A hack for first-PMM hires
I often meet companies that have left it far too late to hire their first product marketer. By the time they realise they need one, they needed that person yesterday and they’re struggling to fill the role because so many other companies are in the same position.
When I work with these companies, helping them find the right person and advising on how to set them up for success in an organisation that’s never had a Product Marketing function, I’ve found myself digging into one question:
Why did it take so long to hire a PMM?
Most of the time, the answer is simple: the founders have been doing the job themselves.
The Founder as the First PMM
In the early days of a startup, it’s often the founders who take on core Product Marketing responsibilities:
Speaking to customers to understand the problem space
Crafting the company and product story
Honing the marketing message
Building the sales deck (since they’re usually the ones pitching)
Keeping the entire company aligned on the ideal customer, the problem being solved, and the broader product vision
But this doesn’t scale.
When things go well, the company grows. The founder no longer has time to meet with customers regularly or get into the weeds on marketing messaging. Alignment on positioning, ideal customer profile, and vision becomes too complex to manage purely from the top down.
Yet, this gap often goes unnoticed. Other marketing roles - growth, demand gen, content - get hired first. It’s usually only when things start breaking -when Product and Sales are at odds, when marketing collateral lacks consistency, when employees can’t confidently articulate the company’s mission - that the emergency button marked ‘Product Marketer’ is pressed, and a PMM hire suddenly becomes urgent.
A Hack for First-PMM Hires
The upside? There’s a shortcut for first PMMs to ramp up quickly.
If you’re joining a company as its first product marketer, push for an in-depth conversation with the founder or CEO within your first few weeks. If you’re hiring for this role, do everything you can to make this meeting happen.
Ask them everything:
Where did the idea for the company come from?
What problems did early customers face?
How has the customer profile evolved?
Where are the disconnects between the product’s value and the marketing/sales message?
This conversation gives you a foundation. From there, you can start testing:
Speak with customers
Dig into product data
Analyse which marketing messages perform best
Use all of this to refine and document a new source of truth for the company’s value proposition. An evolved, more structured version of what the founder originally developed.
I once worked with a company where the value proposition just wasn’t clicking for me. I couldn’t find an exciting way to tell their story. But after a 30-minute conversation with the founder, I struck gold. That one conversation unlocked a compelling narrative, and everything else fell into place. They’re still using parts of that messaging today.
Keep the Dialogue Open
That first meeting is crucial, but it shouldn’t be the last. Depending on the founder’s capacity, try to check in with them monthly or quarterly, not just to hear their latest thoughts but also to play back what you’re seeing across Product, Marketing, Sales, and, most importantly, the customer.
Product Marketing works on some of the most fundamental, strategic questions at the heart of a company. Founders will want to hear about your work. So make sure they do.
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If you have any other tips for first-PMM hires, I’m sure there are subscribers who would love to hear them. So feel free to drop them in the comments. 🙏
Cheers! 👋