This is one of my favorite pieces from a decade working in SaaS.
Here’s the story of how it got made:
Our CEO, Jason Boehmig, was never shy with feedback on messaging. As a PMM team, we’d make endless decks and messaging docs, sharing them with stakeholders, trying to answer one fundamental question:
What does Ironclad do?
This process often consumed months, resulting in assets that wouldn’t ship—or, worse, shipped but never got used.
This video didn’t follow that process.
Instead, I wrote the script. Got some notes from my manager (PMM Director). Then we went straight into production with Deep Sky.
And surprise — everyone loved it.
The CEO watched it post-publication (fully baked) and sent a message to #all that went something like, “This is a great encapsulation of what we do as a company. Please share it with prospects, customers, friends, and family.”
Best of all, it’s still being used as a GTM asset — four years later!
But here’s a question: what if we had shared the script with GTM and Execs for feedback?
In my opinion, two possibilities—both bad:
1. Script edits would have made it worse.
2. It wouldn’t have gotten made at all.
So, what’s the lesson? Don’t take feedback? Just do your own thing and hope for the best?
Not exactly. Maybe sometimes. But mostly, no.
The real takeaway is that you can’t expect people to visualize the final product from a rough draft. Sometimes, you need to cut the feedback loops and just build it.
Get something real in front of people. That’s when the feedback is useful. That’s when it sticks.
And sometimes, that’s how you make something worth keeping.
