out.

    2. Research the number of potential customers within your ICP.

    3. Multiply the number of potential customers by your ICP ACV (or an estimate thereof).

    The reason why I say this is a PMM-led approach is that PMM should lead the way in defining your ICP.

    1,408 Views
    2 requests

  6. What tools must one be proficient in to excel as a technical product marketer?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    As someone who would currently love to hire a technical PMM but doesn't have the budget to do so, I can answer this question from the hiring manager's perspective. The tool you first and foremost need to be proficient in is the company's product. You must be able to understand and demonstrate the technical ins and outs of your product to a variety of stakeholders. If marketing is the voice of the brand and the product, then technical PMM is the voice of the customer within marketing. Translating ...Read More

    564 Views
    1 request

  7. As a PMM juggling requests from multiple stakeholders, how do you stay organized, maintain focus, and prioritize your tasks ?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    Each one of these topics is critical to a PMM's success: Stay organized—This is totally personal, so my advice would be to experiment with different tools and find what works for you. Maybe it's good old post-its, or maybe it's a tool like Notion or Todoist. There's no right answer, except what works for you. Maintain focus—This is so hard for a busy PMM, and again, it's somewhat personal. Some people need small breaks throughout the day in order to deal with the inherent context switching and g ...Read More

    428 Views
    1 request

  8. How would you work on improving your product marketing skills whilst unemployed? What do you think would be compelling to a hiring manager?

    Sean Lauer
    Sean Lauer

    AUGMENTT VP of Marketing | Formerly Instruqt, Mural, Twitter, Anheuser-Busch InBev • 11mo

    The first thing I would tell you is not to put too much pressure on yourself while being unemployed. It's a rite of passage these days and isn't the assumed negative some people make it out to be. You shouldn't feel like you need to push yourself to improve your skills. However, balancing your job search with core skill or knowledge improvement shows a hiring manager that you care about your craft. There are various ways to do that while unemployed: industry certifications, reading books, bloggi ...Read More

    419 Views
    1 request