A Market-First Mindset in EdTech: Julie Kelleher’s Blueprint for Success

Who is Julie Kelleher?

First and foremost, I'm a mom to two incredible, elementary-aged daughters. I live with my husband, girls, and a black lab in Virginia. That's me on a personal level. Professionally, my entire career arc has really been centered around education. I started out as a public school teacher in the US, teaching middle school and high school students in Atlanta, GA, followed by two years teaching all grade levels as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine. After five years teaching in the U.S. and internationally, I found my way into EdTech in 2007, and I’ve never looked back.

What was the journey that took you to EdTech?

It was one I had never really anticipated. After finishing my Peace Corps teaching experience, I went to grad school to study education policy. I had been a practitioner and was really curious about the intersections and divides, between policy and practice. I went to graduate school, studied education policy, and almost went back to the classroom. Instead, I decided to try a few years in Washington, DC. This is a common pattern with Peace Corps Volunteers who choose graduate school post-service. Like many others, I packed up my car and moved to DC seeking policy or international work. My first job out of graduate school was at a nonprofit focused on international education exchanges. It was exciting and interesting for the first year and a half, but then I realized it would be the same every year—same program, different people—and I needed more of a challenge and change.

That need for change goes back to my childhood. I grew up moving around a lot because my dad was in the Army. I spent ten years of my childhood in Germany, moving through multiple cities, which was such a gift to be able to live abroad for most of my grade school experience. I also went to three different high schools in the US—in Virginia, California, and Georgia. I'm just used to change and learning new things based on new experiences. After about eighteen months at the nonprofit, I knew I needed something different. At the time, Blackboard was a really large EdTech company headquartered in Washington, DC. I pursued a few informational interviews with leaders there, and they encouraged me to apply for junior roles in either account management or product marketing. I followed their advice and the first offer I got was for a product marketing role, which I took. That’s where my EdTech career started.

How has EdTech changed since you entered the industry?

That's a big question. So, 2007—that's a long time ago. There are two big differences between now and then. First, the perception of education technology has evolved, which has served as a catalyst for innovation, introducing new players, new use cases and an expanding EdTech landscape.

In 2007, the perceived value of online learning varied across education and learning markets and that was a barrier to overcome. It was nascent in some segments and regions, while well established in others. At Blackboard, I was focused primarily on North American higher ed for the first several years, but I also helped the K-12 team and the professional education teams with their product marketing needs from time to time. Broad awareness and acceptance of online or hybrid learning as a viable supplement in K-12 trailed higher ed and corporate learning. There were K-12 virtual academies that were ahead of their time, but in the K-12 space writ large, there was a hurdle around understanding what online learning was and how it could be valuable to a district or school. In fact, there were even negative perceptions. I remember when I was teaching, certain administrators in the district who had a degree from an online university faced judgment—not from me, but from others—questioning the credibility or validity of that degree. That has changed completely. Some of that change happened before COVID, but the pandemic really helped reframe everyone’s view on the potential with online and hybrid learning. I've seen a big mindset shift, especially from leaders who, pre-COVID, were insistent that effective education could only happen if we were all together in the same building, sitting in seats.

With regard to the EdTech landscape, education and learning organizations have many more choices and the competitive landscape for EdTech providers is evolving and expanding across traditional, new and emerging categories. I think two other shifts in the market that have a long tail are the introduction of social media and the iPhone. These have influenced EdTech business models to some degree, but they’ve had a massive impact on consumers, parents, and guardians, especially those managing the education of minors. We’re still seeing the long tail of those innovations. And now, adoption and usage of generative AI is just beginning its proliferation, which will likely have a very long tail as well.

You spent seven years at Blackboard with a very interesting mix between marketing and sales, which has been a theme throughout your career. What’s your main insight from being on both sides?

That's a great question. I consider myself an experiential learner. Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it’s not, because I need to experience something to really understand it. But in my career, it’s been a good thing. I’m so glad I started in product marketing because it’s very multifaceted, which kept my attention. There were always opportunities to learn something new and try something new. And there are still so many aspects of product marketing that I’m learning and specializing in. But what I really loved about it, back in the early days, was the exposure to other parts of the business and the ability to have a seat at the strategy table.

Product marketing sits at the intersection of product, services or curriculum teams (depending on the company) and market-facing teams. I had opportunities to partner with both technical subject-matter experts and go-to-market (GTM) leaders across sales, marketing, and customer teams. I loved that because my job has always been, and still is, about synthesis—making information relevant for target audiences. I like to tell people I work with that my job is to tell the truth. It’s that simple. I need to deeply understand the products and services that we’re bringing to market and help the market-facing teams align our offerings with the needs of our target audiences, in a differentiated way. That truth-telling responsibility applies across the entire go-to-market continuum, all the way through marketing and sales. I really like being at that intersection, serving as a steward to these different teams, sometimes translating between them, and helping align market needs with business value.

The opportunity to sit at that intersection also exposed me to how different parts of the business work and helped me think about whether I’d want to specialize in a product role or a customer-facing role. That exposure really helped shape my career aspirations and the intentional decisions I made over the past decade. My first big shift from marketing to sales was driven by curiosity. I was leading a team of brilliant product marketers for our flagship product, and we spent most of our days creating assets for the sales organization. I had great relationships with the sales leadership team, the sales reps, and the solutions engineering team. I was always curious whether the things we were creating were actually being used. Was it relevant? Was it valuable? What could we improve? So, I started shadowing reps a lot, sometimes going out with them to even lead the demo and deliver the pitch. Then, one of the sales leaders pulled me aside one day and said, "I’ve got an opening on my team. It’s account management, and I think you’d love it." I was scared because it felt different and new, but I try to lean in when I feel that way—as I’ve learned over the years, when you do something that you’re both excited and scared about, that’s where growth happens, and it’s a good feeling. So, I made the shift.

Going into account management was a soft entry into sales for me. While it’s an important job for the organization, I wasn’t fully responsible for generating net new opportunities and closing deals. A lot of it was managing and expanding existing relationships. Relationship building and management is a skill set I’ve cultivated over the years, so that was a great first foray into sales. Then I had an opportunity to go to a different organization, and I left Blackboard in 2014 to go to Wiley, which had acquired Deltak, a leading online program management (OPM) company. It was a greenfield sales opportunity with a great leader for whom I had worked before, and I was really interested in OPM as it was gaining traction as a strategic growth lever for colleges and universities. Another situation where I was excited and scared, and I did it anyway. And I loved it!

These first few moves from product marketing to sales served as catalysts for me to continue to pursue new and different roles based on the markets, categories, or company size I was interested in next. It’s like I’m intentionally adding new career path learning modules to my professional portfolio, trying new roles at new companies, and even launching my own consulting business as I continue to learn and grow. New challenges, change, and growth—that’s what keeps me going.

What’s an organization missing when they don’t understand product marketing?

That’s a great question. I feel like I spend a lot of time helping organizations and teams understand the strategic importance of product marketing. If organizational leaders know what product marketing is, they get it, and they know there’s a gap. Oftentimes, I see a strong preference for demand gen over product marketing. A lot of EdTech companies want to invest in demand generation. "Demand gen" has become this term that every leader in the company knows—from the CEO to the CFO—and they all want more of it. I mean, who doesn’t want more demand for the products and services they sell?

My point of view is that if you don’t have a strong foundational product marketing body of work, then demand generation will fall flat. What I’ve been helping different organizations understand is that you may have messaging on your website that describes your offering in a product-centric vs. a market-centric way. You may talk about what you do and how you do it, but is it rooted in what the market needs and wants? Have you validated that it’s an unmet need? Do you know what everyone else who’s trying to solve that same need and want is saying and claiming, and how are you different? Is your packaging, pricing, and positioning strategy competitive?

If they can’t answer those questions, then they could really benefit from some foundational product marketing to supercharge their demand gen efforts.

Have you noticed that some sales leaders are more aware of this aspect of marketing than others? What’s been your experience with that?

Of course. If a sales leader has benefited from partnering with a strong product marketing leader, then they know the value. From my perspective, sales enablement is one of the core responsibilities of product marketing, and sales leaders are my primary stakeholders in every product marketing role I’ve had. When I meet with sales leaders less familiar with the potential value of product marketing, I share my career trajectory and explain that my sales experience has made me a better marketer and enablement leader. I also go as far to say that sales enablement is my work love language, and that’s 100% true.

To back that up, I describe my career trajectory as being on a pendulum between product marketing and sales and everywhere in between. I call it the go-to-market continuum. I’ve experienced different roles and specializations across marketing and sales. I built a sales and marketing organization from the ground up at a startup. I’ve consulted for dozens of EdTech companies serving K-12, higher education, and corporate learning markets. At my core, I’m probably more marketing than sales, but my sales experience really helped me establish a market-first mindset.

Sales teams are the ones talking to the market every single day; they’re the most well-versed in what the market needs and wants. Every sales leader I’ve ever worked with in EdTech has really understood the market needs at a macro level and at a micro level, and they are an invaluable proxy for the voice of the market.

So often, friction happens across GTM teams when sales says, "What you’re giving me isn’t relevant," and marketing feels completely deflated because they’ve worked so hard to create these great resources, but they just don’t meet the sales team’s or market’s needs. Sales leaders having a seat at the table—at the table where product strategy, company strategy, and marketing strategy are discussed—is absolutely essential. They are the bridge between what the organization offers, what the market needs and wants, and what’s needed to differentiate to compete and win.

What is sales enablement?

It can mean different things in different places. In some places, sales enablement is considered a product marketing responsibility. Sales enablement was a core part of my role in my early days at Blackboard and continued to be part of my purview across roles leading B2B marketing at Wiley, leading sales and marketing at a startup, and most recently, at DreamBox Learning and Discovery Education. I’ve led sales enablement in many different places under many different titles. To me, sales enablement is a multi-faceted effort focused on enabling the sales organization to position our products and services in a way that differentiates them based on the target audiences. That’s why cross-functional alignment around the ideal customer profile, demand drivers, competitive differentiation, and product positioning is so essential because at the end of the day, any company wants every sales rep to be able to describe who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why it matters to our target audiences.

Sales enablement responsibilities could include things like developing competitive battle cards, delivering ongoing competitive training, and sometimes sales methodology training. For example, if a company invests in something like The Challenger Method or Miller Heiman, it’s about reinforcing that investment through ongoing application and practice. I’m a big believer that it’s not a one-and-done process. Adult learners need constant application and practice. At Wiley, HelioCampus and DreamBox Learning, I was also responsible for RFPs and competitive procurements, which is another form of enabling sales by helping them write and prepare competitive proposals. Sales enablement priorities should be driven by the needs of the business and the sales organization at the time and should be rooted in a strong relationship between marketing, enablement, and sales leadership. 

What was useful for you in getting sales teams to actually deliver the message? What works in ensuring consistency in the field?

Buy-in and collaboration early on. Not creating materials in a vacuum, but partnering with sales leaders—not necessarily the CRO, but a regional vice president responsible for a regional sales team. That really helps because regionalization can be important. Working with leaders to scope it, collaborate on it, and get their buy-in before rolling it out to sales is crucial.

As to how you programmatically get the insights and knowledge you need from the field to make messages resonate, that’s tricky because it can quickly turn into information overload. What I’ve tried to do, and it’s harder in some cases than others, is create a cadence. For example, we reevaluate market trends quarterly or every six months. Otherwise, it creates whiplash with scenarios like this: We all agree to focus marketing and enablement efforts on student recruitment in January, but by March sales might say, "Actually, recruitment isn’t a priority at the schools we’re targeting now; they care about persistence and retention." Marketing has already created campaign materials and is now in a holding pattern around whether to execute against the original plan or pivot. Creating these formal working agreements, cadences, and points in time to reevaluate is important.

I’ve done the same with pricing decisions, discounting, and promo offers. Formal review points, quarterly at a minimum, are crucial for integrated planning and coordinated execution to ensure everyone is aligned.

How do you measure the effectiveness of sales enablement?

That’s a good question. Some tools provide a quantified view, but for the most part, it’s subjective. If a regional leader wants their team trained on the Challenger methodology and to apply it every week for two quarters, you could look at pipeline velocity and close rates. But it’s not always that hard and fast. There are tools like Lessonly and Litmos, or other learning management systems, that help enablement teams produce training content, deliver it asynchronously, and have sales professionals complete exercises to demonstrate their knowledge. But demonstrating knowledge and applying it are two different things. It’s tricky and tends to be more subjective than objective.

Let’s say you’re a startup with a small team. What principles from sales enablement and product marketing should you focus on without necessarily building out full sales enablement or product marketing functions?

Product marketing or sales enablement as dedicated roles occur when a company is past the startup phase and it’s time to introduce specialization. In a startup, leaders often wear multiple hats, such as a Head of Sales and Marketing or a Head of Product and Engineering. During the phase where leaders wear multiple hats, product positioning becomes an essential alignment exercise. To ensure the sales team and all market-facing teams (including those handling implementation and customer relationships) benefit from shared knowledge, the organization needs cross-functional alignment around a positioning document. This document ensures that all teams—technical and market-facing—are focused on the market’s needs, the audiences who care about them, and how to describe what you do in a way that highlights differentiation.

I’ve noticed that great product marketing and sales enablement organizations focus on decision-makers and end-users, but there’s often a missing role—‘the implementer.’ The implementer’s experience is crucial for company growth, customer retention, usage, and adoption, yet it’s often not addressed in cross-functional positioning exercises. It’s important to bring that implementer experience to those discussions.

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Let’s jump to your current role or roles, especially your relationship with 27zero.

During my time in EdTech, I’ve worked as an in-house EdTech executive and as a consultant. In 2018, I started my own consulting business, providing go-to-market services for various EdTech and SaaS companies serving education. From 2022 to 2024, I made an intentional shift into a K-12 math and reading company, DreamBox Learning, leading product marketing and eventually sales enablement at the company that acquired DreamBox Learning. Now, I’ve relaunched my consulting practice with a broader overview of the education and learning markets. I love it because I get to work with new and different organizations, solving new and different challenges.

One example of something new and different is a recent partnership with 27zero, helping increase awareness, reach, and impact of 27zero in North American markets, through advocacy and market development. This involved looking at target markets, understanding the needs and wants of buyers, implementers, and end-users, and identifying ideal customer attributes. It’s been really fun so far, and I love seeing the reaction from potential future partners when they hear about the portfolio of services and see the examples of 27zero’s work.

Could you give us a brief description of the K-12, higher education, and corporate learning markets?

Sure. I’ll start with K-12 because that’s the most recent. In response to COVID-related school closures, there was a huge outpouring of federal relief funds that allowed districts and schools to make important investments, especially in technologies supporting synchronous and asynchronous learning. However, districts had to commit the last round of ESSER funds by September 30, 2024. EdTech companies serving K-12 anticipated this funding cliff and began making reductions in 2023. The 2024-2025 academic year will inevitably show more of this impact, and the ripple effect remains to be seen.

In higher education, the market challenges and trends are similar to what they were five, six, or seven years ago: questions about the ROI of education, the rising cost of higher education, and the emergence of alternative degree pathways. However, inertia is real, and introducing innovation and change at scale is difficult. With the proliferation of generative AI, I am optimistic that we’re on the cusp of meaningful change that benefits learners and those who serve them. Higher education also received COVID relief funds, and similarly to K-12, the end of September 2024 marked the higher education funding cliff. The next few academic years will be important to watch as unprecedented funding recedes and new advanced technologies emerge.

In corporate learning, the proliferation of AI is introducing headwinds for traditional players, especially those relying on packaged content. The demand for prepackaged content is shifting because information is more accessible now, and new, AI-based tools are offering unprecedented ways to streamline or eliminate manual processes associated with legacy products.

What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

My advice to my 20-year-old self would be: Don’t be afraid to try new things, and don’t let titles and roles prevent you from exploring where you want to learn and grow. Get comfortable being uncomfortable and step out of your comfort zone often. That’s where growth happens. 

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