Adam Kerin

SVP of Marketing, Truework

About

Product marketing and developer marketing formerly of Stripe, Google Cloud AI, and NVIDIA. An engineer turned marketeer, Adam started off as a computer engineer at Intel before pivoting to product marketing. He's earned his MBA from Berkeley Haas ......more

Content

You're the new PMM for a B2B SaaS company that has 40 people and is starting to scale. What should you aim to do in your first month and your first quarter?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

I’ll caveat this answer largely depends on your company’s goals, existing team structure, and culture. One should never parachute into a new company with a rigid 30/60/90 plan or assume the recipe for success in your last role will apply here. First month = Big picture Learn both your people an......Read More

895 Views

What's the earliest stage a startup should consider hiring a Product Marketing Manager?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

The two startups I joined as the first PMM were ~100 employees and both were for technical software products. In this space, my perspective is the founding and technical teams should be maniacally focused on building for a target customer or segment. Once they’ve established those early adopters......Read More

560 Views

What skills of a Product Marketer are easier to improve or less of an importance? And what skills are harder to improve and have more significance?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

Perhaps surprisingly, I believe the core deliverables and thinking of a PMM are easiest to improve. These are strategy frameworks, effective messaging and positioning, etc. You’ll learn most by doing, and get better with time, especially with retros to look back on previous launches and strategie......Read More

524 Views

What are the biggest surprises when going from a company where product marketing was established to one where you have to establish product marketing?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

I’ve been the first PMM at two startups now. It's been pleasantly surprising how impactful some of the basic PMM tools are when applied for the first time, and how quickly you can see their impact. Things as foundational as customer interviews, launch trackers, and announcement tiers have an ove......Read More

452 Views

What is your advice for creating and/or improving the product marketing process when joining a small but growing team with no or little structure and an inexperienced management team?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 17

I expect that this small and less experienced team is also more reactionary and tactical rather than proactive and strategic. That’s OK to a degree when in fire-fighting and startup mode, but product marketing can help improve this with your overall launch and GTM process. Start by aligning with......Read More

422 Views

When thinking about adding new talent to your team, how do you structure focus areas like Customer lifecycle stage, Persona, Areas of the product and Functional expertise?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

Perhaps similar to HoneyBook, Truework has one core platform, but the fit within different industry verticals is completely different. Different features are the key selling points, there are different buying personas, and a different sales pitch all means we want different PMMs focused on these ......Read More

410 Views

How do you prepare yourself to become a Product Marketing Director and manage a team, without any experience managing anyone previously?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

As an individual contributor today, you can demonstrate your ability to manage projects and influence and lead people who do not directly report to you. This could be collaborating and convincing the product team of a new feature to win a new segment, or in effectively managing the many pieces an......Read More

369 Views

How does product marketing differ between a small and large company?

Adam Kerin

Truework SVP of Marketing • January 18

While a large company will have a dedicated individual or even team to a particular function, like competitive analysis or social media, at a startup you may be the one-stop-shop for all things marketing. At Truework for example, we’re building the entire marketing org from scratch. I jokingly s......Read More