Thread: How to visualize PMF through a marketing lens

During my research for this Thursday’s upcoming deep dive of Loom, I came across this cool way to visualize PMF, at least from a Product Marketing Manager’s (PMM) perspective.

Anthony Pierri uses Loom as a great example to demonstrate his visualization. Below is my summary of his thread on Twitter.

His visualization breaks down a product into four segments that stack onto each other:

1. Product Category 🫧

What play are you making with your product? Who are you compared to?

You want to try and position yourself in a category that highlights your strengths and downplays your weaknesses.

Loom: Both a Chrome extension and SaaS app.

2. Features ⚙️

What your product does on a technical level - the nuts and bolts of your product.

For this, features can be technical in nature, but they can also include things like user experience, customer service, and credibility.

Loom: Video and screen recording, with an instantly shareable link and comments thread.

3. Capabilities 🔭

What your users can do with your product - the how to achieving the benefits.

These are tied to specific features and should clearly show what your users will actually do with the product.

Loom: Their video and screen recording allows users to record communication videos quickly and their shareable link and comments thread allows users to share videos and engage with their team.

4. Benefits 💳

This is the outcome of your product.

What do your users get out from the capabilities in the previous step. Is your product increasing a good outcome or decreasing a bad one?

This is the motivation behind why your customers use your product.

Loom: Cut down meetings or save time in the day.

Then the visualization looks at four market layers:

1 & 2. Persona and Company type 👩‍💼

The ideal user in the ideal company for your product - some products may only have an ideal user or an ideal company.

Loom: Remote teams at mid-sized companies.

3. Context 📝

How their reality currently looks without your product.

Loom: Users are in meetings all day.

4. Problem 🙅‍♂️

The issue with your customers reality and how they’re currently addressing the issue - links to the context.

Loom: Wasted time.

Then lastly, to pull everything together, is the value - what potential customers would pay to use your product and solve their problem.

Loom: $12.50/user/month.

Videos or articles to help your startup go from Zero to One 📽️

• John Hu, Founder of Stan, gives a glimpse into a day in his life (link)

• How to successfully launch on Product Hunt (link)

• How Notion used influencer marketing to drive millions of users (link)

• Michael Houck’s PMF score to measure if you are meeting user needs (link)

Founder Opportunities 🛎️

• Techstars London Accelerator: For emerging startups from all over the world and across all verticals. The program leverages the city's strengths in diversity, global outlook and talent. The program runs from Sep-Dec. The deadline to apply is 22 May. Link to apply.

• SaaStr Fund 2024: SaaStr invests in 2-4 B2B/B2D/SaaS startups per year, in the $100k to $2M ARR range. And generally invest between $500k to $4M. Link to apply.

• Y Combinator (YC) S24: Taking place from Jul-Sept 2024 in San Francisco, the world’s preeminent startup accelerator, YC, is now accepting applications to their Summer 2024 batch. Some of their past investments include Stripe, Twitch, Airbnb, Reddit, and Zapier. The deadline to apply is 22 Apr. Link to apply.

• Techstars Anywhere Remote Accelerator: Since 2017, Techstars’ original remote-first accelerator program has supported companies innovating across any industry. The program runs from Sep-Dec with three in-person meetups in various cities. The deadline to apply is 22 May. Link to apply.

Tools of the week 🔨

• Contrast Studio: Get all your design, UI, and UX needs covered for a flat monthly fee.

• Cal.com: Easier way to do calendar scheduling.

• Fedica: Advanced social media analytics and scheduler.

• Intercom: AI-powered support platform. (93% off Early Stage program)

Cool startup jobs I found this week 🕵️

• Instacart is hiring a Senior Manager, Incentives Marketing

• Stripe is hiring a Staff Data Scientist, Growth

• Lumos is hiring a Content & Growth Manager

• SpaceX is hiring a Product Growth Lead, Starlink

• Zapier is hiring a Strategic Financial Analyst