Our mission at Tailwind is to make world-class marketing easy for everyone.
That's a lofty goal, and we like it that way. "Marketing" is among the most rapidly changing industries in the world, with social media, machine learning and artificial intelligence disrupting how companies attract, nurture and engage with customers. These new approaches, paired with ever better tools of the trade, mean that the bar for "world-class" marketing is constantly being raised. Making such complex ideas and tasks truly "easy" is in itself very difficult. And, underpinning all of this, is the fact that tens of millions of new marketers have entered the field in the last few years; i.e. "everyone" is expanding by the minute.
Achieving our mission will take years if not decades.
For us to even come close, we need to move as quickly as humanly possible.
That's where you come in. As the leader of the Core Product team, you'll serve as a member of the company’s Leadership Team, charged with building out and mentoring the Product team, expanding our core marketing suite at an accelerated pace over time, and working with other Team Leads across the company to ensure we execute our growth plans as effectively as possible in pursuit of achieving our mission.
Our company and problem space are both growing rapidly. At any point in time, there are a large number of known product improvements and feature enhancements we could invest in, but succeeding in this role will also require being able to look out over a 2-3 year horizon to chart a strategic course for the product amidst a rapidly changing landscape. Crafting that vision isn’t enough, though; you’ll also need to be able to communicate it effectively across the team, create the alignment necessary to execute on it, and then expertly manage that execution.
Here are a few examples of challenges we're facing today that you could help solve:
1. Balancing growing the breadth of our suite with achieving the depth of expertise in any given area required to maximize value for our members: We have grown rapidly to-date through a product leadership strategy. We’ve carved out some niches that we’re very good at serving and that’s helped us generate great word of mouth. As we expand into adjacent markets, though, there may be greater competition to overcome, or at least entirely new customer bases to serve that don’t yet know our brand. There are good cases to be made for both continuing on the product leadership path, as well as expanding our coverage much more rapidly. We’ll look to you to help us find the optimal mix.
2. Leveraging data to help members unlock greater value: As our product and customer base grow, so does the data available to us - and our ability to drive value for customers from that intelligent applications of that data. We’ve already proven that our customer base can benefit greatly by being able to tap into broad insights derived from many observations. But to understand who to maximize the value of this strategy across many customer types, we’ll need to figure out how to scalably understand our current and future members’ needs, in order to help uncover the key insights that will move their businesses forward.
3. Accelerating the growth of our Product team to critical mass and beyond: Today, we’re a 35 person company with a strong cultural foundation and defined Product principles that have served us well. And although we’re growing rapidly, we’re only just beginning to tackle many of the growth challenges that teams must solve to build a truly impactful and lasting business. While advancing the product is important, building a high functioning, culturally sound Product team is even more important. Helping us achieve that objective will leave a lasting mark on the company - and in turn, on hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide who will benefit from the innovation a high performing Product team can deliver.
Once again, these are just a few examples. The nature and priority of projects to focus on will evolve rapidly, just as our company continues to do. The common thread, however, is the opportunity to meaningfully and sustainably impact our trajectory as a team.
Why you’ll love this role:
- The opportunity to create significant impact on the world is real. The problem space that we’re addressing is massive and growing rapidly, with over 30 million digitally active SMBs worldwide - and even more who have yet to make the transition.
- When our customers succeed, lives are changed for the better. Dreams are achieved. Jobs are created. Families are supported.
- You’d be joining and inheriting an exceptional early team that is a pleasure to work with everyday and driven to continuously grow
- Our approach has been Product-driven from day one; we focus on solving real problems with innovative solutions, and we play the long game
- We serve many, many customers, enabling us to systematically manage the progression of the product over time; we do not have pressure to build to a small set of large clients to close deals or hit revenue targets
- We are both profitable and backed by institutional investors who are in this for the long-run; we are scaling rapidly and all signs point to that continuing for quite some time
- Our culture is collaborative, energetic, growth-oriented and anti-political
- We have a commitment to promoting the communities we live in and advancing diversity and inclusion in our industry; our mission stretches beyond building a company
Key attributes of a great Product Management Leader include:
- Extremely high IQ, EQ, trustworthiness and integrity
- A hypothesis-driven approach to learning and product development, with the ability to rapidly incorporate new information and a willingness to go where the data takes you
- An uncanny ability to uncover new information that is central to solving a user problem, or find meaning in data that others might miss
- Skilled at diagnosing problems from multiple lenses while leveraging diverse data types, then crafting sustainable solutions effectively and efficiently
- A natural bridge builder with excellent communication skills and the ability to achieve buy-in across multiple functions, driving us toward shared wins
- Ability to ruthlessly prioritize among many potential paths while winning buy-in from others on the team - and customers - whose ideas are not prioritized at any point in time
- Comfortable working across multiple time horizons simultaneously by constantly refining the vision for the product, while executing in the present to move us in that direction as quickly as possible
- Adeptness at managing and mentoring Product Managers, Product Designers and UX Researchers at all levels, rapidly accelerating their personal and career development
- Able to represent the Tailwind brand and culture to a wide array of audiences including candidates interested in joining the team, partner organizations and our members
- A "no problem too small" attitude. Solving big problems often means getting your hands dirty down in the weeds. You should love addressing issues at both strategic and operational levels.
- Never shows up to a meeting unprepared, nor leaves a meeting without clear next steps
- A healthy disrespect for the status quo
Knowledge or experience that may set you apart:
- Experience building and managing high-performing Product teams from early growth stage to later stages of maturity
- Experience building scalable software-as-a-service products, with bonus points if those products specifically served the needs of small business owners, solopreneurs or marketers
- Experience building products with scaled data components, as well as leveraging that data to derive unique insights or to power differentiating feature sets
- High degree of familiarity with the marketing technology industry, or adjacent fields such as the consumer internet, digital marketing or advertising agencies
- Operational experience founding or working across multiple early stage companies for a meaningful period of time (or seeing at least one through multiple stages of growth)
- A foundational background in software development, user experience or similar fields
- Deep knowledge of and connections across the Oklahoma City and/or New York City startup and technology communities
More About Tailwind
We serve 100,000s of small to mid-sized businesses, helping them grow through efficient and effective digital marketing efforts. Today, we are best known for helping our members succeed on Instagram and Pinterest, but that is only the beginning. Our mission is big and we intend to achieve it.
We are a very close-knit, fast-moving and diverse team that helps each other, learns from one another, and challenges each other to accomplish extraordinary things. With all of the challenges we face day-to-day, there is absolutely no room for egos or any sense of entitlement. We value transparency within the team whether that's sharing new ideas, giving feedback or creating an inclusive environment where anyone can join in on any conversation to everyone's benefit.
We think our industry’s lack of diversity hurts us all. Technology is too important to not represent everyone. That’s why we work hard to foster a company culture that’s inclusive and appreciative of everyone’s talent, authenticity, and ideas — regardless of our differences.
Tailwind is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, Veteran status, or any other legally protected status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.