SheBonk, the labubu smacker, experiences first Chrome Store rejection :(

SheBonk, the silly Chrome extension I submitted to the Chrome Web Store last week, got rejected because, as a first-timer, I submitted a very messy package. Disappointed and sulking because I failed SheBonk, I cleaned up the folder and docs and resubmitted it for another review.

If you missed the story about SheBonk, you can read it here.

Anyway, I’m back in the waiting game x2.

SheHonk, a productivity guardian, joined the Chrome Store approval queue

A natural reaction to getting your extension rejected is to immediately create a new one.

I give you SheHonk, a productivity extension that lets users block specific websites during a customizable work schedule. If a blocked site is accessed during work hours, the screen is taken over by angry geese, helping users stay focused.

The geese gang already has a small waitlist on LinkedIn. 💅

Watch the demo (sound on, please) below.

Until I get to document some PMM work for these baddies (or dare I say SheNanigans), I’m pouring knowledge into this B.

Building up my PMM knowledge with a ridiculous book order

No time to cry over having no idea what I’m doing in Lovable and praying for the best while debugging and failing. My order of PMM books just arrived.

I put together this collection of titles based on recommendations, raving Reddit reviews, and much-needed LLM guidance. ChatGPT helped me come up with the following logical reading sequence:

1. LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products — Martina Lauchengco

2. Product Marketing Misunderstood — Richard King & Bryony Pearce

3. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman

4. Using Behavioral Science in Marketing — Nancy Harhut

5. Obviously Awesome — April Dunford

6. Building a StoryBrand — Donald Miller

7. Made to Stick — Chip & Dan Heath

8. Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win — April Dunford

9. Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands — Rory Sutherland

10. Crossing the Chasm — Geoffrey Moore

I integrated these into my always-in-progress self-learning curriculum as well.

How product features come to life: The story of Word’s red squiggly line

This week, I’m reading LOVED: How to rethink marketing for tech products by Martina Lauchengco. Such a page turner! A book review is coming soon, but until then, I want to share with you how Word’s red squiggly line came to life. If you already own the book, you can find this in the second chapter, The Fundamentals of Product Marketing.

Believe it or not, today’s beloved and ubiquitous auto spellcheck wasn’t always a thing. It all started with a tight launch deadline that pushed the Microsoft team into a feature development spiral: not enough time to build big, new features, but just enough to turn to scrappy creativity.

With only a few weeks until launch, a product marketer started digging through user data, based on keystrokes, to find out which features were the most used and which were underused. They found that most actions (about 75%) were really simple things like formatting and file management.

Among the least used features was spell check, because the version of Word at the time required users to press a button to run a document’s grammar check. People just didn’t bother with the extra steps or often forgot the feature even existed.

That insight flipped the problem on its head. Instead of asking what big new feature we can add, the team reframed it as how we can make the everyday stuff easier and more valuable.

That’s when the red squiggly line was born. Instead of hiding spell check behind a button that few people remembered to click, Word started flagging mistakes in real time.

A tiny visual nudge transformed an underused feature into one of the product’s most indispensable helpers.

When Word launched with the squiggly underline, it surprised everyone. Reviewers raved. The Wall Street Journal even said Word felt like its best version yet.

What I’m taking with me this week

Small insights, tiny nudges, and messy first attempts can lead to surprisingly big results. Sometimes you get rejected, sometimes angry geese appear on your screen, and sometimes the feature you almost ignored becomes indispensable.

Here’s to a productive week ahead of us. 🥂

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SheBonk’s role in my PMM journey + demo

Aside from being a helpful comedic relief for myself, creating SheBonk with Lovable was an interesting (and possibly useful) experience. Tamara, the, told me a while ago that product marketers and managers are using Lovable to build MVPs for new product features. This saves them and their design team time, so I figured it is a useful skill to have as a content marketer learning PMM.

Anyway, here’s the full logic behind this useless Chrome extension and what I plan to do with it.

Loom didn’t pick up on the sounds, so here’s a better demo of how it works.

Lite positioning: SheBonk vs. the internet

SheBonk is essentially a meme-esque Chrome extension. Its biggest quality is its futility and ridiculousness➡️low-stakes, frictionless fun. Users don’t have to think twice before installing this because:

1. It’s useless, taking pressure off decision-making

2. It’s quirky and somewhat fun

3. Its entertainment quality can be amplified in a group context (i.e., sharing it with colleagues)

Meet Abby, SheBonk’s first user persona.

In the context of over-consumerism trends, such as buying freaking furry Chucky dolls, there’s a countermovement: people who don’t get the trend and have strong opinions of those who do get it and buy the dolls, the bags, the AI water bottle, the next mainstream product.

I’ve seen it on YouTube. I’ve seen it on Instagram. It’s real: people like to complain about other people.

This Chrome extension has virality potential because of that virtual war on consumerism. It can be used in reaction videos, vlogs, or TikToks as a literal tool for ranting about bad takes and dumb trends. Its futility is the point.

SheBonk has a place in meme culture and needs a voice to match.

Here’s what NOT to read when learning about positioning.

Messaging for SheBonk: A harmless tool for online knee-capping

Given SheBonk’s meme quality and harmless violent vibes, I took the liberty of being rude and snarky. I used the PAS (problem, agitate, solution) messaging framework with added elements of empathy and (niche?) humor.

I used Canva to create a mockup landing page. Here’s how it turned out.

Next steps for SheBonk

Once (or if) 🤞🏼it goes live in Chrome Web Store, I’ll work on product strategy, launch plan, GTM, and content for all the social channels SheBonk will have a presence on. We’ll do it together, here on Substack.

We’ll look at adoption metrics, user feedback, and all that fun jazz. Until then, we wait for approval and continue studying product marketing.

Thanks for reading! If you’re new and made it this far, something must’ve pulled you in. If you’re curious to see where this is going, make it official.

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We had a nice 15-minute chat that shed some light and answered some questions. But because we were crunched for time, we couldn’t get into great detail, so I asked for further clarification on the r/ProductMarketing subreddit to have a complete picture of this career path.

Here’s the lowdown.

TL;DR:

• Learn the PMM fundamentals: personas, positioning, go-to-market.

• Start building a portfolio by reframing current marketing work in the language of PMM.

• Prioritize professional, structured experience over volunteer or freelance work.

• Courses provide structure; self-study is possible but harder.

My questions for Henry were focused on the content marketer to PMM career path, but I’m sure the answers I got could help other PMM enthusiasts on their own career pivot journey.

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What knowledge and skills does a content marketer need to break into product marketing?

After I gave Henry some context on my professional background, current position, and upskilling goals, we got into what I need to do as a content manager to become a PMM. He broke the learning path into three stages.

1. Knowledge: Building a strong PMM foundation

“First, you want to build up a strong foundation in product marketing as a whole by understanding primarily how to build customer personas, create positioning and messaging for a product, and develop and optimize a go-to-market plan to drive adoption.

I think those are the three key pillars to product marketing work.”

This was really insightful, as I completely overlooked customer personas in my self-learning curriculum. It’s now top of the list, thanks to Henry.

2. Expertise: Taking on PMM-adjacent work at your current company

“Step two is to try to find product marketing work to do at your current company. If your current company has any product launches that they need help with, or sales enablement that they need help with, try to find opportunities there, you know, whether that be a side project or just volunteering your skill set to help out. This way, you can actually build up the PMM experience.”

Reddit echoed Henry’s advice. A common recommendation that appears in all the replies to my post is to try and find PMM responsibilities at the company you work at. It’s like a change in your approach to content.

My idea for building a PMM portfolio was to volunteer on r/SaaS or other similar subreddits and write some case studies afterward. I already volunteered to do PMM work for hot.page—an amazing “yes code” web builder that gives designers and tech enthusiasts full creative freedom. But Henry thinks this is not a particularly valuable experience an aspiring PMM could include in a portfolio.

“In terms of offering your services on Reddit, I think that's going to be a hit or a miss. I think interviewers generally want to see you doing it in a more traditional professional setting, versus like, hey, you just did some three-month work. I'm not sure how strong that's going to resonate.”

Although I agree, I’m going to do this anyway. Not for a portfolio, but just for lending a hand to a bootstrapped startup with a product I love.

3. Transferable skills: Build a strong case

“And then finally, the third is just to have a strong story of how well your experience in content marketing translates over to product marketing.

Instead of saying you’re doing content marketing to drive awareness and leads, you can say, you’re putting together and executing a go-to-market plan to acquire customers.

Exact same thing, but different POV.”

Redditors recommended a similar approach: to reframe how you talk about your day-to-day content responsibilities, take on PMM-adjacent side quests at work, and basically create the space for yourself to learn and build experience.

Can you actually gain the necessary knowledge without a PMM certification?

My goal is to spend as little as possible on courses. I prefer exploring different perspectives from thought leaders in articles, books, and dedicated communities instead of following a structured curriculum.

But since I’m new to this whole PMM shtick, I decided to ask Henry if he thinks it’s possible to have a good grasp of the PMM foundations without a certification. As I expected, he said:

“Yeah, it's possible, but it will just be harder. It's not going to be linear, right? You’ll have to pick out bits and parts from each resource and try to put that together. Whereas the course, I think, is going to give you more structure and more of a linear path.”

The Reddit replies I got regarding certifications surprised me. People didn’t find the knowledge shared in these programs to be life-changing, “although solid”. But they got more from joining the PMM Slack communities they got included in after enrolling in a course.

A little bonus: PMM books recommended by Redditors

For those like me who are not so eager to do a certification, books are your best bet. Here are all the books recommended in the Reddit replies:

• Obviously Awesome (and/or) Sales Pitch – April Dunford

• Make It Punchy – Emma Stratton

• Product Marketing Misunderstood – Richard King & Bryony Pearce

• Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products – Martina Lauchengco

The bottom line: If you’re a content marketer eyeing PMM, start where you are, translate your skills, and don’t stress too much about certifications.

Have you made the jump from content to PMM? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments.

The main ideas are obvious, outdated, disproven, or problematic

I’ve selected and dissected a few core ideas from the first half of the book below.

We live in an overly communicative world, as people are exposed to a lot of information

While stating the obvious truth, this is the main premise of the book and the reason why positioning is introduced as a new approach to product marketing.

This is one of the few points that still stands today. Actually, it’s truer in 2025 than it was in the 80s. The authors got this one right!

Oversimplified messaging focused on the prospect’s benefit is necessary

To avoid becoming part of the informational noise, product marketers need to keep messaging simple and focused on what’s in it for the prospect, not how great the product is.

Of course, any marketer already knows this. I’m sure this was a revolutionary idea back in the day. Now is just the standard we are all following (or should be anyway) when writing copy and content.

While they’re at it, PMMs need to simplify their message and then simplify some more. Basically, they should sneakily assume their audience is below their level of intelligence and be deliberately simple.

Looks like the authors can’t take their own advice.

Positioning is about finding and claiming empty slots in the prospect’s mind

For someone who is just getting started with PMM, the first pages of the book explaining what positioning is with creative analogies and real-life examples were really captivating. What came next was disturbing. But for now, let’s get into what positioning is, as defined by its founding fathers, Al Ries and Jack Trout.

Positioning is finding an angle that’s not used by the competition, so you can build a product perception from scratch, just the way you want to.

For me, it was useful to imagine positioning as a way to model the image of a product into a unique shape that can fit a specific empty space in the prospect’s mind, like a jigsaw puzzle piece.

But to find that perfect angle, you may think you’d have to test a few ideas first, no? Wrong!

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”

The authors advise you to hold on to any communication until “you’re ready to position yourself for the long term.” How are you supposed to do that without testing your angle on actual customers, you ask? That’s irrelevant because “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Guys, someone needs to tell Squarespace. They kept changing their positioning and messaging over the years. And their growth proves this immutable law of ‘holding off until you have it’ just doesn’t hold.

Their messaging was pretty consistent from 2014 through 2018. In 2019, they tapped into the reason why people want a personal website in the first place: to bring ideas to life.

This message appeals to anyone who wants to start selling services and products, as well as to those who simply want to publish that magazine-style blog or build a portfolio. It covers both business ideas and personal aspirations. Beautiful work!

But then, in 2019, Squarespace changed the messaging again, positioning the platform as an e-commerce engine for entrepreneurs.

They continued down that path in 2023 with another e-commerce-focused iteration.

Only to change their mind again in 2025 and go back to their more inclusive messaging.

‼️ This timeline might be a bit janky, as I used web.archive.org to go through these iterations.

The point is, it’s ok to change your mind. Successful businesses do it all the time.

If you do decide to wait for your eureka moment, you can’t wait for long. Because…

“It’s better to be first than it is to be better”

There I was, believing what I’ve read a few pages ago about how positioning is about “[...] finding holes in the marketplace. [...] Not to create something new and different, but to manipulate something already up there in the mind.”

Well, esteemed authors, how the hell is my product going to be the first in a category/niche if the goal is not to create something different but to manipulate what’s already in the mind of my prospect?

This book gets confusing and contradictory. It makes bold, confident statements that the readers should accept as truths, only to dismantle them in the next chapters.

Aha! So, there is no need to rush a product to market just to be first? Yes, but there’s a caveat:

The book treats categories like a single folder that can only hold one file with that name. In reality, today’s categories are more like cloud storage, with multiple versions coexisting, organized by different attributes (price, audience, use case).

We have a lot of no-code website builders to choose from, yes. But they are not doing the same things and will not all appeal entirely to the same audiences. An oversimplification, just to prove the point:

• Webflow: web-designer–focused

• Wix: tech-averse Joe who prioritizes simple over cheap

• WordPress: tech-enthusiast Joe on a budget

All these products appeal to a segment within a category. Sure, these segments can overlap at some point, but the competition is not as vicious as the book makes it look. You can’t sell Webflow to tech-averse Joe.

Today, differentiation happens through segmentation, not absolute dominance.

There are still categories where products are practically indistinguishable, such as ride-sharing apps, food delivery, airlines, etc. In these cases, positioning doesn’t necessarily decide the winner.

Most people I know (myself included) open at least two ride apps before booking. Which proves that Ries & Trout’s ‘one slot in the mind’ model just doesn’t hold: we happily keep multiple options in mind and choose based on situational factors.

The whole book is like this. I’ll spare you. It just gets more repetitive and annoying. Speaking of nuisances…

How is nobody talking about this? I’m starting to think nobody really read the book

🚨 Let’s start with word choice.

🚨 There are a lot of unfulfilled prophecies that were corrected through side comments, but left inside the book. I imagine if you take all of these out, you’ll lose quite a few pages.

🚨Pseudo-scientific claims on how the human mind works.

🚨Framing deceptive ideas as innovative positioning angles.

Something tells me that people who came up with “almond milk” have read this book. As we all know, that didn’t go so well, and now there are legal limitations on how you can name vegan dairy alternatives.

🚨Of all the examples they could use…they chose to talk about these

Why I don’t recommend reading this book

Examples are outdated. No talk about other marketing channels other than print advertising. Quite often, factually incorrect. Not to mention how reductive and even offensive things get at some point.

Sure, you can get some useful learnings from it, but to do that, you’d have to read through repetitive ideas and not get distracted by the commentary on the side of the pages.

A company failed?

It’s surely because of their latest advertisement in the newspaper. Nothing else could lead to this. It all comes down to positioning and messaging; anything else cannot make a business fail. I’m sorry, what?

It’s not a pleasant reading experience as learning anything from this book requires you to do your research on the side to ensure you’re not feeding your mind with anecdotal claims or disproven psychological “facts”.

The most concerning thing is that this book got a once-over in the 2000s, and most of the problematic language has been left there. This makes me think that the anniversary edition was just a quick and lazy cash grab, without any significant info actualization or editorial responsibility. The authors slapped some commentary in there and called it a day.

More than anything, this has historical significance for product marketing, as the authors were the first to put a name to positioning. Aside from that, there’s not much value left in this book. Oh, maybe just the aesthetic value it carries. I admit, this is a beautiful book once you remove the dust cover.

There’s so much wrong here, it could keep a whole series busy.

For now, I don’t have a recommendation on what to read instead. But I know this is NOT the book for learning about positioning in 2025.

I’d love to hear what book you think deserves the modern crown of positioning.

Below, I’ve created a very basic product overview and explored:

• What the product is

• What form it will take

• Why it’s useful (and for whom)

Product definition

A collection of practical exercises and theoretical knowledge on product marketing management.

Value proposition

• Acquiring knowledge, skills, and inspiration by following the personal upskilling journey of a content marketer, from learning the basics to becoming a trusted voice in the PMM space.

• Creating a repository of tried and true practical knowledge using free and affordable resources, books, expert interviews, and personal experience.

Product features

• On-demand content collections following a chronological journey

• Subscription button to enable the audience to follow along

• New content notifications flow (via email)

• Useful resources sections showcasing helpful material used to put together each content piece

• Next steps suggestions (what to read/watch next)

Audience

Main: Content marketing professionals (such as content writers, content managers, content leads, etc.) look for upskilling opportunities and possible new job titles that allow them to build on top of the core skills they acquired so far (such as storytelling, brand and product messaging, marketing knowledge, etc.).

Secondary: Beginner to mid-level PMMs trying to fill knowledge gaps or just curious about how other people approach PMM. PMMs interested in helping out by sharing knowledge and providing feedback.

Main audience pain points include:

Validating interest in topic (product-market fit, I guess?)

Of course, I already knew there was interest in the topic because I’ve been obsessively watching YouTube channels teaching product marketing.

But just to show off a little…

As a content marketer, I’m using my skillset to my advantage to validate ideas and discover interest in topics related to my product (hello SEO). To see if people are interested in switching to a PMM career, I plugged the query “ from Content Marketing to PMM” into Google and looked at the SERPs.

The first ranking position (right under the AI overview) is a Reddit post, indicating the intent favoring personal experience, SME advice, and human input. Same goes for the third position: a blog exploring the career pivoting journey of Nizam Yusuf, a real person, from Head of Content Marketing to a Product Marketing Manager role.

This gets 7 monthly visits, according to Ahrefs. Not great, but interest is there, which is good. Plus, traffic means shit following the rollout of Google’s AIO. All websites are seeing a dramatic traffic decrease. What’s more interesting for me is the keywords this piece is ranking for and the monthly volume these have. I only care about the interest in the topic being real. Although zero-volume keywords still bring value and sometimes pretty good traffic, at this stage of the project, I want to know that what I’m doing has the potential of being visible and helpful.

The second position, however, approaches the same story differently: not that personal. Instead of following a single person’s journey, it features a collection of subject matter expert quotes. This validates my plan of doing SME interviews, among other content formats. Traffic is there (although low), and keywords show interest. I’m happy.

Discovering that there’s actual organic interest will influence my content delivery and distribution strategy, meaning SEO is worth the effort. (Not as of now, though. Content strategy comes later in the process.) Plus, Substack is indexed by Google.

MVP GTM Channel

This might seem a bit backwards, but before going full-on into GTM frameworks, resources, and best practices, I have to launch the product so I have an outlet to document my learning journey.

I need to decide where this product will initially live.

I’ll do this with the knowledge I have because I don’t want to get sidetracked into infinite research loops (for now). I just made a table with my main options and things I’d like to take into account to discover the winning channels.

Options include:

• Substack

• YouTube

• Personal website

• Linkedin

Based on my current knowledge, I judged each option based on:

• Whether my audience is already there or not

• If the channel supports all content formats I plan to create

• The time and skills required to produce the content format and learn the ins and outs of each channel

• The visibility potential as of now

Why I’m not launching this on YouTube or a personal website

Because I don’t know how to edit videos, don’t have proper equipment (yet), and don’t plan on producing only video content, YouTube is not the way to go.

Almost the same goes for a personal website—although I have the skills to create one, I don’t want to waste time on overthinking design and starting to build an audience organically, battling established brands and AI overviews for ranking. Considering the high search volatility, traffic drops, and overall uncertainty in the content marketing world, I don’t think now is the time to create and rank new websites.

Why Substack and LinkedIn are the winning GTM channels (for now)

The winners are Substack (shoker as you read this on Substack, I know) and LinkedIn. I’m going to write on Substack and do some social pushes on LinkedIn. That’s it. That’s the plan for launching the MVP.

Now, let’s briefly look at how things are going on Substack in terms of product marketing: Is there interest? To answer this, I just typed “product marketing” in the search bar and looked at the subscriber count to the first results.

Conclusion: Yes, there’s interest around the topic. Yay me.

Next steps in order of priority

✅ Post 0: Introduce myself and the product

Now that I know what I’m doing and I have a basic plan, I need to write an introductory post to inform my audience about:

• Who I am and what I do

• What this Substack (aka *the product*) is about

• Why you, my audience, should follow along

If you’re thinking of pivoting to a PMM job, the steps below could double as a roadmap for your own journey.

✅ Do a thorough competitor analysis

In the book I’m reading about positioning, the author says a common pitfall behind product failure is building in a void, ignoring the competition.

• I need to check who my competition is, what they’re doing, and figure out how I can differentiate myself.

✅ Figure out name, positioning, and messaging

• Share the notes I took while reading the positioning book and apply them to my product.

✅ Create a sales deck…for myself

• After I figure out positioning and messaging, I want to create a standardized intro for all of my Substack posts through which readers can quickly understand what’s going on without reading post 0.

• I’ll also need a spot-on cold pitch for when I reach out to people on LinkedIn for SME interviews.

✅ Outline the GTM plan and define success

• Decide how to distribute and grow this Substack based on positioning, competitor insights, and chosen channels.

• Define objectives, KPIs, and milestones.

Lots to do! If you’re curious to see where this whole journey is going, follow along and learn with me.

I’ve been in content marketing in one form or another for about nine years—full-time since 2017, plus part-time gigs and internships during uni. In that time, I’ve written, SEO-optimized, strategized, reported, and lived the content life. I’ve seen it from every angle: in-house, freelance, consulting (briefly), and agency.

But now, I want more.

I want to fill the gaps outside my content bubble and grow into a more strategic marketing mindset.

That’s why I started learning product marketing through YouTube, books, blogs, and dives into Reddit threads.

And because the best way I learn is by doing (and writing), I started this project: The Product Marketing Log (PML).

I treat it like my first “product.” Through it, I’ll teach myself the fundamentals of product marketing—messaging, positioning, go-to-market strategies, and user interviews—and share everything along the way.

After going through the cycle once, I’ll launch a SaaS product I’ve been vibe-coding with Lovable. That will be the second product in my product marketing portfolio.

In the meantime, I’m:

• Reading widely about product marketing

• Taking affordable courses and reviewing whether they’re worth it

• Sharing my learnings, experiments, and mistakes here

So, welcome!

Follow along if you want to:

• Learn product marketing alongside me

• Get inspired for your own career pivot

• Or just silently judge my experiments (no hard feelings)

Either way, I’m glad you’re here.

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