Chaos and blank slates: How to lead a start-up as a PMM

For product marketing managers with visions of leadership grandeur, the challenges and opportunities of a start-up environment can seem like the ideal place to make your mark. 

But with great freedom comes great responsibility. As the first PMM hire setting strategic direction, the stakes heighten along with the rewards. Stakeholder alignment doesn’t come easy, resources run thin, and templates can be scarce. At each turn, you must demonstrate marketing’s value amidst competing priorities.

Depending on your experience and how you like to work, the challenges and opportunities of start-up life may suit you. You’ll still have to work strategically, of course, but the main difference between PMMing at a start-up vs. an established organization is that the established, larger company will typically have a structure and procedural framework in place when you join. 

You’ll find yourself in the unique position of driving the overall product marketing strategy and having to get stuck in with the day-to-day tasks associated with bringing that strategy to life, at least during the initial phases of your employment.

You might find you have dozens of people reporting to you from day one. And, in the case of a start-up, you can find yourself holding a senior title like Director or VP of Product Marketing – and reporting to the CEO directly – and yet still be the first or second PMM for that whole. 

Now, let’s get into these challenges and opportunities of leading a startup, and how you can strategize to survive and, hopefully, thrive.

The challenges of leading a start-up as a product marketer

Joining a start-up as a product marketing manager allows you to build a function from the ground up, but that blank slate can also prove daunting. The biggest hurdle is that company leadership likely understands they need product marketing, but lacks experience in leveraging it strategically and effectively. 

Unlike at an established firm, you won't have predefined processes or veteran colleagues to guide you. Expect to interface with founders and executives who come from diverse backgrounds with varied advice, requirements, goals, and notions of marketing's role. 

While autonomy can excite aspiring PMMs, this lack of structure means you'll need to proactively educate stakeholders on optimizing a product marketing capability. Rather than relying on past templates, you'll be crafting PMM methodologies yourself and pitching their value at every turn. 

The work of building alignment and credibility never stops. But for those who prosper in influencing strategy in a dynamic environment, a start-up offers unparalleled opportunities to drive impact as a respected marketing leader.

The opportunities of leading a start-up as a product marketer

Working in a start-up as a product marketer offers some major perks that can turbocharge your career. For one, you'll likely have a ton of autonomy to build your marketing team and strategies as you see fit. 

In the start-up world, you get the benefit of not having a pre-existing structure or old-guard marketing tactics blocking your path. This gives you a blank canvas to work with and enables you to establish yourself as an authority on marketing new products. A wonderful opportunity, of course, but it also means rapidly ramping up your skills, overseeing campaigns end-to-end, and owning marketing processes. 

You'll also immerse yourself in an agile environment attuned to moving fast and innovating, whether it's a cutting-edge tech start-up or a newcomer aiming to disrupt an industry. That pioneering spirit can inspire you to flex creative muscles you didn't know you had and spearhead high-impact campaigns for products that don't yet exist in the mainstream. 

The start-up ride isn't always smooth, but the professional growth, excitement, and chance to influence a new brand make it a rewarding adventure for aspiring product marketers.

If you’re not currently in a start-up role but are looking to make the move, here’s a handy tip to bear in mind for the interview process.

PMM interviews: Utilize the STAR methodology

So, how should you market yourself if you’re looking to make the brave transition from leader at a legacy company to leader at a start-up?

Here at Product Marketing Alliance, we’re very much on board with the STAR methodology. If you’re not familiar with this, it stands for:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result 

It provides a framework for you to answer questions in interviews that allows you to prove your impact as a product marketer. 

So, first, describe the situation you were in (the problem), then the task you and your team needed to complete, describe what actions you took to complete the task, and then emphasize the results you achieved. 

As the first, or one of the first, PMM hires at a start-up, you’ll likely be tasked with getting substantial results within a predefined time frame. So it’s vital that you don’t forget the R – the results you obtained – if you’re pitching or interviewing at start-ups. 

These pioneer opportunities may be harder to come across but can provide a highly varied and exciting career journey if you do it right. 

Now let’s get to the strategy.

A start-up strategy for product marketers

The example we’re about to go through was created by Div Manickam, a Product Marketing leader who was the first PMM hire at a start-up. She previously had experience working in a more established company with a larger PMM team. 

Before she created her strategy she spoke with everyone involved with the vision for the company going forward including the CEO, the CMO, marketing, product, customer success, and user experience (UX). She was then asked to provide her assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the company and what its objectives should be going forward. 

One thing she noticed straight away was missing information surrounding how the customer interacts with the business. There wasn’t clear ownership in terms of collecting feedback from all their different touchpoints and how that was being used.

Stakeholders and key objectives

One of your key objectives should be to optimize the customer feedback loop, improve customer segmentation and MQL generation, and create a customer communication network to bring insights for product and service improvements. 

Our PMM then created a board to visualize how she would interact with the different business functions and highlighted which projects or issues she’d be communicating. 

Having something like this chart is a great idea if you’re part of a start-up as it sets expectations for your internal stakeholders, letting them know what you actually do and where the exchange of information should be happening in order to achieve your joint goals.

Specific tasks for internal stakeholders

Our PMM then went into more depth for each internal stakeholder and broke down the key tasks, as well as the tools she’d be using and the corresponding KPIs. For example, she aims to introduce a form that customers can download with content that’ll hopefully increase the number of customers in the MQL to SQL pipeline. 

To do this – and document the data – collaborating with sales and having visibility into analytics is key. No one likes siloed data, after all. The KPIs for this task are looking at the download rate within each customer segment and, of course, tracking the overall MQL to SQL conversion. 

That all-important product marketing roadmap

Next, our PMM outlined her roadmap for marketing over the next 12 months, looking into the category, the task, the tools and collaborative parties needed, and the accompanying KPIs.

In a start-up environment, a lot of work is going to go into building the ideal customer profile in the beginning stage to make sure that the messaging and positioning are strong further down the line. 

For the customer vertical category, she intends to analyze not just the data feeding into the personas but also how the company chooses to position itself within each vertical. Her analysis will also take into account who the gatekeepers and influencers are in relation to the ideal customer. 

No roadmap is complete without key dates. If you want your objectives to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely), note down the month – or even week/day, depending on how granular you’d like to go – to ensure you and your team stay on track and achieve your goals. 

It’s important to remember just how varied the product marketer's role is. While this is a great example of what you should focus on in a start-up, you may find that your plans for the year look very different if you’re joining a legacy company and are focusing more heavily on other values, such as customer retention. 

Parting thoughts for start-up PMMs

Joining a start-up as a pioneering product marketing leader requires resilience, vision, and a keen ability to influence. Unlike established firms with predefined structures, you'll face the demands of strategizing, evangelizing, and executing in an environment with few guides and templates. 

This level of autonomy may excite you if you’re a PMM eager to make your mark, but the blurred lines and stakeholder alignment challenges can prove taxing.

Ultimately, if you thrive on shaping capabilities from scratch, rallying buy-in, and conveying marketing's value through results, you can find your sweet spot. Remember that savvy networking, consistent internal advocacy, and showcasing impact become your best allies. 

If you have the drive to put in the work and the flexibility to shift gears, the opportunities for professional growth and leadership can be super rewarding. 

Ready to supercharge your career and become a thriving leader?

Product Marketing Certified: Leadership will equip you with the insider knowledge you need to create a lasting, successful PMM career. You’ll gain the fundamental skills required to implement a range of leadership styles and guide your team with authority, confidence, influence, and innovation. 

Whether you’re an experienced leader or a budding PMM figurehead, this course has everything you need to fulfill your ambitions: 

🔥 Create a killer product marketing strategy

🌱 Build and scale your own team

🤝 Successfully manage an existing team

📊 Clarify how you should leverage data

🗣 Become the voice of the customer

🥇 Increase your influence and standing within your organization

🎉 Outline how cross-functional teams should work together 

🎯 Supercharge and refine your strategic thinking 

Psst. Prefer learning with a cohort of fellow leaders? 

Check out the Leadership Accelerator Program. Same great curriculum. Same raving reviews, but with live components and your very own cohort of leadership peers.