The LaunchNotes Podcast | Product Management, Product Marketing, Product Ops

Steve Klein (@stevenklein - https://twitter.com/stevenklein) of LaunchNotes talk to John Cutler, Product Evangelist and Coach at Amplitude. John talks about how to think about your product strategy, measuring progress on your strategy with the North Star framework, and prioritizing day-to-day work with OKRs.

➡️ Want to submit questions and get invited to our next live AMA? Check out the free Launch Awesome community on Slack - https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome.

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🔗 Links:

* 17 North Star framework activities - https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPf0HwEA=/

* The North Star framework "book" - https://amplitude.com/north-star

* John's Substack - https://cutlefish.substack.com/

* John on Twitter - https://twitter.com/johncutlefish

🚀: Check out LaunchNotes: https://launchnotes.com

🙏: Join Launch Awesome:  https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome

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Show Notes:

(00:27) - Intros

(00:57) - Strategy starts with an opinionated view

(10:32) - Levels of certainty in our strategy

(16:53) - Measuring success in your strategy

(22:33) - Finding your North Star by "betting up"

(23:43) - Finding your North Start with "power prompts"

(28:11) - Measures vs metrics

(30:34) - How often does a North Star change?

(32:16) - Finding what influences your North Star metric

(40:08) - Open Q&A

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Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks with Jeff Ferguson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreysferguson/), formerly of Pipeline DB and Confluent, about how he applied lessons from learning poker to build a successful career in SaaS, including working in sales and marketing and becoming a founder.

🔗 Links

📝 Show notes

(00:00) - Introductions

(03:43) - How a poker skillset can be applied in business

(08:10) - From poker to sales

(16:29) - Starting his own company

(18:27) - Building a community around an open source product

(28:11) - Getting acquired and taking a product marketing role

(30:55) - The subjective nature of product marketing

(36:49) - Taking a relentless approach to your career path

(39:38) - Jeff's appreciation for Google Search

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks with Meghan Keaney Anderson of Jasper (formerly of HubSpot) about how AI is changing the way marketers work, some of the hesitation around AI, and why it’s important to balance conviction with customer research when launching new campaigns.

🔗 Links

📝 Show notes

(00:00) - Introduction

(04:25) - The early days of building product marketing at HubSpot

(08:52) - How Jasper helps writers and content creators do their jobs

(12:43) - Hesitance around AI in marketing

(14:37) - Using AI to help kickstart the writing process

(22:21) - Using AI to sythesize and summarize long-form content

(28:52) - Building a community to help your customers

(35:13) - Balancing convinction and customer research when putting something out into the world

(37:30) - Meghan's favorite products

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) and Jake Brereton  (@jakebrereton - https://twitter.com/jakebrereton) of LaunchNotes talk about our favorite SaaS homepages. What makes them great? What does a world class SaaS homepage look like?

🔗 Links

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks with Kevin Garcia of Retool (formerly Twilio Segment) about marketing to developers, how to market horizontal products, and why what worked at a previous company might not work for your current company.

🔗 Links

📝 Show notes

(00:00) - Intros

(03:45) - Secret sauce to being a PMM with a technical audience.

(15:17) - How to think about marketing horizontal products

(29:44) - Why "rinse and repeat" doesn't always work in product marketing

(32:17) - Kevin's favorite products

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks to Matt Hodges, Head of Product Marketing Craft at Atlassian. Matt talks about how PLG needs great marketing to work well - specifically marketing sites that convert well and a system for using product launches to fuel growth.

➡️ Want to submit questions and get invited to our next live AMA? Check out the free Launch Awesome community on Slack

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🔗 Links:

* Jobs-to-be-done Framework - https://jobs-to-be-done.com/what-is-jobs-to-be-done-fea59c8e39eb

* Top traits of product marketers - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-traits-best-product-marketers-matt-hodges/?trk=articles_directory

🚀: Check out LaunchNotes: https://launchnotes.com

🙏: Join Launch Awesome:  https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome

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Show Notes:

(00:27) - Intro

(04:49) - Leaning into marketing automation over heavy sales

(11:31) - Joining Intercom

(13:02) - Setting expectations in a new role

(20:02) - Jobs-to-be-done

(23:29) - Biggest missed opportunity with marketing sites

(25:43) - Matt's favorite marketing sites

(31:56) - Matt back at Atlassian

(37:39) - Audience questions

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks with Greg Fulton, Senior Director of Product Management at Blue River Technology. He’s also ran product orgs at exciting companies like Workpattern, Lyte, and AdRoll.

📝 Show notes

(00:00) From English major to product manager

(08:19) Building product when you’re not a PM

(13:01) Sizing up frameworks and leading teams

(17:06) From big company director to startup IC

(19:19) Working on hard tech products as a non-technical PM

(28:45) Pedigree vs. output

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks with Chris Butler of Google (formerly Facebook, Waze, Microsoft) about all things product ops.

🔗 Links

📝 Show notes

(00:00) Figuring out the new rules of technology

(05:14) Product managing the product management experience

(09:00) How to avoid “BS” product ops work

(13:45) When’s the right time to bring in product ops

(18:37) The right way to think about process improvement

(23:00) Effectiveness vs. efficiency

(24:01) Why product managers shouldn’t be technical

(36:30) The value of randomness Flipping a coin

Steve Klein (@stevenklein - https://twitter.com/stevenklein) of LaunchNotes talks to Andrea Saez, Senior PMM at Trint. Andrea talks about roadmaps, release timelines, and how product teams can better communicate their plans with the people that care.

➡️ Want to submit questions and get invited to our next live AMA? Check out the free Launch Awesome community on Slack (https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome).

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🔗 Links:

* The Product Value Creation Plan - https://www.righttoleft.io/white-paper-pmf-is-dead

* Andrea Saez on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreasaez/

🚀: Check out LaunchNotes: https://launchnotes.com

🙏: Join Launch Awesome:  https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome

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Show Notes:

(00:27) - Intros

(01:44) - The "religion" of product roadmaps

(02:36) - Roadmaps = direction + intention

(05:18) - Goals for communicating internally

(09:34) - Marketing push after a release

(10:57) - Roadmap vs timeline

(12:44) - The Product Value Creation Plan

(20:34) - How people get into trouble with roadmaps

(25:19) - Thinking about external roadmaps

(34:02) - How frequently do you update the roadmap?

(35:26) - Working cross functionally to decide what to build

(37:53) - How to think about changing priorities

(40:05) - Communicating changes in release times

(42:17) - Say "no" or "not now" to feature requests

(46:04) - Wrap up

Blake Thorne (@blakethorne - https://twitter.com/blakethorne) of LaunchNotes talks to Jim Stoneham, ex-CMO of Stripe and New Relic, now partner at the VC firm SignalFire. Jim talking about building a PLG dream team.

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🔗 Links:

🚀 Check out LaunchNotes: https://launchnotes.com

🙏 Join Launch Awesome:  https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome

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Show Notes:

(00:27) - Intro

(01:28) - PLG roots in B2C

(03:31) - Starting with your goals

(07:43) - Sequencing the PLG functions

(16:49) - What needs to get done?

(25:59) - Is there a single PLG owner?

(28:20) - Qualities to look for when hiring for PLG

(30:56) - PLG and complex SaaS tools

(33:20) - Transitiong from sales-led to product-led

(36:59) - Readiness benchmarks for building a PLG team

(38:26) - PLG for larger companies that micromanage

(40:25) - Tools for data instrumentation