Khalid El Khatib’s Post

My time at Formstack came to an end on the spookiest day of the year - October 13. After 4.5 years of... Launching new product and features Acquiring and integrating products via M&A Working with people remotely Growing from and IC to Director Building a team back up Creating and coaching others with a team management toolkit Developing Product Marketing templates and processes for messaging and positioning, persona + ICP, launch and release, sales training, and enablement Driving Demand programs to make Product Marketing a revenue function And, achieving multiple certifications through exceptional programs ...the best part was the people who taught me (more than I can list here)... I think a lot about the legacy we leave at each moment in our lives. The moments of interaction big and small. I am so grateful for the many legacies the people I worked with left me with. At a time when it feels we've lost a bit of our humanity, never forget the legacy and impact we get to leave on the people and spaces around us. Erin Hammeran Bane taught me how to communicate well to teams, provide consistency, and be a fierce advocate for the best (and right) quality work. Lacey Jackson taught me how to take chances on myself, be an exceptional communicator, write better, and be a really good people manager. Kathryn Loheide taught me that we have to find our "success space" outside of work and taught me how to be a good manager. And how to lead exceptional brand efforts. @Ennis taught me the value of leaning more into customers, taking chances on strategy, and bringing exceptional vision to teams. Colin Chapin taught me that I really do want a cat (hey, marvin!) and how to be a stronger more clear communicator, to have diligence and drive exceptional change across an organization. Ryan Greives taught me to have an eagle eye at all times. He elaborated on the balance between challenge and support - a lesson I'll carry with me forever. William MacKay taught me that you can in fact test things fast and often - pushed me to be a better messager and how to design a wicked pricing page (lol). Kayce Reed-Buechlein taught me how to think customer first, always, mid mod, and countless other things. Mara Konrad taught me how to have the tenacity and see a big vision come to fruition...and of course how to do intelligence right in an organizaiton. Bobbie Jo Gregor - taught me about the balance of work and life as an exceptional mom and Product Marketing Manager. You always sought for clarity since it is in fact kind. Zak Pines taught me how to build a freaking exceptional program, lead with results, collaborate and articulate a vision while seeing it to fruitiion. Elle Woulfe and Rob Lawrence both taught me a sense of rigour, rad-ness, and a great working model for teams (the squads).

How can content marketers reposition themselves in 2024 and beyond? The research below has the answer. Check it out.👇 #contentmarketing #digitalamarketing

Should non-technical founders learn to code? I think not. It's counterintuitive to ignore your strengths as a founder (sales, marketing, talent acquisition, etc). Founders who want to learn to code assume it will help them understand their developers more, or help them create the next Facebook with their own two hands...free of charge! But it's an opportunity cost against time spent selling/promoting your product. Products fail more due to poor Product Market Fit (PMF) plus weak or non-existent distribution methods, not because founders can't code. You'd be better off hiring developers or a technical project manager to provide a buffer between the founder and developers. Curious how non-technical people on the fence of learning to code feel about this topic (if it's a passion you seek, that is a different argument - code away).

2023. This…this was a year. My #yearinreview : It started with an exciting hire as Savannah Cosby joined the Grindr Web team from Twitter. Elon’s loss was our gain. We picked up a great front-end engineer and a big addition to our team’s culture. In March, we started meeting with marketing and the c-suite to plan the Grindr Web rollout, culminating in an exciting May launch & marketing push. We gave our users a third platform to experience Grindr. In addition, it was an exciting opportunity for us to explore new technologies and rapid iteration. April saw me lacing up my shoes and running a 5k for the first time in years. Shortly after launching Grindr Web, David Paul Crouch and I finished migrating the Grindr marketing website & blog to Webflow, then handed the keys over to our Marketing team. Jack Burns and the rest of the Web team did a great job keeping the site updated, but we looked forward to seeing what Marketing could do when empowered to make their own updates. I rode my bike a total of 52 miles in June to raise money for The Trevor Project. My weekly rides started taking me all the way down to the cruise ship port in South Boston and I kept riding all the way down there every week until it got too cold to ride this Fall. With a fellow engineering manager’s departure, I found myself leading two engineering teams spanning iOS, Android, Web, and the backend services that kept the whole thing running. August brought the dreaded Return to Office decree. I would have had to uproot my family and move to Chicago. I opted to take a severance and said a teary goodbye to the people I had grown close to over the past year and a half. My family visited King Richard's Faire in late August and I shot a bow and arrow for the first time since summer camp in 1991. I took my first LL Bean archery class in September and I’ve been a regular at a local range for a couple months now. I get fitted for my own bow & arrows tomorrow – a exciting present for myself. One day passed between my last day at Grindr and an offer from Swing Education. 89 days since I started, I’m still excited to come to work in the morning. I’ve found a new home with such a wonderful team. I’ve also stepped back into a Director of Engineering role for the first time since 2018. In October, I joined the Community Advisory Board for the QT Library, a not-for-profit working to open a brick-and-mortar library serving the Boston LGBTQIA+ community's needs for education, entertainment, and gathering space. So many changes this year. Some were good, some left me biting my nails and grinding my teeth. Despite it all, I believe I’m finishing the year stronger than I started. I’m in a great role with a great company today, and I’m continuing to find activities that strengthen my body while giving me refreshing time away from glowing screens. I’m excited to see what next year brings. But first, I’m going to spend some relaxing time with my family. Happy holidays!

So, the other day someone shared with me a post from another content creator with the tl;dr, "I made it into big tech, but you won't. Cuz you're you". You're not going to believe this, but, I actually have some thoughts and feelings. Now, before I say anything more, I need you to understand one thing about me: I am, for all intents and purposes, a mediocre software engineer. And I don't mean that in the I'm-so-humble-my-apps-only-have-2-million-downloads way. I mean that in the anything-I-can-do-you-can-do-better way—and if I didn't absolutely believe that, I wouldn't be meeting with hundreds of you 1:1 these past few years to debunk Big Tech™ life (and I definitely wouldn't be writing this self-sabotaging post). That said: I have, since October of 2019, applied to FAANG companies a total of six times. Of those six tries, I nailed an offer five times—twice with Amazon, once with Google, and twice with Meta. This ship* is not worth gatekeeping, and it's not worth being an elitist jerk over. In 2023, landing an offer in Big Tech™ means three things: 1.) You have just enough discoverability to be scouted. It took me 5 years, including 2 at a public company, but I've heard more and more in the last few years (pre-layoffs, anyway) from developers with less experience receiving calls from the likes of Amazon and Meta, for example. 2.) You worked really, really, really hard (and/or refused to stop re-applying every year after a rejection or two or ten). 3.) Your interview panel did not include a Brobdingnagian bassbowl**. This is unironically where many should-be-surefire attempts fail. I cannot stress #2 enough***—in part because I can't do anything about #1 or #3 for you, in part because it's the one thing that is most within your locus of control. In my personal experience, while it's generally true for Big Tech™, it's especially true for the three companies I mentioned above, that there's a sort of song-and-dance to the whole process. And it's not even a fun song-and-dance, like trying to learn the choreography to "I'm Just Ken" (working on it!)—it's just a grind. I know you know what I mean—the LeetCode, the system design, the mock interviewing, etc. My personal variant of The Process™ virtually mirrored what Steven Zhang (whom I've opted to not tag in case LinkedIn's algorithm punishes me for it) would outline publicly years later, to mathematically similar results. (On that note, career achievement unlocked: To be 1% more efficient [5/6 vs. 18/22] than Mr. 18 FAANG+ offers /s.) In conclusion, only because I'm rapidly running out of character count—as we say in this corner of the Internet, don't let your dreams be memes. Especially, don't let your dreams 𝕓𝕖 memed, at least not by creators who are themselves memes. You don't need to be or follow some 10x rockstar pirate ninja to succeed. Instead, be like me, be like Chainsaw Man (the hero from HFIL!)—refusing to look back at explosions, revving that engine to rise again and again.

Stark reminder that traffic ≠ audience. Is there a correlation? Sure. But you've got to respect traffic & content to build an audience. That requires creating content that's valuable enough for an enaged audience to pick your content over competing brands. That's why we've launched a newsletter at #HTB. Why I launched a newsletter (#brandkenstein) for my own projects. And why for my DTC ecom startup, I'm investing HEAVILY into brand and content from the get-go. 100% aligned with Victor Eduoh here. #tech #contentmarketing #branding

TechCrunch's recent layoffs and sunsetting of TC+ teaches a lot to B2B startups investing in content... The quote by Jacob Donelly, the Founder of A Media Reporter, said it even most succinctly. Per his analysis, and I agree to some extent, TechCrunch didn't really have an engaged audience of readers eager to consume the next thing they published. I use my self for an example. The times I visit TechCrunch, it's mostly to read more about a recent funding news. And most times, it's when a company executive who raised the fund shares a link to the news here on LinkedIn. You can replace LinkedIn with Twitter. Same pattern. TechCrunch rarely comes to mind when I seek detailed business analysis written to be worth 10-15mins of my time. For those, I turn to: First Round Review CB Insights Lenny's Newsletter Every.to and so on. Of course, people will subscribe to TC+ to access more info about a hot funding news or tech gossip. But like most news and gossip, one month down the line, interest for such diminishes. The result? People won't see the need for a TC+ subscription. The lesson here for B2B startups is two-fold. If you must invest in content marketing, you must invest in such a way to build you an engaged audience. Specifically, an audience of people comprising fans and prospects who look forward to reading your next stuff. If you chase traffic for the sake of it, you're at risk. At risk of adhering to the whims of the platform you're trying to drive that traffic from. Doesn't matter the platform. The downside? Instead of creating what people –your prospects and customers– crave, you'll be chasing vanity metrics to feed your ego. TechCrunch must've realized this, too. How? Quoting Mark Stenberg of ADWEEK, "TechCrunch plans to now lean more heavily into original reporting and content, as well as sponsored posts.” In other words... Obsess over crafting and distributing stories your target ICPs actually want to read. Before chasing traffic blindly. More in the recent edition of our Growing with Content Newsletter on Substack 👇👇👇

If you're leading content or employer branding at a B2B tech company, you likely have three content distribution channels: CEO blog Company blog Organic LinkedIn: company page, recruiters, and employees. While these three are essential for showcasing your culture, sharing leadership philosophies, and attracting talent, don't underestimate the power of a tech blog. Here are 15 tech blogs worth studying: 1. Discord blog: https://lnkd.in/eauXY9H3 2. Meta engineering blog: https://engineering.fb.com 3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Architecture blog: https://lnkd.in/e2M-Yvzx 4. Netflix tech blog: https://lnkd.in/eFQMe7n8 5. Uber blog: http://eng.uber.com 6. Twitter engineering: https://lnkd.in/eZvy4hhK 7. Dropbox engineering: https://dropbox.tech 8. Spotify engineering: https://lnkd.in/eWaXwfVz 9. GitHub engineering: https://lnkd.in/e5dD9qJu 10. Stripe engineering: https://lnkd.in/eW2nsNyH 11. The Cloudflare Blog: https://lnkd.in/etdwvEFi 12. LinkedIn engineering: https://lnkd.in/ecB8rMbe 13. Stripe engineering: https://lnkd.in/eW2nsNyH 14. Slack engineering: https://slack.engineering 15. Lyft engineering: https://eng.lyft.com 📌 Found this helpful? Repost to share with others. 👋🏾 In case we haven't met. I'm Deborrah Ashley, your secret weapon for building brand relevancy and demand on and off LinkedIn. I'm the trusted consultant busy founders and executive leaders rely on to transform how prospective clients and partners engage with their content and invest in their solutions. ☕️ I share daily tips with actionable advice to build trust as an industry leader. Follow me so you don't miss the next one.

[ Important- Do not miss] : Folks! In this time of tough markets and #layoffs , here are the top questions you should practice to crack your next PM role 💕 This approach has helped more than 50+ PMs ( direct or indirect who I know ) crack roles in Google, Meta , Apple, Uber etc 1. Practice Product sense/design questions : - For example: Build a product to buy and sell antiques ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gNt-7G5G 2. Practice product improvement questions: How do you improve Googler maps ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gQPDEDTJ 3. Practice questions based on metrics : If you were the PM for the Save feature at Meta, what metrics would you use to define the success of this feature? : https://lnkd.in/gH-q3Ktd 4. Practice Product Launch Questions : How do you launch a product like Amazon Go ( asked Amazon ): https://lnkd.in/gpb73dQT 5. Practice Technical Design Questions How does Tiny URL work ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gwWg3QAu 6. Practice Behavioral Questions : In layman terms, describe your day-to-day activities as a PM ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gKRW4vTH For Senior PM and above roles : 1. Practice Product Strategy questions What should be Airbnb strategy during COVID-19 pandemic : https://lnkd.in/g7QNHJsX 2. Practice Leadership Questions : How to say no to feature requests ( asked Google ): How do you say no to feature ideas or requests? For senior roles, it's not that you do not have to practice the above ones rather practice the above types and the below ones If you are preparing for a PM role in a short timeline, practice 20 questions of each type, make the PRD documents, and try to finish 150+ questions in 4-6 weeks ❤️ This should make your success % in a PM interview 2-3x higher than usual I am truly grateful to Product Management Exercises | ProductManagement for this awesome list of questions and content ❤️ This is again not a full-fledged list but a good starting point and there can be other question types such as Estimation, A/B testing etc etc which you can practice to improve your craft Also if you found this post useful , like it so that it reaches most aspirants and also follow Shravan Tickoo for more awesome lessons in PM :) Bonus : Subscribe to the SWAG WALA PM Channel for awesome sessions on product management theory and practice : https://lnkd.in/duJgZMq So lets crack the next role together ❤️ Yours, Shravan bhaiya #productmanagement #startups

[ Important- Do not miss] : Folks! In this time of tough markets and #layoffs , here are the top questions you should practice to crack your next PM role 💕 This approach has helped more than 50+ PMs ( direct or indirect who I know ) crack roles in Google, Meta , Apple, Uber etc 1. Practice Product sense/design questions : - For example: Build a product to buy and sell antiques ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gNt-7G5G 2. Practice product improvement questions: How do you improve Google maps ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gQPDEDTJ 3. Practice questions based on metrics : If you were the PM for the Save feature at Meta, what metrics would you use to define the success of this feature? : https://lnkd.in/gH-q3Ktd 4. Practice Product Launch Questions : How do you launch a product like Amazon Go ( asked Amazon ): https://lnkd.in/gpb73dQT 5. Practice Technical Design Questions How does Tiny URL work ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gwWg3QAu 6. Practice Behavioral Questions : In layman terms, describe your day-to-day activities as a PM ( asked Google ): https://lnkd.in/gKRW4vTH For Senior PM and above roles : 1. Practice Product Strategy questions What should be Airbnb strategy during COVID-19 pandemic : https://lnkd.in/g7QNHJsX 2. Practice Leadership Questions : How to say no to feature requests ( asked Google ): How do you say no to feature ideas or requests? For senior roles, it's not that you do not have to practice the above ones rather practice the above types and the below ones If you are preparing for a PM role in a short timeline, practice 20 questions of each type, make the PRD documents, and try to finish 150+ questions in 4-6 weeks ❤️ This should make your success % in a PM interview 2-3x higher than usual I am truly grateful to Product Management Exercises | ProductManagement for this awesome list of questions and content ❤️ This is again not a full-fledged list but a good starting point and there can be other question types such as Estimation, A/B testing etc etc which you can practice to improve your craft Also if you found this post useful , like it so that it reaches most aspirants and also follow Shravan Tickoo for more awesome lessons in PM :) Bonus : Subscribe to the SWAG WALA PM Channel for awesome sessions on product management theory and practice : https://lnkd.in/duJgZMq Also if you want to get such awesome product content daily join our WhatsApp community : https://lnkd.in/dqnhdHaB So lets crack the next role together ❤️ Yours, Shravan bhaiya #productmanagement #startups