Building Product Marketing From Scratch at Trezor
Why I wrote this
I joined Trezor in September 2023 as their first product marketing manager. The company had shipped hardware wallets for a decade without a positioning framework, messaging hierarchy, or launch playbook. Two weeks in, we launched the Safe 3 at Bitcoin Amsterdam. This article is about what happened next: building the entire PMM function from zero, one framework at a time.
Summary
The article walks through what it actually looks like to be a founding PMM at a hardware company. First 60 days were cross-company meetings discovering that launches ran on instinct, not process. Before building any frameworks, I had to sell the function itself, using a house metaphor (positioning is the foundation, messaging is the house, copy is the decoration). Year one produced a positioning framework adapted from April Dunford's methodology, a messaging hierarchy, and a launch tier matrix. The Safe 5 launch at BTC Prague in June 2024 was the first real proof it worked: every team operated from the same strategic story.
Key Takeaways
- 01Sell the function before you sell the product: nobody will use your frameworks if they don't understand what product marketing actually does. The house metaphor (positioning, messaging, copy) made it click.
- 02Hardware forces you to get it right early: packaging messaging gets locked months before launch. Unlike SaaS, you can't iterate your way out of a bad positioning call once production starts.
- 03Trust is the real deliverable, not documents: earning engineers' time by demonstrating product knowledge and speaking their language matters more than any framework. Future PMM hires inherit whatever trust level you establish.
2026 Perspective
The same positioning process that started with Safe 3 has now been applied to Safe 5, Safe 7, Expert Onboarding services, limited editions, and dozens of feature launches over 2.5 years. The framework held up across hardware, software, and services, which I didn't expect when I first adapted April Dunford's B2B SaaS methodology for consumer hardware. The biggest lesson is that building from zero lets you define what product marketing means at your company. That's rare, and it carries real responsibility.
