Free. No email gate. For people breaking into PMM without the title.
The honest map into product marketing, for people who don't have the title yet.
You know the ones. "Entry-level" roles that still ask for 3 to 5 years of experience. You're not behind. You're outside, which is a different thing, and outside has a door.
Need a PMM friend? I gotchu. I’m not here to sell you anything. I’m just a fellow PMM who put in the work to break in, and I know how hard it is. I’m here to strategize with you.
This site gives you three things. The feeder routes people actually take. One piece of work that gets you interviews (start with week 1 of the Residency, finish one, then decide if you want the rest). The names of people who will talk to you. It's free, there's no email gate, and it's refreshed every two months. Every entry shows the date it was last checked.
Next refresh: December 7, 2026.
Built by Samuel Cahoon. Product marketing at HubSpot and Pontera, now at Berkeley Haas.
Hear me on Out in Tech NY’s podcast: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Which one is you?
Six doors01
Undergrad / new grad
Entry-level PMM barely exists. You need the feeder-role map.
Start here: build one work sample, then pick a feeder role to aim at.
02
Career switcher
Content, demand gen, CS, sales, PM, journalism. You need a translation layer and one killer artifact.
Start here: write the one sentence that explains your background.
03
MBA
Shrinking tech PMM funnel. The MBA route is short for now. I'm in this funnel myself this year and will write it up as I go.
Start here: read the MBA route, then book a chat.
04
Laid-off / re-entry PMM
Competing against seniors taking pay cuts. You need an honest market read.
Start here: read the hard-day page, then pick one person to message.
05
International / needs sponsorship
An invisible filter kills most applications. You need to know who actually sponsors.
Start here: read the sponsorship note on The Drop.
06
Non-SaaS PMM
Every resource assumes B2B SaaS. The Map has no sector routes yet, so start with the closest feeder route. I'll add sector routes as people ask.
Start here: read the closest feeder route, then build one work sample.
?
Not sure
Read the whole map. It takes about 15 minutes.
Start here: start at the top of the map.
Start in 60 seconds
- 01Pick a door.Use the cards above, or read the map.
- 02Start one work sample.Week 1 of the Residency is the fastest to finish.
- 03Message one person.Use the three copy-and-paste messages on the map.
- 04Set up one search.Pick one source on The Drop and set it to alert.
Who this is for: people who want a first PMM job and don't have the title yet. I also write for the people who hire them.
A manifesto, briefly
Most "break into PMM" resources teach you the concepts. This one is built to get you three specific things.
A course explains what positioning is. This site is trying to send you home with a work sample you can show, an introduction to someone on the inside, and a clear list of where to look for roles you actually qualify for.
Samuel Cahoon, the person behind The Way In.
On the record
From Mormon Idaho to NYC Fintech: Sam Cahoon on Coming Out, High Agency, and the Future of PMM
Synching Up by Out in Tech NY · hosted by Jake Tenenbaum · 47 min · June 17, 2026
Think of if Apple built an iPhone, but no one knew that it existed. They build it in secret, they tell no one. That's the absence of product marketing.
Sam, on Synching Up
47 minutes on what product marketing actually is, how nine internships led me to it, what AI takes from the job and what it hands back, and the onboarding flow I built at Pontera that nobody asked me to build.
What I can't promise
I don't have placement data. Nobody tracks how many people who use a site like this end up in a PMM job, and I won't invent a number. What I can promise is that every entry carries a date, and when something stops being true it moves to the Graveyard with what I used to say and what I say now.