High Velocity Sales & FO's Product GTM at GitLab

The HVS-FO Product GTM is the glue between product and field teams. We are a cohesive voice representing sales interests to product teams. We partner with product teams to deliver functionality that will improve the customer experience resulting in: FOs, nARR, and informed field teams that are aware of the impact.

Welcome to the HVS-FO Product GTM Team Handbook

Team

Name	GitLab Handle
Alex Martin	@alex_martin
Gurmee Sodhi	@Gsodhi

Mission

What is our problem space? What is the mountain we are trying to climb?

GitLab has established a company strategy that aligns the organization to deliver 3 objectives with associates measures.
However, individual teams have yet to determine how to operationalize this plan and continue to push forward their own efforts they believe contribute to these measures.
This is acutely felt between sales and product teams who want to achieve FO goals but have different perspectives of what will contribute to that.

Vision

What is our vision for this team? What does it look like at the top of the mountain?

We will partner to co-author and deliver a product roadmap for customer outcomes. We will orient the backlog and measure feature success based on customer value, FO count & bookings growth.
We will partner with product to ensure product features and releases are launched at high quality with a distribution plan delivering customer value.

Strategy

How will we achieve our vision? What is our route up the mountain?

See detailed plans.

Joint Roadmap Development: develop prioritized list of problems/features to feed a joint roadmap.
Joint Roadmap Accountability: establish processes and metrics against which teams are held to within the joint roadmap.
Create Structure for Product Launches from GTM perspective: create two-way transparency into what our team is doing with product. Establish a GTM framework for approaches launches that serves as a rules of engagement / playbook of sorts.
Support in-flight Product Efforts driving Company Strategy Measures: act as a cohesive voice representing sales interests to product teams. Partner with product teams to deliver functionality that will improve the customer experience resulting in: FOs, nARR, and informed field teams that are aware of the impact.

Working With Us

Get in touch with in slack #hvs
Read our primary epic where we house our efforts
See where we are tracking our in quarter efforts

FAQ

Question Answer

How do you differentiate your workflow from PMM? 1. Product Development Alignment: Product GTM actively partners with product teams to co-author and prioritize roadmaps based on customer outcomes and acts as the glue between field and product teams. Additionally, Product GTM establishes accountability frameworks and processes for product roadmaps, aligning to company objectives/metrics.This is not typically a place PMM plays. An example of this work: HVS partnering with Digital Experience, Growth, and Fulfillment teams to align on joint problems, solutions, and success metrics.
2. Operational Focus Over Messaging: PMM teams typically focus on product positioning, messaging, and GTM communications. The Product GTM team is focused on operationalizing product features to drive business outcomes (FO count, nARR) and ensure release account for the impact to field teams by leading with self-service-first launches/solutions instead of relying on humans to plug holes. For example: we assess how PMM communication strategies will impact the SMB business, given the different customer resourcing structure in the segment, and advocate on behalf of the sales teams to ensure communication strategies are not to burdensome to the SMB Advocates and scale to the customers.

What are the functional focuses of the Product GTM team and how does that compare to what Mitchell Hanks’ Monetization & Startups works on? Product GTM: focuses on collecting sensening mechanism and field feedback to inform product problem areas, partnering with product teams to prioritize issues that support FO/nARR goals, and executing against product launches to ensure we are leading with self-service.
Monetization and Startups: drives the GitLab Startup Program by improving visibility, expanding to new customer cohorts, enhancing participant experiences, and developing partnership ecosystems with VCs/Accelerators. They also focus on free/trial monetization by streamlining user acquisition, optimizing conversion rates, developing sales plays, measuring campaign performance, and integrating product usage data into CRM systems for GTM visibility.

Question	Answer
How do you differentiate your workflow from PMM?	1. Product Development Alignment: Product GTM actively partners with product teams to co-author and prioritize roadmaps based on customer outcomes and acts as the glue between field and product teams. Additionally, Product GTM establishes accountability frameworks and processes for product roadmaps, aligning to company objectives/metrics.This is not typically a place PMM plays. An example of this work: HVS partnering with Digital Experience, Growth, and Fulfillment teams to align on joint problems, solutions, and success metrics. 2. Operational Focus Over Messaging: PMM teams typically focus on product positioning, messaging, and GTM communications. The Product GTM team is focused on operationalizing product features to drive business outcomes (FO count, nARR) and ensure release account for the impact to field teams by leading with self-service-first launches/solutions instead of relying on humans to plug holes. For example: we assess how PMM communication strategies will impact the SMB business, given the different customer resourcing structure in the segment, and advocate on behalf of the sales teams to ensure communication strategies are not to burdensome to the SMB Advocates and scale to the customers.
What are the functional focuses of the `Product GTM` team and how does that compare to what Mitchell Hanks’ `Monetization & Startups` works on?	Product GTM: focuses on collecting sensening mechanism and field feedback to inform product problem areas, partnering with product teams to prioritize issues that support FO/nARR goals, and executing against product launches to ensure we are leading with self-service. Monetization and Startups: drives the GitLab Startup Program by improving visibility, expanding to new customer cohorts, enhancing participant experiences, and developing partnership ecosystems with VCs/Accelerators. They also focus on free/trial monetization by streamlining user acquisition, optimizing conversion rates, developing sales plays, measuring campaign performance, and integrating product usage data into CRM systems for GTM visibility.

Last modified May 14, 2025: Update file hvs_product_gtm.md (de6e864b)

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