PMM Camp · PMM OS

Week 1: Start With
Your Customer

Build a customer research synthesis and upload it to your AI project.

Your Goal

By Friday, you should have a clean, text-based customer insights document — ranked themes, frequency counts, real quotes, clear sections. Something you'd hand to a smart new hire on day one and feel confident they'd understand your customers.

You can build this using the customer research skill (automated, ~30 min) or the manual guide (any AI tool). Here's what the output looks like:

Drop the template into your project and ask your AI to fill it out with you.

Two ways to build it

Recommended

Customer Research Skill

Claude with Cowork or Claude Code

Drop your data files, run the skill. Automated synthesis. ~30 min.

Download the Skill

Unzip into your Cowork project folder. The skill runs automatically when you prompt it. Need help? Post in the forum or reach out to Denny. The manual guide always works as a backup.

Any AI tool

Step-by-Step Guide

Claude, ChatGPT, NotebookLM, or anything else

Same process as the skill — you run each step yourself.

Follow the Guide

Step 1

Set Up Your Project

Pick a tool with a project or notebook feature — somewhere context persists across conversations.

Chat

One conversation at a time. No memory between sessions.

ChatGPT
Gemini
Claude.ai

Projects

Persistent files and instructions. Context carries across conversations.

Claude Projects
ChatGPT Projects
NotebookLM

Agentic

Runs commands, executes skills, reads and writes files on your machine.

Cowork (recommended)
Claude Code

Project Instruction

Replace [company name] with yours. You'll refine this over 4 weeks.

Project Instruction

You are a senior product marketing manager at [company name]. You help create marketing content, messaging, competitive positioning, and sales enablement materials.

Grounding rules:
- Always ground your work in the customer research, messaging documents, and other context in this project
- Prioritize real customer language and data over generic marketing speak
- When you don't have enough context to answer confidently, say so

Quality standards:
- Optimize for signal, not noise. Every sentence earns its place.
- Litmus tests: "Would I publish this as-is? Would my VP approve this without major edits?"
- No filler, no hedging, no generic marketing speak. Concrete and specific always.
- Consider getting reviews from other subagent persona experts before completing work

Formatting:
- Use markdown with clear section headings
- Prefer tables over long prose for structured comparisons
- Bold key terms and takeaways for skimmability

Step 2

Run Your Baseline

Pick a deliverable and run the prompt with little or no context — just the project instruction from Step 1. This is your "before" snapshot. The whole point is to re-run this exact same prompt each week and watch the output improve as you build context. Save the output.

Landing pageRecommended — hits every context element

Write a landing page for [your product] targeting [your primary audience — role, company size, industry]. Include a hero section, 3 key benefits with proof points, social proof with specific customer outcomes, and a CTA.

Sales one-pager

Write a one-page sales document for [your product] targeting [audience — role and industry]. Include the problem, solution, 3 differentiators vs. alternatives, proof points, and next steps.

Cold email sequence

Write a 3-email cold outreach sequence for [your product] targeting [specific role, e.g. "VP of Marketing at mid-market SaaS"]. Email 1: pain point. Email 2: customer outcome. Email 3: direct ask. Each email under 150 words.

Step 3

Build Your Research Synthesis

Upload your customer data — transcripts, surveys, reviews, support tickets, G2 reviews, whatever you have — and run one of these:

Download the Skill Cowork / Claude Code Follow the Guide Any AI tool

Skill install: unzip into your Cowork project folder. The skill runs automatically when you prompt it. Need help? Post in the forum or reach out to Denny. The manual guide always works as a backup.

Best data sources

Call transcripts or interview notes (text, not audio)
Survey / NPS open-text responses (CSV or markdown)
Support tickets or customer emails

Also useful

G2 / Capterra / TrustRadius reviews
Sales call notes, CRM notes, Reddit threads
Existing M&P docs, website copy, pitch deck text

No transcripts or surveys?

Bootstrap it — copy your website homepage + G2 reviews into your project and run this prompt:

Analyze this website copy and these customer reviews. Identify the top 5 pain points customers mention, the top 5 outcomes they value, and any gaps between what we say on our site and what customers actually care about. Include direct quotes.

Format rules: Text beats everything. CSV beats .xlsx. Markdown beats PDF.

Step 4

Review, Upload, Re-Run

Before uploading, verify these things:

Check	What to look for
Quotes are real	Spot-check 3–5 against your originals. If fabricated, fix them.
Numbers add up	Theme counts, percentages, sample sizes match your data.
No hallucinated entities	Names, roles, companies come from your actual data.
Structure is clean	Clear headings, labeled sections, tables for structured data. Would a new hire follow this on day one?
Signal over noise	"Would I cut this if editing someone else's work?" Cut it now.

Then: upload to your project and re-run the exact same benchmark prompt from Step 2 — this time, tell it to reference your research synthesis. Compare the two outputs side by side. The output should use customer language. If it's still generic in places, that's expected — ICPs (Week 2) and messaging (Week 3) fix that.

Did you get to your goal?

Compare your report to the example. Does it have ranked themes, frequency counts, real quotes, and clear sections?

Troubleshooting

"I don't have call transcripts or surveys."

You don't need them. G2 reviews, Capterra reviews, Reddit threads, support tickets, sales notes, website copy — any source of customer voice works. Pull as many as you can find and run the bootstrap prompt in Step 3. A synthesis built from 20 G2 reviews is better than no synthesis at all.

"The skill won't install."

Fall back to the manual guide — same process, any AI tool, you just run each step yourself. Post the error in the forum thread and Denny will help debug.

"The output is still generic after adding my research."

Use this diagnostic table to figure out what's missing:

If the output is...	You're missing...	What to build
Generic — could be anyone's company	Customer research	Better synthesis (re-do with more data or cleaner structure)
Vague value props, no proof	Messaging framework	Coming in Week 3
Wrong audience, wrong language	Audience specifics	Coming in Week 2
Claims with no evidence	Proof points	Coming in Week 2 (social proof library)
Doesn't sound like your brand	Brand calibration	Coming in Week 4

If it's still generic after Week 1, that's normal. The research synthesis is just layer one — each week adds more context and the output improves. Keep going.

"I'm not sure if my synthesis is good enough."

Quality bar: Would you hand this document to a smart new hire on their first day and feel confident they'd understand your customers? If yes, it's good enough. If not, keep editing. Compare yours to the Fab Lab example — yours doesn't need to be that long, but aim for that standard of clarity.

"My data is messy / in the wrong format."

Text beats everything. If your data is in Excel, export to CSV. If it's in a PDF, copy-paste the text into a markdown file. If it's in slides, pull the text out — LLMs can't read slide layouts well. Don't let format be the reason you skip this step.

"I'm stuck and don't know what to do next."

Post in the forum thread. Describe where you are, what you've tried, and what's not working. Denny and the rest of the group are there to help — someone has almost certainly hit the same issue. Share what's blocking you and share prompts that worked. This is a community challenge, not a solo mission.

# [Company Name] — Customer Insights Report

## TLDR

**[One sentence: the single most important finding from your data. What's the dominant pattern, and what's the tension or risk it creates?]**

**Calibration:** [X] responses · [X] source types · [date range]

> "[Your most compelling customer quote — the one that captures the core insight]" — [Source]

### What the data says

1. **[Finding 1 — the dominant theme.]** [Supporting data: prevalence, count, what it means.] [Confidence level · n=X]

2. **[Finding 2.]** [Supporting data.] [Confidence · n=X]

3. **[Finding 3.]** [Supporting data.] [Confidence · n=X]

4. **[Finding 4.]** [Supporting data.] [Confidence · n=X]

5. **[Finding 5.]** [Supporting data.] [Confidence · n=X]

### What to do about it

1. **[Action 1.]** [Who owns it, what to build, target date.]

2. **[Action 2.]** [Who owns it, what to build, target date.]

3. **[Action 3.]** [Who owns it, what to build, target date.]

### By the numbers

- **[X] responses** across [X] source types
- **[Key competitive stat or benchmark]**
- **[Other high-level number worth calling out]**

---

## Detailed Findings

### What problems drive customers to seek [your product]?

| Theme | Sentiment | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |

---

### What does [your product] do well? What would customers miss most?

| Theme | Sentiment | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |

---

### What's missing or broken? What workarounds exist?

| Theme | Sentiment | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |

---

### How do customers evaluate [your product] against competitors?

| Competitor | Win Rate | We Win On | We Lose On | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |

---

### What was the breaking point for customers who churned?

| Theme | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |

**Where they went:** [Competitor 1] (X), [Competitor 2] (X), [Other] (X)

---

### What concerns or objections arise during evaluation?

| Objection | Count | Resolution Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |

---

### How is the onboarding and support experience?

| Theme | Sentiment | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |

---

### What would cause customers to expand, upgrade, or recommend?

| Theme | Count | Prevalence | Representative Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |

---

## High-Intensity Outliers

*Low-frequency signals that indicate significant risk or opportunity:*

### [Outlier 1 Title]
**Risk/Opportunity:** [HIGH/MEDIUM] — [Brief description of the signal and why it matters.]

### [Outlier 2 Title]
**Risk/Opportunity:** [HIGH/MEDIUM] — [Brief description.]

---

## Segment Analysis

### [Segment 1, e.g. Prospects] (n=X)
- **Top pain:** [Theme] (X%), [Theme] (X%)
- **Top objections:** [Theme] (X%), [Theme] (X%)
- **Win rate:** X% vs [Competitor]

### [Segment 2, e.g. Established Customers] (n=X)
- **Love:** [Theme] (X%), [Theme] (X%)
- **Complaints:** [Theme] (X%), [Theme] (X%)

### [Segment 3, e.g. Churned] (n=X)
- **Drivers:** [Theme] (X%), [Theme] (X%)
- **Destinations:** [Competitor] (X), [Competitor] (X)

---

## So What?

### Messaging
- **[Segment 1]:** [One-line messaging direction]
- **[Segment 2]:** [One-line messaging direction]
- **[Segment 3]:** [One-line messaging direction]

### Product Roadmap

| Quarter | Deliverables |
|---|---|
| [Q_ 20__] | [Priority 1] · [Priority 2] |
| [Q_ 20__] | [Priority 3] · [Priority 4] |

### Open Questions
1. [Question your data couldn't answer]
2. [Question that needs more research]
3. [Question for leadership to decide]

Fab Lab — Customer Insights Report

TLDR

Fragmented tooling sprawl is the dominant buying driver: 56% of prospects cite consolidation as their primary reason to evaluate Fab Lab, but current limitations in reporting, enterprise features, and mobile reliability are eroding satisfaction and fueling churn.

Calibration: 836 individual responses · 26 source types · Q1 2025 – Q4 2025

"We've basically been duct-taping things together...half the team uses Intercom, half replies from Gmail. Fab Lab promised to be the single pane of glass." — Claritask (sales_01)

What the data says

Tool consolidation pressure is universal and drives evaluation, but delivery gaps are creating buyer's remorse. [HIGH · n=27]
Reporting and analytics are the #1 unmet need and the #2 churn reason. 54% of sources flag reporting limitations. [HIGH · n=29]
Enterprise auth gaps (SSO, RBAC, audit logs) appear in 31% of sources, blocking deals and driving churn in regulated verticals. [MEDIUM · n=17]
Mobile app instability is creating operational friction and eroding trust. 35% of established customers report crashes. [MEDIUM · n=20]
Zendesk, Intercom, and Freshdesk remain primary threats. Fab Lab wins on speed/UX but loses on maturity and feature depth. [MEDIUM · n=18]

What to do about it

Prioritize reporting delivery (Q2–Q3 2026)
Launch enterprise features package (SSO + RBAC)
Stabilize mobile app by Q2 2026
GTM campaign targeting Zendesk customers
Churn prevention task force for high-risk segments

Detailed Findings

RQ1: What drives customers to seek Fab Lab?

Theme	Count	Prev	Representative Quote
Tooling consolidation	27	56%	"We've basically been duct-taping things together" — Claritask
Manual health scoring	16	33%	"We have no way to flag at-risk customers without eyeballing data" — sales_02
Support volume scale	12	25%	"Our support team is drowning. We handle support in four different places" — sales_03
Cost vs. incumbents	11	23%	"Zendesk was $250K/year. Fab Lab will cut that in half" — sales_04
Response time delays	10	21%	"We're missing customer messages because we don't have a single inbox" — sales_05
Sales time on ops	8	17%	"I'm manually reviewing tickets every morning instead of working on strategy" — sales_06

RQ2: What does Fab Lab do well?

Theme	Count	Prev	Representative Quote
Unified inbox	23	41%	"The unified inbox has been genuinely transformative...Saved probably $180K in ARR" — Arcline Software
Health scoring	19	34%	"Health scoring has made our CSM team way more proactive" — renewal_16
Implementation speed	18	32%	"We had value in 2 weeks. With Zendesk, it was 3 months" — renewal_17
Support team quality	16	29%	"The onboarding team was fantastic. They understood our workflow" — renewal_18
Intuitive UI	15	27%	"Our team picked it up immediately. Much less friction than Zendesk" — survey_01

RQ3: What's missing or broken?

Theme	Count	Prev	Representative Quote
Reporting limits	29	54%	"Reporting is the biggest gap vs. Zendesk" — churn_21
Mobile app crashes	20	37%	"Mobile app crashes when we're on customer calls. It's unreliable" — survey_01
Enterprise auth gaps	17	31%	"We can't implement this without SSO. Our security team won't approve it" — sales_08
Integration depth	15	28%	"We can't sync Salesforce back to Fab Lab. It's read-only" — support_q3
KB search relevance	13	24%	"Search is useless. We have 500 KB articles but people can't find anything" — support_q1
Multi-tenant gaps	11	20%	"We manage 30 client accounts but can't give them separate Fab Lab instances" — sales_09

RQ4: Competitive evaluation

Competitor	Win Rate	Fab Lab Wins On	Representative Quote
Zendesk	60%	Cost, speed, UX	"Zendesk is bloated but has everything. Fab Lab is cleaner but immature." — winloss_01
Intercom	55%	Consolidation, cost	"Intercom's bot is better, but Fab Lab's human support is faster and cheaper" — sales_11
Freshdesk	Mixed	Speed, UX	"Freshdesk is better for IT/MSP use cases. Fab Lab for mid-market SaaS." — winloss_01
ServiceNow	N/A	Mid-market focus	"ServiceNow is locked in at the enterprise level. That's not our market." — cab_q2

RQ5: What was the breaking point for churn?

Theme	Count	Prev	Representative Quote
Enterprise compliance undelivered	6	33%	"We were promised SSO would be ready by month 3. It's been 8 months." — churn_21
Mobile app failures	6	33%	"Our on-call team gave up on the mobile app. Too many crashes." — churn_22
Reporting limitations	6	33%	"Reporting is broken. We had to go back to Zendesk for visibility." — churn_23
Multi-tenant absent	4	22%	"We manage 15 client accounts. Fab Lab can't isolate them. We left." — support_q2
Pricing at scale	4	22%	"At $100/seat, our 50-person team would cost $60K/year." — survey_03

Where they went: Zendesk (5), Freshdesk (2), Intercom (1), proprietary (1)

RQ8: What drives expansion?

Theme	Count	Prev	Representative Quote
Reporting delivery	32	46%	"If you ship reporting, we'd expand from 15 to 25 seats." — renewal_20
Enterprise features	20	29%	"Once you have SSO and audit logs, we'll roll this out to the whole company." — renewal_21
Health scoring ROI	19	28%	"Health scoring caught a churn risk we missed. That saves us $50K." — cab_q2
Mobile stability	18	26%	"If the mobile app worked, we'd use it for everything." — survey_01
Salesforce sync	14	20%	"Salesforce integration would cement our decision to expand." — upsell_24

High-Intensity Outliers

Healthcare/Finance Exodus

Risk: HIGH — 3 churned customers in regulated verticals cite unmet compliance needs (HIPAA, SOX). All went to vertical-specific competitors.

On-Call Mobile Dependency

Risk: MEDIUM — Field teams depend on mobile notifications. Crashes = service reliability risk. 6+ customers reverted to email/SMS.

Unrealized Consolidation

Risk: MEDIUM — 43% of renewed customers still maintain secondary tools (Zendesk for reporting, Mailchimp for campaigns, spreadsheets for health).

Pricing at 30+ Seats

Risk: MEDIUM — 4 customers cite per-seat pricing as untenable at enterprise scale. 3+ lost deals had pricing as a factor.

Roadmap Credibility Crisis

Risk: MEDIUM — Reporting promised 3+ times and slipped. Customers becoming skeptical of announced features.

Segment Analysis

Prospects (n=20)

Top pain: Tool consolidation (56%), manual health scoring (33%)
Top objections: Reporting (23%), SSO (20%), pricing (16%)
Win rate: 60% vs Zendesk, 55% vs Intercom

Established (n=18)

Love: Unified inbox (41%), health scoring (34%), speed (32%)
Complaints: Reporting (44%), mobile (37%), enterprise auth (31%)
43% still use secondary tools

Churned (n=18)

Drivers: Reporting (33%), mobile (33%), compliance (33%)
Destinations: Zendesk (5), Freshdesk (2), Intercom (1)
60% potentially reversible with reporting + mobile fixes

Feature Requests & Unmet Needs

Critical (Blocking Expansion)

#	Feature	Sources	Prev
1	Reporting Suite	24	44%
2	Mobile App Stability	20	37%
3	Enterprise Bundle (SSO+RBAC)	17	31%

High (Affecting Satisfaction)

#	Feature	Sources	Prev
4	Salesforce Bi-directional Sync	14	20%
5	KB Search Modernization	13	24%
6	Email Campaign Enhancements	9	17%

Medium (Niche/Vertical)

#	Feature	Sources	Prev
7	Multi-Tenant/White-Label	11	20%
8	Vertical Compliance	6	11%
9	API/Webhooks	8	12%

So What?

Messaging

Prospect: Consolidate tools, cut cost 40–50% vs Zendesk. Live in 2–4 weeks.
Established: Health scoring saves $50K+ in churn/year. Reporting coming Q3.
Churned: Reporting shipped. Mobile stability improved. Let's reconnect.
Enterprise: SSO, RBAC, audit logging launching Q2–Q3. Early access for advisory board.

Product Roadmap

Quarter	Deliverables
Q2 2026	Enterprise MVP (SAML + RBAC) · Mobile stability · Reporting MVP
Q3 2026	Reporting GA · Enterprise GA · Salesforce bi-directional sync
Q4 2026	Multi-tenant MVP · KB search modernization

Sales Enablement

Publish 3–5 case studies from renewals/expansions (Q2)
Zendesk win strategy playbook with competitive messaging
Enterprise readiness checklist for top 10 objections
Churn recovery playbook for 18 churned customers
"Fastest Path to Value" GTM motion for Zendesk prospects

Open Questions

Why is consolidation the #1 driver but 43% still use secondary tools?
What is the true CAC payback and LTV by segment?
Are churned customers recoverable post-reporting GA?
How do metrics compare to Zendesk/Intercom benchmarks?
What's the TAM in regulated verticals if we close compliance gaps?

Week 1: Start WithYour Customer

Your Goal

Two ways to build it

Customer Research Skill

Step-by-Step Guide

Set Up Your Project

Chat

Projects

Agentic

Project Instruction

Run Your Baseline

Build Your Research Synthesis

No transcripts or surveys?

Review, Upload, Re-Run

Did you get to your goal?

Troubleshooting

🎉 Nice work!

Fab Lab — Customer Insights Report

TLDR

What the data says

What to do about it

Detailed Findings

RQ1: What drives customers to seek Fab Lab?

RQ2: What does Fab Lab do well?

RQ3: What's missing or broken?

RQ4: Competitive evaluation

RQ5: What was the breaking point for churn?

RQ8: What drives expansion?

High-Intensity Outliers

Healthcare/Finance Exodus

On-Call Mobile Dependency

Unrealized Consolidation

Pricing at 30+ Seats

Roadmap Credibility Crisis

Segment Analysis

Prospects (n=20)

Established (n=18)

Churned (n=18)

Feature Requests & Unmet Needs

Critical (Blocking Expansion)

High (Affecting Satisfaction)

Medium (Niche/Vertical)

So What?

Messaging

Product Roadmap

Sales Enablement

Open Questions

Week 1: Start With
Your Customer