Navigating Responsibilities in a Startup: Lessons Learned
Working in a startup can distance you from your core responsibilities if you're not careful
When you work in a startup, your role broadens to encompass multiple hats that come and go every week. It’s a dynamic, exciting environment where you are busy posting on social media for a week while churning out urgent customer launch videos. Before you know it, you’re knee-deep in creating sales assets and so on.
When I transitioned into a fast-growing startup as their first Product Marketing Manager, I had to step up and work on projects that needed the most attention then. As someone who had worked closely with product teams and spearheaded multiple launches in my previous organization, I assumed I’d naturally carry forward those habits. However, the rapid pace of startup meant focusing on creating sales assets and tackling day-to-day challenges. Over time, I realized I had drifted away from the foundational principles of product marketing—aligning with the product team.
Unlike my previous experiences, where my manager would set quarterly goals, I had to learn to identify and drive initiatives independently along with the startup’s evolving structure. With every team growing simultaneously amidst a lot of change, looking from a bird eye’s view became almost impossible. It took time to develop the confidence to step back, reassess, and realign with core objectives.
So, what reminded me about the basics? I thought of refreshing my basics in Product Marketing Alliance and they brought me back to what I was supposed to be doing:
Set up weekly 1:1s with product managers to understand upcoming features and gain roadmap visibility.
Equip both the sales and product teams with market trends and target audience info by digging deep into industry reports and CRM.
Maintain a good rapport with presales, customer success, and implementation teams and if they are planning sessions to learn about your product, join them.
Beyond creating assets, it’s critical to train sales and support teams on how features translate into value for the target audience.
It’s easy to get caught up in urgent tasks when you work for a startup. But, the key is to step back to focus on the fundamentals and the core purpose of your role. Unless you do find another role interesting and would like to try it out (a great advantage in a startup).