Mark Donne

Positioning is everything for job seekers right now. > The Product Manager who owns the roadmap... vs. the one who's turned user research into a competitive advantage > The Partnerships Manager who "has a deep rolodex" vs. the one who knows how to monetize > The Eng Director who's led teams of 30 vs. the one who's brought revenue-generating products to market with speed and efficiency Same people. Two different ways of talking about their experience. One makes them sound like everybody. The other lands interviews. Do you know what your competitive advantage is?

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Unsolicited feedback is the biggest gift you can get as a founder. But here’s the trap many early-stage founders fall into: The moment someone shares feedback, they immediately jump into defense mode—justifying their thought process, decisions, or product vision. Here’s the truth: feedback, resistance, and even challenges are invaluable because they expose you to perspectives you may not have considered. The key isn’t to justify—it’s to listen, observe, and dig deeper. 👉 Here’s a perspective to think about: A friend recently shared how they felt humiliated after being insulted by a colleague in public. It’s a tough situation, no doubt. But it was also their first experience handling such a moment. If approached with the right mindset, this moment becomes a gift — a chance to learn and be better prepared next time. 👉 The same applies to feedback: Someone giving you feedback means they see potential—they care enough to want you to improve. But not everyone is articulate in their feedback delivery. Sometimes, frustration or disappointment is just a poorly communicated desire for something better. The best thing you can do? • Listen verbatim. Resist the urge to customize your response. • Stay curious. Ask questions. Understand the underlying decision-making process behind their feedback. • And most importantly, use their input as a tool for root cause analysis (RCA) rather than rushing to defend. I’m sharing this because I’ve made this mistake myself. As a founder, our natural instinct is to defend our work—it’s personal. But the sooner we let go of this mindset, the faster our offering can improve. So, here’s my advice: Feedback isn’t an attack; it’s an opportunity. Wishing all of us a lot of feedback this week ❤️ 😅 #Feedback #FoundersMindset #StartupLife #Growth #Curiosity

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Lots of misconceptions about what product-led growth really is. So I sat down with the man himself, Wes Bush to go deep on: - what PLG really means - Who it's for (and who it's not for) - How you can think about implementing a true PLG motion in your business. Even if you're sales-led today, this is a great listen cause it talks to the psychology of a buyer a lot. https://lnkd.in/d4VvJmru

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For a long time, I had very naive ideas about prioritization. Here's what I've learned over the years. 1. Unless you are a tiny startup, your company is designed to do multiple high-priority things at once. The argument, "Well, if everything is high priority, nothing is high priority," almost never works (while rational). The 🐘 in the room is that the mix of high-priority things has changed, and the org design is no longer fit for purpose. What seems rational to you—oh, obviously that team is overwhelmed and we need to set priorities—is, behind the scenes, "Crap, we got the budget wrong for that group. Anyone want to contribute? No? Hmmm. Surely they are inefficient and can juggle more than one thing, right?" See below. 2. Most senior execs know that the plans will change. They know that by March, there will be a new set of priorities. So they focus on budgets, not priorities. So when you see lackluster strategies and vague priorities, remember that there is a whole other prioritization activity that centers around the allocation of money, how people get bonuses, very back-of-the-napkin revenue attribution models, etc. 3. Humans, in general, are not great at building a mental model for capacity. Capacity in software is hard. People aren't fungible. The architecture is what it is. You can't have huge teams. You are building the factory (to meet the needs of a strategy) AND the factory is building "the product." Oh, it isn't a factory: it is more like gardening. This is important because our mental models for what we are prioritizing (e.g., focus, capacity, typing, bandwidth, etc.) are often all over the place. 4. Most companies are not progressive when it comes to thoughtful re-orgs, org redesign, reallocating capacity, etc. The simple thinking is: "If we stop doing X, then we should let those people go because they fit in this cell on the spreadsheet." People too heavily couple the finance spreadsheets with one-row-per-person, and the (most often useless and made-up) % allocations to things. This means that basic things like having priorities and reducing work in progress are fraught with very justified fears around layoffs. To some, a pristine list of force-ranked priorities looks like heaven. FINALLY, we can make decisions. To others, it is NOT GOOD. This is why efforts to visualize WIP often turn into Game of Thrones. There's a silver lining with all this! If you are aware of these tendencies, you can figure out approaches to prioritization that can nudge the org in the right direction. Knowing that the theoretically pristine force-ranked list of efforts is likely not possible, you can devise other strategies like building more realistic models with finance and being more open to "everything in high priority" yet focusing on the actual conflicts/trade-off decisions, etc. And embrace products like Runway and DoubleLoop that engage people in tangible discussions about how $s flow into outcomes and then back into your core models.

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Creator-led brands are leading the next wave of $1B+ consumer brands like Feastables and Skims. Want to learn how? Come join us tomorrow (Thursday) at VidCon at 10:45a. I'll be joined by an amazing panel -- Jacquelyn Kalić, Saurabh Shah, Jon Leland, and Lauren Schnipper as we dive into these trends (and how to get started!) Whether you want to sell hot sauces, candies, apparel, digital subscriptions, or more, we're here to discuss how to grow your brand from $0-$10M, $10-$100M, and eventually $100M-$1B. And how creators-led brands are at the forefront of driving this success.

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This week, LinearB launched a new GTM strategy centered on modern software engineering challenges. I.e. we rebranded our website 😁 https://linearb.io/ Typically, it's easy for those of us in Developer Advocacy / Relations to sit on the sidelines for these types of projects since they often take place deep within the realm of marketing, design, and growth optimization. But, LinearB needed our brand to reflect the reality of what it takes for modern software engineering initiatives to be successful: they require buy-in at all levels of the organization, from the executive team down to the individual developer. Developers are under constant pressure to improve productivity, deliver code on a predictable schedule, and justify investments in the things that improve their lives. This is not to mention the uncertain future of the paradigm shift that's occurring as we transition toward GPT-driven software development. It's no wonder that engineering leaders are looking for solutions to better understand how to navigate these complexities. Early in this process, I unexpectedly found myself at the center of solving how we communicate our position to engineering organizations. This has been an extraordinary growth opportunity from which I've learned a bunch, and I couldn't be more proud of what we pulled together for this launch. Of course, none of it would be possible without all of the incredible people we have at LinearB.

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Product marketers! I've recently compiled all my resources and templates into a fun little Notion gallery on my website (If you can't tell, I'm kind of a Notion fangirl...). If you're looking for a messaging and positioning framework/canvas, a case study interview questionnaire, buyer persona template, I gotchu! 💪 Will link my website in the Comments section. What other templates/PMM resources are folks needing these days? What do ya'll need help with?

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⭐ Start Up Reality Check - Getting to Product Market Fit ⭐ Clay’s Path to Product-Market Fit — A 7-Year 'Overnight Success' Clay co-founder and CEO Kareem Amin sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson for a behind-the-scenes look at how he grappled with narrowing Clay’s scope and tactics for landing on the right ICP. In the earliest days of building, the founder is the company. Their fingerprints are pressed across every nook and cranny of the business — each decision, hire and product feature. Most early-stage investors will tell you (us included) that the strength of the founding team is the single most important factor in whether a business sinks or swims early on. While some might tout that it’s the tangible stats here that matter most (like the founder’s previous experiences), Clay co-founder Kareem Amin believes that it goes many layers deeper. “Your personality plays a major role in your success because building a company exaggerates all of your traits. You’re influencing how things get done — for better or for worse. So you need to be able to clearly see what is going on in the organization and how your personality is being amplified through this process,” Amin say Read the Rest of the Article Here https://shorturl.at/Nm9vT 😀 👈 #startups #tech

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💡 Founders & hiring managers: How do you attract top-tier design talent to your startup? It’s not just about the paycheck—here’s what really matters: 1️⃣ Business Stability: Designers want assurance that your company isn’t going under in 6 months. Share facts and figures—demonstrate financial health, runway, and growth trajectory. 2️⃣ Sell Your Product: Why is it the best? How is it different from competitors? Showcase your product’s innovation and long-term vision. Designers want to contribute to something meaningful and scalable. 3️⃣ Design’s Role: A+ designers want to join companies that value design as critical to product success. When design is integral to your strategy, you’ll attract those who can take it to the next level. Boom! 🚀 #DesignLeadership #Startups #Hiring

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Founders: if your early customers are already telling you what they'll pay, here's how to turn those numbers into pricing intelligence I was chatting with the founder of an amazing early-stage edtech product who has customers asking to buy his solution before he's even finished building v1! An amazing position to be in for such a tough market, but it came with a challenge – each customer proposed a wildly different price they were willing to pay. If a customer is already proposing prices, it can seem scary to say or do anything that might make them change their mind! But they clearly buy into your vision and want to help, so this is a big opportunity to do some detective work. Here are three questions that have consistently revealed hidden pricing insights in our research: #1: "I'm curious, how did you come up with that number?" This disarming question has revealed hidden budget thresholds, approval processes, and even competitor pricing in our research. One client of mine discovered their customers had a fast-track approval process for anything under £15K – intelligence that shaped their entire pricing strategy. #2: "What other solutions or initiatives have you already put in place to address this problem?" This question does two things: it shows they are serious about solving the problem if they are already buying things (a leading indicator of PMF), and it reveals competitors you may not have considered. A good follow-up might then be "where do you see our solution sitting in this list?" #3: "What other products do you currently buy that you'd put in the same price band as us?" They probably have an unrelated subscription or service that is in the same ballpark. You're not asking how much these things are, but you can go and work that out later – giving you concrete reference points for your pricing decisions. This intelligence will help you establish hypotheses about your price. It does not give you the exact number, but it does give you the space where that number lives. If you're building something new, you can't do a big conjoint study - you need real-world context. I wrote several detailed guides last year on qualitative research for early-stage product pricing (they're all on my company page if you're interested, give it a follow while you're there 😉). Wrestling with pricing decisions for your new product? I'd love to share more specific examples from our research. Drop a comment or DM me. If you're further along and looking for an actual pricing strategy, speak to my old friend Ian Tidswell (Ian, anything you'd add to these questions?) #startupresearch #priceresearch #startups #startupfounders (fun cartoon by Dall-E, with a few edits)

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Am I weird to think that this is evidence of a design team having a lot of bandwidth/time on their hands - and that it kinda takes the creativity out of design? I realize that for Spotify, even a 1% improvement in conversion can represent millions of dollars, so that's important to consider. And of course it's worth taking into account low bandwidth and accessibility use cases, eg the main design has an image, but it gets dropped on weak signal, etc. But as a designer, The Work is also about aesthetics and taste. It's about delight and joy. It's about the experience as a whole - not just if a thing gets 0.05% more clicks. I'd argue that while Spotify's logo is green and black, sure, its brand is about the artists, the music, and the connection and love we all have with sound. Weaving that into the homescreen, even to the slight detriment of conversion, feels like a no-brainer. Just my $0.02 of course.

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Curious about what top Product Leaders are reading right now? Here are the top 5 pieces of content shared in Supra this month: 1/"How to work with exec recruiters." Colin Lernell interviews Bobby Gormson, Partner at True Search, who reveals strategies for landing executive roles. Bobby covers building reputation, crafting impactful LinkedIn profiles, and creating standout "Executive Blurbs." He explains the differences between search firms and provides practical tips for enhancing your job search strategy. https://lnkd.in/dwAjTN3w 2/"An Unfiltered Look into Product Leadership" by HEARD. Through their research study with the Product Leadership Summit, HEARD explores product leadership beyond functional tasks, examining social and emotional demands. The study provides unique insights into what it truly takes to succeed in product leadership today. https://lnkd.in/dRhAWNZc 3/"Beyond the resume: master the art of telling your career story" by Nikhyl Singhal. This article/workshop will help you craft a compelling 30-second career overview that captivates your audience. Perfect for professionals looking to enhance their personal brand through powerful storytelling. https://lnkd.in/dPrhnBfg 4/ "How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant" by the WSJ. The article explores how ChatGPT's emergence led to Chegg losing over half a million subscribers and 99% of its stock value. Despite developing AI tools and partnering with OpenAI and Scale AI, Chegg struggles as students increasingly prefer ChatGPT (62%) over their service (30%). https://lnkd.in/dWYQZDj7 5/ "Product Management Is Dead, So What Are We Doing Instead?" by Claire Vo. She explores why traditional product management is dying, how AI is transforming product development, and the emergence of AI-powered "triple threats" who combine product, design, and engineering skills. Learn how to stay relevant and manage AI-powered product teams. https://lnkd.in/dC7S26AG What other great content did you read this month? For context, I run Supra, a private community of high-caliber product leaders. Our members share fantastic pieces via our Slack channel. --- Enjoy this? Follow Marc Baselga for similar posts.

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Hiring talent at scale? It’s hard 🔪 Especially when your startup is in rapid growth mode, you can't afford to hit pause just because your team isn’t complete yet. 🤷‍♂️ Currently, NexHire is working with a dev agency that needed to hire an entire team of developers, designers, and administrative staff from scratch—while simultaneously kicking off their new projects. It’s a high-stakes balancing act: scaling up a team while keeping projects on track. If you’ve been in a similar situation, you know how intense it can be. Fortunately, NexHire makes it easy. 👻

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🔍 Product-Market Fit, Simplified In this insightful post, Burak Buyukdemir breaks down the concept of product-market fit (PMF) in a straightforward and practical way. Achieving PMF is a critical milestone for any startup, as it signifies that a product resonates with its target audience and has the potential for scalable growth. At Zenith Venture Studio, we know that establishing PMF is key to success in the B2B AI SaaS space, and we work closely with founders to refine their products for maximum market impact. Check out Burak’s post here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gp2WzSRb #ProductMarketFit #PMF #B2BAISaaS #VentureStudios #StartupGrowth

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Most founders overcomplicate Product-Market Fit. Here's what it actually looks like: • Your customers can't shut up about you • Growth feels effortless • Sales cycles get shorter, not longer • Support tickets change from "how to" to "what else" But here's the truth bomb 💣 You don't find Product-Market Fit. It finds you. Think about Uber's early days: People were BEGGING for invite codes. Users became voluntary salespeople. Growth was impossible to stop. That's what PMF feels like. Here's my simple checklist to know if you've hit it: 1. The Pull Test ⚡ - Are customers coming to you? - Or are you chasing them? 2. The Referral Test 🗣 - Do users actively share your product? - Without rewards or incentives? 3. The "Very Disappointed" Test 💔 - Ask: "How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?" - If >40% say "very disappointed" - you're onto something 4. The Sales Test 💪 - Are deals closing faster? - Is price becoming less of an issue? 5. The Sleep Test 😴 - Do you wake up to more signups? - Instead of more problems? The brutal truth? If you're wondering whether you have Product-Market Fit... You probably don't. When you have it, you KNOW. It feels like riding a rocket ship 🚀 Not pushing a boulder uphill. Remember: - PMF is not binary - it exists on a spectrum - It can be achieved in segments before full market - It needs to be maintained and can be lost - Different businesses show different PMF signals - Focus on trends over absolute numbers - Consider your specific market context ----- ♻️Like, Comment, Share Follow Startup Vencha for more, Stop Thinking & Start Doing.

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Maria Otteson and I had an eventful week at the Product Marketing Alliance Summit! I learned a ton and connected with some really interesting product marketers. Here's the highlights: 🎯 Differentiation is everything! In a world where buying behaviors shift, people buy in groups, and influencers play a key role, staying ahead means consistent innovation and knowing your customers inside out. 🤔 Unique value proposition? Think outside-in! It’s not about what we want to sell—it’s about what customers care about. (Use their feedback as your secret weapon.) 📈 Strategy success = alignment across the board. From sales to websites to KPIs, it’s all about a cohesive story. And when do you shift positioning? When your customers tell you it’s time. Ask, listen, and adapt. 🎥 B2C has its bold branding moments, but B2B? That’s about connection, trust, and staying top of mind for when buyers are ready to act. (Big tip: Humanizing your narrative beats a tech dump every time.) 🌟 Here's to building companies that truly resonate with their buyers.

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Tuesday tip from BizNest on how personas can be used in #productdiscovery to prioritize the opportunities you find. TLDR: You can't build something for EVERYONE - so understanding which personas will benefit most from the research help to move the needle. WHY❓ Personas help focus your product discovery by giving a clear, human-centered lens through which to view your insights. This helps you prioritize features and improvements that will make the biggest impact for specific user groups. WHAT 💡 Here’s how to use personas effectively: 1. Identify Key User Segments: Break down your audience into distinct personas based on real data. Include pain points, goals, and behaviors. 2. Align Discovery Insights: Filter the feedback and insights you gather through the lens of each persona. Which pain points are more relevant for each user type? 3. Prioritize by Persona Impact: Prioritize development opportunities that have the highest value for your most critical personas—those who drive revenue, engagement, or strategic goals. YOUR TURN Do you use personas in your product discovery process Jason Knight, Gregorio Manzanera, Andrea Saez? What are the pros and cons of using personas to dissect insights from discovery? Let's discuss below! 😎 #ProductDiscovery #UserPersonas #ProductManagement #UXResearch Also, stay tuned this week for another article on #journeymapping! 🚀

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