My audacious PMM journey. Spoiler alert: I did not do it alone.

2019 was the year my professional life changed. And it was the turning point that got me to this exact moment. But before we go there, what sparked this article?

Someone recently mentioned, "Nico, if I just stumbled upon your profile, I probably wouldn't pay too much attention. You don't have any information under your Spryker experience".

True. And since I had little time to post interesting, well-thought ideas lately, why would anyone linger on? How can someone know what I'm made of and why they'd want to interact with me? So, I decided to reflect fully on my bold journey over the past 4 years and add my thoughts here. And maybe, it might just help someone out there going through a similar experience.

I'm doing it now, around 11 PM, with my cozy twinkle lights on, while the house is quiet, well... except for my cat's sudden snoring marathon. Anyway, the best time for reflection.

How it all started

There are several key points when one's life journey can part into very different paths. Relocating to the Netherlands towards the end of 2018, was such a moment.

We literally started our life from scratch with just two pieces of luggage, a chubby orange cat, and an unfurnished, stark apartment, but this is a story for another time.

Rewinding to the story's main thread, my husband was going to work every day while I kept trying. And trying. And trying. And trying some more to find a job in my field of expertise: marketing. Hundreds of applications, each with its thoughtful cover letter, several interviews, but nothing clicked. I think anyone in the current job market can relate. Please stay strong and keep going. It will work out.

Changing the strategy

2018 went by, 2019 came and after about three months of applications and an insidious, uncharacteristic sense of desolation, I knew I had two options. Either stay home and continue applying, hoping something would happen, or change the strategy. Right around that time, I found out about an event for event planners—which was a long-life passion of mine at that time. I tried to get in as a volunteer, but the event was in a couple of days, and they were covered.

But I really wanted to go. I got myself a job as a bartender for events, and the first one I chose to go to was precisely this one. As a bartender, I knew you could get people to talk, and I learned so much about the key sessions, just by talking with the attendees. So that mission was accomplished, but there's more to the story.

I also saw the great people from Event Design Collective . I knew about them because I was familiar with the Event Canvas and the book Roel Frissen , Ruud Janssen, DES, CMM , and Dennis Luijer wrote. So I approached, and we started talking, sharing thoughts around events, projects, people we had in common; long story short, by the end of the event, Roel told me to send an email, as "we might just find a way to collaborate" even though they weren't looking to hire at the moment.

A broken foot makes you reevaluate priorities

I did follow up, and a few weeks later, I joined the team as a Project Manager, though perhaps, Operations Manager would've been more accurate.

I still kept my bartending gig as well. After all, I worked only part-time at EDC and needed to supplement my income. That... until I broke my foot. After a few painful conversations with the managers from that company, I decided my health was more important and focused solely on EDC and a project dear to my heart from Romania: How People Learn .

First milestone: Getting back into a strategic position

When I joined the Event Design Collective, they needed help with the continuously growing team of licensees and expansion in the different countries in Europe and the Americas. I never did this before, but I thought, "Let's do it; I'll figure it out". So I joined and created processes and procedures and was a link between our licensees and customers and the company co-founders. As such I focused on incorporating our two audiences' feedback to improve their onboarding experience.

I like to learn continuously and honestly, couldn't stay away from marketing and innovation for too long. How could I? So I started looking for other ways to help, from improving lead nurturing to helping define the new business model: a digital business model.

And then, as it was all picking up, Covid hit, and I was let go. I learned so much from my experience and the three great co-founders on how to run a small business and expand it geographically and into new business models. I'll forever be grateful they took a chance on me as this helped me get back in the game.

The second milestone: Growth Marketing as a lever

In the meantime, since relocating, I wanted to explore more this fascinating trend that was taking Western Europe, and especially the Netherlands, by a whirlwind: growth marketing.

So I took an excellent course on Growth Marketing from CXL and started applying my learning to the Romanian project I mentioned above. After I was let go from EDC had a few brief freelancing collaborations with several companies, which further helped me hone various skills from negotiation to partner marketing, a bit of nonprofit marketing, and growth marketing. It also helped me further understand my weaknesses and what I wanted to do, and what not.

The growth marketing collaboration with Polaris Growth was extremely brief, but had a fantastic time with Omar Lovert and Ewoud Uphof , gained a Klaviyo certification, established a Klaviyo email flow for an international pet food brand, and learned a lot about efficiency, SOPs, and Notion. After we ended, Ewoud did something few would do. He recommended me to 3 other people, including the thoughtful owner of Spargle.

Through Spargle and after a great conversation with Marloes van Wijk , Wendy Steven-Toering , Leslie Hogeveen , and Mikael Öhrvall I joined HalloStroom as a Growth Marketer. Little did I know my role would become a Performance Marketing one, which would then gain mighty Product Marketing influences. When I joined, they needed someone who could think outside the box, willing to do experiments, and be strategic about this approach. Someone who knew how to think creatively, strategically, and analytically.

So while I was learning a lot about Performance Marketing and working with lead generation companies, I also partnered with Customer Support to learn about our customer's pain points and turned those insights into a campaign. Partnered with Product and ran a competitive market analysis which led to developing new services and partnered with Sales and Marketing to create new brochures, testimonials, case studies, and a creative Green Friday campaign. I learned a lot from my colleagues, but especially from Miranda Ippel , Stijn de Ruijter , and Kees van Wensem .

We parted ways, but not before solving a sudden crisis. The Facebook business ads account was hacked. It all ended well, but I gained another few valuable skills and lessons to my growing book of professional lessons. And maybe a couple of gray hairs too.

The third milestone: Product marketing, my unbeknownst love and fit

But just as this chapter ended, something remarkable was approaching. There was this emerging topic in marketing: product marketing, so naturally, I wanted to learn more.

I wasn't even finished with the first article when a massive EUREKA moment stroke. I KNEW! I knew this was it. This was the field that clicked with all my past experiences. This was what I'd been doing in bits in all my previous roles long before product marketing was a comet fast approaching my galaxy.

This was the role where I could make the most of my strengths.

An eclectic background with a broad marketing overview and experience which is paramount to understanding how everything connects in a business and have a unique perspective shaped by different angles.

A vast curiosity that is key to keep learning and also, for competitive intelligence.

Collaboration, which is essential as product marketing sits at the intersection of so many other departments.

Adaptability as situations can change rather fast in product marketing and one needs to be able to pivot quickly.

And the willingness to constantly step outside my comfort zone to explore new avenues and gain knowledge and experience.

Plus, a good balance between creative, analytical, and strategic thinking.

But I also needed to learn more about the field and the role. And quickly too. I consumed product marketing-related content (articles, books, podcasts, webinars), took the CXL Product Marketing course, got all the great templates from the Product Marketing Alliance , joined all the relevant communities AND continued to do what I started a few years back. Connected, interacted, and learned from the right people. Too many to mention them all, but you know who you are and I thank you deeply for your continuous support and knowledge exchange. A few special thanks go to Catalin Boruga , Mindy Regnell , Andy McCotter-Bicknell 🥦 , Brandon Bedford , Jason Oakley , Aaron Stillman , Ashleigh Eisinger 🤝 , Ashley Herbert Popa , Corina Stirbu , Sorana McCarron, MBA , Patrick Icasas .

The fourth milestone: Find the right environment to thrive in

While I was doing this, I was recommended by an ex-colleague to Spryker for their open PMM role, which I was interested in. Soon, I had a great discussion with Mireia Fontbernat —one of the three main reasons I joined the company and who has constantly been supporting my journey from day 1, then with Vashen Moodley , Laurent Séraphin , and Michael Stach .

A few weeks in, I was in this amazing Product Marketing role, in this great company, with these brilliant people: not just the ones above, but also, Ricky Sutton , Sarah Halbrehder-Ströhler , and Dila D. ! And it keeps getting better.

And what have I achieved so far in terms of bigger projects?

In the first three months, I set up the Competitive Intelligence program and kept enabling our various teams since then through insights, assets, workshops and there's more to come. A few months later, I was a speaker at Product Drive talking about "First days. Solo PMM vs. Team PMM" and shared my own experience and a framework to define where one is on their PMM journey— thank you Emilia Korczynska and Tiana He for the invitation. Helped others who experienced a similar path and struggles. Earlier this year initiated the win-loss program which provides an excellent opportunity to gather valuable insights from our customers and prospects—it needs some nurturing to grow to its fullest potential. And not long after, we launched the Composable Value Services, Spryker's newest offering and now I'm cross-collaborating on one more project with great impact on the company.

But it wasn't always easy.

I had my fair share of challenges, failures even, and I still have skills to improve, such as negotiation, assertiveness, and better prioritization—yes PMMs, I know many of you can relate to this one—and be even more flexible, keep an MVP approach at the forefront of my initiatives and continuously iterate to grow each of the above initiatives to their full potential.

On the other hand, I do enjoy so much constantly stepping outside my comfort zone, learning and doing new things, collaborating with so many bright people, looking for ways to improve processes, contributing to creative brainstorms, closing gaps with strategic initiatives, and SO. Much. More.

Besides the various situations I was exposed to, I have many past and current colleagues I have learned so much from. And there are a few I feel I learn most from, starting with my close team, Sarah, Ricky, and Michael, and continuing with those with different expertise Elizabeth Ryan , Yara Molthan , Charla Session-Reed , Britta Agel , Samuel Pais , Marco Kohm , Cristina Aprile , Rebecca Hoffmann , 👩💻 Raluca L. , Anneliese Hartlaub, LL.M. , Adrian Theiner , Michael Woodvine , Andrej Maihorn , Chris Germann , Jeremy Fourna , Sati Raman Mishra , Gabor Farkas , Charline Götz , Polyna Berlin , Mashay Constantine-Yon , Chris Gourvelos , Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey , Steven Vezmarovic , William Taylor , Chris Rauch , Julia Popa-Boulton , Clara P. , and our two co-founders Boris Lokschin and Alexander Graf .

But besides my team at Spryker, I am grateful to be part of great communities such as Healthy Competition 🥦 , Competitive Intelligence Alliance , Sharebird , Product Marketing Alliance , Sales Enablement Collective , Online Geniuses , The Compete Network , Product Marketing Community and to be surrounded by fantastic, supportive people, from so many different areas and seniority, particularly from PMM and CI. And I appreciate you all! Never before have I experienced a more generous community than the product marketing one.

The fifth milestone: Becoming more strategic

What's next? Well, the story still unravels, but I've been thinking a lot about the direction I want to go next at Spryker and beyond, and a more strategic approach already sparks a lot of ideas in my mind.

I have a vision and strongly believe Product Marketing should be more strategic. And this is a very exciting direction with high impact on various areas, but I'll tell you all about it another time.

For now, I'm focusing on making my role more strategic through better assertiveness, prioritization, mental models and critical thinking. Bonus points for diving deeper into behavioral psychology as well. This way I will ensure giving my attention to the right actions and outputs so I can provide more value for Spryker and enable my professional growth in the process.

There is still so much more to explore and learn, it's exhilarating!

So to quickly recap, what helped me along my path to PMM:

• Staying focused and optimistic.
• Finding solutions outside the box.
• Stepping outside the comfort zone.
• Knowing when to let go and when to go with the flow.
• Feeding my curiosity through learning.
• Networking and connecting with amazing people.
• Support others as much as I can and always be grateful.
• Reminding myself to unwind and enjoy the special moments with my dear ones.