Thrills and Chills: Establishing Product Marketing

Sarah, who previously was a security marketer at Google is now over a year into her role of leading the product marketing team at Vanta. Vanta help businesses get SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 compliant. Over 1500 companies use Vanta to automate their security monitoring and prepare for security audits. 

In this interview Sarah and JD discuss what it’s like to make the switch from a large well-known company to a smaller series A startup and what positioning and messaging looks like for her and her team currently as they have been diligently educating customers about their services. 

Tune in to hear her story and how her team is helping startups achieve Google grade security and market a traditionally non-sexy product. They’ve found humorous and effective ways to make their product more appealing and close the high anxiety, low knowledge gap in automated compliance security. 

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn.
Join Sarah on Sharebird.

Questions covered in this interview:
  1. What is it like to own product marketing?
  2. What do you look for in a company/team/role?
  3. How did you evaluate the risk of a new role?
  4. What are some of the challenges early on? What about now?
  5. What are some of the thrills (highs) and chills (lows) of your product marketing career?

What is Thrills and Chills: Establishing Product Marketing ?

“The company story is the company strategy.”
— Ben Horowitz, Partner and Co-founder, Andreessen Horowitz

For many startups, marketing isn’t important—until it is. This hasn’t always been the case. For the past decade, everyone was obsessed with finding a “growth hacker.” But now, product marketers are in high demand as companies realize their value. Startups are now asking: when should I hire a product marketer? Should my first marketing hire be a product marketer?

Lots of people want to be the first product marketer, but only a few make the leap. They’re the builders. The fixers. The risk-takers. They embrace the chaos. They’re comfortable being uncomfortable.

This is a journey into their world. It’s about sharing the thrills and chills of being the first product marketer at a startup. Along the way we’ll meet some amazing people. You’ll hear engaging stories about imperfect product launches. The challenges and nuances of everyday work. The skills needed to succeed. And of course, fresh perspectives on what it really takes to be a company’s first product marketer.

The only way to be on this journey is to begin. Let’s go.