Thesis

Product marketing teams create content for Sales, but Sales teams are often unable to identify the most relevant case studies and materials for potential customers. 

The first idea we had was an editor for all the case studies and materials that would create a short summary so Sales would know what each was. Once we had mockups we realized we needed something more useful. It’s not trivial to find the right case study both because of the amount of materials usually in a Sales drive, but also because case studies need to be relevant for a given industry, buying persona, and the stage in the sales funnel (lead vs. warmer potential). A Sales person who was going to meet someone from IT, with an X buying persona, very early in the process would get the most relevant case study for that potential. And if there was an opportunity with no case study, product marketing could then create it. 

We spoke to 6 companies and all wanted to be design partners. We targeted companies with less than 100 people that had product and sales but hadn’t exploded yet, so that the amount of materials would still be manageable. 

Validation

• We spoke to around 60 companies. 
• We also spoke to 9-10 angels and VCs. Some wanted to see the product more developed with design partners. Later meetings were better since after each meeting we updated the deck with answers to the pushbacks. By the end, there was interest but we stopped it.

Research

We both worked at B2Bs, so we had a good sense of how Sales works and knew Salesforce and Gong. However, we didn’t know much about other sales enablement tools so we went to G2 and studied all the sales enablement tools to understand what each does, where we fit in, how we’re differentiated, and what we’re solving that isn’t solved already.

Why the idea didn’t progress

What I was missing was how to make money. When we spoke to CROs and other decision makers they said that unless you can show direct impact on sales they wouldn’t be able to justify spending more than $10K-$15K per year, and $15K per company isn’t enough for a SaaS business. While the tool was good, I thought it would be hard to get funded and hard to make the product more than a nice-to-have. 

Insights

1. Connect with my former partner, whose idea it was, since he made a lot of progress on the product. 

2. Find a strong link to the money. Product marketing doesn’t have a big budget. 

3. Our network was super important. Almost every day we had a conversation with someone. 

4. I wouldn’t leave a job to do validation. Best to find a partner who has a validated idea already. 

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