Harish Peri

How does your company think of its 'market'? This is essentially a segmentation exercise but sometimes the hardest part. This requires alignment between sales, product, and marketing and is a great starting point for PMM to make an impact. Decide on the GTM 'vector' early - ie. verticals, company size, revenue band, geo, use case, needs based. Decide on the definitions of each and write them down For a given release or launch, what are the priority segments?. Not everything is going to be equall ...Read More

Making assumptions about pricing and not vetting them with sales VERY early in the process Assuming that its a 'handoff' to sales enablement vs in reality its an ongoing partnership where PMM needs to lean in quite a bit to help Not factoring in global requirements VERY early on and discovering late in the game that its not just a 'localization' issue that will handled by the 'local' teams Not factoring in migration or EOL requirements and just focusing on the new, shiny products. Customers have ...Read More

Success is only as good as the definition of success. So in the early days of the launch you need to have a aligned defintion of what the launch goal is. Market share, awareness, competitive takeouts, upsell/cross-sell. Define it very clearly and define what the metric is for success. Also define the expected timeline for success, and ensure you have the actual instrumentation to measure it.   Then the launch leader should commit to regular updates to the launch stakeholders on success metrics, ...Read More

Answering this one in the 'product roadmap AMA' because its super relevant in all situations. I prefer 30-60 days, because most SaaS companies, PMMs need to move faster and start demonstrating value a lot faster than 90 days. 30 days - Find out your stakeholders and meet each one of them. Create a stakeholder map (can be a spreadsheet) that answers the questions: what are your expectations of me, what should I expect from you, what's been going well in the last 2-3 months, what needs improvement ...Read More

This was a product I helped launch more than a year ago. It was a product that had high market demand and was long overdue for the target buyers. If you reference the question I answered on 'GTM blueprint', this launch had everything in reverse. Unclear Target Segment - we didnt have alignment on who the exact segment was based on launch-day product capabilities, use cases, company size, etc. The broad feeling was the target was 'everyone', which is always a recipe for failure. Misalignment on s ...Read More

Its always good practice to have a stakeholder map. The goal of this document (which I prefer to keep at at individual level) is to remind yourself of who should be included in decisions such as launches, campaigns, sales motions, pricing, web changes etc. Information you need in this could be: Name, title, relationship What should they expect from you What should you expect from them RACI for their involvement in key processes. E.g. R for pricing, or I for launches, etc Create one of these with ...Read More

This is a common problem no matter what function you're in. Its about stakeholder management in complex, multi-threaded project environments. Really its about project management 101.   A few tips: Before starting the project, get everyone's buy in on their role in the project. Use a RACI if that's the culture, or at least a simple document saying if someone is in the 'working team', 'approval team', informed/consulted team etc. This will ensure expectation management up front. If someone comes u ...Read More

Demonstrate the basics: messaging, positioning, ability to make an impactful/relevant/meaningful presentation that conveys the value prop + differentiators of your product or portfolio. Cant be influential if your house is on fire.  Learn the business REALLY well. How is money made, who do we sell to, how is the sales team structured, what are their main sales motions, is it self-serve/direct/partner driven? Learn it ALL. Then figure out where are opporutnities to add unique value: better target ...Read More

I always come back to the fact that each segment in your GTM plan needs its own launch approach. This is why there's no one-size fits all E.g. if you have a target segment of self-serve customers, the best launch tactics would involve in-product marketing, guided help, short videos, blog posts, social engagement, really using tools like Intercom to push information contextually to where your users are E.g. if your target is large enterprises, the launch tactic would be more of enabling the accou ...Read More

It comes down again to segmentation, target and positioning. How critical is the new release/features to your target segment? Alternatively, it might seem like a small feature but can unlock a new market. Depending on the answer to these, you need to decide how big a deal you want to make of it.   The right amount of information for your GTM teams is based on their sales process. If they need a datasheet, a demo, a first+ second call deck, and supporting landing pages to match their opportunity ...Read More