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Write Your Product Narrative Like a Zapier PMM
Your company has outgrown the thing it is known for, but the market has not caught up yet. New launches land like add-ons instead of the next chapter, and suddenly you are trying to scale a bigger story with old positioning. In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to evolve brand perception as your product expands.
Wade Burrell joins me to break it down. Wade has 15 years of experience across product, go-to-market, and growth, with time at Worldpay, Square, and Intuit Mailchimp. He led SMS expansion across 37 countries and helped shift Mailchimp from being seen as an email tool to being understood as a multi-channel marketing platform. Today, he is at Zapier, leading product marketing for critical infrastructure in the AI era.
A big part of our conversation focuses on Wade’s work repositioning Mailchimp’s SMS product. It started as a standalone MVP and was initially treated as useful but optional. Wade shares how they worked to shift that perception, connect SMS to the broader platform story, and make it feel like a strategic priority instead of a bolt-on.
Wade also walks through a practical narrative playbook for PMMs, including how to audit your existing platform assets, run open-ended customer research, bring insights into roadmap discussions, and sharpen positioning through real constraints. Plus, we close with a messaging critique of Cursor and where their story could expand beyond developers to speak to larger engineering organizations.
Key Takeaways
- Platform expansion creates narrative lag if your positioning does not evolve with the product
- New products need to feel like the next chapter, not a bolt-on
- Strong narrative shifts start with an audit of what you already own and can credibly claim
- Open-ended customer research helps you find the gaps that matter, not the story you want to tell
- Sales feedback is a fast reality check on whether positioning holds up in the real world
- Great messaging can still get sharper by building a second layer for new decision-makers
LINKS
Messaging Critique (Cursor): https://cursor.com/
Connect with Wade:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadeburrell
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/
View all episodes
By Elle GrossenbacherYour company has outgrown the thing it is known for, but the market has not caught up yet. New launches land like add-ons instead of the next chapter, and suddenly you are trying to scale a bigger story with old positioning. In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to evolve brand perception as your product expands.
Wade Burrell joins me to break it down. Wade has 15 years of experience across product, go-to-market, and growth, with time at Worldpay, Square, and Intuit Mailchimp. He led SMS expansion across 37 countries and helped shift Mailchimp from being seen as an email tool to being understood as a multi-channel marketing platform. Today, he is at Zapier, leading product marketing for critical infrastructure in the AI era.
A big part of our conversation focuses on Wade’s work repositioning Mailchimp’s SMS product. It started as a standalone MVP and was initially treated as useful but optional. Wade shares how they worked to shift that perception, connect SMS to the broader platform story, and make it feel like a strategic priority instead of a bolt-on.
Wade also walks through a practical narrative playbook for PMMs, including how to audit your existing platform assets, run open-ended customer research, bring insights into roadmap discussions, and sharpen positioning through real constraints. Plus, we close with a messaging critique of Cursor and where their story could expand beyond developers to speak to larger engineering organizations.
Key Takeaways
- Platform expansion creates narrative lag if your positioning does not evolve with the product
- New products need to feel like the next chapter, not a bolt-on
- Strong narrative shifts start with an audit of what you already own and can credibly claim
- Open-ended customer research helps you find the gaps that matter, not the story you want to tell
- Sales feedback is a fast reality check on whether positioning holds up in the real world
- Great messaging can still get sharper by building a second layer for new decision-makers
LINKS
Messaging Critique (Cursor): https://cursor.com/
Connect with Wade:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadeburrell
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/