Oct 26, 2018 · 27m · a16z
Product Marketing for New Products
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this Andreessen Horowitz presentation, partner Sharon Chang outlines a comprehensive framework for executing product marketing when launching new B2B products in emerging markets. She details actionable strategies for customer segmentation, pitch deck construction, pricing tier design, sales enablement, and competitive positioning.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 1.1 The host pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:50 Rejecting sales-created collateral
Sharon forcefully pushes back against the common industry practice where sales teams create their own marketing materials, insisting enabling sales must remain under product marketing.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 0:27 No host pushback presentThis episode is a uninterrupted solo presentation by Sharon Chang with no host participation or pushback.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:40 Overcoming zero-budget budget linesSharon educates listeners on how to sell category-defining software by attaching deal pricing to already-funded enterprise initiative line items like patching.
The host holds their own ▶ 0:27 No host expertise demonstratedThe host Steph Smith does not speak during the provided transcript, so no host expertise moments exist.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda Overview and Customer Segmentation Basics | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Sharon presents a solo breakdown of customer segmentation and buyer motivations. The host does not speak in this monologue segment. | |
| The Role of Product Marketing in Corporate Structure | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sharon explains how product marketing fits into corporate structure and draws on her experience at Opsware to show how to sell into funded budget lines. Host is absent during this monologue. | |
| Framework for the Customer-Facing Pitch Deck | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sharon outlines the slide-by-slide structure for customer-facing pitch decks. The host does not participate in this instructional monologue. | |
| Presenting the Solution, Tailored Demos, and Social Proof | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Sharon provides actionable guidelines on tailoring product demos and leveraging social proof for different buyer tiers. Host does not speak. | |
| Closing Sales Calls and Proposing Next Steps | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sharon details strategies for concluding sales calls and introduces core SaaS pricing frameworks using Box as an example. Host is absent. | |
| Real-World Pricing Case Study and Key Pricing Reminders | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Sharon discusses pricing modularity, usage-based incentive alignment, and driving packaging requirements into engineering. Host does not speak. | |
| Sales Enablement and Deliverables Across the Sales Cycle | 0 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Sharon strongly argues that sales teams should not author their own collateral and outlines the 5 key enablement deliverables. Host is absent. | |
| Competitive Analysis and Differentiation Frameworks | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sharon details competitive differentiation models and criteria-setting tactics to win against incumbents. Host does not speak. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Sharon Chang: Great products fail if customers do not know they need them
“You might have the greatest product on earth, but if your potential customers don't know they need it, they won't know they have to buy it, much less buy it from you.”
Chang: A founder's story cannot scale as a startup grows
“This is a story that the founder has lived and breathed. They can tell it better than anybody else, but it's not going to scale as the company grows.”
Chang: Pricing strategy directly dictates startup valuation and is hard to change
“How do you even think about pricing your product? And really that is one of the single most important things that you could do and do right. No pressure. It's hard to raise prices and your company valuation will eventually be tied to this.”
Chang: Enterprise workgroups are better initial targets than SMBs
“A, you know, work group might be a better on-ramp than an SMB.”
Chang: Pitch B2B products slightly before they are finished
“You want to pitch your product or solution a little advance of it being ready to really understand early adopters and what they might be interested in and get their feedback.”
Chang: A customer-facing deck is a startup's only asset pre-product
“The customer facing deck, and this is really what you have, the only thing you have before your product is actually ready.”
Sharon Chang: New products in new markets lack existing budget line items
“If you're in a new product, in a new market, there's no line item budget associated with what you're doing.”
Sharon Chang: Frame customer problems using customer terminology, not internal metaphors
“Don't get hung up on how you want to articulate it. You know, don't fall in love with the language or the metaphors that you've figured out, but understand and articulate the problem in their terms first.”
Chang: Avoid generic pitch decks and tailor versions to specific audience personas
“You probably need more than one version, and really don't take the shortcut and make it generally applicable. What I mean is know who your audience is and sell directly to them. So if you're talking to a manager, use the language a manager uses, use examples t…”
Chang: a16z tells founders not to waste pitch time introducing themselves
“For our portfolio companies, when they're in our briefing center here, we guide them not to spend a ton of time here, because they already have the credibility and backing of meeting a potential new customer here in our offices, and, you know, just their name …”
Chang: Customers default to existing tools unless shown why they fail
“By default, people will want to try their current solutions. You've got to tell them why it doesn't work.”
Sharon Chang: Sales decks should never be presented without matching demo environments
“So we would never have a customer facing deck without a demo environment that was suited, that went with that deck.”
Sharon Chang: Executive sales demos require high-level dashboards rather than granular user workflows
“The executive audience probably needs to see more of the dashboards or the reporting of all the user activity, and vice versa, if you're talking to user audience, show the most relevant use case for the audience that's in the room.”
Sharon Chang: Giving away a full product for free before charging fails
“You don't want to give away your product, all of it for free, and we've heard this a lot. I'm going to give it away for free, get traction, and then charge, and that's just a bad idea because it's really hard to raise prices, and anything over free is, you kno…”
Sharon Chang: Publishing full pricing online handicaps B2B sales teams
“Don't publish all your pricing on the website, right? This does nothing but handicap your sales team and their ability to expand deal sizes by publishing all the pricing on the web.”
Chang: Charge for workflow creation rather than execution frequency
“So probably charge for creation of new flows, but don't charge for the number of times that you run a new flow, right?”
Sharon Chang: Product positioning often differs from shipped features
“When you're launching a new product or a new dot release, you have to decide what you're selling and what it is, is often different than what is actually shipping.”
Chang: Proof-of-concept test plans should emphasize competitive advantages
“One of the things that you can do is actually write a test plan that can be given to potential prospects as they're looking at the products, and that would be helpful to have them see it and be able to have some ideas of how would you actually test that the pr…”
Chang: Sales teams should not create their own marketing materials
“Sales teams shouldn't create their own materials. I actually feel pretty strongly about this point. There's a school of thought that considers a sales creating their own materials, enabling the sales team, a standalone function within the sales team. Oftentime…”
Chang: Selling to developers requires technical depth, not big marketing campaigns
“If you're selling to developers, they probably need access to code, to experts, to technical details, to online reviews and blogs that have written about it. So that's where you want to spend the effort. You probably, if you're talking to developers, you don't…”
Chang: Every team in a company should contribute to competitive analysis
“Everyone at a company is the source of competitive analysis. It isn't just the product marketing team who has to do all of this analysis, but they actually need to collect information that's coming from all of the different teams, rationalize the competitive i…”