Troubadour

Growing Troubadour, the UK's first dedicated product marketing consultancy for B2B SaaS. We help startups narrow down on their best-fit buyers, write messaging to spotlight unique product value, and build movements that stand out in the market.

Working with tech companies from pre-seed to series B backed by the likes of Y Combinator, Octopus Ventures, Felix Capital and LocalGlobe.

🚀 Early-stage startups: We help you narrow down on your target market, figure out message-market fit faster, and find a unique place in your category.
🚀 Growth-stage startups: We help you expand into the U.S. and Europe, and launch new products to market with impact.

Services include positioning & messaging, ICP development, collateral and sales enablement, buyer and customer research, competitor intel, product launch strategy, pricing & packaging and more.

Need a quick bit of product marketing advice? DMs are open. Let's go 🚀

Founder

hubble

Advising on everything product marketing for B2B SaaS.

Advisor

StartOut

Mentor to LGBTQIA+ founders in B2B SaaS on GTM and product marketing strategy.

Mentor

GrowthMentor

Mentor to B2B SaaS founders and marketing leaders on product marketing strategy.

i³ investing

We're building the U.K. and Europe's largest and fastest-growing LGBTQ+ network that brings investors and founders together.

Leading on partnerships and marketing.

We are the first, and only, registered organisation in the U.K. and Europe solely dedicated to queering venture capital - for both LGBTQ+ founders & investors.

i³ ~ investing in intersectional incredibles.

Marketing Lead & Annual Conference Organiser

OPUS

The global community for early-stage founders who to go further, faster, together.

Member

Fractional product marketing leader working with VC-backed B2B SaaS tech startups worldwide. Partnered with startups including Unmade, Vault, Continuum, Amplyfi, Prolific and more.

Engagements have included:
- Fractional product marketing leadership
- Positioning & messaging
- ICP and persona development
- Product launch strategy
- Sales enablement
- Product marketing strategy & team development
- Strategic narratives
- Collateral (pitch decks, case studies, solutions and use case messaging)

Fractional Product Marketer

Vizibl

B2B SaaS Supplier Collaboration tech. Backed by LocalGlobe and Force Over Mass.

Built out product marketing function to drive global market expansion with enterprise customers. Also co-developed new product strategy prior to the appointment of Vizibl's first product lead.

Head Of Product Marketing

Beamery

B2B enterprise SaaS HRTech. Backed by Index Ventures, EQT Ventures and M12.

Founding product marketer at Beamery, building global product marketing function to drive U.S. market expansion.

Founding Product Marketing Manager

Built a global CS function as Beamery's first Customer Success Manager, with focus on retention and upsell. Worked with enterprise clients across the UK, Europe, United States and Asia.

Founding Customer Success Manager

Developed outbound sales strategy for Beamery, building pipeline in Europe, U.S. and Australia.

Account Executive

HSBC

Experience across Debt Capital Markets and Prime Finance before landing in Equity Sales.

Analyst

I'm Craig, founder of Troubadour, building the UK’s first dedicated product marketing consultancy for B2B SaaS tech. I've been a founding product marketer at several fast-growing VC-backed startups, including Beamery and Vizibl. I'm fortunate to have been part of the scale-up journey from seed through to larger growth-stage rounds.

Today I help B2B SaaS startups figure out their best-fit customers and create messaging that instantly clicks with buyers. We work with companies around the world backed by investors like Y Combinator, Octopus Ventures and LocalGlobe. I also advise early-stage founders on positioning & messaging and GTM strategy to help accelerate their journey to product-market fit.

When I'm not building Troubadour, I work on my stand-up comedy material to London audiences who feel relaxed enough to sleep.

I just hit the 4,000 follower milestone.

Not exactly 10,000 or a lovely round 5,000.

But I’m going to celebrate anyway 💅 

I had a moment of hesitation before posting this, but then I reminded myself: I’m vain, I’m insecure and I’m needy.

I also reflected on a few other things whilst sipping my Yorkshire Tea.

When working in-house as a product marketer, I was conflicted about building a public profile. 

I loved sharing big team announcements and awesome product launches. I guess it was a stepping stone to putting myself out there.

When I became a product marketing consultant in 2021, I thought I’d just continue with the posting. Yet I no longer had an exciting startup brand to attach myself to. Now it was just me.

Back in school, I did everything I could to avoid attention because that’s how I survived the bullying. I made sure never to disagree or be contentious. Just nod, smile and carry on.

After launching myself and Troubadour, I really didn’t anticipate how vulnerable I would feel talking about my approaches to product marketing. That imposter voice got LOUD.

To be honest I’m still on that journey. I still spend way too long on each LinkedIn post. But then suddenly you reach these wee little milestones.

When I see people have actually, consciously, followed me, even though I only offered some of you a large financial inducement through an offshore Swiss bank account, I suddenly feel very Irish & British in struggling to accept a compliment. 

Which is why I want to say a massive thank you. Obvs you’re not all following me for my content, but a half dozen of you are.

And it really means a lot.

Craig Brown

Founder @ Troubadour | Positioning & messaging for B2B tech | Product marketing for early and growth-stage startups | Ex-Beamery, Ex-HSBC

I was destined for product marketing when I discovered my abilities in gossip.

Back in school, classmates would laugh about my austere haircuts and obsession with Rihanna. SOS was a bop. So was We Ride. I’m still correct.

I loved a bedroom dance routine and I couldn’t dance. I lacked fashion sense. I tried to understand our daily discussions about Carrie and Big in Sex and the City. I failed to qualify as gay. None of this is relevant.

But practice makes perfect. Not only did I successfully become gay, I realised I wanted to gossip about other people. To help them. Like tech bros, with their lack of sleep, saying "disrupt" and hoodies. This is exactly how I discovered my passion for tech, product marketing and customer research. This narrative arc makes no sense.

Which brings me onto a big challenge I face when working with founders who know their industry well -> they don’t see the need for customer research. They experienced the same pains, so why listen to other people talk about what you already know?

To be fair* (*Gen Z, that means ‘tbf’) that’s not delulu. Founders already know 95% of what customers are going to say. But thanks to my rizz, I slay at getting buyers to tell me those other, revealing, 5% of insights. Things like:

💡 "Our current tool is fine, but it gives Martin from compliance too much power and he gets weird about it."
💡 "We’re currently using OnlyFanfare for PR management, but it feels like I’m filing out a tax return every time I log in."
💡 "Your product sounds powerful, but also like I’d have to set goals and be accountable for results. I work in sales."

Those 5% of insights can tell you things like:

➡️ The *real* trigger for buyers looking for a new solution - often emotional or social dynamics
➡️ The *real* competitors that most target buyers consider, not the direct competitors with missing vowels - like Excel or bored interns
➡️ What champions actually told their boss to get budget sign off - not just the benefits and value props you think worked
➡️ The specific language they use to describe their pains and needs - not just those esoteric industry terms
➡️ Flagging emerging or future changes to their needs

Buyer research might feel like a waste of time, but you could stumble upon golden nuggets that pivot your positioning for the better.

Let's gossip more! 🥰

Excited to be partnering again with the OVHcloud Startup Program 🚀 

I'm hosting a workshop on product positioning for the Blockchain & Web3 Accelerator where we'll explore faster routes to growth and product-market fit. I'm also joining the accelerator as a mentor 🎉 

Over the next 10 weeks, I’ll be supporting some of the most promising blockchain and Web3 startups from around the world as they scale, with access to:

⚡ €50k in free OVHcloud credits (plus Startup Program credits)
⚡ Guidance from OVHcloud’s Blockchain & Web3 teams
⚡ Business opportunities, partners, and investor connections
 
There will also be an in-person showcase at the OVHcloud Summit in Paris in November. Looking forward to seeing these founders pitch on stage!

👉 If you’re a founder building the next big thing, check out the OVHcloud Startup Program or drop me a line if you want to find out more.

Can't wait to get going again! 🔥

“I want to get our messaging right before we go live...”

You could spend months doing research, moodboarding taglines and building out a brand tone so sharp it could actually cut one of those ‘Ripe and Ready’ avocados. 

I've worked with lots of awesome early and growth-stage teams who wait “until we get it right”. 

For sure launching feels vulnerable. You can’t take it back once it’s out there. Plus the pressure in larger startups when leaders higher up don’t quite get product marketing and think results just happen 💅 

But instead of waiting for perfection, you could go to market and test rough versions of messaging and copy, by doing things like:

💁‍♂️ Speaking to prospects and gauging reaction
⛄ Running cold outbound A/B tests
🧲 Landing page A/B tests if your website gets more traffic than mine…

Positioning, messaging and GTM aren’t done in neat, consecutive phases. You acquire data, you go back to positioning, you change up your GTM, you update your messaging, you do more tests, you get more data, then back to positioning. Et cetera.

The moment you go to market, even just a little, you start to learn.

I spoke a while back with legend Joran Hofman on the Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast about this. Thanks again for having me on 🙏 

#positioning #messaging #productmarketing

I’ve built messaging in a vacuum before and seen it flop like a pitch deck with Comic Sans.

When I work with clients, I look at all the ways to test hypotheses and acquire clear data, as fast as possible. Such as whether to use Comic Sans.

Here are some conventional and less conventional ways of replacing assumptions with la data:

- Cold emails: Different angles, tones, subject lines. Prospects deliver their verdict via reply rate, lack-of-reply rate, CTA clicks or the accumulation of email inbox dust.

- Landing pages: If you have website traffic, create a few versions focused on different personas or use cases. If none of them work, add pictures of dogs.

- Targeted ad campaigns: If you’re willing to drop a little 💰, write a bunch of variations to specific buyers. Launch them. Watch which ones click. Then pretend you "knew that one would win" the entire time.

- Email footers: A great place to drop a one-liner. See if there’s any variation with different CTAs and click-through rates.

- Sales decks: Try a new narrative to see if the qualified prospect says, “Ohhh, NOW I get it!”, like you just panic explained electricity to someone holding a toaster in a bath.

- Discovery calls: Use different ways of framing your value. After enough calls, you learn what resonates, and what … (bet you didn’t expect this one) … does not resonate 🥁 

- Demos: Frame the value around different use cases to see what lands best. You’ll get to a much better nod-to-confused-face ratio 🫡 : 😵‍💫 

- LinkedIn posts: Extremely high-signal testing ground, especially for case studies or solutions-type messaging. In the past, some stories and posts got DMs. Some got two likes. One of them was me. Vetoing lessons on B2B SaaS.

- Buyer (non-customer) interviews: Listen to what pains them the most about the status quo, and what they think about other solutions. You'll know 95% of it, but wait for the 5% you don't.

- Customer interviews: Understand what made you stand out vs. alternatives.

- Lead magnets / waitlists: Create two different lead magnet angles and see what works. Pictures of dogs.

- Slack/Discord/Reddit communities: Folks in these groups are nerds just like me, so engagement can be much higher. My people ❤️ 

- Pitch competitions: For the early-stagers, test to see if people actually understood a word of what you just said. Ask folks afterwards to summarise your product use case back to you.

- Verbal intros at events: I A/B test this ALL the time for Troubadour. Explain the product to five strangers. Think about when they sound interested and curious, with follow-up questions.

Ok so you don't need to try ALL of these ideas, but hey, options... 

The point is -> speed to pivot. Get good data fast. We eventually need to stop workshopping and let the internet hurt our feelings.

As a child, I wanted to cure world sadness and create a vaccine for rainbow happiness. 

Now I run B2B SaaS positioning workshops.

One of the patterns I can’t unsee for some early and even growth-stage startups is the focus on solving “big” customer problems.

I’ve heard things like:

➡️ “Users don’t have enough visibility”
➡️ “Decisions are being made without good data”
➡️ “Workflows are inefficient”
➡️ “Teams aren’t aligned”
➡️ “Legacy systems can’t scale with growing businesses”

It’s great to be ambitious and go for the biggest commercial opportunity. But these are broad category-level positions, not a product-level entry point. Buyers can already get some version of these things from alternative solutions. If I’m looking for 10x growth, I could get a CRM or a subscription to daily Domino’s.

What helps positioning to stand out is speaking to the exact jobs someone is trying to do and where they currently get tripped up, distracted, or slowly lose the will to live. Or “empathy” as my therapist would call it. I really like him. He’s so good at listening.

Buyers might say things like:

💡 “Trying to pull last quarter’s numbers without accidentally including Q4 2018 and creating a time paradox.”
💡 “Chasing five different people across Slack, email, and one cursed Notion page to get a ‘quick’ quote out the door.”
💡 “Submitting content for review, only to discover it’s still marked as ‘draft’ in someone's personal Google Drive from a week ago.”
💡 “Scheduling a customer call and having no insight into what anyone else on the team has already said to them...”
💡 “Uploading a contract to the approval system and triggering another six-step legal escalation because I forgot to untick a checkbox.”

These aren’t insights into big sexy challenges that end up on a pitch deck slide titled “THE WORLD IS BROKEN”. But they’re real and palpable and potentially very problematic for specific groups of buyers.  This is when they start researching solutions.

If your positioning sounds high-level, you might be solving the right problem, but from too high up.

Zoom in to specific jobs and meet them at their problems today.

Right, I’m off to align my synergies with productive growth for efficient visibility 👋

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