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Jack Wei

AMA: Sendbird Former Head of Marketing, Jack Wei on Influencing the Product Roadmap

March 6, 2025 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. How do you influence product roadmap when big picture product vision hasn't been established and there are continuous changes?

    Jack Wei
    Jack Wei

    Sendbird fmr Head of Marketing | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte, Beardwood&Co • 1y

    Don't bother. Run the other way. Pardon my language but there's no influencing in this situation, it's just a pissing contest.

    Why work somewhere that's optimizing for activity vs. outcomes? A big picture vision (can be at the corporate or company level, not product) is absolutely necessary to steer direction. If it hasn't been established, then step 1 is crystal clear. Do step 1 before anything else.

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    2 requests

  2. What are some effective methods for a PMM to have their research influence the product roadmap?

    Jack Wei
    Jack Wei

    Sendbird fmr Head of Marketing | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte, Beardwood&Co • 1y

    Leadership sets the tone. It would be less impactful (and therefore discouraging) for an IC PMM to try and influence the product roadmap independently without visibility or buy-in from the Head of PMM and PM. As qualitative as this answer might be, it's all about expectation management followed by stakeholder alignment moreso than the research quality itself. The PM team, starting at the top with Head of PM, needs to acknowledge and address with all PMs that research by PMM becomes one of the cr ...Read More

    374 Views
    2 requests

  3. What are some ways you can influence the roadmap as a product marketer when working with a strong-willed and difficult to work with product manager?

    Jack Wei
    Jack Wei

    Sendbird fmr Head of Marketing | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte, Beardwood&Co • 1y

    Decision-making frameworks and corporate values (that hopefully include something about teamwork :) ) are needed at the team level to minimize subjectivity at the individual level. For one, roadmap decisions should never be made by 1 person. Yes, the most senior person in PM makes the final call, or the CEO does at a smaller company, when decision can't be reached by committee. But typically roadmap decisions are made based on inputs from multiple stakeholders internal and external. If these che ...Read More

    478 Views
    2 requests

  4. How often does Product assess the roadmap with GTM teams, and what does that "negotiation" process look like?

    Jack Wei
    Jack Wei

    Sendbird fmr Head of Marketing | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte, Beardwood&Co • 1y

    The cadence of formal product roadmap reviews vary by company and PM team. Of course the more mature the organization, the more standardized the cadence and process are. For companies serving the Enterprise, I've seen roadmap assessment with GTM teams range quarterly to semiannually. Mediocre product teams take spotty customer input and pretend to negotiate the product roadmap with GTM teams Good product teams do the above plus proactively review sales requests with a decision-making framework G ...Read More

    1,335 Views
    3 requests

  5. In a product-led company, it's common that both Product and Product Marketing are involved in conducting customer/market research to inform the roadmap. How can the teams effectively aggregate past and ongoing, new findings, and who should lead this initiative?

    Jack Wei
    Jack Wei

    Sendbird fmr Head of Marketing | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte, Beardwood&Co • 1y

    In a product-led company, there is likely a product analytics tool in place to measure user behavior, conversion paths, etc. In other words, everyone is sitting on a plethora of data that can be analyzed. The question is how to best divide and conquer -- who is assessing what, for which objective. PMM and PM can divide and conquer in a product-led business using the following approaches, by: KPI they're responsible for. PM success is often measured by product/feature/function adoption, PMM by fu ...Read More

    525 Views
    2 requests