Power Pal

Product-Led Growth - How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush outlines a framework for how take a product-led growth approach to growing your SaaS business.  The book covers why product-led growth is of growing importance; how to choose between free trial, freemium, and demo approaches to your go-to-market; and practical tactics on how to understand your value, choose your pricing, and common tools-of-the-trade to guide users to experiencing value in your product.  Although it mentions other approaches, the book focuses entirely on making the free-trial approach work. Part 1: Design Your Strategy Why is Product-Led Growth of Rising Importance Product-led growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy that relies on using your product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers.  There are three industry changes happening that are driving companies towards PLG: Startups are more expensive to grow: customer acquisition costs (CAC) have gone up (for ...

Loved by Martina Lauchengco focuses on the product marketing discipline and is part of the Silicon Valley Product Group series of books.  The book outlines the four fundamentals of the role and includes several frameworks and examples.  The book is on the longer side, glosses over some subjects, and wanders a bit between topics (kind of like a series of unrelated blog posts), so I'll summarize the highlights here in my own way and take liberty in adding my own thoughts.  So don't take this as a direct summary, instead just me filling in some blanks. What is product marketing? Lauchengco provides a definition of product marketing: Product marketing's purpose is to drive product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that meet business goals. Fundamentals of the Role She outlines four fundamentals of the role: Gather and Share Customer & Market Insights Market Sense Product marketers need to develop a deep sense for the market and ...

Another book I found on a product marketing suggested reading list was Product Marketing Debunked by Yasmeen Turayhi.  The book covers provides a framework for commercializing products, with an emphasis on product marketing's role in creating effective go-to-market (GTM) plans for new or early-stage ideas.  It's a short read and split between outlining what roles product marketers typically play, including when they should be hired, and outlining a GTM framework for new products, including templates for typical deliverables and artifacts. Why You Need a Product Marketer & What They Do The goal of a product marketing manager is summarized as follows: deliver the right product to the target customer at the right time to ensure customer adoption Product marketers are responsible for customer research and validation from alpha to launch, the GTM plan, building the value proposition, competitive intel, and the marketing programs necessary to launch.  In the early days of ...

I recently finished reading the book  Obviously Awesome by April Dunford.  I was interested in learning more about product marketing and this came up on a must-read list. After reading it I think it applies broadly across disciplines as product and company positioning aren't an after-thought but rather core to strategy.  The book provides the clearest explanation of how to develop your positioning strategy I've seen.  In my previous post on 7 Powers , you'll see that the first powers that all startups pursue are "counter-positioning" and/or having a "cornered resource".  So positioning is essential to company strategy. 1. What is positioning? Positioning as Context You can think about positioning as context as it enables people to figure out what's important (and what's not).  There are some common traps in setting the context for your product or company, including: Product changed: You're stuck on the idea of what you intended to build and ...

I recently finished reading 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer .  Definitely one of those reads where the ideas seems obvious only after you've read them.  Helmer's intention was to create a framework simple enough that any front-line leader could easily remember and draw from it. Quick summary is that it covers seven sources of strategic business advantage and the order in which you should pursue those depending on company stage.  To win in the long-run, operational excellence and execution aren't enough; you also need strategic advantage.  The 7 powers of strategic advantage each confer a benefit to the company and introduce barriers preventing competitors from copying or neutralizing that advantage.  As your business progresses, different sources of power become available. Here are the company stages, powers that are unlocked at each stage, and a short description of each: Early Stage (Start-up) : counter positioning (position ...

I found this opinion piece ( Democrats aren't innocent bystanders ) interesting on how both Democrats and Republicans share responsibility for polarizing the electorate and undermining some of its faith in democracy. It references two other posts that were pretty good as well: The Disease of Delegitimization The Weimarization of the American Republic The second article is really long and heavy on history.  But given all of the comparisons people make between the current times and those of post-WWI Germany, I found it interesting to dive in to understand where the comparisons are coming from and how close we really are.  The short answer is that we aren't that close (phew). Seems like post-WWI Germany was incredibly fragile.  This was a good excerpt that summarized it: So, unlike the 60s, you have a dynamic in which both sides are behaving like radicals, in which the establishment isn’t yelling “stop,” and in which oikophobia is more evenly distributed, relative to its Boo...

I read the book The Four Steps to the Epiphany about two and half years ago and was convinced that I would revisit the book in the coming years (see my earlier post  where I summarized my initial thoughts on it).  Based on some current thinking I'm doing about new market entry, it seemed like the right time to do that.  As I'm re-reading the book, I'm taking some more detailed notes and thought I'd post them here for reference.  Apologies for them being a bit terse. So, to start, why the customer development model instead of the traditional product development model ? Primary risks in entering any market: do you understand the customers’ needs? do you understand the basis for competition in this market? will those customers purchase and adopt? Traditional approaches are terribly inefficient and often lead to disaster traditional product development model concept/seed vision what’s the product? (features, feasibility) who are the customers? (mark...