Let’s make Product + Marketing best friends (Dave's Newsletter)

Hello and welcome to Dave's Newsletter — read by 42,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. I’m Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five and former CMO. I really write this newsletter (not AI) and my goal here is to share lessons and learnings about B2B marketing, insights from the Exit Five community, and to be a resource to help you grow your career and advance your skills in marketing. If you enjoy getting this newsletter, I’d love it if you told a friend about it. I also enjoy getting replies here because it is really me, so reply back after you read and say hello.

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🤝 Forget Sales and Marketing, I Want To Know About Product and Marketing (The Most Important Partnership)

Editor's Note: Hey. Dave here. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Everyone talks about Sales and Marketing alignment. But you know what almost nobody talks about? Product and Marketing. And that might be the most important relationship in your company. Great companies don't keep Product and Marketing in separate rooms until launch day. They work together from the beginning. I'm seeing this pattern everywhere. The companies with real momentum? Product and Marketing are joined at the hip. The ones struggling? They're shipping features into the void and wondering why nobody cares. So this newsletter is about why these two teams need to be working together from day one – and how to set up a system (thanks to lessons from David Sacks) that makes it happen. Enjoy.

Back in my days at Drift, I remember Craig (our VP of Product) sprinting down the hall to grab me. I could see him lumbering down the hall with a big smile.

He was excited about something the Product team had just built; some new idea he wanted to show me. Not because he needed me to write a press release or a launch email. Because he wanted Marketing's help telling the story. “I need to go get DG, let’s get him to see this!” Now 6-7 years later I realize what a special (and rare) partnership that was.

Most companies keep Product and Marketing in separate rooms until launch day. They don’t have any shared goals, shared incentives, or clear KPIs. Then they wonder why the launch feels like a feature dump instead of something customers care about.

Here’s how to change that…

❌ The Problem Nobody's Talking About

We obsess over Sales and Marketing alignment. And you know what? Fair enough…it matters.

But Product and Marketing? That relationship determines whether you create momentum or just ship features into the void.

Think about it: Product teams build things. Marketing teams tell stories and create demand. When these two functions work together, you get regular launches that give Sales new reasons to talk to customers. You create a drumbeat that drives the business forward.

When they don't? You get products that customers discover by accident months after launch. Or worse…never.

❤️‍🩹 What Great Alignment Looks Like

The best companies run Product and Marketing on the same calendar.

David Sacks (former CEO of Yammer, now at Craft Ventures) calls this the Product-Marketing System. Here's how it works:

📦 Ship in Quarters, Not Whenever

Product roadmaps should be planned quarterly. Not because quarterly is magic, but because it forces discipline.

Every project gets scoped to ship within one quarter. If something can't ship in that timeframe, it gets broken down into something smaller and more MVP.

This is the "rocks, pebbles, and sand" approach to product management. Rocks are new products. Pebbles are features. Sand is small fixes and polish.

If you fill the jar with sand first (all the tiny fixes), there's no room for rocks. But if you plan the rocks first, everything else fits around them.

🚀 Launch Events Drive Deadlines

Here's where Marketing comes in: schedule a launch event in the middle of every quarter.

Could be a webinar. Could be a user conference. Could be a virtual product showcase. The format matters less than having a date on the calendar.

Why? Because deadlines drive action.

When the team knows the CEO is presenting a new product on stage, or that customers are expecting a demo, they ship. The public commitment creates urgency that no internal deadline ever will.

🔒 The CEO Needs to Own This

The CEO should be in the middle of Product and Marketing.

Not because they need to micromanage. But because incentives matter, and usually the CEO sets comp plans and goals.

When Product gets measured on shipping features and Marketing gets measured on leads, you get misalignment. When both teams share goals around successful launches and product adoption, magic happens.

Some companies take this further and create a "mega org" where Marketing reports into the head of Product. The benefits?

• Community building becomes natural (customers and prospects together)
• Content ties directly to product strategy
• Launches are coordinated from the start
• Product teams get market feedback earlier

This only works when the product leader understands marketing fundamentals – but when it does work, it's powerful.

👥 Start With Regular Collaboration

You don't need to reorganize your company tomorrow. Start simple:

• Weekly Product-Marketing meetings. Not just status updates. Real collaboration. Product explains the why behind decisions. Marketing shapes how features get prioritized based on what customers are saying.
• Product at Sales Kickoffs. When Sales gets their quarterly plans, Product should be there presenting the roadmap. Sales teams aren't just selling today's product – they're selling the vision.
• Joint goals on adoption. Don't just celebrate launches. Celebrate usage. When Product and Marketing both own adoption metrics, you build better products and tell better stories.

💰 The Payoff Is Real

When Sydney Sloan joined G2, she had to set up this system from scratch. Her take? You can build great features, but you can't rely on customers to discover them. You need to tell people.

And you need joint goals.

Another marketer put it perfectly: "Product launches without Marketing input are feature dumps. Marketing campaigns without Product context are empty promises."

Most companies keep these teams in separate rooms until the last minute. The companies winning? They're meeting every week for months before launch. By launch day, the story writes itself because they built it together.

🫵 What This Means for You

If you're a marketer, go talk to your Product team this week. Ask them what they're building and why. Ask how you can help shape the story. Get into the planning process early. Not just to write the blog post, but to help think through positioning and customer reaction.

And if you're a founder or exec, create the structure that makes this collaboration happen. Put them on the same calendar. Give them shared goals. Make launch events a regular part of how you operate.

Regular launches give your Sales and Marketing teams regular opportunities to create momentum. Deadlines drive action. And when Product and Marketing work together from the start, you don't just ship features. You ship things that matter.

– Dave

P.S. Here's my challenge for you this week: Look at your last three product launches. Did Marketing know about them three months out? Or three days? Did Product understand what story Marketing was trying to tell? Or did they just hand over a feature list? Be honest with yourself. Because if you're frustrated that your launches don't create momentum, or that your Sales team doesn't have good reasons to talk to customers – this might be why. The fix starts with one conversation. Note: I’d also go beyond launches and just ask about the relationship between Product + Marketing in general. Is there one?

P.P.S. The Exit Five CMO Council – If this topic lands with you and you're a CMO: we've been running a super secret group for CMOs / VP Marketing doing $25M+ ARR at Exit Five over the last few months and we're now accepting new members. Community is more important now than ever and it's all about who is in the room. We have curated the right room for you. If you want a peer group like this you can apply for a spot here.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

[DECEMBER 2ND] The Future of Pipeline: How Marketing Leaders Are Using AI to Drive Revenue

Great B2B marketers know that it’s all about aligning to revenue. And over the last two years, AI has come in with the potential to rewrite how revenue focused marketers find buyers, create demand, and actually hit pipeline targets.

But there’s also more noise and more competition than ever. What’s actually working? What’s real? What’s not?

Join Jess Lytle (Head of Marketing, Exit Five), Morgan Cole (VP, Demand Gen, Red Canary), Lisa Cole (CMO, 2X), and Jean Cameron (Sr. Director of Field & Partner Marketing, Demandbase) to break down what’s working right now with AI in B2B marketing.

What you’ll learn:

• Using AI to identify in-market buyers and accelerate deals
• Aligning marketing, sales, and ops around shared revenue goals
• Evolving their playbooks for a new era of pipeline accountability

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Save your spot

🏢 Open Roles

Who's hiring right now?

Peak Support is hiring a Content Marketing Manager to run the full content engine—from writing sharp, compelling stories to tracking every click with airtight UTM discipline. You’ll own blogs, emails, social, case studies, and conversion-focused pages, then prove what’s working through solid analytics and reporting. This role is ideal for someone who can shift between creative and analytical without breaking stride. If you like telling clear, useful stories, digging into data, and building a content system that actually drives revenue, this one hits the mark.

Vector is hiring a Demand Generation Marketer to own its paid acquisition engine and turn real intent data into actual pipeline. You’ll run the full advertising playbook across Google and LinkedIn, build a repeatable growth system, and use Vector’s own platform to prove what works—then share those insights with the market. This role is built for someone who’s been deep in the demand gen trenches (5–7+ years), loves experimenting across channels, and isn’t afraid to be the face of a fast-growing martech startup. High autonomy. High impact. Serious budget and backing.

Steno is hiring a Director of Brand to own the company’s narrative and push a legacy industry into the modern era. You’ll shape the visual identity, messaging, and end-to-end brand experience while leading design, editorial, social, and comms. This is a fit if you’re a seasoned brand leader who loves building scalable creative systems, elevating how a company shows up, and turning a fragmented brand into a premium, unmistakable presence.

See all open roles

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✍️ NEW CONTENT FROM EXIT FIVE

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