strategic objectives. I arrived at Microsoft just as it was preparing to launch the first integrated version of the now ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite. In all our product collateral, we removed mentions of “desktop productivity applications”—the old category name—and instead used “integrated office suites.” Ever playing the long game, it was part of shifting the category, reinforcing the notion that Office was the standard-bearer.
I watched how a systematic approach of combining great products with equally great market strategy killed our two biggest competitors at the time: WordPerfect for word processing and Lotus 1-2-3 for spreadsheets. Just a few years prior, these best-of-breed competitors seemed untouchable. Their failure lay in focusing on features versus building and marketing a bigger vision.
I was a product manager on the Office team when a small pocket of the industry was starting to focus on a relatively new thing called the World Wide Web.
The company that was changing the game, however, wasn't Microsoft. It was Netscape, the originator of the commercial Internet browser. Its threat was so significant, Bill Gates sent an email to the entire company saying no other competitors mattered right now.
That email came just after I had accepted a job as a product manager at Netscape. Understandably, I was asked to pack up and leave the Microsoft campus immediately.
The Barefoot Guy on the Cover of Time
My parents could not comprehend why I would leave the storied Microsoft to join a company whose founder, Marc Andreessen, was featured on the cover of Time magazine barefoot, sitting on a gold-gilded throne.
I arrived expecting an equally strategic adversary to Microsoft, one playing chess a few moves ahead. But if Microsoft was the command-and-control–style dad, then Netscape was the laissez-faire, chain-smoking uncle. New products or programs were cooked up overnight and announced in a press release. Teams scrambled to make them a reality. There was no formal launch process or standard way of doing anything. It was complete and total culture shock.
But it was where I first experienced the foundation of how modern product teams operate. I bounced back and forth between leading product management and product marketing teams. It let me work with many different empowered engineers who were allowed to experiment and innovate.
Traditional go-to-market was bypassed, distributing over the Internet directly to customers—a completely novel concept at the time. “Products” had public, not closed, betas—again, a totally new idea back then—and were released with minimum functionality that met just enough market demand to create early evangelism as much as they crowd-sourced quality.
Despite all I knew about the value of strategy, Netscape was where I learned that free-range discovery could inspire innovation no one could foresee, at equally unforeseen market velocity. It was a much more dynamic model of company building with higher highs and lower lows.
It was also where I saw how innovative ideas can give birth to new startups.
Markets Shape Success
Ben Horowitz was the most revered executive at Netscape when he chose to co-found a then-new startup called Loudcloud (later Opsware) with Marc Andreessen, Tim Howes, and Insik Rhee. It was the world's first Internet infrastructure-as-a-service company long before the world had a framework to understand it.
Back in 1999, it was a radically new idea and not at all clear that by 2021 95% of Internet data center load would be for cloud traffic.1 While the vision was there, the services required and architecture of Internet infrastructure at the time—no matter how much our software automated—was too expensive to deliver in a cost-effective way.
I got schooled on the limits of company and category creation while leading marketing and being Ben's chief of staff. I learned my own professional limitations, facing the pain of what felt like failure (more on that later). I also learned that the greatest minds, vision, and plans aren't enough if all the right market elements aren't in place.
How to Use This Book
In my post-Loudcloud years, I started doing product marketing advising. I taught workshops for companies like Google and Atlassian and created a class on marketing and product management for engineering grad students at UC Berkeley. I practiced product marketing daily with early-stage startups at Costanoa Ventures and watched startups get acquired and IPO. I observed product marketing in action across hundreds of companies.
Through it all, I learned this: There is a stark contrast between how most companies do product marketing and how the best companies do it. It's largely because product marketing is misunderstood; it is the most foundational work required to market any tech product.
That's right: what you want most from marketing—a bigger pipeline, a loved brand—isn't just about doing more marketing, it's about doing better product marketing.
This book is an invitation to rethink tech marketing by understanding how much product marketing shapes the foundation on which the rest of marketing builds.
You'll need great people to do the job eventually, but strong product marketing can actually be done by whomever has the capability and mindset. It's why I wrote this book for anyone with product or marketing in their purview regardless of title.
In Part 1, you'll learn how a Midwestern code slinger beat a Silicon Valley icon by applying the fundamentals of product marketing. You'll then see each in action as I explain them in depth.
Part 2 explores the people and process parts. You'll learn the ideal profile for product marketers and how they partner best with other functions. I'll also cover crucial tasks and techniques—like how to discover market fit—important to succeed in the job.
Parts 3 and 4 go in-depth on the strategy and positioning work that's so critical and hard to do well. The tools I introduce in those sections have been used with every size and stage company, and they consistently provide a framework for improvement.
Part 5 focuses on the leadership and organizational challenges of product marketing: how to lead it, hire it, guide it, and adjust its purpose at different company stages and business inflection points.
There is one big assumption in everything I write: you can't succeed in go-to-market without a strong product. If you're not yet there, please read Marty Cagan's INSPIRED. It focuses on how to build products people love.
Then, when you're ready for your product to be loved by your market, read on.
Note
1 1 https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1908858.
