Erik MacKinnon writes about B2B SaaS product marketing, including validating buyer demand before building features and measuring brand performance. MacKinnon's posts also discuss Wynter’s buyer-research services.
15.9K followersBased on 18 posts · latest Oct 2026
Erik MacKinnon is most useful for practical product marketing sessions on validating buyer demand before build and measuring brand.
Best for
A B2B SaaS product and product marketing team wanting early validation before feature commitment.
Not for
Finance teams seeking independent benchmark data or a vendor-neutral brand measurement review.
Key takeaways
65% of surveyed product marketers said features ship without evidence customers want them.
55% traced an underperforming launch to missing problem, demand, ICP, or market validation.
49% said product marketing gets involved late or downstream.
Check first: Confirm audience demographics, engagement, sponsorship terms, and Wynter disclosure before contacting them.
Main ideas
Validate demand before code makes the decision irreversible · Product marketing's late involvement is an upstream design flaw · Customer evidence is not target-market evidence
Erik MacKinnon writes about B2B SaaS product marketing, buyer research, and brand measurement.
Their central argument is that teams should test whether a problem and proposed solution matter to their target market before committing to build or launch.
They also examine what happens when product marketing joins too late, release volume weakens positioning, or brand decisions lack buyer research.
Their posts are useful for readers who want concrete questions and examples for bringing market research into product and marketing decisions.
MacKinnon connects research to the decisions it can still change.
In posts drawing on surveys of 100 B2B SaaS product marketers, they distinguish feedback from existing customers from information about a wider target market, and argue that research gathered after a feature is committed cannot answer whether it should have been built.
They make the cost of late involvement tangible: respondents describe launch problems rooted in validation, communication, and timing, not simply in launch execution.
They also apply the same research-first approach to brand measurement, asking teams to track awareness and consideration among their intended buyers rather than rely only on performance metrics.
A useful exception to this product-marketing focus is their post on preparing revenue processes for AI agents, where they argue that processes need clear instructions, examples, owners, and tests before automation can work reliably.
Across these topics, readers get practical diagnostic questions and a view of how decisions become harder to change as teams invest time, money, and credibility.
MacKinnon's recurring argument is that B2B SaaS teams make expensive product and marketing decisions before they have evidence from the buyers they are trying to reach.
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The posts return to a few linked priorities: test demand before engineering commits, bring product marketing into decisions early enough to change them, treat customer conversations as different from target-market research, and stop letting release volume substitute for market impact. A second strand concerns measurement and operations: brand performance needs a practical baseline, and go-to-market workflows need to be documented and testable before agents are asked to run them.
Validate demand before code makes the decision irreversible
MacKinnon's central claim is that most weak feature launches are not launch problems at all.
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They are validation problems that become visible at launch.
In a survey of 100 B2B SaaS product marketers, they report that 65% said features ship without evidence customers want them, and 55% of answers about an underperforming launch pointed to missing problem, demand, ICP, or market validation before the build.
The argument is that evidence has to arrive while it can still stop or reshape a build, not just prompt more research at launch.
Their sharpest formulation is that research after commitment is feedback, not validation.
A product marketer quoted in the post described a feature built “in a vacuum,” with no customer proof points or real-world validation, and said the launch then fell flat. MacKinnon uses that sequence to argue that once code is written, the launch date is set, and the board has heard about it, the most useful questions have already become postmortem questions.
Product marketing's late involvement is an upstream design flaw
MacKinnon argues that the familiar complaint that product marketing is brought in too late is not a staffing complaint.
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It signals that product decisions, customer validation, and internal communication are already breaking upstream.
In the reported survey, 49% said product marketing gets involved late or downstream, 44% described communication or documentation breakdowns, 36% described weak or post-commitment customer validation, 33% dealt with roadmap, timing, or scope churn, and 26% pointed to unclear ownership or launch processes.
They reframe that list as product and validation problems that only become visible at launch.
One quoted product marketer said, “We are tossed a finished feature at the very end and told to market it and enable sales.” Another described being handed an unrealistic date while features were cut to meet it, with no beta or alpha data revealing the problem until revenue missed.
MacKinnon does not dismiss customer calls, interviews, sales calls, or support tickets.
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Their argument is that those inputs usually come from people already inside the company's orbit: current customers, active opportunities, design partners, and accounts with loud problems.
That creates selection bias when a team needs to know how widespread a problem is, which segment feels it most, or whether prospects care as much as existing customers.
In the reported survey, 69% mentioned direct customer or prospect conversations, 46% mentioned feedback through sales, customer success, or support, and only 13% mentioned surveys or quantitative research.
A product marketer quoted in the post said, “Your existing customer base doesn't always reflect the buying appetite of the market you're going after.” MacKinnon uses the line to explain why ten good customer interviews can still produce the wrong conclusion about a new segment, an upmarket move, or a market outside the current customer base.
MacKinnon argues that high release volume creates a product marketing tax: research, positioning, messaging, naming, enablement, launch content, proof, adoption, coordination, and measurement for every release.
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Among respondents at companies with 50 to 999 employees, they report that 85% of high-volume teams said they were overloaded by launches versus 38% of moderate- or low-volume teams; 50% of high-volume respondents said release volume was diluting core positioning versus 12% of the lower-volume group. The conclusion is not that companies should stop shipping, but that they should put a higher burden of proof on what gets built and what earns a full launch.
MacKinnon describes positioning turning into a running changelog: “We also do this now.
And this.
And this.”
One quoted participant said, “Marketing and enablement hasn't kept pace with development.”
Brand is the unmeasured multiplier behind performance
MacKinnon argues that B2B SaaS teams measure funnel metrics closely while leaving brand performance largely unmeasured.
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The post cites figures that 83% of B2B SaaS companies have little or no regular insight into brand performance and 52% do not measure brand impact at all.
Their case is that brand awareness affects the performance metrics finance already reviews, citing claims that brand awareness can increase performance-marketing conversion up to 2.86 times and that branded search can deliver 19 times higher return on ad spend than non-branded search.
They recommend measuring unaided recall and consideration among the target ICP monthly or quarterly and comparing movement with performance metrics.
MacKinnon contrasts detailed dashboards for cost per lead, MQL-to-SQL rates, demo conversion, and pipeline velocity with the absence of a brand baseline. The post argues that slow, expensive brand tracking makes the problem worse: it cites a Maxio case where traditional agency quotes ran from $100,000 to $240,000 for one study, compared with just over $10,000 and a couple of days using Wynter.
Revenue operations need versioned, testable workflows before agents can run them
MacKinnon's argument about AI agents is operational rather than speculative.
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If qualification logic lives half in the CRM, objection handling lives in a Notion document, renewal risk lives in a Slack thread, and enterprise routing lives in one person's head, an agent will inherit the mess.
They propose a revenue repository with playbooks, prompts, skills, examples, tools, evaluations, approvals, and a changelog.
The test is whether a workflow can be written clearly enough for a smart junior hire to follow; if not, an agent will struggle too.
MacKinnon lists the everyday GTM processes that sit in scattered tools and tribal memory, then argues that agents need clear instructions, canonical examples, edge cases, handoff rules, approval gates, data contracts, and evaluations. The practical priority is to make one meaningful workflow versioned and reviewable before automating it.
Explains why a pile of customer calls can still produce a bad market conclusion.
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It sets up the central distinction in Erik’s work: evidence from people already in your orbit is not the same as evidence from the buyers you want to reach.
Erik reports coding open-text answers from 100 B2B SaaS product marketers about how their teams test whether customers want what is being built.
The most common method was direct customer or prospect conversations, at 69%, followed by feedback through sales, customer success, or support, at 46%; just 13% mentioned surveys or quantitative research.
The post argues that current customers, active opportunities, design partners, and loud support tickets carry selection bias.
One quoted product marketer says: “Your existing customer base doesn't always reflect the buying appetite of the market you're going after.”
For brands planning a campaign
Use this as the opening argument for a workshop on separating customer feedback from target-market validation. The diagnostic is concrete: list which research inputs come from existing accounts, then identify which questions need evidence from buyers outside the current book of business.
Explains what breaks between a product decision and a launch.
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It names the handoff failures that make product marketing look responsible for problems created earlier.
From the same 100-product-marketer survey, Erik groups the reported problems: 49% said product marketing gets involved late or downstream, 44% described communication or documentation breakdowns, 36% described weak or post-commitment customer validation, 33% cited roadmap, timing, or scope churn, and 26% pointed to unclear ownership or launch process.
Erik reframes these as upstream product, validation, and communication problems that surface at launch.
A quoted participant describes being “handed an unrealistic date” while features are cut and no beta or alpha data reveals the problem until revenue misses.
For brands planning a campaign
Use this item to shape a pre-commitment involvement map.
Ask a product marketing team to mark where PMM enters today, where customer evidence enters, and which decisions are already locked at each point.
The percentages give the discussion a shared starting point, not universal benchmarks.
Explains what teams wish they had checked before building.
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It turns a vague postmortem complaint into a list of foundational demand questions teams can use.
Erik asked 100 product marketers to think about a real underperforming feature launch.
When the answers were coded, 55% pointed to missing problem, demand, ICP, or market validation before the feature was built.
The post lists the questions respondents wished had been answered first: Is the problem real?
Is it painful enough to change behavior?
How many target customers have it?
Which segment cares most?
Do buyers want the proposed solution?
Will it improve adoption, retention, or revenue?
One quoted respondent says: “Because it was built in a vacuum, we had zero customer proof points, no real-world validation, and no compelling story.”
For brands planning a campaign
Turn the list into a pre-build evidence checklist for a workshop. The campaign angle: a 45-minute session where product and product marketing score a live feature idea against each question and flag which answers are assumptions rather than evidence.
Makes the sharpest version of Erik’s warning: research done after commitment is feedback, not validation.
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Start here to explore how to move evidence earlier in the build cycle.
Erik reports that 65% of surveyed product marketers said features ship without evidence that customers want them.
The post also notes that 69% mentioned direct customer or prospect research, but argues that much of this evidence comes after the solution is chosen, from a handful of existing customers, filtered through sales or customer success, or driven by one large account.
Erik’s line is direct: “Research after commitment is feedback.
It’s NOT validation.”
The post connects faster AI-assisted software development to a wider gap between shipping speed and market understanding.
For brands planning a campaign
Use this as the case for a pre-build evidence gate. A practical talk can walk through the five stages where evidence can enter — problem, concept, prototype, positioning, and launch — and show which decisions each stage can still change.
Explains how release volume changes product marketing work and market position.
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A useful starting point for a team deciding whether every release deserves a launch.
Erik isolated 66 respondents working at companies with 50 to 999 employees and compared high-release-volume teams with moderate- or low-volume teams.
The high-volume group reported more overload (85% versus 38%), more growth in launch-support work (88% versus 50%), and much more concern that release volume was diluting core positioning (50% versus 12%).
The post details the work each release creates: research, positioning, messaging, naming, enablement, launch content, proof, adoption, coordination, and measurement.
One quoted respondent says: “Marketing and enablement hasn't kept pace with development.”
For brands planning a campaign
Frame a session around launch triage, not simply doing more launches faster. A team can use the three options in the post — do more work, do shallower work, or stop treating every release as a launch — to define a tiering rule and the evidence required for full launch support.
Explains why brand measurement belongs in a performance-focused B2B SaaS discussion.
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Erik connects brand tracking to the metrics executives already care about.
Erik cites figures that 83% of B2B SaaS companies have little or no regular insight into brand performance and 52% do not measure brand impact at all.
The post contrasts that gap with close attention to cost per lead, MQL-to-SQL rates, demo conversion, and pipeline velocity.
Erik also cites claims that brand awareness can increase performance marketing conversion up to 2.86 times and that branded search can deliver 19 times higher return on ad spend than non-branded search.
The practical recommendation: measure unaided recall and consideration among the target ICP monthly or quarterly, then compare movement with performance metrics.
For brands planning a campaign
Use this item to start a brand-budget conversation: establish an ICP awareness and consideration baseline, then review it alongside pipeline metrics so brand investment has a trend line, not just an argument.
Answers what slow, expensive brand research does to a team’s willingness to act.
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Start here for the procurement side of Erik’s brand argument.
Erik argues that traditional brand tracking can spend up to six weeks in discovery before hearing from a single buyer, turning a decision-support activity into a budget request and procurement project.
The post cites Maxio as an early case: traditional agency quotes of $100,000 to $240,000 for one brand study, compared with a study conducted through Wynter for just over $10,000 and turned around in a couple of days.
Their recommendation is to make the research process proportionate to the decision: survey 100 or more verified B2B buyers from the target ICP, measure awareness, preference, and perception against competitors, and provide first insights within 48 hours of survey launch.
For brands planning a campaign
Use this as a brand-research scoping example. Define the buyer segment, the three brand measures, and the deadline, then ask what evidence can arrive while the team can still act.
Answers how Erik thinks about making go-to-market work legible to AI agents.
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Start here for a concrete operational idea rather than a general prediction about AI.
Erik MacKinnon argues that revenue workflows scattered across Slack, Notion, HubSpot, and individual memory are not ready for agents.
The post gives examples: demo qualification logic half in the CRM, objection handling in a Notion document, renewal risk process in a Slack thread, and enterprise account routing in one operations person’s head.
They propose a revenue “repo” with playbooks, prompts, skills, examples, tools, evals, approvals, and a changelog.
The test is whether a workflow can be written clearly enough for a smart junior hire to follow; if not, an agent will struggle too.
For brands planning a campaign
Use this for an AI-operations or revenue-enablement campaign. A practical workshop can take one GTM workflow, document its owner, version history, good and bad examples, approval gates, and tests, then identify where an agent could operate without hiding accountability.
MacKinnon's most repeated subject is what happens when product teams commit to features before checking market demand.
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Posts report a survey of 100 B2B SaaS product marketers: 65% said features ship without evidence that customers want them, and 55% traced a weak launch to missing problem, demand, ICP or market validation.
Related posts describe product marketing being brought in after scope, dates and commercial assumptions are locked; 49% said product marketing is involved late or downstream.
The practical message: test demand, concept and story before expensive decisions become political.
Survey percentages, coded open-text answers and respondent quotes lead into a numbered sequence of failure points.
For brands planning a campaign
A talk or workshop can guide product and product-marketing teams through a pre-build validation gate: define the target segment, test whether the problem is painful and widespread, test the proposed concept, and set a stop rule before engineering commits.
MacKinnon reports that among product marketers at companies with 50 to 999 employees, 85% of high-volume teams said they were overloaded by launches, versus 38% of moderate- or low-volume teams.
Half of high-volume respondents said release volume was diluting the company's core positioning, compared with 12% of lower-volume teams.
The post lists the work every release creates and argues that teams cannot keep adding launch support without doing shallower work or deciding which releases deserve a full launch.
For brands planning a campaign
A workshop on launch tiering could help a product-marketing team decide which releases merit research, positioning, sales enablement and a full campaign—and which belong in release notes.
MacKinnon argues that most B2B SaaS teams gather feedback from people already in their orbit: current customers, active prospects, design partners and accounts with loud support issues.
Read more
In the reported survey, 69% mentioned direct customer or prospect conversations, 46% mentioned feedback through sales, customer success or support, and only 13% mentioned surveys or quantitative research.
The posts distinguish customer calls from evidence about the wider target market's pain, segment differences and willingness to change behavior.
They promote Wynter as a service for that wider buyer research.
Lists research methods, explains each method's bias, and gives examples of decisions where the distinction changes the answer, such as entering a new segment or expanding upmarket.
For brands planning a campaign
A session can show teams how to distinguish existing-customer feedback from target-market validation, then redesign a research plan around the buyers a new segment requires—not just the accounts already in the CRM.
One post says 83% of B2B SaaS companies have little or no regular insight into brand performance and 52% do not measure brand impact at all.
It argues that brand awareness improves performance-marketing conversion and branded search returns, linking an unmeasured brand metric to the metrics finance already reviews.
A later post criticizes slow, expensive brand-tracking processes and cites Maxio as a case study: traditional agency quotes of $100,000 to $240,000 for one study, compared with just over $10,000 and a couple of days using Wynter.
A short post advises framing a brand budget request in finance's language.
This topic sits apart from the product-marketing survey series and draws on brand-budget and vendor case-study evidence. Treat the Maxio figures as a company example, not an independent benchmark.
For brands planning a campaign
A briefing for marketing and finance leaders can connect brand awareness to pipeline performance and propose a smaller, faster tracking process with a clear baseline, cadence and CFO-facing measures.
One post moves from product marketing to go-to-market operations.
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MacKinnon argues that revenue teams need a versioned, reviewable repository for playbooks, prompts, examples, tools, approvals and evaluations because agents cannot reliably run on processes scattered across Slack, Notion, HubSpot and individual memory. Workflows should be documented clearly enough for a smart junior hire to follow before an agent is asked to run them.
For brands planning a campaign
A workshop for revenue operations or GTM leaders can audit one workflow, document its instructions, examples, edge cases, approval gates and tests, then decide whether it is ready for automation.
The recurring format: a blunt, all-caps claim, a survey or coded dataset, a numbered list of failure modes, respondent quotes, a practical sequence and a Wynter call to action.
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Posts often use humor and direct asides; one short post jokes about narrative violations around vibe-coded software. The approach suits evidence-led explainers, webinars and workshops with a strong survey hook, but is less suited to a neutral corporate keynote or formal analyst report.
For brands planning a campaign
Commission a data-led explainer or webinar with a clear survey finding, a practical checklist and a direct, humorous delivery style. If you plan to use the numbers in campaign materials, ask for the underlying survey questions and respondent profile.
Erik MacKinnon's posts repeatedly promote Wynter, a B2B buyer-research service, with direct calls to visit wynter.com or request a demo.
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The posts say they work to speed up Wynter's go-to-market process and describe their relationship as a disclosed partnership, but don't establish employment or ownership. Ask them to clarify their role.
Wynter
Disclosed partnership
MacKinnon promotes Wynter's qualitative and quantitative buyer research in posts about validating demand before product teams build and launch features.
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The posts link to wynter.com and invite readers to request a demo.
One says they work to speed up Wynter's GTM process.
Ask them to clarify their employment or ownership relationship with Wynter.
Start with MacKinnon's posts on product marketing being brought in after the build decision, then follow the argument through demand validation, the difference between customer feedback and target-market research, and the cost of high release volume.
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A second group covers brand measurement and documenting go-to-market work before automating it. The posts use a survey-led, direct format: a strong claim, percentages or coded answers, respondent quotes and a practical next step.
Laja uses surveys of about 100 B2B marketing leaders to argue that companies mistake feedback from existing customers and sales calls for evidence about the wider target market.
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Both write in a direct, contrarian style and turn survey results into practical research arguments.
Laja's posts centre on marketing decisions and research habits across B2B marketing leadership. MacKinnon's focus is product marketing's place in feature decisions, launch workload and demand validation before a build.
Mojahedi traces a visible operational failure back to missing process and governance, then argues that new features or automation cannot repair an unmanaged foundation.
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Both use detailed, experience-based explanations rather than broad commentary.
Mojahedi writes about Workday and HRIS configuration, reporting, security and governance. MacKinnon writes about product marketing, buyer evidence and go-to-market processes.
Lodge argues that B2B marketing problems often stem from unclear ownership and activity-led work rather than poor tactics.
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Both give marketing leaders direct, practical guidance about what to decide and who should own the outcome.
Lodge focuses on positioning, messaging discipline and accountabilities in small marketing teams. MacKinnon focuses on product marketing's involvement in product decisions, release volume and research with target buyers.
For a workshop on validating demand before build, Erik MacKinnon is a strong topic match for B2B SaaS product marketers, but the audience fit is unproven.
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Their posts address product marketing’s late involvement, weak pre-build validation, release-volume pressure, and brand measurement; several describe surveys of 100 product marketers.
This shows what they discuss, not who follows them.
The only measured audience figure is 15,932 LinkedIn followers as of 8 October 2026.
Before booking, ask for engagement rates, audience demographics, job titles, seniority levels, company sizes, and geography, plus recent results on comparable launch-validation posts and an audience survey showing the share of followers who are director-level product marketing leaders at B2B SaaS companies.
Strong topic and format fit. Position Erik MacKinnon as the workshop lead for a working session with product, product marketing, and a sales or customer-success representative.
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Brief
A B2B SaaS product and product-marketing team wants product marketing involved before feature commitment. It needs a practical session on testing demand before build, not a general keynote.
Reasons
The central argument directly matches the brief: research after commitment is feedback, not validation. The posts report that 65% of surveyed product marketers said features ship without evidence customers want them, and 55% traced an underperforming launch to missing problem, demand, ICP, or market validation.
The material offers a useful process diagnostic. Erik reports that 49% said product marketing gets involved late or downstream, 44% described communication or documentation breakdowns, and 36% described weak or post-commitment validation. These findings give teams a shared way to map where PMM and customer evidence enter the process.
The distinction between customer research and target-market evidence lends itself to a practical exercise. Erik reports that 69% mentioned direct customer or prospect conversations, while just 13% mentioned surveys or quantitative research. Teams can audit their own inputs against that distinction.
A second useful frame addresses launch pressure. Erik reports that high-release-volume teams were far more likely than lower-volume teams to feel overloaded by launches, 85% versus 38%, and to say release volume was diluting positioning, 50% versus 12%. This supports a session on which releases deserve full launch support.
Watch outs
Audience composition is unverified. The only audience measure is 15,932 LinkedIn followers observed on 8 October 2026; there are no job titles, seniority levels, company sizes, engagement rates, or geography. If the room must be director-level product marketers, ask for evidence of that segment before booking.
The survey percentages are directional figures from Erik's posts. They do not specify the survey instrument, respondent profile, or coding method. Ask for the underlying data before presenting the figures as independent benchmarks or reusing them in sales material.
Erik's posts promote Wynter, the buyer-research product they say they work on. If the client is evaluating vendors or wants a neutral session, disclose that relationship and agree that the workshop will not become a product demo unless the client asks for one.
The posts do not publish a workshop fee, media kit, or sponsorship terms. Ask directly about scope and commercial terms.
When to choose a specialist
Weak fit for an independent evidence briefing. MacKinnon can offer a practitioner viewpoint on why brand measurement matters, but their posts do not support an impartial benchmark review or a finance-grade vendor assessment.
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Brief
A B2B SaaS chief financial officer or finance leadership team wants an independent evidence briefing on whether to fund a brand-awareness program. The briefing should include benchmark data, a measurement design, and an impartial comparison of research options.
Reasons
The brand material is thin for this brief: one post citing broad claims about brand measurement, one built around a Maxio case study and a cost comparison with Wynter, and one short post pointing readers to an article about framing brand budgets in finance language. This is not a body of independent benchmark evidence.
Several figures appear without source detail in the posts, including claims that brand awareness can increase performance-marketing conversion up to 2.86 times and that branded search delivers 19 times higher return on ad spend than non-branded search. The Maxio comparison—$100,000 to $240,000 for a traditional agency study versus just over $10,000 through Wynter—is a company case example, not an independent market study.
The posts promote Wynter. That makes the material a vendor perspective, not the impartial comparison this brief calls for.
Erik's posts do not say that they have worked directly with CFO audiences, built brand measurement programs across multiple companies, or produced independent category research. The fit is therefore adjacent to the topic but unproven for a finance-led evidence review.
Watch outs
A narrower version could work: a 20-minute practitioner segment within a broader finance session, clearly framed as one operator's view, with the Wynter relationship disclosed.
If the client proceeds, ask for the underlying sources behind the brand statistics, the survey or case-study methodology, and at least one brand example that is not a Wynter customer story.
Do not present the Maxio figures as a typical price range or an independent benchmark.
A worked campaign example
Audience
Twelve to twenty participants: product managers, product marketers, one engineering lead, and one sales or customer-success representative. The session works best when the team brings a real feature still under consideration or newly added to the roadmap.
Flow
Detail
Erik presents the distinction between feedback after commitment and validation before commitment. Use the 65% finding that features ship without evidence customers want them and the 55% finding linking missing validation to weak launches. Clarify that these are survey findings from product marketers, not a guarantee about this company.
Minutes
10
Segment
Opening argument
Detail
Map the company's path from idea to launch. Mark when product marketing joins, when customer evidence enters, and when the build decision is effectively locked. Use the 49% late-involvement finding as a discussion prompt, not as a claim about this team.
Minutes
15
Segment
Map the current path
Detail
List the team's inputs: customer calls, sales or customer-success feedback, support tickets, advisory boards, design partners, surveys, and analyst research. Sort each by whose voice it represents. Use the 69% versus 13% contrast to show how easily teams can rely on customer conversations while lacking target-market evidence.
Minutes
20
Segment
Audit the evidence already in the room
Detail
Score the feature against seven questions from Erik's post: Is this a real problem? Is it painful enough to change behavior? How many target customers have it? Which segment cares most? Do buyers want this proposed solution? Will it improve adoption, retention, or revenue? Is it worth building now? Mark each answer as evidence, assumption, or unknown.
Minutes
25
Segment
Score the live feature
Detail
For each unknown, name the cheapest test and when it can produce an answer. Agree on what must be true before build starts, before implementation locks, and before full launch approval. Use the launch-overload findings to decide which releases get full support and which stay in release notes.
Minutes
15
Segment
Set the evidence gate and launch tier
Detail
Each participant names one decision they will change or one test they will commission. The client keeps the completed scorecard as the working document.
Minutes
5
Segment
Close
Objective
The team leaves with a live feature scored against demand evidence, a list of assumptions to test, a pre-build decision gate, and a stop rule for when the evidence is too weak to proceed.
Outputs
A one-page pre-build evidence gate for the chosen feature.
A scored feature card showing evidence, assumptions, and unknowns.
A short list of tests with owners and dates.
A launch-tier rule distinguishing full launches from release-note updates.
Pre work
Erik shares a short pre-read based on their survey findings. It states that the percentages come from their survey of 100 B2B SaaS product marketers and are directional, not universal benchmarks.
The client supplies a one-page feature description: the problem it is meant to solve, the target segment, evidence gathered so far, the proposed build timeline, and the decision date.
Participants note where product marketing currently enters the process and when customer evidence enters it.
Safeguards
Label the survey findings as directional and contextual, not as the client's benchmark.
Disclose Erik's Wynter relationship at the start.
Include a product demo only if the client requests one.
Agree on scope, fee, and any recording or reuse rights directly; no published workshop package exists.
Title
Pre-Build Evidence Gate: a 90-minute product marketing workshop
Why this fits
The workshop draws on Erik's recurring subject, their survey-led explanations, and their concrete questions rather than a generic innovation talk. It gives the client a completed working resource, not just a presentation.
Choose Peep Laja when the room is marketing leadership and the goal is to show that most marketing decisions are still gut calls, and that teams need evidence from buyers who are not already customers.
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Two posts report a survey of 100 B2B marketing leaders: 87% said target buyers were not the main input to their last big marketing decision, 92% pull insights from sales calls, 85% interview customers, and 53% research the target market once a year or less or never.
A second post shows the gap between claimed and actual non-customer research: 76% said they research buyers who are not customers, but only 32% described doing so for their last attempt.
That makes this a sharper fit for a keynote or executive session on why pre-commitment market evidence matters than for a hands-on product-marketing process workshop.
The posts focus on marketing decision-making and customer-versus-target-market research, not the product development lifecycle.
They do not describe Erik MacKinnon's product-marketing diagnostics, including 49% late involvement, 36% weak or post-commitment validation, or a pre-build gate.
A client wanting product, engineering, and product marketing to map their own launch process would need to bring that process.
Peep's posts also mention using Wynter for the survey, so a client seeking a vendor-neutral session should clarify that relationship.
Choose Seena Mojahedi only if the buyer's task shifts from product-marketing demand validation to fixing a Workday or HRIS environment.
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The posts describe a Director of HRIS who spent months on governance instead of new features, and a tenant audit covering conflicting reports, unexplained configuration, and integrations that run clean into work the business no longer uses. That is a better fit for an HR systems audience needing a 90-day rescue plan and a governance argument than for a B2B SaaS product team deciding whether to build a feature.
For a product-marketing session, this is not a like-for-like alternative.
The posts cover Workday configuration, data trust, and HRIS governance; they do not address product marketing involvement, feature validation, or launch planning.
Bringing Seena Mojahedi into a product-marketing session would require a different need and audience.
Choose Heather Lodge when the campaign task is positioning discipline, messaging ownership, or managing a small marketing team.
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One post argues that positioning is a collective decision and messaging is marketing's job, and that a headline rewritten four times signals unclear positioning.
The other argues for giving marketers accountability for outcomes rather than task lists.
That suits a founder or marketing leader who needs help setting direction and ownership.
The posts do not cover pre-build demand validation, product marketing's place in the release process, or research with target buyers.
For a workshop on validating demand before build, Heather Lodge would be a complementary voice on messaging ownership, not a substitute.
The posts are also short, so there is no workshop format or product-marketing process to reuse.
This profile draws on the full text of 12 LinkedIn posts by Erik MacKinnon.
The posts cover product marketing surveys, launch process, buyer research, release volume, brand measurement and go-to-market operations.
The posts do not give publication dates, so the page does not infer chronology.
The audience figure is a LinkedIn follower snapshot observed on 8 October 2026.
Survey percentages are reported as they appear in the posts; the posts do not describe the underlying survey instrument, respondent profile or coding method.
Brand relationship details are limited to what the posts state about Wynter.
Posts by comparator creators inform the similar-creator choices.
