Matt Baker

What does personalized professional learning have to do with personalized tutoring? BetterLesson & Littera Education are partnering to define exactly that. The School District of Philadelphia builds a tutor corps to provide students with additional supports during the school day. And their Littera tutors will have access to BetterLesson's professional learning platform and services, helping them create even greater impact for their students. We're on a mission to ensure every educator everywhere has the support they need to improve learning for every student. That includes tutors, teachers, paraprofessionals, and more. 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞? 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐛 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬. ⏩ ( 📩 𝐎𝐫 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞.📩 )

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As I prepare to fly back to Boston from CMS Connect 2024, I'm still digesting everything I took away from presentations and conversations of the past 48 hours. It's been incredibly enriching to hear what's up next from leading content management systems like dotCMS, developer tools like Netlify, emerging products like ai12z, and industry icons like Dries Buytaert. My main takeaway is that all of us who seek to create better, more accessible web experiences still have plenty of work to do. Many human-technology challenges remain unsolved. And the priorities of developers and content teams still aren't completely aligned, despite years of effort in solving. Other takeaways: - While we still have work to do to address the tensions between the goals of marketers and the priorities of engineers, the future is bright and investment is happening, fast. - Having a web content and asset management strategy is critical to any consumer facing AI strategy. Things that benefit UX like taxonomy, ontology, and content hierarchy also form a critical foundation for AI-readiness. - AI offers enormous potential to better serve users if yielded responsibly, and is driving real progress in our industry by the day. And our industry sees the problems with clear eyes. Major thanks to Janus Boye and Matthew Garrepy for bringing together such a great group and facilitating such a productive agenda. Definitely one of the best events I've ever participated in.

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Early stage fundraising is convincing enough people with credibly + resources to believe that you're onto something big. Remember it is a bi-directional discovery process. And more often than not, a lot of people with not enough credibility or not enough resources will give you their opinion. If everyone was a believer, you wouldn't have a shot at 100x-ing your company. It's a feature not a bug. Remember that. If you're not careful that can drain energy. Incredibly important trap to avoid.

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Looking for a Product Leadership role? Explore these top opportunities to drive innovation, lead teams, and shape strategy at these companies: 1. SVP, Product Management – MasterControl, Salt Lake City, UT (Remote) Lead product strategy and development for MasterControl's quality and compliance software portfolio while managing the product management team. MasterControl provides cloud-based quality and compliance software to over 1,000 companies in life sciences and regulated industries. 2. Group Product Manager - Microsoft Security Service Edge – Microsoft, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Microsoft's Security Service Edge (SSE) offering, driving product strategy and development for Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Private Access solutions. Microsoft is a global technology leader with 228,000 employees across 190 countries, focused on empowering every person and organization to achieve more through technology. 3. VP of Product Management – Benevity, Seattle, WA Lead product strategy and development for Benevity's Finance Platform, managing a product team while driving vision, roadmap execution, and platform operations. Benevity is a B Corporation that provides social impact technology to Fortune 100 companies, enabling corporate giving, volunteering, and other social action initiatives. 4. VP of Product – Banyan Software, Chicago, IL Serve as a key executive leader at SoftSmiths (a Banyan Software portfolio company) responsible for driving product strategy, innovation, and execution in the energy sector, initially working independently with potential to build a product team. Reports to the CEO of SoftSmiths, working closely with VP Technology. Banyan Software is one of fastest-growing private software companies in the US that acquires and grows enterprise software businesses with dominant positions in niche vertical markets, operating with a permanent "buy and hold for life" strategy. 5. Director of Product Management – Mark43, New York, NY (Remote) Lead the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) product line and Mobile applications, managing a team of 2-3 Product Managers while driving product strategy and development. Mark43 is a technology company that develops cloud-native software solutions for law enforcement and public safety agencies to improve community safety and quality of life. 6. Head of Product – 0x, San Francisco, CA (Remote) Lead Product team overseeing consumer and developer platforms while driving product strategy and fostering team growth. Reports directly to the CEO. 0x is a Web3 company providing developer APIs for token access and liquidity, having processed over $130B in trading volume through major platforms like Coinbase and MetaMask. Want more Product Leadership roles? Access the weekly updated database: https://lnkd.in/gq9qY6s4

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Livefront has submitted TWO talks to SXSW for consideration in the conference's program. A large component of that process is audience support via votes from the public. Check out our submissions from Matt Schraan and Jack Cunningham below and if you're interested in either, cast your vote. 🌟 Digital Accessibility As Strategy, Not Compliance: Discover how native mobile accessibility functionality drives growth and opens new opportunities for those who rely on assistive technology just as much as those who do not. https://lnkd.in/dGPWYtJS 🌟 Create Compelling Brand Moments with Apple Vision Pro: Explore Apple’s new VisionOS platform, and learn about how you can leverage spatial computing to create novel new experiences to differentiate your brand or product. https://lnkd.in/dzmcNsbH #SXSW

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Stop obsessing over launch tiers and focus on launch cadence. I've interviewed a lot of product marketers lately, many of them great. But my eyes always glaze over when I ask about their approach to product launches and they whip out a spreadsheet or walk me through their "framework" for prioritizing launches based on a tiered approach. This isn't necessarily wrong, it's just not going to differentiate you from other PMM candidates. And it's not going to help you wield influence and drive impact within your company if you do get the job. One of the most impactful things you CAN do is put a stake in the ground around launch cadence. At LivePerson, for example, we've committed to doing two major product launches per year, one in the Spring and one in the Fall. We call our launch events Spark – and they're as much about sparking action internally as they are about bringing our new products and capabilities to market. A semi-annual launch cadence acts as a forcing function and rallying point for the entire organization. It drives urgency and accountability around everything from product development and adoption to sales enablement and operations to customer marketing and success. The Spark model also encourages a strategic storytelling approach to GTM. Instead of launching capabilities as one-offs (informed by product availability and those silly "tiers"), a predictable launch cadence allows us to think thematically and focus on outcomes rather than inputs, solutions rather than specs. Our Fall launch, for instance, will hone in on the Assist phase of our Conversational Flywheel which is all about the agent experience and how brands can spark a better CX by empowering their people with AI and other agent-centric technology. We'll be launching some transformative new products and some smaller stuff that will make agents happier and more efficient but that might have gotten lost in a tier-based launch framework. More on that soon. For now, it's time to keep that rhythm going 🥁 #productmarketing #gotomarket

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🚀 quick clarification on the recent SBIR guide that I posted. 🤠 Also looking for feedback to see if folks are interested in a congressional engagement guide - ita something I’ve heard some initial demand signal for, but wanted to confirm before building it out!

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We were torn between two messaging principles when we created the copy for the new UserEvidence website that launched this week -- Understandability vs Elevation of our Value Prop. On the Understandability side - everyone understands what "testimonials" and "case studies". High Understandability. However, our platform creates customer evidence content that goes way beyond testimonials and case studies (eg statistical evidence around value/ROI, competitive proof, account or industry-specific reports) -- and there's several very low cost tools that do simple testimonial collection/creation. We were worried dumbing the UE value prop down to testimonials and case studies would undersell the value, and undercut our price point which is tens of thousands to sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the Elevated side - we could have talked more about evidence-based marketing, and customer evidence platform, or maybe a compromise w/social proof - but these don't inherently mean anything to most people - and require explanation. We figured we had about 12-15 seconds of initial readtime on average when someone lands on the site (our analytics supported this), so we ultimately decided to lead with Understandability, to hopefully earn the attention span to then go Elevate the Value Prop around how customer evidence is more than testimonials and case studies. We also leaned into using a ton of enterprise-level customer proof w/testimonials and logos from Gong, HPE, Broadcom, Splunk, Coupa, SentinelOne, Pendo, etc - to clearly indicate we're a enterprise-level B2B-only solution. We decided our goal/metric to optimize is getting people interested enough in taking the meeting (even if they may think we're a lower cost solution), and we're confident our sales team will do a good job of elevating our story once the prospect is on the call. Great work Alex Eaton and Mark Huber, and thank to the FletchPMM team for the guidance! How did we do? #productmarketing #customermarketing

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10 Things we've done for our Open Org Members over the last few weeks... 📖 Employee Handbook Build ⭐ Career Site Messaging & Positioning 📄 Compensation Philosophy Review 🌱 How to define the role of a Manager 🔮 Creation of a Transparency Philosophy ❤️ Annual Health-Check via our Open Culture Framework ⚙ Internal Workshop Design 📊 People Metric Benchmarking via peoplemetrics.fyi 💰 Becoming Pay Transparent 🎁 EVP Discovery & Activation Getting to work with companies & people leaders on things like this, all with the goal of building healthier, more open, transparent places of work is AWESOME 🖤 #Transparency #OpenOrg #PeopleOps

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💰 Attn: Are you a founder or CEO prepping for fundraising? Or a GTM pro who works for one? You’ll want to check out our (2) new templates: 📚 Interactive fundraising deck: https://lnkd.in/eCECjnG5 📚 Executive summary: https://lnkd.in/e7SfggGf Even though AssetMule was designed to help GTM teams better engage prospects with interactive sales assets, we’ve started to see an influx of founders signing up to build their fundraising assets. And it makes total sense. Just like buyers, investors are overwhelmed with the amount of pitches coming their way and are harder to reach than ever before. Founders need new ways to rise above the noise and earn their attention. And that’s exactly what AssetMule is designed to do. Not only will these templates help you pull your core fundraising assets together in a fraction of the time & with less effort, but they’ll help you engage investors in a more meaningful way and book more pitch meetings. Check out Justin Dorfman's demo below & sign up for AssetMule to get started for free: https://lnkd.in/efkfwj7i #startups #ceos #founders #fundraising #saas

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There's something weird happening in EdTech. Have you noticed? Is it just me? I'm seeing an increase in people trying to enter EdTech. Vendors and consultants without EdTech experience trying to niche down to work with EdTech startups. Founders without education experience trying to build and launch EdTech products for K12. I'm not an educator. I'm a marketer. I've spent my entire career in mission-driven roles, and a large portion of that in mission-driven #b2b #k12 #edtech. Two things I want these people to know: 1) EdTech is by and for educators for a reason. The process of teaching and learning is complex. If your product is designed to support any part of that process, then ... if you're not an educator, your co-founder should be. 2) EdTech is not just another b2b vertical. EdTech is mission-to-mission, even when your go-to-market model is b2b. Even for venture-backed EdTech startups, growth isn't just a transaction. We're measuring impact as well as profit. There's a reason we say "partners" instead of "customers." If your mission is to be profitable, educators will smell that from 10,000 miles away. If your mission is aligned with the mission your educators are on, educators will sense that just as easily. So...if you're an agency or consultant trying to help edtech startups with sales and marketing, and you're not experienced in this space, you need to pull in someone who is. If you're in it for the right reasons, if you're on a real mission, if you've got the right people in your founding team, go to it. If any of those things are a bit off, think more about what you're doing, why, for whom, and with whom.

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Lead sources < campaign outcomes. If you're managing a complex GTM motion, origination is interesting but likely a (first) point in time that's part of dozens if not hundreds of interactions across the buying committee and buying journey. Sixteen years ago, with my very first client, we took data from CRM and ran a regression analysis to see which campaigns appeared to have the most influence on closed-won deals. Heavy on the word "appeared" as causation was (and is) a big question. Sixteen years later, it's still clear that a campaign mentality is what's necessary to predictably build and manage B2B pipelines and forecasts. We may still be chasing that elusive attribution solution, but along the way we've learned for sure that: 1️⃣ No single variable, tactic or source can get full credit for the deal 2️⃣ Some tactics and campaigns are better than others at accelerating urgency and consensus-building 3️⃣ Closed-won deals have a history of a LOT of campaigns over a long period of time Yes there are outliers, but you can't build a practicable/scalable business on outliers. Into 2025: 🔥 Create a campaign mentality and culture for managing demand programs 🔥 As best as possible track all who are exposed to the campaign, not just those who respond 🔥 Don't be afraid of old-school regression analyses that can help you make more confident decisions that create more likely outcomes

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PMs, be the founder of your product We take it for granted that founders send regular updates to their investors. If they’re not (or can’t), usually it’s because the company is in trouble. Your stakeholders are no different. If your senior leaders, inmediate team, and dependent stakeholders can’t all tell a simple story of where you’re at, what you need, and where you’re going, you’re going to lose funding soon — even if your product is performing. A weekly update email is a simple way to keep people in the loop. It will feel like screaming into the void. Before long though, you’ll meet colleagues who know you through your updates and support your vision through your sheer persistence of talking about it. What do you practice to bring your stakeholders along for the journey?

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"Know your customers as well as your brothers and sisters" This was one of my favorite pieces of advice from one of my favorite product managers at Google: Josh Woodward. This is also why I'm a huge advocate for beta tester programs for early-stage products. Engaging with your customers from the outset allows you to deeply understand their needs and ensures they play a role in shaping your product over time. But how do you actually run a beta tester program? Topics like "how to run a beta program" related to finding product-market fit are crucial, yet tactical and useful insights are scarce as the builders in the trenches are often too busy to have the time to share their learnings broadly. Which is why I'm happy to do so for them. I had the privilege of meeting and chatting with a few founders like Jessica Liu, Joe Xizhi Lu, Khaled Benguerba and more, and here's what I learned: - Knowing the right number of people to bring into your beta from your waitlist is a balancing act. Begin with a small group to gain detailed insights, then gradually increase the number as you enhance the features. However, avoid expanding too quickly to prevent high turnover. - Launch early. Launching an MVP with less than 60% of the desired features is okay. Often, your early adopters are eager to provide feedback that helps you develop and add the missing features over the following months. - Don't rush to a public launch - wait until you have your "must-have" features sorted - Building community is a great way to build trust and engage users over time, even before they have access to the product - Be an absolute learning machine - e.g., build touchpoints for collecting feedback even within the product

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Another INDUSTRY in the books. Thank you Mike Belsito, Paul McAvinchey, and all of Product Collective for once again putting on a pitch-perfect product conference with real experiences, valuable insights, and above all else, fabulous people (including Tami Reiss, Maggie Crowley, Yana Welinder, Bob Moesta, Quincy Olatunde, John Haggerty, Sean Flaherty, and more). Stay tuned for a recording of my talk along with a copy of my deck. #INDUSTRYConf #productmanagement #strategy

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As an early-stage Chief of Staff, I often talk to folks who are looking for CoS roles. I get asked a lot of similar questions and want to share my answers for anyone who's pursuing this path: 1️⃣ What does a CoS actually do? CoS's are all different. At a company as young as Aomni, Chief of Staff is a "white space" generalist role, meaning I take on any business priorities that our founder/future execs don't own themselves. Today that means Ops, Sales (in partnership w CEO), Marketing, Customer Support and certain Product tasks. 2️⃣ How can I find CoS opportunities at startups? I don't think it's a good use of time to apply cold. This is because CoS hiring at startups is highly trust-based and the market is crazy rn. Unless you have a sterling resume, you're going to lose out to competitors in the CEO's network already. Instead, leverage your network to develop relationships. Look for opportunities to start on a freelance basis where you can build trust before the job is even posted. Consider different roles at the right company where you can evolve into a CoS over time. 3️⃣ How can I stand out to hiring managers? Same thing as #2 -- it's all about relationships. Demonstrate that you can perform well in the role and add value as a trusted partner to the CEO/exec team, whatever that takes. 4️⃣ What's the hardest part of the CoS role? The biggest thing is stress. You don't have the same level of responsibility as the CEO, of course, but the pressure they experience reaches you via osmosis. I'm always trying to improve how I manage stress. 5️⃣ Do I need to have consulting or banking experience, or an MBA? Absolutely not. My somewhat irrational and biased opinion is that these experiences are actually anti-signals about one's fit for the job at a startup (probably not the same at a big company). Many people with these backgrounds are uncomfortable without structure, inflexible and unwilling to do grunt work. Effective CoS's at startups are highly curious learners, resourceful operators and great first-principles thinkers. As long as you can demonstrate these traits you're golden. --- I also want to shout out some communities that anyone in this space should have on their radar: Ask a Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff Network and Generalist World are 3 of my faves. Always happy to answer questions and support new and aspiring CoS's in any way I can!

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why are companies failing at compensation? 💰 Harvard Business Review published our research on this! here's the bottom line: your compensation model MUST match your company stage: → problem market fit → product market fit → platform market fit are you using standard comp models? that's why: → goals aren't being hit → teams aren't moving forward → unnecessary firing happens the solution lies in aligning compensation with your business stage want to learn more? check out our research on this… what stage is your company in? love, Sangram p.s. drop your questions below - let's talk comp! 👇 #SalesComp #GTM #HBR #BusinessStrategy

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First joining Navattic - I honestly knew nothing about product marketing (I thought it was just like product launches). Turns out I'm not the only one. I've talked to so many marketers and first-time PMMs who also don't really know what a founding PMM's job should look like. Luckily, early on at Navattic, we started working with Jason Oakley as an advisor and he taught me so much about the strategy + day-to-day of the role. That’s why I’m so excited for the launch of The PMM Jetpack. It’s full of templates, examples, and playbooks that Jason has found and created over the years. Not surprisingly my favorite parts are the Playbook + Template for interactive demo storyboarding (see below). I've recommended them to SO many clients. And for the next 48 hours it’s 50% off 💰 I got early access and honestly, I don't believe it's only $125 right now. That is like a lifetime of knowledge about PMM work + every resource you could ever need for the price of one fancy dinner in New York. p.s. Product marketers, please don't come at me I know you do a lot more than product launches now.

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How does a Senior Product Manager go from layoff to landing a Staff Product Manager role with a significant compensation increase? Join us as we chat with Nora Hughes, a seasoned product manager with a decade of experience in the tech industry. Nora shares her journey from being laid off in October to navigating the challenging job market. She talks about her initial struggles, including the overwhelm of job searching during the holidays, dealing with COVID-19, and the loneliness that came with it. Nora discusses how she discovered the Intentional Job Search (IJS) program and her thought process before joining. She highlights the program's structure and quality and how it helped her regain focus, prioritize effectively, and build confidence in her job search strategy. In this candid conversation, Nora also reveals her aha moments, including the value of peer interviews and the comprehensive support from the IJS community. She explains how the program's personalized coaching and strategic guidance were pivotal in helping her land a dream role as a Staff Product Manager in AI and ML at a large public company, achieving a significant pay raise and working alongside best-in-class professionals. If you're curious about how the IJS program can transform your job search and career trajectory, this video is a must-watch. Nora's story is a testament to the power of structured support and intentional effort in achieving career success. Key Moments in this Episode ======================== 00:00 - About Nora 01:00 - Challenges before IJS 02:45 - How Nora decided to join the program 07:30 - Nora's experience in IJS 17:30 - Negotiations 20:00 - Her message for you https://lnkd.in/eHEBAxpQ

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