Scaling Smarter: Rachel Owens on Refining Product-Market Fit and Unlocking Growth

Introduction to Product Management and Scaling

Rina Alexin | 00:04.889–01:05.154

you on full screen, but you don’t seem to be, now you’re working. Okay, great. All right. Hi everyone. And welcome to Productside stories, the podcast where we reveal the very real and raw lessons learned from product leaders and thinkers all over the world. I’m your host, Rina Alexin, the CEO of Productside. And today I have the pleasure to be speaking with Rachel Owens, a product executive that specializes in scaling B2B SaaS products.

and driving product-led growth. She has a record of growing AI and workflow automation platforms from 1 million to 10 million in under a year. Rachel, I really need to know how you do that. And she has a background in leading product at both startups and Fortune 500 companies. Rachel excels at refining product market fit and optimizing go-to-market strategies for high-growth businesses. And that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about today.

Rachel, welcome.

Rachel Owens | 01:05.154–01:08.095

Thanks so much for having me, Rina Alexin. I’m really happy to be here.

Rina Alexin | 01:08.095–01:22.668

And I’m excited to talk to you because it’s one thing to build a product, it’s another thing to truly scale it. And with that, I really want to hear your story. That’s the first question I always like to ask is what got you into product management to begin with?

Rachel Owens | 01:22.668–03:44.44

I think I might have a story that’s different than so many people. A little bit unique. I think a lot of people think that products started or the role of products started in the 2000s. And actually I have, I was the daughter of a man who was an engineer term product manager after he got his MBA. And so like, can tell you it’s been around forever, but he always called himself the director of things and stuff or the head of things and stuff, depending on what his role was at the time. And that really helped me start to understand that.

Business is not just engineers and sales and training and finance. And I started realizing that there’s these roles that kind of play these cross-functional components where you have to be an expert in the market and then also an expert in how you can solve pains. And I started kind of looking for how I can play in that space. So I came out of college and started out in like sales and then went into operations and strategy. After grad school, I actually took a role

As funny as it might sound, I didn’t go back into tech right away after grad school. I took a role and went to build a large $50 million sports complex in New York City, converting one of New York’s first municipal airports into a public-private sports complex. And that actually was my first, as weird as it might sound, my first role as a product manager. That wasn’t my title, but in the end, that’s what I did. My job was to go out and understand

who the market was, the surrounding communities of the five boroughs of New York City, who was the most likely to come there, what were the sports that they would want, understanding our partnership with the National Park Services, because we were our national land, and Gateway National Recreation Area, and then understanding who our marketing partners could be, who our technology partners could be, what restrictions we had because of the physical makeup of the land and the buildings that we were going to inhabit. And all of that combined, that allowed us to go from construction

to opening our doors in a couple of years and all of a sudden going from two employees when I started to 200 when we opened. And that really was my first approach and job doing product management. Figure out everything from like, again, what facilities we’re gonna have, what events we were gonna have, what technology we were gonna have to support those people, how we’re gonna take their money, et cetera. And then from there, I actually went and founded my own startup called MyRingGuard. It was an early to market IOT company.

Rachel Owens | 03:44.44–04:43.747

that I launched in, I wrote the business plan in 2008, launched it, brought it to market, licensed out the IP, and eventually went and stayed in the IoT space for a little while, working for and went to work in health tech, helping long-term healthcare facilities better manage their residents and the patients quality of life. All of that, then that all like it seems it’s funny, product management to me is such a role that’s so important.

helping businesses figure out who their market is, what the pains are, and how to solve them. That for me, the transition from that to B2B SaaS actually ended up being quite seamless. And from there, I just started helping other startups and ended up being mostly exclusively from there on SaaS startups, figuring out what the problems were for the markets that they were trying to get access to and what was the best way for them to solve the pains of the and drive their products.

the growth of their own products.

Rina Alexin | 04:43.747–04:58.232

So Rachel, I love asking this question because you’re absolutely right. I never hear the same story twice. It’s just impossible. But hold on a second. I have to ask because as a former, I guess, former Brooklyn resident, did you help launch Aviator?

Rachel Owens | 04:58.232–05:00.031

I was, yes, I did launch Aviator. Yes, so I was, it was my first job out of grad school and Steven Gluckstern, who was the former, one of the former leads for reinsurance for Warren Buffett. And then he was the CEO of Zurich Financial, think it was Zurich Capital. He was a principal investor that went in there to partner with the National Park Service to turn Aviator or Floyd Bennett Field into a national, into a.

Rina Alexin | 05:00.031–05:25.017

What? That’s insane!

Rina Alexin | 05:25.017–05:27.118

Holy shit. My goodness.

Rachel Owens | 05:27.118–05:40.215

fully benefit into a large public private sports complex. So I went in there as the only hire after the CEO to figure out what the complex was gonna be, what market we were gonna serve, including you, Rina Alexin, and figure out how we could bring it to market.

Rina Alexin | 05:40.215–05:54.958

I can’t even tell you how many, I have many memories in the aviator. Well, I have a few. I think other people have even more, but sure, I grew up volleyball. I think I took my little brother to the ice rink over there when he was really.

Rachel Owens | 05:54.958–06:04.631

That was actually the only requirement that the National Park Service had is that we would have ice rinks in there because of the nature of the building itself. that was actually beyond that we had to figure everything else out, how we’re going to take money, how we’re going to charge, like so all the technology stuff, how we’re going to lay out the facility, who is going to run the different sports, what sports we’re going to have, what events and programs we’re going to have. And so again, I think all of that product management to me, it’s the same as

Rina Alexin | 06:04.631–06:24.814

love it. I had no idea.

Rachel Owens | 06:24.814–06:40.279

I think of it as it’s been around for so long. People think it’s so new. If you think about consumer packaged goods, they’ve called it brand management. And that’s kind of what all of this is. It’s like, how do you go in and figure out, know who your market is and bring them something that they need that resolves pain.

Rina Alexin | 06:40.279–06:42.914

Yeah. And being a facilitator, I think of the vision and then the execution. It’s absolutely what product management is. And I side with you, we at Productside, we celebrate product management day on May 13th to commemorate.

Rachel Owens | 06:42.914–06:53.282

That’s right.

Rachel Owens | 06:53.282–07:02.103

Wait, can I ask you, I’m I’m gonna stop us real quick. I feel, is there any, I we went way far in, is there any way we can kind of start? I feel terrible about the way I’m presenting myself. I don’t know, I feel like it’s been a bit rambly and repetitive. Has it been okay on your side?

Rina Alexin | 07:02.103–07:10.937

Why?

Understanding Product Market Fit

Rina Alexin | 07:10.937–07:12.522

Yeah, I think it’s the opposite. It’s unique. It’s it’s authentic

Rachel Owens | 07:12.522–07:20.201

Okay. Really? Well, I would be happy to tell the same story, but I just felt like it got messy. That’s all. But if you’re okay with it, it’s fine.

Rina Alexin | 07:20.201–07:34.285

no. I’m not finding it to be messy, but I think you know what? I understand like the quiet, that part of your brain, if it was rambly, I would tell you. Like I’ll actually pause us and say, can we redo that? So you can trust me to do it.

Rachel Owens | 07:34.285–07:37.88

Yeah.

Rachel Owens | 07:37.88–07:49.515

Okay.

Okay, fair enough. I wasn’t sure if as I got to the rest of my story, but how it transitioned to like my own startup and the other stuff, if that just kind of got really messy. Okay.

Rina Alexin | 07:49.515–07:58.698

It’s no, no, no, it’s okay. You’re, you’re fine, to share. I like, I like digging it. Cause I mean, I have a, you know, I understand aviator. So it’s fun to kind of like talk. yeah. So that’s where I was.

Rachel Owens | 07:58.698–08:07.789

No, this, the aviator stuff, actually think is a really important part. Like this part, I think people don’t understand. Like that to me really is the crux of like what product is like in a way that like is tangible. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.

Rina Alexin | 08:07.789–08:19.406

Well, I was about to, and I’m about to get into the product refining work. Okay, so look, so I’m gonna actually start back from just agreeing with you about the, okay, and then we can go. No, don’t, anytime, anytime. It’s not that hard to restart. Robin, tell her it’s not that hard to restart. She edits this afterwards, actually her and Kim. So, okay.

Rachel Owens | 08:19.406–08:34.623

Sorry about that.

Rina Alexin | 08:34.623–08:48.641

And at Productside, we really do side with you. We actually celebrate Product Management Day on May 13th to commemorate that brand manager Procter & Gamble. See, now I’m saying it wrong. OK, let me redo that one. Pots. OK.

Rachel Owens | 08:48.641–08:57.483

No, you said it right.

Rina Alexin | 08:57.483–10:04.77

You know, at Productside, actually commemorate May 13th, because we’ve anointed it at product management day with that P and G memo that established brand management. And you’re absolutely right. It’s about facilitating. It’s a lot. It’s a big, big role. And I think a lot of product managers also need to understand that there’s a whole part of their role, which is not just the zero to one.

Right. Developing the product. Yeah. That’s the exciting part. In fact, when we, when I interview a lot of product managers, that’s what they care about, but it’s actually the business part afterwards. Uh, after you have a product out in market to understand how to commercialize it, uh, to understand all the different channels, distribution, who else might need it. And, uh, that’s a skillset. Not everybody has. So I’d love to invite you maybe to kind of share, uh, when you have been taking a product from that’s, you know, it’s out in market.

And I think you actually coined the term or talk about it as refining product market fit versus finding product market fit. What exactly does that mean?

Rachel Owens | 10:04.77–12:21.068

So I like to think of it as some people think the moment they found revenue, they found a product market fit or the moment they found some select group of people that where the pain is acute enough that they’re in and the product is an exact fit that they found product market fit. The problem ends up being for a lot of them is they’ll get to a certain point in revenue. Let’s say it’s a million dollars and they kind of plateau.

They can’t figure the rest of their pipeline, like comes in down the funnel and they can’t get it to close. And the reason is because they need refinement to their product market fit. That could oftentimes mean that they need to better understand the use case that their product really applies to and not an individual one or two user personas that it applies to. So as an example, if you’re building a user onboarding tool or employee onboarding tool, and you’ve built like an AI driven workflow automation tools, my team had done.

with an AI driven chat bot to help with onboard employees in mass faster. You can be like, you can get to a certain place and then all of a sudden you’re like, well, why is it not growing? Well, one, only so many companies might need to onboard hundreds of thousands of employees at a time, in which case like that onboarding and automation might be very important to do in a very structured, automated way that’s repeatable at that volume.

And yet what I can tell you is there’s a lot more companies that have the exact where this the same pain point, if not the exact same process can apply to change management, promotion management, other things like that. So what I say about refining product market fit, it’s understanding the market, not necessarily more broadly and expansively, but more broadly as far as open minded, right? So we’re going in and saying like my user persona might not just be the HR person that I’m selling this to.

and the person that they’re onboarding. But it really is to understand what’s the product market fit for the pain that I’m solving and does it exist beyond that one HR person or that one HR department of recruiting and does it expand to the other areas of HR where it’s like handling personnel management, change management, does it go into the CTIO’s office and handle like technology transformation management where you’re moving somebody from.

Rachel Owens | 12:21.068–13:20.089

like a Google platform to a Microsoft platform, I don’t know. But it could also, it’s really a better understanding of what your product is at its core and the true pain that it’s solving. And not that you’re going to market it for all of it, but it allows you to do more of that land and expand. Cause if you know the capabilities of your product, then you know how to speak to your clients about it more broadly. So that when that same employee that used it to get on boarded goes and actually finishes getting hired and then they actually have been around for a while.

and they’re thinking about, I now have this other process that I’m managing for my own team. Can I use a product that did that for me when I was getting onboarded and hired to help my own team through this transition? So that’s what I mean by refining product market fit. Some people might think of that as an expansion, but I don’t, because that’s not an expansion of the product. It’s not even an expansion of the market you’re selling it to. It’s more like a refined understanding of what problem your product is actually solving.

and all the different ways that it can provide that solution without making any changes at all.

Rina Alexin | 13:20.089–14:09.166

So then how do you find that, Rachel? Because I find that a lot of times when I talk to, especially in the private equity sector, investors wanting to take a product and bring it to a new market and find new use cases, they’re usually trying to do it backwards. They’re trying to say,

This is a good product, so other people must want it and let’s go after new markets versus what you’re talking about is really a deeper understanding of that core problem. So how do you, let’s say you’re, think of a product leader who’s under that objective of get into an adjacency. How do you make sure that they stay away from the chase a new market with the solution and instead start from the problem space?

Navigating Market Expansion and Use Cases

Rachel Owens | 14:09.166–15:09.463

So I think adjacency is the right word. It’s like, how do you move over? Like, how do you think of things incrementally? And it does start with that certain level of product expertise to really know what your product is doing at its core. And thinking about the problem that it’s actually solving. So again, what I described before with HR, the problem that it was solving was making sure people knew what their steps were to get, once the day they got started, to know all the paperwork that they had to fill out.

so that the chat bot could answer questions for them so that they knew where they could find their documents and all of those aspects of it. So where else does that apply? And where else does it apply? So it clearly is a people management, change management, but in a very specific way. So think about the way, you become an expert in your product itself and you know that product and truly how it’s solving the pain, you’ve got to think about what are the other…

very similar pains, if not the exact same pain, but where else does this pain pop its head up? All right, so like, is it, go ahead, I’m sorry.

Rina Alexin | 15:09.463–15:34.776

Yeah, no, I’m just trying to think because what you were kind of describing before, it’s, I guess there’s a number of different ways you can kind of go about this. One of them is to just truly understand the customer journey. And it’s almost like you were extending the customer journey. You’re, you know, you’re with that user during the onboarding. What other similar needs do they have later on? Is that what you’re kind of saying? Like just really understand that customer.

Rachel Owens | 15:34.776–16:29.955

So yes and, it could be understanding that same person’s needs later on, but it’s also saying like how, again, I think companies oftentimes there’s two ways that they start. They’re starting by either trying to boil the ocean where they like start with this huge product that’s trying to sell for everything that we can like kind of make your whole company work for you, or you’re starting out really niche and either way like refinement matters. So with a huge, when you go in with this huge value proposition of what you’re doing, it’s like,

understanding out where is your strength and where are going to go to market it first and making sure you really understand that value. The other way, which is what we’re talking about mostly right now, is you start out in a very narrow pain point area, but the product itself addresses that pain in a very, I don’t want to say generic way, but in a way that’s very structural.

Rina Alexin | 16:29.955–16:33.55

product.

Rachel Owens | 16:33.55–18:36.801

creating like a structural process, structure oftentimes can apply in many different ways. And we’ve got to figure out is like, OK, when you speak to your customers, not just the one that you have now, but you understand once they’ve started using it, them why they’re using it, how they’re using it, what value it’s adding. And then you can even ask them the question, how else could you see this product being used? Do you think it has value somewhere else?

And right away, those customers might already know other ways that they might see the value in that product. And they’ll just be like, well, we just need a different name of this field or slightly different variations. So in the one product that I used as an example before, unfortunately, the product was built in a way that was very specific for that HR onboarding use case. What that meant was the database itself was built in a way that was not scalable to other use cases.

that was very rigid in the way it was structured. But that’s not an insurmountable way of handling. Like that’s not insurmountable. So you go in and say, okay, I can make it so that the database is structured in a way that’s more nimble and I can change it so that my fields can have various names. Cause what might be a name that you need during onboarding might not be the same kind of field name or data set that you need later on. So those are minor changes that you can make. And I say minor, which is not fair to the engineers out there that have to do the work.

But if we just think about it theoretically, there are relatively small changes conceptually that you can apply to then say, okay, this employee contract or this NDA that has to get signed can now be this other document that has to be signed when someone’s getting promoted or when they’re learning how to use new software, or they’re going through a training program and they’re going through steps to show that they’ve learned these new skills. So all of those same things can really apply.

whether it’s like for training or onboarding and learning new and learning the processes of your new job. I don’t know if that answers your question.

Rina Alexin | 18:36.801–19:09.206

Yeah, so, yeah, so let me just ask this. Usually when I see product leaders get into trouble is when they are taking or given the directive to take a solution that’s pre-built and try to go find some other use case, right? Instead of what you’re kind of describing.

And I’m also curious because you mentioned that it could happen either when your product is meant for a broad market and you want to go niche-er, but I feel like most of the time I’m seeing niche products try to go broader, right?

Rachel Owens | 19:09.206–19:13.049

Yeah, I think what I meant was when you’re broad, you might need to refine who you’re going. Because the market, it’s, you know, have you ever heard, it’s much easier for people to kind of be expansive in how they think about something than refine it. So when you introduce yourself or a product in a way that’s so broad, people can’t figure out how to use it. Similarly, if you come in, but when you come in really narrow, they can figure out how to expand it. So going in with those narrow products, like the one I described, when you say, else do you think that a product like this could be useful to you?

Rina Alexin | 19:13.049–19:38.936

yes.

Rachel Owens | 19:38.936–19:50.103

they’ll be much more likely to figure out how they can use it elsewhere in their lives or in their companies than if you go in with this big, broad product and say, hey, do you have any place in your company where this could fit?

Rina Alexin | 19:50.103–20:43.852

Yeah, it’s almost like that glassy eyed look sometimes you get when you ask a really vague, like big question, which you’re genuinely curious about, but nobody can truly kind of get to a specific answer when you start too broad. So, okay, so I understand. what I’m, so then going back to this, you know, solution or technological solution chasing markets, I’m seeing it more and more right now in the context of AI, right? So where

There is a directive to build AI into the product. And AI is, of course, part of the solution set, not necessarily part of like, OK, is it part of the problem? Is it solving the problem in a unique way that’s faster, better, more efficient, et cetera? is there any advice, given that you have so much experience with scaling and refining, do you have any advice to share for a product leader that’s currently in that kind of situation? Or have you experienced it?

Rachel Owens | 20:43.852–23:03.576

I have, what I would tell you is, I think it’s always a not ideal or not too wise to come in with a technology and say, let me go figure out what I wanna go do with this. Often times you end up using a technology that’s not fit for purpose or it could be more expensive than what you actually need for the problem that needs to be solved, which means that you’re affecting your profit margins, you’re affecting all sorts of things.

An example of this is I was working for a company and they really wanted to use facial recognition. And this is like 10, 12 years ago, but the problem that they were trying to solve was security and gaining people access in and out of buildings or securing access in and out of buildings. And I mean out as well, because there are people that weren’t supposed to leave at times and they had to make sure that they could, they could protect those people. and they had this great idea of using facial recognition to do it.

And at the time though, one, that’s a really, it’s an expensive solution to be honest with you if you think about the entries and the exits of buildings and ways of passage, because now all of a sudden you’re putting in all this extra equipment, like video equipment, lighting, et cetera, when all of it, like when literally could you use a key? Could you use like a, could you use a key fob? Could you use, there’s so many different ways of doing it, right? Could you just use like a punch code?

that only some people had access to that changes based on time of day. Now, I’m not suggesting any of those are the solutions that we ended up using, but I’m saying there’s a lot of ways to address that problem. And then the downside of that problem was that facial recognition has, especially if you think about 12 years ago, has dilemmas. And if you’re dealing with a diverse population with different complexions and many different lightings in different buildings, then all of a sudden people that are supposed to get access can’t. And maybe people that are…

are supposed to get access, and people that aren’t supposed to get access can, because they’re recognized a different way. And so I thought that I had to put a stop to that. That was one of the things that I had to raise my hand and say, and I was able to do it in that case. I was the VP of product, but I was pushing back against one of the co-founders and the CTO. And the way I was able to do it is I thought that it was going to raise legal concerns. If you had employees that could or couldn’t get out because of their complexion,

Rachel Owens | 23:03.576–23:17.401

that was going to cause a legal risk to our clients or customers that were buying the product. Similarly, if we had people that were not supposed to leave at certain times for security for their own safety reasons, this is a long-term healthcare facility. So you’re dealing with people with dementia, et cetera, that you actually have to protect. And they could get out and they weren’t supposed to because there were flaws in the system that also creates a challenge. So that’s an example of when you’re trying to use a really great technology that has probably really wonderful uses.

Rina Alexin | 23:17.401–23:32.824

Mm.

Rachel Owens | 23:32.824–23:48.857

but you’re so excited to use it that you’re just going to find the pain and the problem place to use it when it’s probably not the right time, the right place, and oftentimes, and therefore not the right solution, right? And also, oftentimes, too expensive of a solution to solve the problem you’re trying to solve.

Rina Alexin | 23:48.857–24:58.968

So there’s, so honestly, this was a really good use case because it’s also kind of making me think that right now a lot of companies are chasing AI because it’s become not just ubiquitous, but there’s just so many more things you could do now, but it’s still not, I mean, I don’t think we’ve even conceptually understood what’s gonna happen five years from now with AI. it’s just, there’s just so, it’s just such a, honestly, a big, big question.

but what, what this is making me think about right now is that a lot of product managers need to make really clear governance and decision making capability within their company to kind of de-risk these kinds of, I don’t know, top down types of decisions. So have you been in a situation where let’s say maybe it wasn’t due to the

expensive nature of the solution, but the solution just didn’t really fit the problem you were trying to solve and you were unable to kind of de-risk that. Like maybe you didn’t have the right outcome that you kind of expected.

De-risking AI Solutions

Rachel Owens | 24:58.968–25:07.661

So I would love to give you a different example, but just take the cost outside of facial recognition. I actually just don’t think that that solution was fit for purpose because the wrong people were going to be able to, were not going to have access and the right, and some of the right people that were supposed to have access weren’t going to be able to get access. So like, again, I just think that there was, that was just not fit for purpose. where it might be different today, cause the, you know, the quality of

Rina Alexin | 25:07.661–25:24.128

Right.

Rachel Owens | 25:24.128–25:34.253

of the AI that drives facial recognition is better today and the technology is different and improved because AI in general is better. At the time, I just don’t think it was fit for purpose.

Rina Alexin | 25:34.253–26:27.618

No, no, no, I hear you. What I’m trying to go after right now is, because what I think a lot of product leaders who are trying to scale products are being faced with is a directive from top down of go and find me more money, essentially go find more revenue for this product. And what I’m curious about is, that’s a really strong directive from…

from an executive or C-suit or what have you, where it’s kind of scary to not come up with the right idea. And you might end up chasing solutions or chasing markets that you wish could work out, but don’t ultimately work out. And so I’m curious how you de-risk those kinds of decisions.

Rachel Owens | 26:27.618–28:44.942

So want to make sure I’m understanding your question properly. When you’re talking about this, want to apply it to AI, because I think that’s where you’re going. I think one of the things that’s really important is to make sure you know what pain you’re solving. And then AI for me, it’s a technology. It’s really the ability to assess, review.

and data in a speed that humans can’t do it and be able to come up with answers or solutions as a result of it. So where I found value in AI previously, and this is long before we got to where we are today, is just being able to utilize data and customer’s data, our own proprietary data, to benchmark it and be able to provide recommendations. So great for recommendation engines, et cetera. Now, if you’ve got a

If you’re directed from management is to say, find, go add AI to our product in other places so that you can open up a new market. That can be a challenge, right? And so one of the things I would say is to open up a new market, you’ve got to understand what’s that new markets pain that connects to your own business’s strategy. AI is not a strategy in and of itself for most companies, except for companies that are where their product is AI. But for those of us that are looking at AI as a way to enhance our product, we’ve got to say,

to your point earlier, what is the pain that we’re trying to solve and what’s best way to solve it? And so as I go to new markets, if those new markets say, I want your product and I just want to be able to access the, be able to use your product to process my data or access your data in a more intuitive, engaging and optimized way, then AI could be the right solution. But if they actually like your product for what it is, like again, that HR product that now can get used for change management within like

digital transformation, do I need more AI? It already uses AI. Do I need more AI to solve for that to expand into that place? Or can I actually make some adjustments to the way my product serves up recommendations on what the next steps are, stores documentation, et cetera, to be able to serve that use case, in which case I don’t need to make any additional huge additions of AI that could cost a lot more money to solve that problem.

Rachel Owens | 28:44.942–29:42.637

So I think what I would tell people that are being given the directive to find more revenue or find more markets to sell your product, do that. And don’t figure out like, there’s an additive to it, if there’s something added to it saying go find more money, but do it by using AI, I don’t know that those two things have to go together. So maybe you solve it by using AI if you really feel like that’s something you need to do and you have access to tools to say, okay.

and query your GPT or your agent saying, this is the product that I have. This is what I do. This is the current product. Like this is the current market that I’m, you know, that I’m reaching. Are there other markets that I’m not thinking about that might have similar pain points, uh, where there’s an adjacency and so therefore you can follow the directive of using AI. But then once you get to that market and you start talking to them to learn their pain point, you don’t have to use AI in the solution any more than it already is needed. Perhaps. So I don’t know that that’s a good answer to your question.

Rina Alexin | 29:42.637–29:53.474

Yeah, no, I think it comes at it because what I’m trying to get to is there’s usually what ends up happening is there’s a lot of risk in trying to find a brand new market, brand new and then a brand layer on top of that brand new solution. And yet what a lot of, I think, product leaders are facing is because AI right now boosts companies valuations and all of that, there is a pressure on the leadership.

Rachel Owens | 29:53.474–30:06.657

percent.

Aligning Product and Go-to-Market Teams

Rina Alexin | 30:06.657–30:33.357

from the leadership as well, to, start incorporating this. And I, I think this is the right, like what you’re answering essentially is like back to product management, understand the use case, understand the problem treated as part of a solution set, which is exactly what we talk about and, make sure that, you know, there is a business, there usually is a business requirement because it’s tied right now to being seen a certain way in the market, right? You can’t escape it. So.

Rachel Owens | 30:33.357–31:02.489

There’s one thing I would add and it’s probably make sure that your management already knows all the ways that you use AI in it already. So the reason I say this is like chatbots, we’ve been all interacting with chatbots and automated phone calls. we’re like to route us for over a decade. That’s all AI and ML. So like our leadership might not already know that we’re doing it. And with that being said, the value proposition in our go-to-market strategy might not be doing a good job of highlighting the AI that we’re already using.

Rina Alexin | 31:02.489–31:02.722

Yeah, that’s a really good point.

Rachel Owens | 31:02.722–31:48.855

So I’d say make sure you’re highlighting the AI that you’re using, because most likely you’re already using it. And there are probably ways to refine it, given the advancements in the algorithms and the LLMs now, to make sure that it’s better. We’ve all used those terrible chatbots. How can you make yours better? How can we do things where we’re using the AI and ML that we’re already incorporating in our products?

in better way. And if we make it a version 2.0, then you can highlight that in your marketing as well and use that to do your expansion and increase the valuation that you have. And that also, when you get that press, that it’s going to draw more attention to you from a broader market as well. And then you can use that as an opportunity to understand that market and how your product applies to that.

Rina Alexin | 31:48.855–31:59.99

like that a lot actually comes to think of it I think it’s a really important point. You are already likely using some form it’s not like it’s new everyone’s kind of treating it like it’s new but you’re right it’s not that new.

Rachel Owens | 31:59.99–32:43.895

It’s very improved, right? Like we can’t pretend it’s not. However, we all still get very mad when we call Delta or United or I don’t know anybody where you have to deal with customer success and we have to do, and we ended up yelling human, please, know, customer success, please representative, please. Right. Because there’s still, can still get better. So with that being said, use AI to keep getting better where you’re, especially where you’re already using it, cause you’ve already proven the need for the use case and then make sure that your leaders.

and that the others that you work for and your customers know as you’re making the improvements that, we’ve now optimized our AI. So they might not have known that you were already using this, they’re not thinking about it, you know you’re using it. And as you make improvements to where you use it, make sure you’re highlighting that to your market.

Rina Alexin | 32:43.895–33:29.014

And that brings me to my next kind of topic here is when you’re scaling a product, you need to have a really close relationship with your go-to-market teams. You kind of mentioned marketing. Sometimes it’s a marketing issue in the sense of you’re not expressing the value proposition of what you’ve already built. So given that you really need when you’re scaling a product, you’re trying to find more revenue.

You need to have a really close relationship with your go-to-market teams. Do you have any of just thinking about your own experience, any stories that you could share that helps increase alignment with go-to-market? Because I do find that a lot of times that you build the product, you even refine it, and then the marketing team or sales team, don’t even know or they don’t know the value of what you’ve just delivered.

Rachel Owens | 33:29.014–35:36.418

Well, I mean, I think a lot of it depends on what stage of a company you’re at. So the smaller the company, and I mean, this is always ideal even later on, even as new features get released, so think of those as almost like your startups within a startup. Like I think it’s so important for product and the go-to-market team, if they’re not already like part of the same broader like matrix team, that they just literally do things hand in hand. That might be that you go.

to conferences together. It also might mean before I build the product, I tend to write fake press releases so that people understand what the value prop is that I’m trying to sell or that I’m trying to build for. And I can actually see if the market gets excited about what problem I’m trying to solve. But it’s important that for marketing right away to be part of that process so that they understand.

you know, what that value prop is that we think that we’re going to be delivering. And so early on, they’re brought into that process because they also are listening to the market with a different set of ears. And you want to understand what they’re hearing when they’re out there. And when they’re out there, if they actually happen to use like your value, you know, your value props of what’s coming and they’re kind of mentioning that you want to get their feedback as well. So would say make sure you’re strongly aligned with the product marketing team, if not already part of it.

I would say, know, conferences together, sales calls together, you know, be on like pitches together. think those things are really important to kind of create that alignment. We’re all kind of hearing the same thing, but even then we all have different sets of ears because there are different areas of functional expertise. So when we’re all on the same call afterwards, you’re actually doing like a retro or even just like a recap, whatever you want to call it to understand what they, what their takeaways were and what yours were. You can very easily.

get to an area of alignment. I found sometimes the biggest difference between product marketing and products as far as what we’re thinking about as far as go to market ends up being language. their language is the language that they’re using in PR, but the language that product uses often is the language that we’re hearing our customers use or the end users use, but not necessarily the buyer. So then how do we merge those and product marketing and product can come together to figure out what’s that right balance.

Rachel Owens | 35:36.418–35:43.329

of the buyer’s language and the user’s language so we can get to that right value proposition to truly drive the go-to-market value.

Rina Alexin | 35:43.329–36:22.83

Yeah, I think that’s a really also strong point because sometimes marketing and I know internally, like with our marketing team, I like to have them do interviews with product leaders because otherwise you can get in your own world of marketing speak, right? Instead, what you want is to resonate and you can’t really resonate without truly understanding and hearing the voice. But you also brought up that it’s a good idea to do sales calls. I’ve heard that so many times.

rarely ever seen. Product managers actually do sales calls with the sales team. Have you seen it like where it’s worked?

Rachel Owens | 36:22.83–36:24.473

Oh, I require it. Yeah, I am. So I, when I joined teams, yes. So, but it’s not just, it’s not about just requiring it to the sales team. That’s pretty easy. A lot of times they love people to be on their calls, especially just say I’m going to listen to them or I’m going to ask questions. And if your questions end up being a value added, it’s almost like you’re another sales engineer on the call sometimes, because you can, you’re going to want to hear from them first. Like what’s the goal of their call? And like, you need to make sure you, you know, you know what your place is on that.

Rina Alexin | 36:24.473–36:52.782

You do. I think that’s what it takes.

Rachel Owens | 36:52.782–37:22.68

but it’s really important that you get to be brought into that process. I see product very much as as a customer interfacing role. And I also only go into organizations generally where they understand product the same way as I do. Where sometimes I get the pushback is from product themselves. They’re not always comfortable going into sales calls and understanding that their job really is to like is to sell their product and to understand what the value prop is so that they can position the product. They should be a salesperson’s like best friend.

because they can actually help better understand how a product can kind of solve all of the pains and where there might be gaps in the product. And they’re often are, we all know that. We can think about, there’s a workaround here. Hey, you could also use it X, Y, and Z. And so again, we could be a salesperson’s best companion. For some startups, I literally had gone, especially for big enterprise sales, gone on every…

Career Insights for Aspiring Product Managers

Rina Alexin | 37:22.68–37:47.822

Yeah.

Rachel Owens | 37:47.822–38:02.851

you know, to every big initial sales meeting with the salesperson that was by their request. And in doing so, also helped me understand what’s the best way, what’s the most important next thing, because when we’re missing sales, why are we missing them? And it really helped me and my team better understand.

Rina Alexin | 38:02.851–38:13.4

To your point, I think it has also to do with the size of the company and the stage it’s at. a Productside, I usually talk with more enterprise level teams and that’s where there’s sometimes friction between sales teams and product teams. And I’m with you. That’s actually why I think one episode I interviewed a sales leader to just understand from sales perspective, like how do you get a really good relationship? Because if you don’t, it’s just.

Rachel Owens | 38:13.4–38:30.585

gets harder.

Rina Alexin | 38:30.585–38:34.744

It’s just so unlikely to have true product success in those kinds of organizations. So, okay. So…

Rachel Owens | 38:34.744–39:38.401

Yeah. For those enterprise organizations, what I recommend is that the product leader and the sales leader come to an agreement about like how many sales calls product can join. Like what sales, what, what customers are they okay with them joining for what sales people? Cause you probably don’t want to do it with a junior sales person that might be able to get railroaded by a product person. Then, you know, you want to make sure that it’s they’re paired up quite well. and that they know that they have conversations enough to know.

so that the product person knows that they’re there in either just a listening role or in a very much in an assistive role. But I think that has to start with leadership and leadership being open to it. So I’ve gone into new organizations that work closer to enterprise where the conversation was very easy between leaders to get it to happen. And then as we actually went further down the chain, trying to get those calls to get become available, that got hard.

So then it was again about making sure we built up the relationship and the rapport so sales understood that product really was just trying to be a good partner to make sure that they got everything that they needed to help them close their sales.

Rina Alexin | 39:38.401–40:08.43

Yeah, and you’re right. It does start at the leadership. And I also find that some organizations where they have been successful at creating community of users of their product, that’s another great area for both sales and product to kind of partner in that case. for just thinking about there’s a lot of people looking to get into product management. What advice do you have for somebody just starting out in their career? What should they be thinking about if they’re interested in a career such as yours?

Rachel Owens | 40:08.43–42:03.481

Well, when I go to look and hire product people, I will be honest with you. I don’t generally hire, depends on the level, right? Of course, I’m hiring like senior level people and hiring people with product experience and generally senior level product experience. But when my team’s hiring for more earlier stage entry level product managers, I’m not hiring them from other product, like other companies where they’ve been product managers. I oftentimes in hiring people,

that have served in other capacities. And oftentimes, well, sometimes I’ve hired engineers to be in this space. Oftentimes I’m actually looking at people that have worked in customer success, sometimes even sales. use it in training, marketing, other areas where they’ve actually been able to see the business from a different perspective that has to get incorporated into product. What I love is when product managers build products and they’re right away thinking about

How is this going to get pitched or how would we onboard a user into this? How would it like, how would they get trained once they’re using this? How would they learn about new features? People, what I find is that product managers that are thinking about that have actually been on the other side and they’ve done customer training or they’ve done the user onboarding. And so therefore they have a very different perspective or if they’ve worked in product operations and so they know all the analytics that a product team needs to have access to. it’s just like, what are the KPIs that we’re going to measure as we’re going about building this? What are the analytics that we’re going to have to track?

what’s the user journey that we’re going to have to track of our existing users to see if it’s sticky. So then when they’re building out what the product’s going to be, they’re thinking about all of that and putting that into the documentation and making sure that that’s communicated across the entire product team. And a product team to me is engineering, user experience, design, customer success, marketing, and often it was also FP &A, those business, those finance partners that are very much part of your business and understand.

the revenue that you have to drive, and the cost constraints that you have.

Rina Alexin | 42:03.481–42:31.848

Well, given that persona that you’re actually hiring for, I’m not surprised to hear that you don’t have as much of a, let’s say tension between product and sales and getting those two teams to kind of work together. All right. Well, Rachel, it’s been great to talk to you about how to prevent solutions from trying to chase new markets and refining product market fit. How can our listeners follow up with you after they hear this recording?

Rachel Owens | 42:31.848–42:35.693

The best way to follow up with me is on LinkedIn, actually.

Rina Alexin | 42:35.693–42:35.693

Wonderful. Well, if you found our conversation valuable today, don’t keep it to yourself, share it with a friend and make sure to subscribe to Productside Stories so you don’t miss a future episode. Thank you all for tuning in. I hope today’s insights inspire you and propel your product journey forward. Remember, every challenge is just a lesson waiting to be learned. Visit us at Productside.com for more free resources, including webinars, templates, playbooks and other product wisdom.

repackaged for you. I’m Rina Alexin and until next time keep innovating, keep leading, and keep creating stories worth sharing.