On the heels of this post about What Really is Go-To-Market?, I have had a ton of discussions about the constant tussle between product management and product marketing, especially at later stage growth businesses or divisional teams at large companies. Between Kahuna (startup) and at SuccessFactors/SAP as GM (ginormous largeco) I’ve seen this play out […]
Mark Andreessen coined the term product-market fit, defined as being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. Whilst getting to product market fit is job #1 for a CEO at the early stages, product market fit alone leaves gaps that you need to fill to drive sales velocity. There are some fabulous perspectives about these gaps already. Brian Balfour […]
Ok, here is the punch line: No two SaaS functions should be coupled together. Any combination forces conflicts of interest and while you and the board are busy charting out your world domination strategy, this dysfunctional org design will eat the company from the inside out. The long form: Combining Product and Engineering Why it’s a […]
The single most common pitfall I see in 90% of earlier stage product plans is a lethal misconception that aspiring to sell software to the highest levels of the organization, is better. This is blatantly obvious to many product leaders but foreign to equally as many. Trust me. It isn’t necessarily all that. It’s expensive: the […]
After building, marketing and selling lots of software, I’m convinced that the single most underutilized component to driving growth is your roadmap. In SaaS or consumer products monetized via an enterprise budget, you make your numbers because of your current feature set. But you blow out your quarter because your product and sales teams present […]
The need for customer engagement is clear. They buy more: “Fully engaged customers represent an average 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth.” (Gallup) They expect it: “70-90% of the buyers journey is complete prior to engaging a vendor.” (Forrester Research) And they need it: “45% of buyers require person-to-person contact […]
There were legitimate complaints about the Model X launch event. There usually are about most launches. Venture Beat took Elon Musk to the cleaners, calling his performance during the Model X launch “…a marketing and PR disaster, concluding: “I know it’s an unfair comparison for anyone, really, but given Musk’s incredible entrepreneurial achievements, I can’t help comparing […]