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Stephen Baloglu

Director of Product Marketing, Adobe

👋 Stephen Baloglu

Hi all, I'm Stephen Baloglu, Director of Product Marketing @ Adobe:

• 👋 Based in: San Francisco
• 🧠 Top of mind: AI...in the products we're selling and as a superpower for Product Marketers
• 💬 Ask me about: Building a $.5B business as a startup inside a larger company. And...just about anything related to Sailing!
• 🍦 Fun fact: My last name is Turkish, but I'm actually Greek.

Content

What type of customer research do you do pre-launch to help you have a great product launch?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 4y

Great question and glad to see people taking a customer-led approach to product launches. There are a few strategies I recommend here and they fall into 4 areas. Review ...

44640 Views

How do you assess organizational readiness ahead of a product launch?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 4y

Organization readiness can be measured at different altitudes…e.g. Super high level and broad: does the business have the right strategy to win? vs. tactical: are we set ...

19051 Views

What customer feedback loops and channels have you found to be the most impactful in your efforts to influence the roadmap?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 5mo

As we all recognize, the voice of the customer is one of the most powerful influences on shaping strategy and, ultimately, the product roadmap. Over time, methods for gat...

2507 Views

How do you think about building a PMM team -- eg, how do you balance the day-to-day with less pressing -- but still important -- things around processes, career development, building x-functional relationships?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 4y

Developing your team and how x-functional teams work together may seem “less pressing”, but while these things do not typically have urgent deadlines, they are extremely ...

2225 Views

How do you track success of product launches?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 4y

Success…you know it when you see it. Well, we all may see it a different way. So, for me, it’s all about establishing what success looks like with stakeholders and leader...

1966 Views

How do you influence the roadmap at an enterprise company where product managers have long tenure?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 5mo

I’ve worked at multiple companies that have had long-tenured product teams as well as startups where we’re all fresh to the team. So, i’ve seen both sides here. In the ca...

1802 Views

How would you recommend a PMM influence the product team to think more about longer term value rather than just always building products geared towards low hanging fruit/quick money?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 5mo

Who doesn't love low hanging fruit...but sometimes it can feel like we're not delivering on the bigger picture and innovating to take a bite of a big, juicy opportunity.M...

1614 Views

How do you balance relying on customer feedback to influence the product roadmap vs identifying innovation opportunities?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 5mo

To create a winning product, you can’t just build a roadmap based on feature requests in customer feedback. As a product marketer, you need to understand motivations, job...

1608 Views

What insights/ data should I gather to share with the Product team when we meet to do quarterly roadmap planning?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 5mo

Never go into roadmap planning empty handed! Great product development takes time and these planning cycles set teams off to work. Whether it’s a 2-week sprint or a 2 qua...

1587 Views

What is the best way to sustain launch over time and prevent the spike in traffic in the short run without long-term results?

Stephen Baloglu

Adobe Director of Product Marketing • 4y

“No, don’t do it! Don’t create a massive spike in traffic and run-up in sales that blows through your numbers.” said no one, ever. But really, I get it, you’re not lookin...

1358 Views