JD Prater

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

While PMM metrics can vary greatly depending on your go-to-market motion and audience, I believe the most critical metrics should track your core customer journey. At AssemblyAI, where we provide speech-to-text APIs for developers, we focus intensely on developer journey metrics across the lifecycle of our capabilities. Our key metrics framework centers on three critical areas of the developer journey: Initial Activation Time to first API call (measuring how quickly developers can get started) S ...Read More

I like to start with the purpose of creating a 30/60/90 plan. I view the plan as a set goals to help me strategize my first three months in a new job. I use it to help maximize my work output and stay focused. That said, I have rarely completed any 30/60/90 plan perfectly.  Working in startups means lots of change and course correcting. It also means you're going to learn new information and have to adapt to it. Therefore, I advise PMMs to create a lose outline rather than a follow a template li ...Read More

At AssemblyAI, we track PMM effectiveness through program-specific metrics that align with our dual PLG and sales-assist motion. Let me break this down by our key programs: For Competitive Intelligence: Win/loss rates against specific competitors Competitive battle card usage rates by sales Feature comparison coverage (% of key features we've documented vs competitors) Competitive mention rate in deals and how it changes over time For our Self-Serve Motion: Developer documentation engagement met ...Read More

The key to effective PMM measurement is understanding that our work should directly ladder up to company OKRs, particularly through marketing and product team objectives. Here's how to approach this: First, identify which company OKRs your PMM work naturally influences. Product Marketing sits at the intersection of product, sales, and marketing, so our work typically feeds into multiple organizational goals. The trick is to be intentional about which OKRs you align with – don't try to attach to ...Read More

When a launch date is barreling toward us, I don’t skip research—I compress it. First, I map every open question (messaging resonance, pricing, must-have features, likely objections) and score each one on a simple Risk × Impact × Effort matrix. Anything that scores high on both risk and impact but can be answered with modest effort gets my attention; the rest becomes “post-launch learning.” This triage usually pares the list to two or three critical unknowns, which I tackle in a “lean research s ...Read More