Next Phase Growth Beyond Zero to One with Qualia’s Head of Product & Partner Marketing, Priyanka Srinivasan

Speaker A: Welcome to the Thrills and Chills podcast brought to you by Sherbert and Clue. This is a podcast all about establishing product marketing and being the first product marketer. I'm m your host, JD Prater. Today we're talking with Priyanka Srinivasat, the head of product marketing at Qualya, about what it takes to establish the product marketing function and take a team that's already gone from zero to one to the next level. Before we do, let's give a quick shout out to our sponsor, Clue. That's Clue with a K, the leading competitive enablement platform for product marketers who drive revenue for their business. Clue helps you collect, curate and distribute competitive insights to enable sales and revenue teams to win more deals. Don't just compete. Compete to win with Clue. Priyanka, welcome to today's episode. Really excited to get to talk with you about joining Qualia leading their product marketing team. You've been there roughly over a year now and you came from gainsights, so we've got a lot to jump into because those industries are not the same. But yet you moved during COVID talk to me about this last year.

Speaker B: Well, first of all, thank you so much JD for having me here today. I'm really excited to chat to you about my experience building the team at Qualia and honestly my experience, my journey of getting where I did today and yeah, so how has it been? So I've been at, uh, like you said, at Qualia for a year. For those that might not know what Qualia does, we build software solutions, the real estate industry. We make it easier and more transparent for folks to close on a home for all transaction parties. And there's a lot of people involved in a real estate transaction. As many people might know listening if you've done it recently, it's kind of a messy process. And so without going too much in the weeds, we build solutions to make that just a better experience for everyone. And yeah, when I joined a year ago, we were in a really different place as a business. Obviously it's a high growth business and with that comes, um, changing teams and changing needs on teams. And so when I joined about a year ago, we had a very small product marketing team that had done a great job taking us from kind of like 0 to 1. But we were in a next phase of growth and we needed to do something a little different. Right. And so I came in, had a really amazing boss, still do that, really believed in me to kind of build something special. And we crafted this vision for what we wanted product marketing to be. And then we went out and we did a lot of hiring and happy to talk more about that. Obviously not the easiest thing, but yeah, we built this amazing team. Qualia is a company that, you know, we sell a lot of different products. We sell to multiple audiences. So again, without getting into too much in the weeds, it's a complex sale and a complex business. And so what that means from a product marketing side is that you definitely need a good, a pretty strong foundation and a solid team to kind of go help sell those products and partner with sales and product to do that. So, yeah, happy to.

Speaker A: Happy to dive in. Yeah. Okay, so we gotta talk about a couple of things. 1. All right, so you're a, uh, director at Gainsight. For those not familiar, you should know who Gainsight is. What Gainsight is amazing company with. Just like, did a really good job of like, in my opinion. So this is an outsider. You're an insider. You can tell me. I would say, like, really pioneering and championing the CS team. Yeah, you would agree. Okay. Did a good job. Didn't they get acquired by Vista? Uh, amazing. That's interesting, right? An equity play there. You then jump over here. Mid pandemic real estate is just hot. So I, uh, was in the valley, I moved back home. So back home for me is Oklahoma. So I'm in Oklahoma City. It's even hot here, right? Like, houses do not stay on the market. And so I understand the real estate play. So let's dive into it. Like, what, what drew you to the company? What was that initial attraction to it?

Speaker B: So to be honest, I knew nothing about real estate. I had never bought or sold a home. I really had never been part of that process at all. I knew some people who had. It really was not on my mind at all. One day, Matt, who's our VP of marketing here, I'm a senior marketing leader, gave me a call out of nowhere. And he honestly framed it as like, I'd love to get your thoughts on our business and what we're doing here. And then he was like, by the way, I'm looking for someone to lead product marketing. What do you think? And so we kind of got into conversation and drew me in was kind of what I alluded to, which is the company is a fast growth company. And I had a mentor that once told me above all things, forget about the industry, forget about like, whatever. You know, at the end of the day, you want to find a company that's doing well. I mean, maybe it's Like a no brainer, but from a career standpoint and it helps you as a leader also give opportunity to people on your team. So I think the rising tide lifts all boats and I think that was really important to me. And I think the second thing was, you know, real estate. I never thought about it before, but I really liked in sort of contrast to Gainsight. Right. Because Gainsight is customer success. So it's very B2B, like CRM software, where you're selling software to like businesses. Right. So we're still selling to businesses here at Qualia, but there's a B2B2C element that I really liked. Right. So that when I. It's like one of those things when you go to dinner with friends or you're meeting new people or whatever and they ask you what you do, you really can say, hey, uh, I'm making the home buying and selling experience better for people. And you really are. And our products do touch everyday home buyers, sellers, owners. And so that's a pretty exciting thing. You know, it feels great to be able to say that you're helping solve a real world problem in that way. So it was, the company growth was exciting. The products were really interesting. It was an interesting industry that was B2B2C. And the complexity was there as well. Right. We were tackling a lot of different things. We have a really ambitious vision at Qualia, which is fantastic. And then I'd say for me personally, I think the last thing was just I found a leader and a manager in Matt, who's our VP of marketing at Qualia, where just, you know, an immense amount of trust to kind of go and build my vision for things and that's rare. So I think to be able to really feel like you connect with someone to be able to do that. So that was important.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think common thread through all that too is also like you had that career growth opportunity too, which is like really cool to see be able to come in. So I want to dive into this one too because a lot of PMMs are thinking about this next role. You know, I want to come in, I want to establish the function, maybe I want to be the first pmm, but I'm not familiar with the industry. Talk to me about how you got up to speed, not just on the products, which is incredibly important, or the customers, but like just the industry.

Speaker B: Yeah, you do a lot of reading, you know, like there's a lot of industry publications out there in real estate, whether it's Housing Wire or Inman or Just these different publications that I honestly had never really heard much about before because I wasn't really familiar with real estate. And I just keep an open window on my computer with a bunch of different tabs. And whenever I have some downtime, which becomes less and less, but whenever I have some downtime, I do just read about what's going on in the industry. And the cool thing about it is that with real estate, it's actually interesting because to your point, obviously real estate is booming right now and there's a lot going on and there's so many different kind of macro things that are happening that it's an interesting topic to read about as well. Right. And it's also something that's impacting probably people in your life today, because you probably know people that are buying or selling a home, even if you're not. Right. And you see those things. So for me, I just, I would read a lot. I would talk to a lot of people at the company that had had a lot of experience in the space, and I just would ask questions. I ask all my dumb questions. And sometimes I would ask the same question over and over again. And I'm really shameless about it because it's just like, I know I'm a smart person. I just need to understand. And so you do that. And then all of a sudden, I don't know, maybe not all of a sudden, but, you know, six months in. Wow. Like, I know a lot more than I did before. And so it's a pretty exciting transformation. The other thing I'd say is our company as a whole just does an amazing job of onboarding. And I really think I have to say that because at the end of the day, you should read and all that kind of stuff. When someone comes and joins Qualia, like, we have like a two, three week bootcamp where they get up to speed and so it's just like they teach you everything you need to know. And that's pretty amazing as well.

Speaker A: Very cool. It's nice that the company culture is also supporting that knowledge growth. I think that's key. That's super important because this is my own personal opinion. I think people just like yourself, just like myself, you can learn the space. Now, will I be like a deep domain expert? Like, no. But I will get there. Right. I know I have the curiosity and that hunger to learn. I'm going to absorb it all in and it's going to like, you'll see it in my work. Right. Directing about positioning or messaging or building out the team. Right. So anyway, I'll say if you're out there listening, you can do this, make the jump, make that leap. You can totally do it. I did it. Priyanka did it. So, all right, so you're not familiar with the industry. You decided to make the jump. This is in Covid time. Talk about real estate. Super hot right now. Now, how did you evaluate that risk? Like, how did you know that you were ready to make that jump?

Speaker B: I mean, for me, I had been at gainsay for almost four years and I felt like I wasn't going to see the next step there, to be honest. So I had sort of started already looking for further opportunities in a soft way and just kind of seeing what's out there. And this came really opportunistically to me. And honestly, I think at the end of the day, uh, I'll sort of take it away from Qualia for a second and not make it about. But I think just personally, when you think about risk for yourself, like, what's the worst that can happen? Like, you join a company, all the things that people said about it were amazing. And you get there and it's not okay, well, you can leave and there's going to be another job, right? And there's going to be another opportunity, and you kind of have to, like, sort of trust the fact that you're a smart person and have this experience and whatever, right? And it's going to work out. And I think the second thing I'd say is, like, I have this fundamental belief for myself, though, that you control your own destiny, too. I mean, there are certain things that I knew had to be kind of be foundationally there. Which one of them being having a great leader to work with, great people to work with, but beyond that, like, if you have great people to work with, like, you can make success, like, hopefully, right? And I think you can really build something. And I do feel that we've done that this past year.

Speaker A: Yeah, all fantastic points and couldn't agree more. I'm curious on one thing you said earlier in the conversation you were talking about. This team was really good. They took it from zero to one. And a lot of our guests that we've talked to have been that person. And so I'm curious, now you've coming in and now we're establishing the function, right? Like, we're establishing this and your job is to take it to 1, 2, 3, 5, right? What does that look like? I mean, you're a year into that, so I'm just curious, what does it look like what were some of those challenges?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first thing that I did when I came in was align really closely with product and sales. I think those are the two teams wanted to make sure that we built a function that sort of met the needs of everyone. And so I built really strong relationships with product leaders, some of whom had actually come in right prior to me. So we were sort of in the same timing, which was kind of nice. And then it's same thing with sales, right. And just making sure that we sort of hit the. I don't know if it's like the right thing to say is like hit the reset button, but just, you know, you don't have. I think when you join a company you have like a finite window in which you can kind of say, like, hey, things are going to be different and I'm going to make some changes here.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: People to believe you. Right. And so I think I did spend a good amount of time in those first 90 days just getting to know folks and really getting to establish kind of like what I would like to build in terms of product market, what I ideally love for the team to look like. And how does that sort of jive with how you're building things in product and how you're structuring the team there? And same thing in sales, right. And honestly, same thing within marketing, right? Because we have demand gen and field marketing and other teams that are focused on certain go to market motions. And so I added, I think hopefully a fair amount of structure to it. I think prior to me being there, I think we had a great team of folks that were, I think were very tactically focused. So just like really building a lot of materials, things like that again, that we needed from getting from zero to one. But we didn't necessarily have folks that were like focused on a specific product or specific audience, things like that. Right. So it's sort of like all hands on deck for everything. And so that was something that I identified early. And also I think that in conjunction with being given the remit to hire and build, right, like you have to have both those things. I mean, if you only have three people, then like you can't divide them up amongst seven things, right. So I was told, well, we need to have some structure here and some ownership over certain products and audiences. But then also like here you can hire, right? So you can actually go and build that vision that you lay out. And so, yeah, I mean that's pretty much kind of what I Thought about. And like I said, I give a lot of the credit to, uh, leadership in the business for allowing me to build that. Right. Because I think what's hard to do is that if you're like, okay, come in and change product marketing and we're not giving you any resources. Right. That's hard. Like, I don't even know how anyone would really do that, but it has to be a bit of both.

Speaker A: Yeah, a hundred percent. And change is hard.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I'm curious too, like, how you manage that change with the team that was currently there, maybe reorgang some of that, and then also with other teams, like, you know, that stakeholder alignment. I just kind of, like diving into a touch deeper there just because I know I'm with you. You want to come in, you have a vision and you want to see it executed, but it's the execution part that can get people into trouble. You come in, you do it too fast, and now you're like, whoa, who is this person? Like, doesn't understand anything. And then you wait too long and you're like, is this person going to do anything? Like, how did you kind of strike that balance?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that the first thing that I thought about when you just asked this question is, like, it's one thing when you come in and there's an existing team and you need be sensitive to the existing team and what their interests are and everything. So one of the first things I did was just sat down with the members of the team that were currently there and tried to get a sense for what their interest was in different products and audiences and what work they had done and what kinds of relationships that they had built. Right. And really making sure that those were strong and then kind of figuring out, okay, staffing based on the existing folks that you have on the team so that they're set up for success. I think that's really important. And you need that, right? Because, like, the last thing you want is to, like, lose people because of the change. Right. And so that was really important. And then, honestly, I put pen to paper and sat down and just, I talked to a lot of people and then just really sat down and ideated, like, what would I want this org or this team to look like? And how would I ideally see them working with different folks? And what do I see them owning? And then I kind of roadshowed that when I shopped it around. And it's like, anything, right? You put an idea on paper and then you have to gain buy in. Right. I did that. And I think it seems silly, but I think it just like getting ideas down on paper is really important. So like creating that slide deck of here's what I want the team to look. Here's our goals, right? Let the line make sure that the. Those sound good to you. Product. Does that sound good to you? Sales in terms of what you think product marketing should be doing? Because this is what I think we should be doing. And then putting together the actual like team structure of like, okay, here's how we're going to set up the team and here's who they're going to work with with you product on your side and who they're going to work with on sales. Here's who they're going to work with on cs. Right. And it builds a vision there for people to be like, yeah, that makes sense. Or I actually think we need someone to be focused on X. Right. Or I think that I actually want this person to work with that person or whatever. Right. And I think it really, you gain buy in. Right. You gain people excited about your vision. And then we got to. And again, like, I think a lot of it is in. And I keep coming back to this. I know, but it's a lot of it was in hiring, right? Because at the end of the day, like the major changes get made when you actually bring people on, right. And then people see like, okay, you told me that someone in products is okay, well, you told me that you're going to hire a PMM that's going to be focused on this product that we're building that we're doing amazing things with. And then when they actually see that person come through, right. And start onboarding, then they realize, oh, this is actually happening. Right. And so you see that in. So that was such a critical thing to get going for me. It was just like you get in, you sort of stabilize the team, you figure out making sure folks that are there set up for success and then you build towards a vision.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think it was slightly different within your case and it sounded like you did a really good job of this is a lot of times people come in on that 0 to 1 and you're really only doing the stakeholder management, like peer to peer level and up. Uh, right. But you're having to also go up and down and side to side.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that's a lot, right. I mean it's a lot of juggling and how presenting information, how you're getting that buy in because your current team has to be bought in. Leadership has to be bought in, other teams have to be bought in and you're trying to do it in a decent amount of time. Right. So you could actually implement that plan. So let's jump into it. I love your framework so far and how you approach this. Let's dive into hiring because hiring PMMS is hard. It's not just trying to get the right person in there. It's also trying to get the right culture fit, the right skill alignment. How are they going to play well over here? Right. And so talk to me about the team you came in. It was three people. What is it now and who have you hired?

Speaker B: DMA came in with actually four people. Four people.

Speaker A: Okay. All right, all right.

Speaker B: Throwing out a random number there. And yeah, so it is hard to hire. And it's hard to hire in PM world. I'll start by saying that I actually am a very open minded hirer because I didn't grow up in marketing. Right. I didn't start my career in marketing. I started it in management consulting. I went to business school. I worked at Gainsight and actually started at Gainsight and business Operations and then moved over to product marketing and then sort of here I am. M and so I know that you don't need to do marketing for like 10 years to be a great product marketer. Like I know that because I've been there and I knew that like I said, you don't have to have 10 years of experience. And so I'm a very open minded hire. And so I actually looked for folks that had done management consulting before. I looked for folks that had done sales enablement before. And I really believe in taking, I guess they would call it taking a chance on people. Although like, I think I don't necessarily always see it that way. I think there's a lot of people that have amazing skill sets that as long as you can kind of write well and you're curious and there's some basic characteristics that I look for. I think you could be very successful in this job. I think think when hiring becomes challenging it is general across the United States. It's a challenging hiring environment. Right. For whatever it is. Right. But I think it becomes particularly challenging if you're just pattern matching on like one or two things. Right. Then it becomes really hard. And so I think taking uh, an open minded approach was important things that I look for. Like I looked for folks that, like I said, could have had that management consulting experience because I think it shows the ability to work on a wide range of projects. It shows exact Presence in a lot of cases, because you have to be really trained on that, shows the ability to create really compelling materials for presentation, which typically translate well to marketing materials, things like that. And so there's a lot of those skills that I look for. And honestly, we've done really well, and I. I've even brought folks in internally from customer success. They know our customer and our business really well. That's a really great background. I've had people on the team that have joined that have only ever done B2C marketing, but they still are fundamentally curious people, and they still kind of have that gut feeling for things. So we actually have a very diverse team in terms of backgrounds and experiences. And I actually think each person really compl. Complements one another, and they bring a lot of really great ideas to the fore.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's so important. I'm a huge believer in having diverse teams. Like, I think earlier in my career, I didn't see it as much and then being in the Valley as actually, you just see it. Right. You're like, oh, I've never even thought about that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Or your background is so different than mine, and they are able to just help. And it influences decisions, it sharpens each other. And again, like you said earlier, it brings all ships rise. Right. And so good stuff there. I'm curious with that, with your hiring. This is always a very fun question. Do you have any fun interview questions that you like to ask?

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, no. I'm probably the most. Honestly, I think I'm the most boring interviewer ever. I think I'm a fun manager. Like, I. You know, I think my team would say this. In our weekly team meetings, we always do, like, a fun icebreaker. So, like, I think that we're actually. The team is going to the exploratorium today for a fun team. Like, I think we're a fun team. But, yeah, I think maybe it's a good point. Maybe I should ask more fun questions.

Speaker A: Oh, no. I just didn't know if you had any, like, in your back pocket that you can, like. If I ask this question and they answer it. Well, I know, right? Like, I just know. But no, not a problem. So scaling out the team. You're hiring a bunch of people. What challenges did that present?

Speaker B: I think for me, it was managing all these people. You're onboarding people every month or so, right. When you're scaling quickly, and so you have to. And again, in the industry that we're in, there's a lot to learn. And again, in the business that we're in, there's a lot of complexity. So just getting every person kind of up to speed so that they can start contributing. Like, I spent a lot of time individually with each person because I really wanted to make sure that we were doing a really good job of onboarding so that they could start adding value really quickly. So that's hard. Right. And I think it kept going throughout the year, and it never really. It still hasn't let down quite yet. And, uh, at some point it will. At some point we'll get to that point where it's like, we have the team, but that's definitely a challenge. And then, yeah, like, in general, I mean, I think this is probably the case in any business. It's just. Just now that you have the team you're executing and when you're executing, and we're working with a lot of different stakeholders across product sales, marketing, customer success, there's a lot of conversations that are always happening. A lot of pots in the oven or whatever, iron in the fire, whatever that expression is not, uh. And I guess you don't put pots in the oven. And so, yeah, I think there's just a lot to juggle all the time. And again, because if you go onto quality.com, you see we have a lot of different products. And so the team is. And my team hands. Handles product marketing across all of our products. Right. So in terms of my scope and responsibility, it is quite a significant breadth. And then of course, as a leader, you want to get to a good amount of depth on things. And especially in the beginning, when folks are new, you want to make sure that people are on the right path. That's definitely challenging.

Speaker A: I know. And I think what you've outlined here is such a good example of why that's different from 0 to 1 to 1 to 2 plus. Right. So hiring, onboarding and then managing your current direction, that's a lot of work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: On top of the amount of products, feed, new features being built, going to market. Right. It's a lot. And I think that's now the challenge. Right. Whenever people come in and that 0 to 1, you're really just kind of building it out, flexing the muscle. How do we launch a product? Right. You can go back and listen to other episodes with other PMMs that are really that first PMM, but if you really think about establishing the function, scaling a team, growing the team and scaling with. With the company, this is what it looks like. Priyanka, you're doing it. I Know you're year one in. I'm like, so excited to hear what year two looks like. We'll definitely have to have you come back on and walk us through what year two looks like. As you've built out the team and now it's execution time. What does that look like? So before I let you go, though, like, we've got to get into some thrills and chills. I know you got to have some good ones. So talk to me about some of those highs and some of those lows.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Highs are every single time we get a great candidate to sign, join the team, and to continue building this amazing thing that we're building. Just so exciting. We're just on this amazing journey and I get so excited when we bring someone else on and we're able to, like, sell them on that vision. That's really fun. And then I think, uh, sort of on the flip side, chills is like, I'll be honest, like, in the first few months when I was here, we had a little bit of attrition on my team. Just folks that have been here for a long time, it was the right time for them to move on and for their lives and everything. And so it just. That's hard, right? Especially when you're in building mode. It's really hard when you're building and then all of a sudden and like someone knocks down a wall. You know what I mean? You're like, no, I just got that up. Or I just felt like I made progress there. That's really hard. But it becomes a lot easier over time because I think it's really hard when you have a really small team because losing one person just like, feels so painful. But when you have a really solid, larger team, like, you're less susceptible to those sort of shocks and you realize that that's just part of the business, right? That's just part of a business. Someone once told me, like, at the end of the day, the business will survive past any one individual person. That's kind of the point of it. And so you're building something that' lasting and hopefully that's what we're doing here.

Speaker A: But when you're in the throes of it, it just hurts.

Speaker B: Oh, my God. One night where I was just like, oh, like I had this one person from my team that told me that she was moving on and she was just so fantastic. And I just remember that night being like, oh, my God, I need to do like a 10 minute meditation. I was just like, I'm so stressed out. And I did. And we got through it. We got through it. Like, you're not alone in it at all. You have your leadership and your peers around you and everything and obviously things move on and we've built an amazing team. So.

Speaker A: I know, but like at that moment you're just like, no, this person did this or this or was doing that. And I think for me, I also started thinking about, oh, like we have to now go open a rack. And then I have to go, here comes the, uh, interviewing.

Speaker B: Do it. I mean, sometimes I think about it and I'm like, even in my job today, I'm just like, oh, like I could spend time thinking about how stressful something is or I could just do it. You know what I mean? Like. And uh, yeah, usually if you just do the latter, you get through it and it's good. Great. So, yeah.

Speaker A: Well, that's a really great mindset and outlook on uh, a lot of this is sometimes, as we've heard from other guests, those highs and lows are the same thing. Right? And it's that same moment in time, but it's like in it, it's a low, you come out and it's like, wow, look at that. Like it was such a high. But like you had to be in the valley to see the mountain, right? Like, and so thanks again, Priyanka. That was such a masterclass of uh, one year in coming in and establishing the function at a high growth startup. So really excited to get to meet with you and discuss all this and I forward to catching up again sometime soon.

Speaker B: Yeah, ah, me too. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker A: And now a quick word from our partners at Clue. Stay in the know about your competitive landscape with Clue. Share real time insights across your organization with Clue's dynamic battle cards delivered everywhere, your sales reps live through integrations with Salesforce, Slack, HighSpot and many more with Clue. You'll never let your sales team be blindsided by competitors again. Crush your competition with Cloud Blue. And that is it for season three of, uh, Thrills and Chills. Thank you so much for listening in and if you have any feedback, things you like, things you want to hear, anything else, please connect with me on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you. We'll see you uh, next time.