Hi, I’m James. Thanks for checking out Building Momentum: a newsletter to help startup founders and marketers accelerate SaaS growth through product marketing.
Before we get into it, please know this isn’t about one specific situation, but it’s a recurring pattern I’ve seen firsthand, heard from other PMMs, and watched unfold repeatedly. And it’s definitely not true of every org.
In my first official PMM role at a midmarket, ‘old-school’ SaaS company, we worked with two types of product managers: a technical PM and a commercial PM.
The technical PM owned product delivery: engineering, integrations, and ensuring the product experience aligned with back-office operations and processes. They weren’t just focused on execution, they were thinking about how to build a scalable, reliable foundation that could support growth and long-term success.
The commercial PM was responsible for commercial success: pricing, the feature roadmap, sales feedback, competitive positioning, and aligning product decisions with broader market needs. They weren’t just thinking about what to build, they were thinking about why it mattered and how it would drive growth.
And then there was us, in product marketing, driving product launches, positioning and messaging, sales enablement, marketing campaigns, and making sure everything connected back to the business impact.
In this post:
The shift from specialization to survival
But over the last 10 years, both PMs and PMMs have been stretched thin, forced into becoming jacks-of-all-trades. Especially in startups, where companies prioritize agility and speed over clear specialization.
PMs were told to be the ‘CEO of the product,’ PMMs were handed the lofty title of ‘CMO of the product.’
But what actually happened? The ‘CEO of the product’ role was left vacant.
Sales leadership stepped into the gap, not because they were best suited for it, but because someone had to own the business outcomes. When short-term revenue wins became the priority, long-term commercial strategy fell by the wayside.
Product managers became backlog managers, caught in the cycle of delivering features without owning their impact. They do discovery, they ensure good UX, but they rarely drive the commercial outcomes that define a product’s success.
And on the product marketing side, the ‘CMO of the product’ title never really materialized. PMMs got spread even thinner, expected to cover enablement, demand gen, launches, and GTM without real influence over product strategy. We bring market insights, positioning, and messaging, yet too often, we’re left applying a coat of polish to decisions made without us.
The problem: execution without strategy
So instead of a true “CEO-CMO” partnership driving the product, we have two roles drowning in execution.
Reacting instead of leading.
Shipping instead of shaping.
Disconnected from what actually makes products successful: a sharp vision, disciplined execution, and a clear path to commercial impact.
It’s time to demand more
PMs need to do more than deliver features, they need to own the business outcomes.
Every roadmap decision should be taken with revenue impact, competitive differentiation, and market positioning in mind.
If they’re not thinking that way, they’re not doing their jobs.
PMMs: take back your influence
Stop waiting for a seat at the strategy table. Take it.
Force commercial thinking into roadmap discussions. Challenge feature priorities that don’t drive growth, and ensure the product isn’t just built, but built to win.
Otherwise, we’re just putting lipstick on a backlog. The best PM-PMM partnerships don’t just ship features. Together, they shape products that win.
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