Jehan Lalkaka

Welcome to my portfolio! You'll find a small sampling of how I've helped B2B startups achieve their pipeline and sales goals.

Recurring themes across my portfolio:

• I've driven business results at well-established tech companies like LinkedIn and eBay, as well as high-growth startups like 15Five and Udacity
• As a full-stack product marketing leader, I operate at multiple altitudes, from influencing business and product strategy and leading teams to writing website copy
• I'm a big fan of grounding actions in sound logic, moving quickly, and iterating based on real-life feedback
• And lastly, the work I do creates massive leverage across Product, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success

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Jehan is a powerhouse product marketing player-coach with a stakeholder-friendly, deliverable-first approach that works well in startup environments. His willingness to jump into projects from day one has made him an incredible asset to the organization and a genuine joy to partner with.

Sarah Reynolds
CMO, Udacity

(Please note: Each testimonial reflects the person's title / company at the time I worked with them.)

1. Strategy development

Problem: Emplify (employee engagement platform) was considering entry into the leadership development category and needed support from the board of directors.

Solution: Working for the SVP of Product at the time, I created a deck with a clear storyline, outlining why we should enter the leadership development market and how we can find success.

Click here to see the full version

Result: The board gave their support, and as we were building products and services to enter the leadership market, we got acquired by 15Five.

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I hired Jehan to lead Product Marketing at [Emplify]. As a former Product Marketing leader myself, I set a high bar for excellence in the role—Jehan cleared it and then some. He is both a self-starter and an excellent thought partner, and quickly earned my respect and trust.

Andrew Clark
Senior Vice President, Product at Emplify

2. Buyer persona development

Problem: To stay competitive and accelerate growth, 15Five changed their target persona from managers who bought 10s of licenses for their teams to central HR buyers who could buy 1000s of licenses for their companies. Before bringing the strategy to life, Product, Sales, and Marketing needed a clear understanding of HR buyers and how to meet their needs.

Solution: As every team needed clarity on who the buyer is, what they care about, and how to resonate with their needs, I created a comprehensive yet easy-to-use buyer persona based on conversations with customers, prospects, listening to sales calls, surveys, and secondary research. Any 15Fiver could use our new HR buyer persona to understand buyer pains, motivations, desired outcomes, and the overall purchase journey. As you'll see from the document below, this is not your run-of-the-mill buyer persona.

Before calling it done, I invested in conducting internal training sessions and held a roadshow to answer questions and drive alignment across teams.

Click here to see the full version

Result: The HR buyer persona above became one of the most frequently visited files (according to Google document analytics) that centered Product, Marketing, and Sales on the same definition of the buyer and how they evaluate buying decisions. Having a single, robust definition of the buyer played a key role in creating a consistent buyer and user journey across product, messaging, content, and sales enablement.

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I divide my time at 15Five as “before Jehan” and “after Jehan.” Prior to Jehan joining, it felt like we stumbled with our product roadmaps and lacked clear data on which features to prioritize. After Jehan joined, that all changed. He provided clear product positioning, partnered with the rest of the sales and marketing team on messaging, and forged a strong product marketing strategy from the ground up.

Sterling Beck
Sr. Director, Demand Gen at 15Five

3. Positioning and messaging

Problem: As 15Five pivoted to targeting a new buyer (the HR leader), the company needed a messaging framework that Product, Marketing, and Sales could use to convey 'why 15Five' across the purchase journey. The positioning had to go further than just resonating with HR buyers; it also needed to win head-to-head battles with competitors.

Solution: After listening to the ground-level needs of Product and GTM teams, I developed three messaging assets: 1) core messaging, 2) product messaging, and 3) competitive messaging. The work combined a deep understanding of the product with ongoing market research, including win/loss interviews, sales calls, speaking with customers, and an analysis of the competitive landscape. Covering all four product lines, I crafted the three messaging assets as a package to enable the roadmap, demand gen, and sales enablement.

1. Core positioning Click here to see the full version

2. Product positioning and messaging Click here to see the full version

3. Competitive messaging Click here to see the full version

Result: This work put product marketing on the map as Product, Marketing, and Sales welcomed the fleshed-out positioning and messaging with open arms. The demand gen team had a clearer understanding of what messaging would convert visitors to leads, SDRs and AEs had messaging and content they needed to differentiate the product and close sales, and Product was better equipped to build features and products that supported customer acquisition. We exceeded our pipeline and revenue goals for three straight quarters!

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Jehan has a keen ability to understand a market’s users and what will most resonate with them. As a leader, he guides his team toward greatness with steady assurance and elevates his cross-functional peers. He’s a cut-above product marketing leader that any team would be lucky to have.

Andrew Clark
Vice President, Product at 15Five

4. Customer proof points

Problem: As Udacity fought to grow its enterprise business, prospects constantly asked the sales team for customer proof points. During the decision cycle, prospects were hungry to know if they'd be in good company, and if Udacity had driven success with other companies in the same industry and with a similar use case. After all, Udacity's average deal size was in the high six figures at the time. So customer proof points became the sales team's #1 ask.

Solution: I worked in partnership with the Sales Enablement team to create a customer proof point program, which involved identifying customer successes on a monthly basis and turning those successes into customer proof points, not in weeks or months, but in days. We defined the strategy for the program, how to roll it out, and how to maintain it, including roles and responsibilities across Sales Enablement and Product Marketing teams.

Example of a customer proof point Click here to see the full version

Internal launch announcement Click here to see the full version

Result: When the sales team started applauding before we could finish announcing the program at the weekly sales enablement session attended by sales and marketing leadership, we knew we had struck the right chord. It was clearly what the sales team had imagined, striking a balance between creating a high volume of output and yet delivering enough detail in each proof point to win over buyers.

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Throughout Jehan's tenure, he remained steadfast and focused on one thing: providing exceptional product marketing services and freely offering up new ideas to the business. The quality of his work is outstanding.

Cynthia Garcia
Sr. Director, Global Revenue Enablement at Udacity

5. Analyst relations

Problem: Analyst reports played a key role in helping Udacity's target buyers win over their buying committee, which consisted of CFOs and CEOs. Buying stakeholders—who often heavily influence the purchase decision but don't have domain experience—rely on third-party validation to inform their decision-making. With IDC's influential MarketScape report on IT training (the category that Udacity belongs to) less than a few months away, Udacity needed to have a strong showing.

Note: IDC's MarketScapes are not 'pay to play' where vendors can pay for favorable placement. Instead, IDC conducts an independent review of the vendor based on customer feedback and data-driven proof points provided by the vendor. We're talking lengthy questionnaires with laborious documentation requirements.

Result: Knowing that the IT Training MarketScape report was on the horizon, I developed analyst relations ahead of time. I briefed IDC analysts so they had a strong overview of Udacity and how we stood apart from other vendors, requested inquiries so I could understand each analyst's research goals, and worked across multiple internal teams to produce proof of Udacity's unique approach to IT training and the value we're creating for clients.

Udacity overview for analysts Click here to see the full version

Result: For the first time, Udacity was named No. 1 in IT Training in the US (our largest and most strategic geo). I quickly turned the result into sales enablement assets and messaging for a landing page and demand gen. The impact was almost immediate as the sales team exploded with excitement. Demand Gen, Email Marketing, and Sales now had a powerful asset to re-ignite conversations with prospects and existing customers.

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Jehan is an impressive Product Marketing leader with a deep range of marketing and technical skills. His expertise spans positioning, messaging, pricing, analyst relations, and content marketing. I highly recommend him for any organization looking to uplevel their marketing organization.

Brian Finnerty
Vice President, Revenue Marketing at Udacity