Find Product-Market Fit Like an OpenAI PMM
Finding product-market fit is one of those tricky challenges we, as product marketers, must master. It's that elusive mark that makes all the difference between having a product that practically sells itself and one that's struggling to find its footing. So, how do you know when you’re onto a winner? Or, crucially, when you might be barking up the wrong tree?
To unravel this mystery, I had the honor of welcoming Pranav Deshpande onto the show. Pranav is not just any product marketer, he’s one of the sharpest minds in the business, with experience at Twilio, Modern Treasury, and now, OpenAI. His journey through tech’s most innovative landscapes offers some incredible lessons in finding and recognizing product-market fit - lessons you definitely won’t want to miss!
From Twilio’s Highs to Autopilot’s Hiccups
Pranav’s career is a tapestry of learning experiences. At Twilio, he rode the wave of success with groundbreaking messaging products and witnessed product-market fit in full swing. But not every venture was as seamless, illustrated by the challenges faced with Twilio Autopilot. It was an ambitious product at the time but lacked the backing of mature AI technology—a classic case of a product concept needing a bit more time to marinate.
Next came Modern Treasury, where he faced a different puzzle: untested business models in the FinTech sphere. Here, Pranav saw first-hand the critical importance of nailing repeatable sales and truly honing in on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). It became clear that sometimes, not having product-market fit doesn't mean the ship has sailed—it might just mean it’s time to adjust your sails.
Riding the AI Wave at OpenAI
Nowadays, Pranav's at OpenAI, charting new waters in the AI arena, where their products are leading the charge in reshaping industries. With tools like ChatGPT capturing the world’s attention, OpenAI embodies the pinnacle of product-market fit. Pranav’s experience here has shifted from selling the idea of AI to embedding it meaningfully into everyday use cases across sectors.
Our chat made me realise the steps to spotting product-market fit, involving signs like repeatable business models and digging into core product issues. We take a look at strategies like understanding customer ROI and reverse-engineering it for insights. Importantly, it’s about knowing when to pivot and when to dig into refinement, ounce by ounce.
Charting Your Path to Product-Market Fit
Central to Pranav’s approach is maintaining a balanced mindset being both an advocate for your product and a critical analyst. It’s about knowing your product inside and out while crafting a crystal-clear ICP that guides your market approach.
It's also vital to factor in that product-market fit isn't static. As markets shift, so must your understanding and approach to ensure what fits today doesn’t become tomorrow’s misfit.
A Critique of Notion
Before wrapping up, Pranav and I dive into a critique of Notion, a tool that's been turning heads in the productivity space with its innovative approach. Notion is a powerhouse workspace that’s taken the concept of collaboration and ramped it up with the latest AI integrations. It promises to put everything your team needs in one place, making it easier than ever to find answers and avoid the wild goose chase through endless folders. While we loved their forward-thinking strategy of weaving AI into everyday workflows, I felt that some of their messaging could be a tad more precise. Their taglines like "automating the busy work" sound inspiring but could benefit from a bit more specificity to clearly differentiate Notion from other tools like Google Apps or Asana. That said, Notion’s consistent design flair and its knack for showcasing relevant use cases make it a brand many PMMs dream of working on.
It’s clear that the path to product-market fit isn’t a one-time achievement—it's an ongoing journey. Pranav’s insights remind us of the importance of agility and understanding within this ever-evolving landscape. Let his experiences inspire you to tackle the product-market fit challenge with a level-headed strategy and a readiness to adapt.
LINKS:
Notion: https://www.notion.com/
Connect with Pranav:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranav808/
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
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[00:00:00] Elle: Pranav, welcome to the show.
[00:00:02] Pranav: Hey, El. So happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:04] Elle: Of course. Okay, so let's dive right in. So for the first segment of our show, let's kick it off with a tour of your career through the lens of product market fit. Okay. So let's start with a time when you didn't find product market fit.
Can you share some experiences, you know, maybe around Twilio or early on in your career when the products just weren't hitting quite right.
[00:00:28] Pranav: Yeah, so, so when I, when I first joined Twilio, it was mostly an SMS invoice company. And if any of your listeners have been following Twilio, there was a time when it was kind of like this revelation.
The ability to just like send a text message with one API call was a huge deal. We take it for now, and Twilio pioneered that. They built an incredible developer experience. Um, in some ways also like. Invented the discipline of developer marketing. And so because of all of that, like by the time I joined the company, [00:01:00] the product market fit was insane and the company was growing like crazy.
Uh, they went public within a year and a half of me joining, and uh, they decided to start building out more of a platform, launching more products associated with communications that could help sort of beef up the portfolio or differentiate the company and in general, provide more avenues for growth. So one of the products I worked on before I left was this product called Twilio Autopilot, which was essentially an EPI that allowed companies to build their own natural language powered chat bots and voice bots.
And this was before LLS, uh, this was, I. Back in 2019 when ai, especially the kinds, uh, of models that we're used to today, you know, things like Chad, GPT just weren't around, so it's very, very early on. But we were starting to see signs that, you know, a lot of scenarios we could get computers to actually converse people in, in the reliable ways and wanted to [00:02:00] plug that into the communications channels that they built.
And so they started working on this product called Autopilot that I joined when it was very, very early on. Um, where it had just come out of, it was just in beta actually. And because I'd come from this world, you know, where product market fit, especially having worked on SMS invoice was something I didn't even think about.
I kind of carried through that mindset to autopilot and. Even though I, I had like a fantastic experience learning there. When I look back on my time, I realize that that assumption really like, just like undergirded everything I focused on. And in hindsight, if I would've kept that more in mind and actually questioned that assumption, I would've done things differently.
And what I mean by that is like with autopilot, there are a lot of different areas where. You know, and I can tell you more that in hindsight there just wasn't that staying power and that that fundamentally changes like what you need to do as A [00:03:00] PMM. As A PMM, you always, you have to be optimistic about what you're working on, but you also need to find where things are not working and figure out how to fix them.
And that was like a big learning for me.
[00:03:13] Elle: So tell us more about that. You know, what were the signs that autopilot just wasn't landing?
[00:03:19] Pranav: Yeah. Yeah. So like there were, like, I, I, I break that down into three things and, you know, it can be a lot of times with, with products, and we've spoken about this before, like it can be a messaging issue, it can be a distribution issue, or it can be a product issue.
In this case, it was primarily like a, a core product issue to start off with, because. Twilio had the distribution, we had no shortage of customers willing to test autopilot at the time. 'cause every company out there was interested in using Twilio. Uh, their business was growing, especially for things like contact center and customer service.
And so telling customers that, Hey, we have this chat bot platform where you can just plug into your [00:04:00] Twilio SMS or into your, into your contact center, was something anyone would've wanted to try out. 'cause. The promise was there of like automating a lot of these routine customer inquiries. Right? So it was definitely not a distribution issue, it was not a messaging issue.
The ROI is pretty obvious when, when it comes to something like this and, well, you, we had an even additional layer of differentiation, which was around programmability and customization, which was something a lot of legacy systems at the time lacked. But the reason they didn't really take off was.
Fundamentally had to do with the fact that the core tech, the model underneath just wasn't there, wasn't ready yet. It required a lot of handholding, a lot of hard coding. It was like orders of magnitude less capable than even like the smallest, cheapest LLM you can find. Um, so that was a huge, that was a huge reason why it didn't work.
And then also it was almost. I know I signed customizability, but a lot of times our view, what I realized was that it was [00:05:00] almost like too customizable to the point, to the point where like it was really, it was too low level. It was really hard for customers to go in and program it to complete certain flows or to do certain things reliably.
You had to write a lot of code. The code was very brittle. So that just like put a barrier to adoption beyond a certain point and beyond customers actually putting them in front of their customers.
[00:05:25] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So you said so much here that I wanna unpack before we move on to to your next example. So you mentioned that just because it was Twilio, you had customers flocking to it.
So you had this like halo effect of Twilio when you launch this new product. Do you think I, and I guess like what guidance would you have? For A PMM who's like starting to maybe work at like a big company and they're trying to, you know, establish or test for product market fit for a new offering, how long should they explore this [00:06:00] before they realize that like, oh, this is just the halo effect of my brand versus I straight up do not have product market fit.
Like, is there like a time period they should be looking for? Maybe that's more. Maybe that's a time period isn't the right, you know, metric. But can you speak a little bit more to that?
[00:06:17] Pranav: Yeah, for sure. And that's a really good and very difficult question. 'cause most products who go through this phase where they haven't quite made it yet and they haven't failed and that sort of uncanny value is very tricky to navigate for everybody involved.
Right? From the people building it, to the people selling and marketing it like us. And so in a, in a big company. What confounds that even more is, there's a lot of false signal from, you said, the halo effect, right? Like people will try it out and you can just, you can point to like a hundred pilots going on and say, great, this thing's working.
There's a pilot going on. But actually I think what you [00:07:00] need to look for is like. How much are they paying for this? How much are they actually willing to invest in using this thing is the most, sure. A lot of times that can take time to path out for it to actually commercialize, but early indicators can be anything ranging from how frequently are they interacting with your customer support staff or your sales engineers.
Like what is the level of interest that you're seeing from these pilots or from these early customers? Are you having to like pro them constantly to, are they coming to you that those are just some like qualitative signals you can use to start building an intuition about how much of this is actually solving a customer problem versus something that is just being tried out because it's available to them because they have a relationship with your company.
[00:07:53] Elle: How much are you handholding? With their, your beta users and how much investment they're [00:08:00] needing to make, that's beyond the anticipated investment.
[00:08:04] Pranav: And how much are they pulling the product out of you? Right? Like how much are they, like, give me more. Or like, we figure out why this isn't working versus you.
You're constantly checking in on them saying, Hey, what do you think of this? Or like, Hey, did you buy this thing out yet? Um, that balance helps you figure that out.
[00:08:22] Elle: Yeah. Those are some signals that you should dig a little deeper. A question about just investment in general. You're talking about like with the Twilio example, right?
That there was a fundamental issue with just how the product was built. How do you know whether it's like a small pivot and or like a change to the roadmap? Or like a significant like, Hey, we just gotta like abandon ship because it just won't work. Like is it like a dollar amount and is that a dollar amount part of your product market fit, like test?
Not, not that you have one, but,
[00:08:54] Pranav: oh man, that's probably the hardest. I. Question to answer and I, I don't know if there's [00:09:00] like a very well defined thumb rule. Thumb rule for that.
[00:09:03] Elle: It's probably a combination of stakeholders in the room getting together and analyzing some metrics.
[00:09:08] Pranav: Yeah, and I think it's also the opportunity cost for your company, right?
Like, um. Do you have other stuff that can work or do you have other ideas that can work that, that these are the same resources, the same people that are working on this thing for a while, you know, have, uh, can dive, devote their time to, but I think another way to maybe think about it more systematically is you should have a hypothesis for, um, one, if this product succeeds.
How much do you feel like you want to charge for it? And then also how much ROI customers can get for how much you're charging for, or maybe walk backwards, like how much ROI are they getting it? And figure out how much to charge. And then like, okay, how much time will they theoretically take to the best of your knowledge to get that ROI?
And then look at customers who've hit [00:10:00] that threshold and then see how many of those customers you have. And if you get to a point where you're like. A majority of these customers just haven't hit that threshold or a majority of customer conversations get to that point and they just don't adopt the product, even though it's available to them via the existing contract that they have, then things are not looking so great, and then maybe you should think of yourself more and they're like, Hey, we haven't quite figured out product market fit for this yet.
Rum.
[00:10:28] Elle: Yeah, I think it's a really smart way to start with total cost of ownership for the customer and. Try to anticipate to the best of your ability what that ROI is gonna be and then working backwards from there. Very helpful takeaway. Okay, so now I want to move on to your next example for your time at Modern Treasury.
Tell us about your experience with product market fit there.
[00:10:56] Pranav: That's actually where I learned the most about product market fit and its [00:11:00] importance. I would say. I hadn't quite internalized the trio lesson I was telling you about before I joined Modern Treasury, and when I looked back on both ex experiences together, that's when things started to click for me and I started like.
Actually want to write about it to like certify my thoughts, but I joined Modern Treasury right after Twilio as their first marketing hire essentially. Um, and so I over two years built the product marketing team there. Um, also worked our other things like SEO websites. I was gonna
[00:11:32] Elle: say, you're gonna wear every marketing hat there is out there.
[00:11:36] Pranav: Exactly. And then I think a lot of startups, and if, and if your listeners are like, you know, working at startups or. Looking to transition to startups, like I think they're probably aware that when you're a ppro PMM at a startup, um, you actually do whatever it takes to grow whatever it takes to actually move the product forward.
So that experience was really valuable to me, and it's still like really, really useful. Even, even at [00:12:00] OpenAI. And when I joined the company, it was about 14 people. I think they had customers and they had paying customers, which was even better, but. What I didn't look at as critically is how were those paying customers actually being acquired?
Like, and, and were they using modern treasury for the same thing? So for people who aren't familiar with the company, it started off as a new type of FinTech platform where you could almost like imagine it as a modern transaction and software layer on top of legacy banking. Uh, providing APIs and software to enable ev anyone to streamline B2B payments using bank rails so that, you know, you could do them cheaper, faster, et cetera.
But obviously we have to work with the bank. So the business model is also a little untested, actually quite untested at the time, which relied on. Banks actually also signing a [00:13:00] contract with your customer. 'cause the bank needed to facilitate a tran modern treasury was the layer on top of it. So it was always like this two eight deal where the customer had to both, I.
Select the bank and also wanna work with modern. Yeah,
[00:13:14] Elle: A little more complicated. Yeah.
[00:13:16] Pranav: Yeah. I mean, signing a deal with just two counterparties itself is complicated. So, yeah. And I can
[00:13:22] Elle: imagine in finance, the deals are, you know, just with the regulatory stuff that comes with just being in that industry in general.
Not exactly like an easy signature.
[00:13:34] Pranav: Yeah, for sure. So you go from having like one relationship. To like effectively three where like you and your customer, the customer in the bank and the customer and, and you and the bank all need to be on the same page. Right? So that was new and you know, if it was gonna work, it would've been incredible.
'cause then, you know, you get this situation where companies are able to move money very quickly, uh, with a lot of transparency at a fraction of the cost of using credit card rails [00:14:00] and other payment methods, right? Or using. Companies like Stripe who act like third party intermediaries where they take more of a cut of the transaction, but they provide a lot of convenience and speed, and so there are lot of things that were untested about it when I was there, when I was there at my treasury.
And so I would say the thing that I, I probably learned the most about product market fit, there was this thing that I think we'll keep coming back to in this conversation, which is the importance of repeatable sales, which is. The first set of customers that Modern Treasury acquired were, you know, early adopters, startups, a couple of large companies that had just come in through like word of mouth, founder sales, VC networks.
Generally how most startups acquire their companies, uh, their full customers. But to go from that to a scalable GTM motion, you actually need to figure out, okay. What are the use cases? Who are the buyers? Um, and what are the triggers for them to want to, and how often do they [00:15:00] want to buy? Um, and how much are they willing to pay?
And you need to be able to like do that in a scalable way where you actually see like multiple instances of the same deal happening consistently. When you get to that point, that's actually when I think you have strong, like create product market fit, at least within that segment. And then as a PMM, what you focus on is very different.
I. Compared to when you don't have that. And so you, you kind of need to like almost operate in two modes as a PR in my opinion. Like, Hey, are you in PMF? If you're in PMF, great. There's a different set of things you need to do. If you're not, there's a different set of things you need to do.
[00:15:35] Elle: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what you would do differently if you were to have, you know, maybe a second chance.
With modern Treasury, is there anything you could have done differently, I guess? Like would you have prioritized different research? What would you have done?
[00:15:53] Pranav: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, the things that I did were very typical PMM things. When I first joined, I like [00:16:00] worked on the website. I started to write our positioning docs.
I, I spend a lot of time obviously, like listening to calls and trying to be in front. Customers and understand the market and compare being
[00:16:11] Elle: the informed product marketer. Yeah,
[00:16:13] Pranav: yeah, yeah. And so the, I'll continue, I obviously do the, the competitive side of things and talking to users and customers regularly, like that's important regardless of where you are on the, whether it's like weak or strong VMF, but actually focusing your time on writing docs and.
Desi, I like writing the perfect copy for your website. Like I probably wouldn't have done that. 'cause that only works when you actually have confidence that you have a scalable motion because then the investment you put into the positioning and the copy for that website is actually worth it. 'cause you actually know what to say and to whom.
Whereas here I was just trying to, you know, write, create copy that was not necessarily based on. How people bought the product, [00:17:00] how they thought about the product. And so I would've instead just actually focused more on trying to figure out what I can do to get these repeatable sales going. So from a marketing standpoint, you kinda have to wear more of like a demand gen growth hat where you figure out, okay, what are the assets, what are the channels that I need to focus on?
Order to actually go validate like, hey, who is actually, what are the use cases? Who's actually buying it? Test our assumptions
[00:17:28] Elle: is, yeah, I was gonna say, is it like experimenting with ICP, like your ideal customer profile and like evolving and iterating that based on like constant experimenting?
[00:17:38] Pranav: Yeah. Yeah.
That's actually a much more succinct way to say it, which is. When you don't have that repeatable sale, you don't have a ICP
[00:17:45] Elle: or it's not the right ICP
[00:17:47] Pranav: or it's not the Yeah, exactly. You and, and felt like at the time we had 20 different ICPs. 'cause we had near four, you know, whatever. 30 deals across multiple different types of people.
So you actually should think critically. [00:18:00] Okay. Who are these people? Can we group them together? Can they be sold to in a repeatable way and then decide what to focus on?
[00:18:08] Elle: Yeah. So can you compare and contrast for me then like the difference between not having product market fit, both with autopilot at Twilio and then modern treasury?
What were kind of like the reasons why between both that you didn't have product market fit?
[00:18:25] Pranav: So at Twilio it was definitely primarily. An issue with the product and the form factor and the underlying technology and modern treasury. The risk was both the product risk, which I think to me was secondary.
'cause I think they, at the time we had a really good engineering team. They were, they were like very creative, building great products and the product demoed like really well. So I wasn't that scared about, or like anxious about like the product itself and its ability to scale up. It was more about like the business model and the market risk, and [00:19:00] that was primarily why I think the product market fit at Modern Treasury didn't exist.
Whereas with Twilio, it was more about like, Hey, they just didn't have the right infrastructure, the right foundational technology to deliver what they were promising.
[00:19:14] Elle: Yeah. Got it. Okay. That's really helpful to give some potential reasons why you don't have product market fit, because I guess what I'm hearing is that in some cases when you don't have product market fit, it doesn't mean that you abandon the idea.
It doesn't mean that it's completely a sinking ship. It just means you need to focus your attention somewhere and iterate. Maybe it's iterate on the product roadmap. Maybe it's just iterating on the ICP. Is that something that you'd say is accurate?
[00:19:41] Pranav: For sure, it's, and also it's a journey, right? It's not like a point in time thing.
Like, so tomorrow you wake up and you can declare that, hey, we have product market fit. It's more about like constantly thinking about, to your point, like. Who is the ICP and are they getting value? Is that happening repeatably? Like those in three questions. [00:20:00] Keep asking yourself that. Like every single day,
[00:20:02] Elle: I was gonna say product market fit, then you could have it one day and not have it the other day.
Where I guess like when there's a shift in the market or when things change and evolve as your ICP evolves, then maybe you need to reevaluate. Do we have product market fit still?
[00:20:17] Pranav: Yeah, and if you look at a lot of these AI companies, for example, especially the ones who are. Very early on building on foundation models.
A lot of them went from like not having product market fit. To having an insane product market fit in a matter of weeks because new model came out or the capabilities improved to the point where what they were doing was suddenly a great experience and you were like, okay, I'm willing to pay for it. So that can happen too.
So I think, yeah, asking yourself those three questions like really important.
[00:20:48] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So this is a good segue, which is just really funny. As you were talking about. Autopilot. You mentioned that this was like way before we had like LMS and everything and [00:21:00] it was basically a, a bot, right. And it's hilarious because now at least my understanding, if you use the word bot, it actually has a negative connotation to it.
A negative association, I think immediately, like scam. So it's hilarious because that's just an example of how the market has shifted. And we don't use that word anymore. Now it's, you have to use LLM or ai. If you use bot, you're gonna go straight into the trash can.
[00:21:28] Pranav: Yeah, yeah. Bots are definitely, have, have like tremendous negative connotations both from like spam bots obviously, and that, yeah.
Like a lot of the rules-based bots that, that off reach autopilot was one, like nobody's ever convinced by it. Like, you know, people have been trying to automate customer service. I. AI 20 years, and I think we only now have. The breakthrough we needed.
[00:21:53] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So like, let's talk about it then. Um, let's compare and contrast the experiences with product market [00:22:00] fit that you had at Twilio and Modern Treasury with now your time at OpenAI.
Talk about what the signs looked like and how they were different.
[00:22:12] Pranav: Yeah. So, uh, at, I work on the PI platform and, and focus on developers, so. Um, the team I work on primarily cares about one, ensuring developers adopt the tools and models that we're releasing, that they build with them, that they power all of these new businesses and help everyone from like startups to enterprises transform and build new products with, with ai.
So I've been doing that for the last almost year and. I don't think it needs to be stated that OpenAI has crazy product market fit. Um, there's probably like three to four companies right now who are in the same category as OpenAI in terms of like powering the, the AI revolution. And I think for all of them it's [00:23:00] really the fact that I.
They have the core technology and they've built great developer experiences on top of it to actually distribute that technology in a seamless way. OpenAI, Google Philanthropic are probably like three companies that have sort of like, they're basically competing for this, and I think across. Any of those providers, right?
Like when it comes to thinking about LLMs at a high level, like the ROI is pretty obvious, right? Like you can inject these general purpose machines into pretty much any workflow, any situation, and have it take on more and more of the work that people would've had to do. And so you can free those people up to focus on things that are more value additive and more important for your business.
And in doing so. More productivity and that's how you deliver ROI, right? And and so it's less about making the case to your buyer and your user that Hey, you need to use these things. Everyone's like convinced when Chuck he came out, [00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Elle: it was the undeniable shift. That was when we abandoned using bots and now we talk about it.
[00:24:05] Pranav: Yeah. And, and then if you weren't paying, if you weren't paying attention before GBT, you were definitely paying attention afterwards. And so then the question turns into, okay, where are you actually finding, um, the most value? And that's really, I think what everybody's focused on right now across the entire industry is like, we know this is valuable, but.
Measurably, like, where can we deploy it? Where can we make it a part of people's lives and, and how can we actually like, make it the kind of technology that people rely on? Just the way people rely on, on the internet. And, and so it's almost like, you know, back in the 2000 tens when I. When cloud software was coming about, like it's a fundamentally, at least in the enterprise, it's like a fundamentally new platform and a new enabler of different use cases.
And even back then, like people are talking about software as a service and API infra, these are all like use cases and [00:25:00] markets built on top of that fundamentally enabling technology. And so we have a similar thing going on with ai. And so if you look at o use cases across things like coding, customer service, research, healthcare, so that's what we are really like trying to figure out is like within these domains, I.
What do we need to do to win Mindshare, to deliver value or to get customers to build new businesses on top of this enabling technology? And so a lot of marketing work now is just about, well, not just, but it's about, it's about explaining it, how to use the technology in a effective way. It's primarily education.
'cause you're not that concerned with convincing customers to give it a shot. How do you successful is like the most important thing,
[00:25:49] Elle: right? Right. So what I've learned today so far is that there are layers to product market fit. It's not just do you have it or not. It's once you have it, then it's sticking deeper into [00:26:00] various use cases and those use cases can expand or you can expand, I guess into new use cases.
Over time. Okay, so let me just back up for a minute 'cause I feel like we've covered a lot. And I just wanna quickly recap big takeaways that we've covered so far. So earlier on in our conversation we talked about identifying your ideal customer profile and how I. That's something that could change and the world can change for your ideal customer profile overnight, like in the event of a chat, GTP, like technology popping up, and we talked about early signals that you have product market fit with repeatable business models, repeatable sales motions.
We talked about potential reasons why you don't have. Product market fit being a fundamental issue with the product and how you need to get all the right stakeholders in a room and determine, is this just a quick, like is it a roadmap fix that we can fix with low investment or is it a huge category [00:27:00] market pivot, or do we just need to start from scratch somewhere?
And then we've talked through more recently the ROI. And starting there, starting with what's the ROI for your ICP? What's the, what does total cost of ownership look like for the customer? And working backwards from there to determine is this investment for the customer worth it for them to continue?
Even if you may have existing sales or revenue, that's something that you should look at to see if it's actually feasible for the customer to be scalable. That was a lot. Did I miss anything?
[00:27:37] Pranav: No, I think you're, you're spot on. I think like the overall takeaway really is like, it's important to know where you are as a pm MM, on that journey of product market fit and what you focus on accordingly.
'cause you can't do everything you need to do the thing that moves the needle the most and what the business needs and that changes based [00:28:00] on where you are.
[00:28:01] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So let's quickly turn this into a playbook for A PMM who's trying to evaluate or test their product market fit. Where do they get started?
Like, what are some steps that they should take?
[00:28:15] Pranav: Yeah, I think the, the fundamentals that you know, I think you've covered on other episodes in your podcast apply a lot over here as well, like thinking about your ICP being super product oriented. So on one hand, going really deep. On your product and understanding it end to end.
On the other hand, understanding the ICP and I think within the ICPA useful exercise I found is like, especially for B2B software, like look at who your users are and who your buyers are and see if they're the same people or different people, because ultimately that allows you to decide, add another dimension to product market fit, where if you think about the goal as a repeatable sales at a high level, then.
You need to be able to both, [00:29:00] you know, have something that convinces the end users and gives them value, but also allows the buyers to say. This is a good investment of our dollars because the people were that, that are using this are actually like doing more of what we want them to do, uh, because of what we've rolled out.
Right. So I would say like once you found, once you found that out, there's different product market fit tests, kind of high level for each co constituency for users. It's actually like. Kind of straightforward, but maybe hard, hard to instrument, which is, you know, and a lot of it is initially maybe unscalable, which is like if you took your product away from them, like would they be happy, would they be sad?
Like you want them to be really sad if you took your product away from them. So that's like the most fundamental way to look at it. And then you can actually go about figuring out on different ways. And then, uh, with buyers it's more about like, okay, looking at the deals that you've closed so far. Is the same kind of person in the room every single time.[00:30:00]
If that's the case, then you actually have like line of sight into like a clear budget and a clear owner that you can target at different types of companies of the similar variety that allow you do things more scalably and get that product market fit, uh, signal that you need to know, okay, we have a market for what we're building.
Um, now we can shift maybe to more scalable things like demand gen or, I don't know, like updating your website.
[00:30:31] Elle: The things that you should have deprioritized. Yeah. And modern treasure. Exactly. Okay. So helpful. Alright, last question for you on this topic. What advice do you have for A PMM who's trying to test for product market fit?
If you could just leave them with one thing.
[00:30:47] Pranav: Yeah, I would say your mindset is like really important. So the most important thing for pmms to do is to kind of have this mindset of pragmatic optimism. 'cause as pmms we, we naturally have to like believe in [00:31:00] what we're working on. 'cause it's our job to highlight its strengths and mitigate its weaknesses.
Like that's what positioning is, right? Like at the end of the day. And so for that, you have to really believe in what you are. Working on, but you can't take it to such a point that you're blind to its flaws and its shortcomings. 'cause then that prevents you from seeing reality. And then it prevents you from knowing how strong you are the product market fit is.
And so that's probably like the most important takeaway is like, have a balanced mindset as much as you can. 'cause that'll allow you to see things more clearly.
[00:31:36] Elle: Right, absolutely. Someone who is a strong optimist like myself needs to remember to take off the rose colored glasses. I've literally had to train myself to do that because one of my weaknesses is that I'm overly optimistic.
I think that's what
[00:31:54] Pranav: makes me good. BLM.
[00:31:56] Elle: Yeah. No, it's very true though. You have to be a, a realist as [00:32:00] well in terms of how you're evaluating your product. Alright, very helpful. So now it's time to move on to our second segment of the show. This is the messaging critique I. So this is the part where, um, we as product marketing experts get to analyze real world messaging and pranav you, my guests get to pick the company that we critique.
But first, let me quickly establish some ground rules for listeners who may be new to the segment or just for you as we start to unpack this. So, we're gonna pick a company, or you are gonna pick a company, and then we're going to talk about three things with this company's messaging. First, you're gonna tell me something that you are loving about the messaging or.
Something that stood out with the product, why you love it so much. And then the second is you're gonna tell me something that you wish the PMM would have done differently. Maybe make the messaging more clearer or stronger, or something that could make it more impactful. Um, whatever that stands out to you.
And then finally, I. We're gonna do a little bit of [00:33:00] fun brainstorming for that PMM on where, how they can iterate the messaging or take it a step further. Maybe it's putting together some creative content or, um, engage more with their, with their ICP, you know, whatever makes sense for that. Company. So with that, let's get into it.
So I know we were chatting just before this about a company that you had in mind. Do you wanna reveal which company you wanna talk about?
[00:33:25] Pranav: Let's try about Notion.
[00:33:26] Elle: So I'm going to notion.com For anyone listening in who wants to check out what we're talking about here, unpack this for us, tell us what notion is.
And what stood out to you?
[00:33:37] Pranav: So, I've been a fan of Notion for a long time. They, they've been around for a while. They initially, I think, started as a wiki, but have now grown into this like, you know, fully featured, really powerful workspace for collaboration across companies and teams. They have everything from like docs to project management to.
Very recently, they rolled out like their [00:34:00] own email client. They have a calendar.
[00:34:02] Elle: Does this like compete with like Google Drive or like Google Suite or like is it something different? I
[00:34:07] Pranav: think in some cases it can be a replacement for, for Google apps, but I've noticed a lot of companies use both. But there are some companies that are entirely built on notion, and I think it's like really popular with like freelancers and individuals as well as like their personal workspace.
And then recently they launched something that. I am like starting to use a lot of, uh, I'm looking forward to using more of in the future, which is AI meeting notes, um, where it doesn't join the conversation, like it won't join this call. Like, you know, most note takers do it. Try it just listens to your, the output of your computer or your headphones and transcribes that in real time.
And as you are taking notes, it's listening. And then once you're done with the meeting. It actually enhances your notes and so fills in details. You may have, may, may have forgotten. So I think for me that's, that's like really powerful. [00:35:00] So there, so that's just to that, just to highlight about use cases and then what the product is for folks who haven't tried it out.
[00:35:06] Elle: Yeah. So would you say it's just for like working professionals or freelancers? Just generally speaking? It's, it's a
[00:35:11] Pranav: classic like workplace productivity suite and like you pointed out, an incredibly crowded market. And so I think messaging and positioning is like even more important. Yeah.
[00:35:21] Elle: Let's get to it.
What is their messaging, kind of, if you had to unpack their tagline or slogan with a couple messaging pillars, what do you, what is, what's popping out for you?
[00:35:30] Pranav: So over the last couple of years, they really leaned into AI for a more established company. I think they've been very quick to adopt it and roll out new features and really embrace the technology.
Um, and so now if you look at their website. The tagline is the AI workspace that works for you. Um, so really talking about how they can actually using the, the latest lms, infuse them into different workflows that people already have to speed those up. Um, and so I think [00:36:00] that part, like works, works really well.
They talk about how they're like the, they're like one place. Where teams can get answers. 'cause a lot of times in most companies, finding the information you need can be such a pain.
[00:36:13] Elle: Oh my gosh, it's so hard. Yeah. I can tell you, working at a huge company like Cisco, incredibly difficult. You
[00:36:20] Pranav: probably like multiple SharePoints and like multiple places to find the info.
And so I think that promise is really powerful. And then they have, they have a line around like automating the busy work, which. Which is I think, powerful. But, but this is maybe where we can get into a little bit of the critique. Like, to me it doesn't feel as specific as like the first line, which is find every answer.
Like that to me is like, like really visceral and get projects done. Again, like getting projects done by itself is, is not. Really telling me why I should use Use Notion over a more dedicated project management tool. You know, like Asana for example. So I think [00:37:00] overall like focus on AI and highlighting different use cases as you scroll through the page is really great.
But. One area where maybe there could be more detail or could, could come across as more compelling would be around like the specificity of some of that language, in my opinion. And then overall, I mean like, I think they, they do a great job highlighting use cases. So if you scroll down. There's the AI meeting notes, project management email, and the fact that multiple teams can use it.
So I think, uh, and of course social proof. So I think that the homepage does, does a great job overall in, in communicating the value you can get from it. I. While leaving, maybe a few questions unanswered around, like to your point, why is this super different than like using Google apps, right? Like, because that's what most people default to these days.
Or like our dedicated project management.
[00:37:55] Elle: Yeah. Find every answer really hits another differentiator. I also really like their [00:38:00] use of customer and market proof points. The way that they've sprinkled it out with all the use cases that's super effective, it builds trust right away. I
[00:38:10] Pranav: think overall they just have an incredible brand.
Um, their design and creative has been very distinctive since the very beginning and I think that's helped them consistently. So I think if you're a PM working notion, consider yourself really lucky. 'cause you have like a fantastic design and brand team that's like power.
[00:38:28] Elle: Absolutely. Oh wow. It makes such a big difference.
It really does, and it makes it easier to have fun with the storytelling when you have a brand and creative that compliments it.
[00:38:41] Pranav: And then with AI meeting notes, the one thing I would say is having used it a few times, it only shipped this week, so they're probably gonna take make, yeah, it was like last week or something.
They're probably gonna make more changes to it. But the one thing I would maybe do differently is the tagline, which is Perfect Notes every time To me [00:39:00] personally, like I don't necessarily want perfect notes. I want notes that are complete so I don't miss out on the important stuff. And it's not, and when I read Perfect notes, I think of like well formatted notes that are like really, you know, beautiful and easily shareable, but.
That's, that's a nice to have. I think the most important thing is like notes that are complete, so you don't start on what was said.
[00:39:25] Elle: Right, exactly. I need to find every answer. I keep coming back to that. I am very excited to give Notion a try because truthfully, I have, I've known about it for a long time, but I haven't pulled the trigger, so I'm officially compelled.
This sounds interesting. Well, well done Notion. Pmms out there. You've got some fans. Great job with your messaging and also kudos to the brand team. Very striking and playful, creative. Okay. So Printoff, before we go, I just wanna have a gratitude moment and say thank you so much for, I know you're incredibly [00:40:00] busy.
[00:40:00] Pranav: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
[00:40:02] Elle: Yeah, like, well, you're like toured your entire career with us on product market fit. Uh, so thank you so much. I learned. So much, and I'm sure our audience did too. And anytime I have an amazing guest like yourself, I can't help but think of how do they get to be so amazing. So, wanted to give you an opportunity to give any shout outs to one or two pmms who have really shaped your career in product marketing.
Yeah,
[00:40:29] Pranav: for sure. Um, wow. So many people have had social of an impact on my career, uh, from like. Giving me the opportunity to break into product marketing, to enabling me to do the work that I want to do. So at Twilio, I actually moved into product marketing from Solutions Engineering. Um, and so at the time the head of PMM was, was this guy named Man of, uh, Cara.
So he allowed, he gave me the break into PMM. So obviously shout out to. Then at Twilio, the entire pm m team was just incredible. [00:41:00] You know, as, as you are well aware, we were pretty stacked back in the day. I still keep in touch with so many folks from there, but like, you know, special shout out to to Vanessa Thompson.
She's just always been a great mentor. Even after I left Twilio, like helped me navigate career decisions and serve as references. So always grateful to her. And that OpenAI, um, you know, I work on a team. Of two pmms are currently responsible for the, for the API. And so my manager Lahar has been like really supportive.
And within the year, like just the pace of things has been insane and the fact that as someone that I can work with very easily and who me on high impact and high ambiguity projects is. Is I think rare. Um, and so I'm grateful for that as well.
[00:41:53] Elle: Yeah, I have continuously come back to when I have those really incredible [00:42:00] managers or team members where I feel like we get so much done and despite how incredibly stacked and busy we are, there's still like a pretty high level of job satisfaction and happiness, and it always comes back to trust.
So, I'm so glad to hear that that's the environment that you're in at Open ai. So, okay. Well my last question for you, I promise this is the last one. Uh, where else can we access your expertise? Is it just best to, for listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn if they wanna chat more? Yeah, I'm on
[00:42:30] Pranav: LinkedIn.
I don't post much, but I'm there. Um, I'm also on x, uh, where I mostly post about. Developer stuff. Uh, it's, it's a way to just keep in touch with the AI community. 'cause they're super active on X. So,
[00:42:45] Elle: and you have a blog too, right? I have a blog
[00:42:46] Pranav: that I haven't updated in two years. Ah, yeah,
[00:42:49] Elle: you've been a little busy, so, so
[00:42:51] Pranav: yeah, if you wanna take check it out, definitely do.
But it's very out date.
[00:42:55] Elle: Yeah. There's some good stuff on there though. Even if you haven't posted recently, I'll just [00:43:00] say there's good stuff on there. Alright. Thank you so much Pina and thank you PMM listeners for coming on this adventure with us today. I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration to take the next step in your own journey.
Thank
[00:43:13] Pranav: you so much. Thanks for having me.
