Hey there, I'm Spencer Grover, a PMM at Salesforce, and I’m here to let you in on a little secret: Product marketing looks totally different depending on your startup's size and stage. What works for three employees in a garage won't fly in an 80,000-employee enterprise. I should know – I've worked in both!
Today I'll decode how high-growth PMMs evolve by sharing:
- Who to collaborate with at each stage,
- What deliverables to focus on,
- Tactics to set your startup up for the next level, and
- Key metrics to track.
Whether you're in a scrappy startup or a global enterprise, my goal is to provide actionable advice that will help you thrive.
Sound good? Let's do this!
Early-stage startups
Let's kick off with early-stage startups – those with just a handful of customers, a very small team, and maybe a recently hired VP of sales. Your customer acquisition is likely sporadic at this point, to say the least.
The product marketer's key goal here is to find and document product-market fit. Forget about the total addressable market (TAM) for now – it's irrelevant. Instead, figure out who truly cares about your product and why. Who will be an evangelist for you? Why did early adopters purchase from you versus competitors? Identify and analyze your first cluster of ideal customers to pinpoint your product-market fit.
Future of SaaS
Deliverables
As a PMM at this stage, you should aim to deliver:
- A serviceable obtainable market (SOM): Who should you realistically pursue as customers?
- An ideal customer profile (ICP): What types of businesses with what problems should you focus on?
- A primary persona: Who is the one key decision-maker you need to win over? What pains do they have? Why are you uniquely positioned to address them?
Work closely with your founder, sales, product, and customer success teams to gather insights that will shape these deliverables.
