How do you think about your 30/60/90 day goals as the Head of Product Marketing in a startup that didn't have product marketing?

Product Marketing’s superpower is being the “Voice of the Product to Customers and the Voice of Customers to Product.” When establishing PMM as a new function, the best place to start is listening. First 30 days: Listen and truly get to know your Customers and the Product.  On the Customer side, what this looks like practically is spending as much time in the early days reviewing Help/Support tickets, reading through research reports, sitting in on focus groups/interviews -- anything you can to ...Read More

30 days: Balance being an absolute sponge and learning by doing. Be a sponge by reading every doc you can get your hands on (enablement materials, case studies, team quarterly/annual plans, research studies, etc.), talking to as many prospects and customers as possible, and scheduling 1:1s with both stakeholders and company leadership. Learn by doing by getting involved in low-risk, low-hanging fruit activities where a PMM touch is needed but perhaps don’t require a ton of context.60 days: Hopef ...Read More

The first 90 days are crucial to any job, but especially for new product marketing leaders. This is the time to establish your credibility, build relationships, and layout team roles that will set your function up for success for the months to come. Here’s how I break down my priorities by month: First 30 days – Assess the current state and product roadmap Look at my response below regarding the 3 prior deliverables that I review when joining a new company. But, in general, here the goal is to u ...Read More

Now this is a fun challenge. Assuming you did your homework during the interview process, you should have a good idea of what you're getting into. That doesn't mean you won't find some skeletons lurking behind close doors. Rather you should understand how the team views product marketing, what kind of executive support you can expect, and their expectations of you.  With that mind, here are a few key things I would want to accomplish after 90 days. Everyone knows what product marketing does and ...Read More

One of the best pieces of advice I got 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 getting requests from every angle from week 1(and sometimes before you even start!) - and that's especially true with PMM, because it is such a cross-functional role. This is what I've found to be helpful:  30 days: understand bo ...Read More

30 days: Prioritize understanding your customers, your product, and your company:  Shadow customer calls (or listen to recordings if they exist). Get to know your cross-functional partners - schedule time with people from product, sales, marketing, engineering, design, etc. This will help you understand areas of opportunity as you establish relationships internally.  Learn about your product - get access to a sandbox account, read the documentation, read case studies, etc. Educate your company o ...Read More

PMM wears so many hats it's important to recognize what is needed at any stage of a company. When first coming into an organization as the first PMM I think the most important thing to do is establish what does and doesn't exist - and where the biggest holes that can be plugged are. This can be accomplished by interviewing the top stakeholders at your company: Sales, Product, Support to understand what is working and where the pain points are. From that, you can build a list and prioritize it ac ...Read More

Please see my phases of success for a PMM in your first 100 days here . A KEY THING to know at the onset is, does everyone know what a PMM does and what value they bring? Ask all leaders and cross functional partners. Product Marketers are the marketing strategists, the brains of marketing, the connective glue between cross-functional partners, the ones who support a company's internal teams, the market, and target customers to achieve competitive advantage, increase users, adoption, find a path ...Read More

This is a great question. First 30 days: Focus is on getting to know the team (your peers, execs, and those who work for you) and the product -- and starting to build relationships, build trust and respect from others. Do a listening tour Talk to sales, product, cs, finance (internal) Talk to customers live and listen to gong calls (customers & prospects), read G2 reviews, customer NPS and product/feature feedback & requests Talk to analysts (gartner, forrester, idc) and read their repor ...Read More

As the Head of PMM for a startup that didn't have Product Marketing, you have three goals as your onboarding 1) Build a solid understanding of your industry, product, and target market 2) Get to know your stakeholders and their priorities 3) Establish the role of PMM in supporting the company's strategy and goals. Build a solid understanding of your industry, product and target marketAs a PMM you need to bring a strong perspective on your industry, your customers needs, and quickly translate tha ...Read More

As the first Head of PMM in a startup, you should use a structured approach over your first 30, 60, and 90 days: Day 0-30: Learning & discovery—Focus on learning as much as possible. Don't worry about your impact at this point. It's your job to learn in order to make more informed decisions and build an effective plan. Key actions: People Familiarize with company tech, culture, people Stakeholder and customer conversations Meet and assess marketing team Understand sales, marketing, and produ ...Read More

This can be tricky, especially if cross-functional leaders and stakeholders have never worked with a PMM team in past roles. So, I’d emphasize educating the organization on product marketing and how it can drive value across the business.  First 30 Days: Learn, build relationships, and start educating In the first month, I’d focus on understanding the business, product, and team dynamics, but I also make it a point to begin the internal education process. Many people in the organization may not ...Read More

First 30 days...listen. Talk to sales, talk to customers, talk to product. Understand how deals are getting done today without PMM, because something is working or the company wouldnt exist. Figure out where the biggest gaps are. While you may not have a luxury to wait 30 days to do work, try to take in as much as possible. 60 days..pick the ONE thing thats the biggest pain, the thing that is going to make the biggest impact and go do it. Usually thats positioning and a sales pitch because that ...Read More

I'll "yes and" Gregg's answer and say that this will really vary by company size and complexity. I was at a startup where my 30-day goals included creating buyer personas and enabling the sales team to talk to the decision-makers. So it was more like a 10-20-30 day goals as described below.   At SAP, the organization is so sprawling and complex that the my goals were actually 60-120-180. I've been with the company for almost a year and I'm still getting introduced to some of the far-flung enable ...Read More

Understand and map the following points when you start new with any organization. This may also be helpful if you are the only PMM. First 30 days: 01. Mission and Vision (Talk to the CEO /Founder if its a startup) The founding story? Why do you exist? What are the targets? Objectives, goals and metrics. What are roles and responsibilities? What’s on the product roadmap-month, quarter, year? How are tasks prioritized? How are customer requests prioritized? 02. Know Your Product (Existing training ...Read More

The first 30/60/90 day goals as the new Head of Product Marketing for a start-up without a product marketing function can be broken down into these 3 parts: First 30 days: Listen & learn. Set expectations. The goal is to understand the business and cultural context, without any judgment. Set up internal meetings with teams and cross-functional leaders, and the exec leadership team to: Understand existing processes and identify potential opportunities/gaps by asking people what they need; wha ...Read More

You need to fill 3 buckets: understand the business understand the organization understand the customer Your leverage point is to build an internal network and gain and sustain a reputation. You're going to set an aggressive 1:1 meeting schedule that will help you build those relationships but also to get inputs about the business and organization. The secret here is prepare this meetings - have a list of standard questions by department/level and you can add more depending on the specific perso ...Read More

starting from zero product marketing to building a team is tough, but fun (depending on your leadership team :) ) I've been through this at a Series B company where I was the first PMM (and marketing) hire. Here's what the first 30/60/90 generally looked like from a more tactical perspective - 30 days - you need to understand the product and target buyers are. if the company doesn't have paying customers yet, work with PM and founders to understand who they want to sell to. you're not going to g ...Read More

Having clarity and focus is key - I like to think of 100 days of discovery as a start. 100 day discovery questions - PMM assessment - Ask the questions that will guide your priorities for 30/60/90 -> 100 days I came across these assessment questions early on in my career and this has helped me in understanding the company dynamics and landscape. This is a good litmus test to understand cross-functional alignment across key stakeholders. Customer interview questionnaire https://divmanickam.sub ...Read More