How did you get started in Product Marketing? Any advice for people breaking in?

One, I have never met two PMMs who came to product marketing through the same path; and two, the metrics you care most about are deeply influenced by your product, market, and customer.

The short version is I fell into it, and then fell in love with it.

The longer version: I started my career in user experience design, back when the Nokia 6100 was the coolest thing on the market (and definitely the best phone for Snake). We were designing apps and OS software for mobile phones, and way ahead of our time. In fact, while we weren't successful as a company, the software we built powered the first 5GB iPod with the physical scroll wheel. I still have one that has our logo in the "credits page."

From there, I moved to Tellme Networks, where I was designing voice applications for speech IVR - think 1-800-GOFEDEX, Fandango, Fidelity, you name it. I caught the enterprise software bug there. I really just loved getting to moonlight in the world of our customers' business problems, and this sparked my curiosity into how companies made decisions overall. So I did the next obvious thing and followed a mentor into strategic planning and finance. Natural, right?

Through an acquisition by Microsoft and a big project with Domino's Pizza, I "fell" into vertical and enterprise product marketing and never looked back. The mix of technology, business problems, seeking hard ROI, and working with sales still gets me excited about what my team and I get to do every day.

On advice for breaking in - talk to people in the role already. I've never met a successful PMM who didn't want to help others. Customers, colleagues, new hires, you name it. Pull back the metrics and the process, and at the core of what we do is help people solve hard problems by applying know-how, technology, and a bit of creativity. Shoot me a DM on Linkedin or Twitter - would love to talk more.

You can start by learning free product marketing guides & courses. As well as following PMM communities to grab knowledge from fellow PMMs. Ideally, you should aim into obtaining such hard skills:

• Research skills: user research, competitors research, forming ICPs
• GTM: the creation of a strategy + execution
• Narrative design: positioning + messaging
• Sales enablement + content: case studies, product content, sales collateral
• Analytical skills: understanding of PMM analytics and tools

I will leave some useful links below to help you get started.

Nice learning guides & courses:

• Advanced Product Marketing by Jon Chang (Linkedin course, short, easy to digest, free, and with certificate)
• "What is product marketing", a great guide by Product Marketing Alliance that covers the basics. 
• Product Marketing Getting Started Guide by RocketBlocks that covers the key aspects of the PMM job, how the career path of a PMM looks like, and much more.
• "Product Marketing Metrics and How to Measure Your Business Impact" video by Diana, from Segment.

Useful PMM & PM communities to learn from others (you can find in there super practical insights, ask questions and follow the best PMM practices):

• Sharebird community
• Slack Product Marketing community by Product Marketing Alliance: 
• Slack PM community by Product School
• Slack TheProduct Folks community