Austin Carroll

These are some of my favorite interview questions. * What is your favorite product? * What interested you in this company/ space? * Walk me through [project/ launch] on your resume. What tactics did you use? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? I also like to give a case interview question as well, usually a variation of "Here is a new tech product. How would you go about planning and executing a launch?" I like this better than a take home assignment because it showcases expertise and is more similar to brainstorming sessions in PMM.

I'm always looking for PMMs that are excited to be there. It seems small, but if they have done research on the company and (even if they have never worked in the industry/space before) can point to something in their background that shows me they have a true interest, that's a standout candidate for sure. My biggest watchouts are people who cannot answer the case interviews. I don't care too much about the "right answers" or even if they are structured (like consulting/PM interviews do), I just want to see how they think and if they have a solid understanding of building a GTM strategy. When people are unable to quickly rattle off some basic ideas, it really makes me question if they could hold their own in meetings or brainstorming sessions.

We did something similar at Brex with the launch of Brex Bill pay last summer. We had a simple Bill Pay product on our original platform, but were bringing it upmarket on 'Empower' - our more advanced spend management platform. Existing Customers: As with any re-launch, it can create customer confusion so I always recommend starting from your existing customers. How can you ensure your new messaging and positioning appeals to them? We conducted customer interviews and even validated the new messaging with a quick survey prior to launch. Campaigns: When re-launching a product, I have found that competitive campaigns can be the easiest to quickly change perception of where your product is in the marketplace. For instance, you may have seen Brex's "Concughhhh" campaigns (OOH, SEM, Social ads). This allowed us to quickly position ourselves in the T&E space against Concur, without necessarily addressing that we are primarily known as a "corporate card for startups." Partnerships: I also think intentionally creating new partnerships (either through referrals partners, co-branded events, affiliates, etc.) can also add a lot of validity to your re-launch here. Hope this helped!

It depends on if Product does roadmap planning based on acquisition and revenue levers or if they are considering new roadmap features to minimize churn, make a better product experience, or compete against competitors. Product marketing can pull data, conduct surveys and interviews, and do competitive research to inform them, depending on what data they are most likely to use. It's all about knowing your product partner and what matters to them.

Of course, it depends on if you're talking about Spain, Central America, or South America, as the business realities and fluency are different in each country. In Spain, I would suggest reaching out to venture-backed startups, especially those looking to expand to the US (and that align with your previous focus industry). Your experience would be invaluable to them and they often have a lot of people who speak and conduct business in english. You may have similar luck with US tech companies expanding their presence in Mexico. The second option is to find a remote role that is open to employment in other countries. This is often in the travel tech space, but I've seen this be possible in Edutech as well.

I don't think it's ever too early for your first PMM hire as they can help identify the product-market fit, positioning, and messaging. To make sure you have set up for success, make sure you have some people staffed (either full time or contract) where they can share work and delegate the strategy. Often times, this means having copywriters/content people, paid ads support, and product managers that are managing the product releases/roadmap.

I have in the past, mostly due to external factors like internal readiness (help center articles, website updates, launch assets), but I don't recommend it. If you have a lot of customers using the product or feature, or perhaps even beta customers, it can lead to customer confusion if it hasn't been properly explained. You can also lose the ability to have a PR hold on the information, leading to you being "scooped" and not being able to control the narrative or product messaging.

This is always the hard part! However, I find it best to think of your current customers and prospective customers as different audiences. So, what channels can you reach your prospective customers? I usually look at the channel map and assign each a goal - so an in-product notification may drive product usage, emails may educate users, and social media and blog may showcase our new features.

I've done 3 major launches in the past 3 years. The most common risks to our GTM strategy that I've seen personally is: * Delayed engineering timelines - This can make it hard to lock in advertising, events and press commitments, that you wish to employ as part of your launch. It also adds a lot of uncertainty to the rollout plan and can frustrate marketing/design partners. * Long Leadership or partner reviews - If leadership or a core partner takes a lot time to review your materials each time, it can really slow down the process and demotivate your cross functional stakeholders. * Compliance or Legal risk - I'm in Fintech, so we try and build in significant time for legal and compliance review. However, with social media and several other industries under scrutiny for customer data, this can always be a risk for even the most simple SaaS businesses.

My biggest piece of advice is find your niche. It could be a customer segment (i.e, Startups, Dental Offices) and/or a sub-category of an industry (i.e, Fintech Neobanks, SaaS Design). Just make sure you're interested in it. As you build your career, you'll become an expert in this niche, build content / speaking opportunities, and you'll be solicited for that knowledge. It's the easiest way to get ahead and gain additional income over your peers. Best of luck!