last week's interview still stings. they asked about your biggest win and you just... “felt off” after saying the answer.
not because you haven't done anything.
because you couldn't position it right. couldn't connect your work to what they actually needed.
memory is a terrible career strategy
here's what kills me. you're drowning in proof of your value. scattered across slack threads, jira tickets, email chains, notion docs. but you have no idea how to package it for the companies you actually want.
every high performer i know has the same problem. they've solved million dollar problems but can't articulate why those solutions matter to their target company.
we're doing the final step of positioning. we’re mapping your actual wins to what the market actually wants.
step 1
collect all your work wins.
the obvious layer
start with what everyone tells you to check: your resume, performance reviews, launch announcements. that onboarding doc that "someone" updated? the spreadsheet that "evolved" to actually work? find the processes you fixed. the spreadsheet everyone still uses. the notion template that became standard.
external proof of work
beyond company walls, what exists? oss contributions? side projects?communities you've built or actively shaped? newsletter? look at your teaching artifacts. workshops you've run. mentees who've grown. the junior engineer who's now senior because of your guidance.
no matter how many questions i probe, you’ll forget. so i’ve made a checklist for you all to follow.
i have prioritised 4 functions for the checklist.
this is basis the 384 unique votes i got on the WA group.
oh and we’re now 1000+ on the WA group. join here if you haven’t.
product management checklist
| checkpoint | recall prompt |
|---|---|
| scope calls | where did you trim scope to hit deadline without losing user value? |
| feature adoption | which launch spiked active users or NPS fastest? |
| revenue lifts | which release, package, or tier raised ARR or ACV? |
| cost saves | which workflow or vendor switch cut budget or hours? |
| crises fixed | which blocking bug or outage did you neutralise before users noticed? |
| 0→1 groundwork | which spec or prototype unlocked a green‑field product? |
| decision docs | which PRD, RFC, or memo aligned multiple teams? |
| silent boosts | which onboarding guide or ritual still saves hours each month? |
| social proof | where did execs or customers publicly credit your product work? |
| dashboards | which screenshot shows the spike you drove in activation or revenue? |
| portfolio strategy (leader) | what multi product bet opened a new revenue stream? |
| org design & hiring (leader) | how did you hire and ramp X PMs while keeping velocity steady? |
| team capability building (leader) | which coaching, shadowing, or guild raised spec quality or delivery hit rate? |
| multi‑year product vision (leader) | where did you set a three‑year roadmap that guided all squads? |
| cross‑company strategic project (leader) | which M&A or platform migration did you steer with zero churn? |
industry nuances
| industry | nuance lens | common metrics | example win to log |
| SaaS | land expand motion, multi tenant scale | ARR, NRR, seats per account | redesigned onboarding, expansion rate +12 % |
| fintech | risk, compliance, licensing | loss rate, KYC pass %, transaction margin | shipped AML flow, cut false positives 30 % |
| ecommerce | basket economics, logistics cost | AOV, GMV, return rate | launched bundle builder, AOV +18 % |
| consumer social | engagement loops, creator tools | DAU‑to‑MAU, session length | added streak mechanic, DAU +15 % |
| healthtech | clinical safety, data privacy | error rate, HIPAA audit score | rolled out symptom checker, triage errors 25 % |
marketing checklist
| checkpoint | recall prompt |
| campaign wins | which campaign cut CPA by 20 % or boosted ROAS? |
| funnel lifts | where did you push conversion or lead quality up a level? |
| brand boosts | which story, PR hit, or community play moved share of voice? |
| cost efficiency | which channel tweak cut spend without hurting volume? |
| crisis response | where did you defuse a PR storm or ads ban inside 24 hours? |
| process assets | which playbook or template teams still clone? |
| thought pieces | which talk, webinar, or post built authority? |
| social proof | testimonials, case studies, or awards featuring your work |
| data visuals | GA, Mixpanel, or Tableau shot showing the lift you drove |
| brand vision reset (leader) | where did you reposition the brand and lift aided recall? |
| hiring & org build (leader) | how did you recruit and shape a full stack marketing team? |
| team skill upgrade (leader) | which training raised creative throughput or channel expertise? |
| multi‑market entry (leader) | how did you localise and win first customers in a new region? |
| enterprise narrative project (leader) | where did you craft the company story for a funding or IPO push? |
industry nuances
| industry | nuance lens | common metrics | example win to log |
|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS | pipeline velocity, expansion | SQL to win %, CAC payback | account based ads, CAC payback -2 months |
| fintech | trust building, cost of funds | CPL, funded account %, LTV to CAC | influencer compliance series, funded rate +10 % |
| ecommerce | promo economics, seasonality | ROAS, repeat rate, cart abandon % | holiday micro ads, ROAS +28 % |
| consumer social | virality, creator economy | share rate, referral Kfactor | UGC challenge, share rate 1.4× |
| B2B infra | credibility, thought leadership | webinar attendance, MQL quality | state of cloud report, MQL to SQL +18 % |
growth checklist
| checkpoint | recall |
|---|---|
| step‑function experiments | which test lifted activation or retention by a full tier? |
| monetisation bumps | which pricing or upsell raised ARPU or LTV? |
| acquisition loops | which referral or viral loop dropped blended CAC? |
| channel openings | where did you unlock and scale a new paid or organic channel? |
| payback cuts | which optimisation shortened payback by weeks or months? |
| technical hacks | which script or proxy gave an unfair traffic edge? |
| retention playbooks | which lifecycle flows kept users sticking? |
| crisis saves | which churn spike or billing outage did you reverse? |
| narrative wins | which teardown or data drop earned backlinks and sign‑ups? |
| proof shots | cohort or dashboard graphs showing flat‑to‑up curves |
| growth model redesign (leader) | where did you rebuild the model and unlock compounding growth? |
| hiring & pod setup (leader) | how did you hire analysts, PMs, and designers into a growth pod? |
| guild & culture building (leader) | which rituals drove X tests per week with high learning velocity? |
| long‑range bets (leader) | what five‑quarter experiment opened a brand‑new revenue channel? |
| network effects expansion (leader) | how did you double organic adoption via user‑to‑user loops? |
industry nuances
| industry | nuance lens | common metrics | example win to log |
| SaaS | seat expansion, churn save | activation %, logo churn, NRR | usage‑based upsell, NRR +9 pp |
| fintech | risk‑adjusted scaling | funded user %, txn frequency | split ID flow, funded +14 % |
| ecommerce | SKU breadth, margin mix | contribution margin, items per order | cross‑sell widget, items per order +0.7 |
| consumer social | network density, retention | cohort day‑30, invites per user | referral gate tweak, day‑30 +6 pp |
| marketplaces | supply‑demand balance | fill rate, take rate | dynamic pricing engine, fill rate +11 % |
tech checklist
| checkpoint | recall |
| refactors | which refactor cut latency or infra bill by 30 %? |
| feature delivery | which complex feature shipped on time with zero rollbacks? |
| reliability gains | where did you push uptime or error budget back in the green? |
| cost optimisation | which right‑sizing or cache tweak trimmed monthly cloud spend? |
| performance wins | which query or pipeline change doubled throughput? |
| security patches | which vuln did you detect and patch pre‑disclosure? |
| developer velocity | which CI or CD upgrade sped up merge‑to‑prod? |
| mentoring & hiring | which bootcamp or interview loop lifted ramp‑up speed? |
| community cred | OSS commits, conference talks, or tech blogs with external reach |
| observability proof | Grafana or Datadog charts showing error or latency drop |
| architecture shift (leader) | how did you migrate from monolith to services and scale users X to Y? |
| hiring pipeline build (leader) | how did you source and close senior engineers at a higher hit rate? |
| team capability matrix (leader) | which upskilling plan raised average skill depth across squads? |
| multi‑year tech vision (leader) | where did you set a three‑year tech roadmap that cut future debt? |
| cross‑org platform project (leader) | which shared platform replaced siloed services and sped feature launch? |
tech industry nuances
| industry | nuance lens | common metrics | example win to log |
|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS | multi‑region uptime, infra cost | error budget %, cost per tenant | cache layer v2, P99 latency −40 % |
| fintech | audit trails, auth latency | TPS, fraud block %, MTTR | ledger rewrite, auth latency −60 ms |
| ecommerce | flash sale load, ops cost | queries per sec, infra $ per order | autoscaling rules, infra cost −22 % |
| consumer social | media storage, feed speed | image egress $, feed render ms | codec switch, egress cost −18 % |
| deep tech | training throughput, GPU cost | tokens per sec, $ per training hour | model distillation, training cost −35 % |
step 2
companies/industries you’re targeting.
remember yesterday's article?
where you identified target companies and their problems? please read it if you haven’t.
we covered people intelligence, product signals and market forces to understand exactly what the hiring market wants right now. if you haven’t read the article read the full article here first.
you want to take those raw notes and start categorising them. basically, strip your raw market research notes down to what matters: concrete problems, explicit skill asks, and the proof signals each company uses in hiring.
make a table like this.
| target | top problems | skills they hire | proof cues (phrases / metrics) |
|---|---|---|---|
| eg: Razorpay | KYC lag, FX payout, 99.999 uptime | risk ML, payment orchestration, SRE | "authorised merchants", "TPV in billions" |
once you have you two things in a structured manner. your real wins and their real needs. time to overlay them.
step 3
map the fit and find the gaps
now, overlay your wins against their needs.
build a quick matrix
rows = your tagged wins,
columns = the highlighted problems/skills.
score each cell 2 strong match (direct metric)1 partial (adjacent evidence)0 gap.
for positioning
any row with two or more 2s is a positioning edge
rows with only 0s mark are your learning goals.
any win with multiple 2s
that's your positioning edge.
rows full of 0s?
those are gaps. now you know what to build proof for.
| problem / skill A | B | C | D | E | |
| cut checkout load time 40 % | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| coached PM cohort | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
avoid this mistake.
don’t list achievements chronologically or by impact size. wrong. you list by relevance to your target's specific pain. lead with it first in the CV, under the respective company experience it belongs.
after this exercise you’ll clearly see two things. first, you weren’t positioning yourself what the market wanted in the words they cared.
second, there are gaps that we need to build some proof of work for. either in our current orgs or via some side projects. (yes yes, before you ask.. i’ll run a full series on building proof of work in the coming days.)
the compound effect
this approach forces pattern recognition. you start seeing which problems you naturally solve. which impacts you consistently drive. your actual expertise emerges from the data, not your assumptions.
but it's bigger than just landing interviews. when you position precisely, you attract the right opportunities. companies pursuing what you're genuinely good at. roles that use your actual strengths.
congratulations!
we’re now 90% done with the positioning series! the 10%? we stress testing this with actual people. tomorrow, i’ll give you a structured way to test out your positioning.