Adam Grenier

Product-market fit is not static; changes in the external economic environment can effectively reset your PMF even if the product remains the same.

"One of the biggest pieces of advice I'm giving to people that are like, "How should we adjust our marketing with the economic changes and things like that?" I was like, "Start by assuming you no longe..."

A common mistake is conflating a large Total Addressable Market (TAM) with actual product-market fit within that market.

"It's probably the biggest flag that I see with a lot of companies that claim to have product market fit, which is your TAM and your product market fit are not using the same definition."

Successful acquisition channel selection requires a three-way fit between customer needs, business goals, and the inherent strengths of the medium.

"The exploring emerging channels framework that I'll take... has three core ingredients... understanding if there is an overlap between what the customers need is, what your company's goals are, and wh..."

Aligning your marketing approach with a platform's monetization goals makes you a more valuable partner and can grant you early access to new features.

"I like to spend a lot of time thinking about how they monetize. What is the monetization strategy of the channel? And the reason is because if you, as a business, can match or support their monetizati..."

Testing new channels should be time-boxed to a quarter, with initial 'fishing' for signals taking a month or less.

"Generally I wouldn't let anything bleed past a quarter. You can probably get some good signal in a month or less, what I would call fishing. It wouldn't be like you're just putting bait in the water t..."

When hiring for early-stage startups, the ability to handle chaos and perform 'in the weeds' work is more critical than seniority.

"Anything let's say C or below, comfortable with chaos and willingness to go do something they have not done for probably 15 years are two huge signals for me, because every company I've been part of a..."

Evaluating senior candidates requires identifying their core 'T-shaped' expertise and assessing how they manage their relative weaknesses.

"Every marketer is going to have a T-shaped career... find out their T, find out their strength, and then spend time figuring out how they make up for those other things."

Building a culture of openness requires leaders to be public about their own development goals and give the team permission to hold them accountable.

"If you are managing a team and you want to sharpen the skills, make it a team goal, or have accountability and just say, "Hey guys, I know that I've been pushing back on things lately. I want to reall..."

Adopting an improv-based 'Yes, and' mindset helps resolve cross-functional friction by validating different team goals simultaneously.

"If you approach it with that "Yes, and...", it's often still true. It's like, oh, both of these things can be true at once. You could have a different goal than I have, or you have a system problem lo..."

In product-led companies, marketing and product must be deeply integrated rather than operating as separate silos.

"If you are CMO and your product leader aren't married at the hip, you're just missing out on just tons of opportunity, and the likelihood of things actually working very well consistently and compound..."

Marketing leaders can improve collaboration by mastering the frameworks and language used by product teams, such as Agile and sprints.

"Honestly, I think learn product development. Go learn agile product development... understanding those skills and those systems will, one, I think make you think differently about how to run your mark..."

Using hyper-specific details in messaging helps define the problem space and differentiates the product more effectively than broad descriptions.

"The other one that I think is less known or talked about is the gift of details. So, in a scene, if you give somebody really specific details about something, it gives so much more meat to be able to..."

Securing strategic partnerships with major platforms (like Facebook or Google) requires demonstrating how your success helps them prove their own business model.

"I was able to basically position and say, 'Look it, you want to work with us. Let me into your alpha, because I have five years of experience already buying mobile ads. I know the space. I know it'll..."