Steve Feyer

Strong preference toward "any seat on a rocketship". It's much better to join a strong company, in any role, then to take a role in a company that's going into a ditch. All that said, identifying the best companies vs. the ditch-bound is challenging, especially for a startup company and extra-especially if you are early in your career.

In B2B: Make sure your sales team is activated to share information with you. Much important competitive information will not be public, and your sales reps are in the best position to hear about and gather new data. Just keep in mind that you don't need to react the same way they do to new information (they're likely to overreact to a perceived competitive threat).

I think this question is addressed repeatedly on Sharebird, and elsewhere. All I will note here is that B2B and B2C product marketing are very different, in my experience. B2B jobs are heavily focused on sales and sales enablement, while B2C jobs often focus on optimization and feature-function analysis. B2C product marketing responsibilities are more comparable to B2B product management than B2B product marketing.

I wouldn't recommend a PMM first, specifically. The first hire should be someone who can help to test and then execute effective methods of generating demand. This could be a PMM with demand generation interest and experience, or it could be a demand gen/growth marketer with a strong understanding of product. Most important is that the first hire understands what it means to be a first hire, and have the right flexibility. You need to hire in the middle, someone who can grow a team under them and also will be comfortable gaining a boss later. Hiring a "CMO" first is wrong for reasons you...

In the B2B world, I wouldn't consider hiring a product marketer who is truly new to the workforce. They will need too much handholding and don't have experience with a variety of tasks---I want at least 2 years of experience in a relevant role such as sales, demand generation marketing, consulting, product management, etc. That said, I suggest looking for clear writing and communication ability as a minimum qualification.

Definitely read what the analysts are talking about, as they guide the trends in technology buying. Gartner is the king of the hill, Forrester and IDC are good, and there are many others including (probably) specialists in your industry. If you don't have a subscription to analyst research, you can see enough for this purpose in their public blogs, speeches, etc.

I had a PMM candidate tell me that he was not comfortable presenting to audiences. Obviously a deal-breaker there. Every PMM needs to present. I've reviewed resumes or LinkedIn pages which were poorly written. Not someone I am going to call, as every PMM needs to write well. If writing isn't your strength, make sure that you have a friend review your personal materials so you get the chance to impress with your other qualities. More generally, I always want to be sure that a PMM can "get their hands dirty" delivering the work. PMMs often have the same background and general intelligen...

Product marketing or content marketing teams. Content marketing tends to be more often responsible for high-velocity content such as daily blogs and social media. More strategic pieces like product briefs/datasheets and white papers are more likely come from a product marketer. I would think of marcom as the PR team.

I have to partly disagree with Mike--PMM can be an excellent path to CRO/GM/President or to CEO, albeit with stops in between. I know people in the Valley who have this progression. Typically after succeeding as a PMM they take on responsibility for managing sales, and can then own the P&L for a business. I think PMM is good preparation for these executive roles because it's strategic, customer-facing, and concerned with driving revenue. There's a motto I've heard occasionally that "Marketing can run Sales, but Sales cannot run Marketing".