Take a Look/Listen…
Bain Capital Ventures' Field Guide to Marketing Leaders provides a framework for startups to identify and hire the right type of marketing leader based on their growth stage and needs. The guide divides marketing leaders into four archetypes within two buckets:
Quantitative—Demand Generation and Product Marketing archetypes
Qualitative—Brand Marketing and Communications archetypes
Each type focuses on specific skills, from data-driven growth to creative storytelling, and the guide suggests ideal roles depending on whether a startup prioritizes customer acquisition, market positioning, or brand building.
While these four archetypes (demand gen, product marketing, brand marketing and comms) are representative of the functional roles/teams you’d see inside of a marketing team, I disagree that companies should be hiring leaders with just one of these skill sets. Strong CMOs and heads of marketing should have direct experience and skills across these areas.
Additionally, there is a lot of skill overlap between product marketing and brand marketing—particularly in the areas of market research and competitive analysis, positioning, messaging and storytelling. The question is really: are these skills being applied solely at the product level or also at the corporate level? If your company has multiple products, then you may need both product marketing teams to focus on the product level and a “brand” or “corporate” team to focus on the corporate level. But, if you’re a one-product company, then the corporate brand is more directly tied to the product brand, and the same marketer can apply their skill vertically across product and corporate.
In this podcast conversation, Lenny Rachitsky (angel investor and former Airbnb product lead) and Naomi Gleit (Head of Product at Meta), discuss the concept of canonical documents as a source of truth for organizations, teams and projects. Naomi emphasizes the the use of canonical documents as a key tactic for effective product management. A canonical document serves as a central hub for a project, outlining work streams, owners, processes and meeting norms. Having this information in one accessible location ensures everyone on the team has a shared understanding of the project, minimizing confusion and miscommunication. This approach fosters clarity and streamlines workflows.
I loved this concept of canonical documents, as I’ve been shifting more of my workflows to Notion for this specific reason. Notion is serving as one hub where I can run project management, create and manage documents and workflows, etc. that can be useful for go-to-market, product management, structuring and managing meetings to make them more productive, and more. It’s pretty magical.
The discussion on canonical documents starts 53 minutes into the episode, and you can jump straight to it here.
Product-Led Growth (PLG) B2B tech companies have a kryptonite: the tendency to focus excessively on individual user experiences at the expense of team-based functionality. This "deadly gravitational pull" towards individual-centric product design can lead to stalled growth and difficulties in scaling to enterprise-level deals. While PLG's initial success often comes from acquiring individual users, failing to transition to team-based experiences can limit a company's ability to achieve the high revenue multiples typical of successful B2B businesses.
To address this issue, the article recommends three key strategies: mapping user journeys with a focus on team activation, defining metrics at the team level (such as Weekly Active Teams instead of Weekly Active Users), and designing products that cater to teams without sacrificing individual usability. The author emphasizes the importance of fostering team collaboration, encouraging users to invite colleagues, and leveraging network effects to drive sustained growth. The key takeaway is the need to balance individual user acquisition with a strong emphasis on team-based experiences and metrics to unlock the full potential of B2B PLG strategies.
In this podcast conversation, venture capitalists, Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, discuss the growing competition between the United States and China in the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics. The episode highlights the U.S.'s strengths in software development while expressing concern over China's increasing dominance in hardware, particularly in drone and automotive technology. They argue that the U.S. needs to focus on domestic manufacturing and protecting its supply chain from being reliant on its rivals.
Other Reading & Listening…
OpenAI on How THEY Use ChatGPT for Marketing (Hypergrowth Leadership)
Two words took Zendesk from zero to IPO (SaaS CMO Pro)
How CMOs, Agencies and Consultants Are Clashing Over AI Usage (AdAge)
Fab Whack-A-Mole: Chinese Companies are Evading U.S. Sanctions (SemiAnalysis)
U.S. Drugmakers Are Breaking Up With Their Chinese Supply-Chain Partners (WSJ)