Behind the Brief | Honest Stories from the World of Marketing

Shruti
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Business
  • Updated Weekly

Ever felt like you’re the only one figuring things out as you go in marketing? You’re not alone. Welcome to Behind the Brief—the podcast where we talk about the real, unfiltered side of marketing. pmmshruti.substack.com

  1. 5d ago

    What a founder taught me about the problem PMMs keep avoiding

    I’ve done win-loss work. So I went into this conversation half-expecting to nod along politely and half-expecting to disagree. Instead I came out with a cleaner way of thinking about a problem I’ve been circling for years. Shayaan Jagtap started Opptrack about eight months ago, with an old coworker and a hunch about competitive intelligence. It began as a LinkedIn scraper. It’s now a win-loss engine built off more than 120 product marketing interviews. What I loved about this one is that he didn’t sell me the polished version. He walked me through the tumbling, evolving, occasionally embarrassing middle. Which is exactly what Founder Stories is for. Five things I took away: 1. Win-loss is a prioritization problem before it’s a data problem.You lost 100 deals. You can’t interview 100 people. The one-call no isn’t the same as the six-figure loss at the finish line. Knowing which losses to dig into is half the battle, and it’s the half nobody talks about. 2. More than half your losses are already in your calls.This reframed things for me. You don’t have to start with surveys and gift-card bribery. A big chunk of your losses is explainable from sales calls and CRM data you already own. Interviews are for the decisions that happened off-call, behind closed doors. 3. A loss is easier to explain than a win.His line: a win can be complex, but a loss usually comes down to one or two critical things. Pricing. Timing. A missing SOC 2. Find those and you’ve explained the deal. (His dating analogy for this was rough, and he knew it. It still landed.) 4. Saying no is the founder skill.Ten good ideas, and you have to kill nine. Every user conversation spawns more features you could build. The discipline isn’t having ideas. It’s throwing away the month of work that isn’t earning its place, and not getting emotionally married to it. 5. The AI-slop panic is punishing the wrong people.He got banned from four subreddits for posts he wrote by hand. The genuine slop gets through. We both felt this one. The old distribution playbooks are creaking, and the detection is catching real voices while missing the machines. What survives, we agreed, is a genuine voice. You can feel when a person actually wrote the thing. Why you should care:If you’re a PMM doing win-loss manually, this is a map of where the real leverage is: stop trying to interview everyone, mine what you already have, and reserve human conversations for the deals that went dark. If you’re a founder, it’s a clean look at what the unglamorous middle actually feels like. Prefer watching? Watch on YouTube. Here: Prefer listening? Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Until next time: keep learning, keep experimenting, stay curious.Shruti Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Jul 3

    "Who is still sitting and writing that positioning doc? It is still me." — Swati

    The PMM Skill AI Still Can’t Automate A few weeks ago I sat down with Swati, an AI-systems-focused product marketer who’s scaled B2B SaaS portfolios from $50M to $90M in ARR. I went into the conversation half-convinced I already knew what she’d say about AI. I didn’t. The gathering work is gone. The judgment work isn’t. She described what her job used to look like before agents: one human being, going through Power BI and Salesforce and email, downloading a thousand spreadsheets and trying to force them into something that made sense. “There’s only one Swati and there’s only one brain,” she said. “Every Excel requires one brain.” Now that same gathering work, pulling from Jira, from old positioning docs, from prior sales calls, gets assembled into a first draft of a battlecard in the time it used to take her just to find the right file. That part of the job, she said plainly, is automated now. But she drew a hard line right after. Positioning itself, the actual decision about what a product means to a specific buyer, is still human centric. An agent can summarize a customer call. It can’t sit across from that customer and notice the thing they didn’t quite say out loud. That’s still on her. Sales enablement is where PMM’s fingerprints stay visible The part I keep coming back to is her answer to a question most PMMs quietly struggle with: how do you prove any of this is worth the money? Her answer wasn’t the website. It was sales. In enterprise B2B SaaS, almost nobody buys off the homepage. There’s a full sales cycle, and everything inside it, down to the one-line cadence email a rep sends to a prospect, runs through product marketing. “They can’t even send an email if I don’t write it correctly,” she said, half-joking, mostly not. Content marketing and demand gen teams often end up rewriting that same positioning into blog posts that collect their own impressions and their own credit, which makes it genuinely hard to trace PMM’s fingerprints on revenue through a website. Sales enablement doesn’t have that problem. If the sales team is closing faster and closing with confidence, that’s a straight line back to the work. What this means if you’re building a personal brand while doing all of this The second half of our conversation had less to do with product marketing and more to do with the mindset it takes to post consistently while doing this job. Swati’s framing was simple: building in public is a mindset problem before it’s a tools problem. Everyone goes through a period where the content is genuinely bad, and the people who keep going are the ones who’ve made peace with that period, not the ones who found a better app. One reframe she uses when she catches herself over-scrutinizing her own content: imagine a loved one posted the exact same thing. Would you be that harsh with them? Almost never. It’s a small shift. But it’s the kind of small shift that actually changes behavior, which is rarer than it should be in advice like this. My Take Here’s what this means for product marketers: if you’re feeling replaceable right now because an agent can draft a battlecard in ten seconds, you’re measuring yourself against the wrong part of the job. The drafting was never the moat. The judgment about what goes into that battlecard, and the relationships that make sales actually trust it, are. Here’s how founders can actually apply this: stop asking your PMM to prove ROI through the website. Ask your sales team how fast they’re closing and how confident they sound doing it. That number was always the real scoreboard. We just kept looking at the wrong dashboard. Curiosity Corner If we had another hour... * I’d ask her to walk through one specific battlecard, start to finish, and show exactly where the agent’s draft ended and her judgment took over * I’d explore how she measures “sales confidence” in something other than a gut feeling, is there an actual signal she tracks * I’d challenge her on whether the loved-one reframe holds up under real public criticism, not just her own self-doubt Full conversation with Swati is up now on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. If you got something out of this, forward it to a PMM who needs to hear it. Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

    "Who is still sitting and writing that positioning doc? It is still me." — Swati

  3. Jun 10

    100,000 USERS LATER...

    Most people think great SaaS products start with a brilliant idea. Joseph Lee’s started with a customer saying: “Your website wasn’t very clear... but now I get it.” That moment changed everything. On the latest episode of Behind the Brief, I sat down with Joseph, CEO & Co-Founder of Supademo, to unpack how one customer interaction turned into one of G2’s fastest-growing products. A few takeaways that stayed with me: → Customers don’t buy features. They buy understanding. → Product demos shouldn’t just tell. They should show. → Growth rarely comes from one channel. It’s the result of hundreds of small decisions executed consistently. → Storytelling is becoming one of the biggest competitive advantages in SaaS. One insight I especially loved: Instead of pitching prospects, Joseph’s team would build a demo for them first. No hard sell. No aggressive outreach. Just value. That simple shift helped create trust before asking for anything in return. And maybe the most important reminder for anyone building in public: Perfection is overrated.Consistency wins. Listen to the full conversation below 👇 What’s one marketing lesson you’ve learned that only became obvious after doing the work? #BehindTheBrief #FounderSeries #ProductMarketing #SaaS #Startups #BuildInPublic #MarketingLeadership Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  4. May 29

    Most AI Messaging Feels Vague Because We’re Still Figuring Out the Shift

    And the thing is, I don’t even think the products are bad. I think product marketing just hasn’t fully caught up with what AI products are becoming. Over the last few months, I’ve noticed the same terms showing up everywhere:AI agents.MCP.Agentic workflows.AI-native systems. Everyone is using the language.Very few people are explaining what actually changes because of it. So I recorded a Behind the Brief episode as a bit of an experiment, partly to simplify these ideas for other PMMs, but honestly also to process what I’ve been noticing myself. Because I think we’re entering a pretty major positioning shift:AI-assisted → AI-native. And that changes the messaging game entirely. For a long time, AI products were positioned like helpers:“AI makes your workflow faster.”“AI helps your team move quicker.”“AI assists with execution.” But AI-native systems are different. The AI isn’t helping the workflow anymore.The AI is becoming the workflow. And buyers can feel that shift, even if they don’t always have the language for it yet. That’s why vague messaging is starting to break down. Buyers are asking sharper questions now: * What does the AI actually do? * What data does it touch? * What happens when it fails? * How autonomous is it really? And honestly, I think a lot of AI jargon right now is just positioning confusion wearing technical clothing. One thing that’s become very obvious to me from working in cybersecurity and AI product marketing is this: Invisible systems only work when buyers trust them. Nobody can “see” how your AI model works.They can’t see the decision logic.They can’t see the training data. So messaging becomes the trust layer. And that’s why “AI-powered” by itself is no longer enough. One simple exercise I’d recommend: Open your homepage and look at every place you use the word “AI.” Then ask: Does the next sentence clearly explain: * what the AI is doing, * for whom, * and what changes because of it? If not, your buyers are probably already feeling that gap. I unpacked all of this more deeply in the latest Behind the Brief episode, including: * AI agents * MCP (Model Context Protocol) * Agentic AI vs generative AI * AI washing * And why positioning is becoming the competitive advantage in AI Curious what’s showing up in your world right now. What’s one AI term everyone keeps using in meetings that nobody actually explains properly? Reply and let me know, I might decode the next one. Watch the full video explanation here: Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Apr 11

    What 700 → 90K Followers Taught Me About Consistency (and Money)

    We spent an hour talking about Instagram. But not the kind you usually hear about. No “post 5 times a day.”No “use this hashtag.”No “hack the algorithm.” Instead, we spoke about: * loneliness while building something new * the fear of putting yourself out there * and why most creators never make money One thing stood out to me: Consistency is not glamorous.It’s repetitive. It’s boring.And most of the time, it feels like nothing is working. Until suddenly; it does. If you’re someone sitting on drafts right now…this might be your sign to just hit publish. 🎧 Full episode: Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Feb 7

    A Practical Look at the Cybersecurity Market for Product Marketers

    When I first started working in cybersecurity, I assumed the confusion was my fault. I thought I wasn’t technical enough.I thought I didn’t know enough terminology.I thought I was behind. But the more I worked in this space, the more I realized something important:cybersecurity is genuinely hard to understand — not because PMMs aren’t capable, but because the market itself is fragmented, reactive, and driven by very different buying dynamics. This episode of Behind the Brief is a continuation of a conversation I had earlier with Sachin. After that episode, both of us felt like we had only scratched the surface. So we decided to slow down and spend a few episodes talking specifically about the cybersecurity market — how it works, how buyers think, and where PMMs usually struggle when they come in from traditional B2B SaaS. In this episode, we talk about: * Why cybersecurity doesn’t behave like one “big market” * How fear and timing influence buying decisions * Why the user is often not the buyer * What PMMs should unlearn when they enter cybersecurity This conversation isn’t about mastering security concepts.It’s about understanding the space well enough to position, message, and tell the right story. If you’re a PMM working in cybersecurity — or trying to find your footing in it — I hope this helps. 🎧 You can listen to the episode below. Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Jan 28

    Why GTM Breaks Before It Scales

    One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves in startups is this: “We have traction, so we’re ready to scale.” In my conversation with Hila Lauterbach, co-founder of 10xGTM, we unpack why that assumption quietly kills go-to-market efforts. Hila has worked with companies from zero to $400M+ ARR, and what stood out wasn’t flashy tactics, it was how clearly she framed GTM as a learning system, not a launch moment. We talked about: * Why early demos, pilots, and even closed deals can be false positives * The difference between interest and real buyer urgency * Why scaling GTM without repeatability amplifies problems instead of fixing them * The uncomfortable reality of PMMs being asked to “own GTM” without authority * Why being busy (meetings, decks, launches) is not the same as making progress One line that stayed with me: “If deals only close when the founder is involved, you don’t have a scalable GTM motion.” This episode is for founders, PMMs, and GTM leaders who are tired of noise and want clarity, even if that clarity is uncomfortable. 🎧 Listen to the full episode here: 🎥 Watch on YouTube: Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

  8. 11/29/2025

    So What, Why, Who Cares: the Quiet Superpower of Every PMM

    Product marketers live in contradictions.We’re expected to think like product, speak like sales, write like marketing, and optimize like demand gen, all at the same time. And yet, in most orgs, our visible output is often reduced to decks. Pretty slides, competitive kits, webinar briefs… assets that look polished and feel tangible but sometimes leave even us wondering: Did this actually matter? Did I influence anything? Did anyone even use this beyond the launch day? Which brings me to the heart of today’s newsletter and the latest conversation on the Behind the Brief Podcast, featuring Doug Kimball, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Digital Science. Doug’s also writing a book called So What, Why, Who Cares (slated for early 2026), but the title isn’t meant to be clever clickbait. It’s literally the mental filter that changed his career trajectory forever. The Post-it Note Moment A few years into his product marketing career, Doug joined an org running a massive manufacturing segment within a supply chain software business. A competitor was aggressively eating into their deals, so Doug was handed a high-visibility assignment: build a competitive killer kit. He did what any motivated PMM would do: research the product inside out, analyze the competition, pull insights, write messaging, and assemble a beautiful 20-slide deck that he was genuinely proud of. Four slides in, his VP stopped him. “Doug, stop. Why are you doing this?” Not “why as in what is the task,” but “why do these messages exist? Why these words? Why this slide structure?” Then came the real punch: “Sales doesn’t care. They’ll think marketing isn’t listening.” No sugar-coating. No gentle ramp-up. Just brutal clarity. The VP pulled out a Post-it note, wrote:So What. Why. Who Cares. And asked Doug to rewrite the entire narrative through that lens. What Happened When He Rebuilt It Doug re-wrote, re-structured, re-thought the whole deck: * Less jargon, more outcomes * Fewer claims, more human signals * Messaging optimized not for Doug’s brain, but for sales teams that speak to customers every day That competitive kit didn’t just get used; it reshaped corporate messaging, got live-tested with sales, and eventually ended up being presented on the main stage by the CEO and CMO of the company. One tiny Post-it note did more for Doug than years of feedback sandwiches ever could. Not because the work changed, but because the questions behind the work changed. PMMs vs AI vs the War Zone Another powerful thread that came up in the conversation was around AI. Doug put it beautifully: * AI is a thought partner. * AI can help create messaging. * But AI can’t replicate human-centric, outcome-focused clarity in context. PMMs drive messaging. AI supports it. People validate it. And anyone who says GenAI will replace PMMs has likely never seen a product launch fall apart when there’s no one connecting the dots between product timelines, stakeholder expectations, sales motions, analyst positioning, and customer resonance. Because PMMs aren’t just messaging experts.We are the central stirring pot, the organizational glue that makes sure everyone is rowing in the same direction, even if they don’t realize it. We manage expectations, translate nuances, absorb chaos across teams, and build alignment almost invisibly. And then, at the end of the quarter, someone asks: “Okay cool, but… what did you actually do?” And we smile and say:…a lot. The Metric Gray Area One theme I personally resonated with was around PMM metrics. It’s hard to prove:“This deck led to a $1M sale.” But what you can influence, and measure, are things like: * Higher click-through to demo requests * Better dwell time and lower bounce rate (message-driven UX + positioning flow) * Analyst mentions and industry quadrant movement * Winning narratives post-launch, not just launch-day fireworks * Internal clarity uptake across workshops, scripts, conversations, and pre-sale loops Data without a story is just a spreadsheet.But data-storytelling is when PMMs become undeniable. Even I’ve seen it in my career, if I can tell a narrative through data, even if the launch stumbled… I’m influencing the culture. I’m learning publicly. And that’s impact too. From “Messaging Person” to “Clarity Builder” Doug explained a key strategic shift that every PMM should hear: * Start simple. * Don’t start with a paragraph. Start with a brick. * Collaborate early. * Ask sales and pre-sales: “Here’s how I want to say it. What do you think?” * Speak like you care about their success. * Because you genuinely do. * Read messaging out loud. * Not to admire it… but to audit it. * Launch like NASA, not like a billboard. * After launch-day, the work isn’t done. It’s just begun. If you launch and stop talking about the product, who will remember it 9 months later when the buyer is actually ready? Not your beautiful deck. Your consistent and purposeful narrative will. Launch is not the end. It’s the middle. Final Thought If you take one thing from this conversation, let it be this: Product marketers don’t win because we execute more.We win because we question more. We make strategy sound obvious.We make products sound human.We make teams sound aligned.And we make our work start conversations instead of ending them. 🎧 Here’s the full episode link: 📖 Stay updated on Doug’s book and his framework: https://sowhatwhywhocares.com/ waitlist Get full access to The PMM Brief at pmmshruti.substack.com/subscribe

See All (31)

About

Ever felt like you’re the only one figuring things out as you go in marketing? You’re not alone. Welcome to Behind the Brief—the podcast where we talk about the real, unfiltered side of marketing. pmmshruti.substack.com

Information