Product Marketing in Early-Stage Startups

Practical ideas on tackling a critical, yet hard-to-fill function

By Jay Harris-Theis, VP People at Earlybird Digital West

Early-stage investors want their (B2B SaaS) startups to find and execute product-market fit as quickly as possible. Startups want this too. The question is, how?

In this article, I explore perspectives and ideas around building product marketing into startup DNA.

When should you adopt product marketing concepts or hire an experienced manager?

Experienced B2B SaaS sales leaders & product marketers recommend hiring a product marketing manager as “early as possible.”

More specifically, Classpass’ CMO Joanna Lord suggests a framework for hiring a Product Marketer based on the size of the startup and the complexity of the product. However, until a specialist is hired, a startup can deploy product marketing as a concept, shared between marketing and product owners, for two reasons:

1. Complementing the founder skillset: the founders are usually great at selling to investors and need to lead with a long-term vision. But that doesn’t necessarily make them an expert in “understanding the current market, articulating the customer value the solution provides or knowing how to position that in said market,” according to Fredrik Wolbe, Head of Product Market Growth. In fact, founders might even get “stuck in one direction in terms of positioning their product and telling a story around it,” in Sales leader Jani Asikanius’ experience.
2. Supporting the critical step right after forming a working hypothesis: often startups form a hypothesis and intuitively start implementing, jumping right in with positioning & messaging before thinking it through. For Jani, this is the point to hire a Product Marketing Manager.

How to hire a Product Marketing Manager, especially with a DACH focus:

1. Choose the right title:

• “It isn’t a secret that the Product Marketing function is much more developed in the US than in Germany; there aren’t many experienced & available DACH candidates and the career path isn’t clear,” says Lara Dobson, Director of Strategy & Product Marketing. “Try titles that appeal to former consultants such as In-house Consultant, GTM Strategist…former Tech Journalists with an investigative mindset and sharp storytelling ability also make good product marketers.”

2. Test candidate skillsets in an interview:

• Start everything with a general question: “Tell me your story until now” to see how a candidate can synthesize many information points and get to the so-what.
• Instead of taking a candidate through a fictitious case study, ask openly how he/she sees your company’s current value proposition vis-a-vis competitors. How will the candidate approach building personas and finding in-company champions?
• Make sure candidates “have a high level of empathy and customer orientation (to connect well to clients and internal departments alike), love learning and testing (have a real thirst for knowledge and are insights-driven), and are scrappy (will build their own pitch decks)” according to Fredrik.

3. Make Product Marketers successful in early-stage startups:

Try to help the Product Marketer become indispensable to the sales team:

• By sharing frequently on competitor analyses.
• Become a keen student of human behavior by “observing 100 sales pitches” as Lara did in her early days as a Product Marketer; this gave her a deep understanding of how the sales professionals sold the product and how clients received the information.
• Keep the sales team up-to-date on what new positioning or messages you are working on via a regular feedback loop. For Jani, the “worst” move that product marketing can make is not to coordinate with sales on a brand-new product positioning, messaging, or collateral well in advance of the launch. A move like this can possibly ignore critical market input from the ones closest to potential buyers.

Be conscious of the internal alignment needed to make Product Marketers successful, as they live at the intersection of sales, marketing, and product. Ensure that Product Marketers develop strong relationships and find mentors across company functions, even if reporting lines are unclear.

Try to give a mid-term growth perspective. Although no perfect blueprint is needed, having a plan bolsters internal credibility. Where will the function eventually sit (Marketing? Strategy? Product?) Who will own pricing? A basic game plan on how a larger product marketing team could be set up (i.e. Full-Stack Product Marketers owning specific products end-to-end or specialized Product Marketers owning Inbound vs. Outbound) helps individuals and stakeholders understand the importance of the function in the company.

In conclusion, product marketing is both a concept and a role that, done right, will bring much value to early-stage startups. Anticipating the challenges but also the value-add of hiring the right specialist will take your startup to the next level!

👉🏽 Do you have other perspectives or experiences? Let us know if we’ve missed an important point. You can reach me best via LinkedIn.