GTM Engineering

Driving Expansion Through Deep Customer Empathy

Gabrielle Borenstein

Strategic Enterprise Growth Strategy @ Clay

Rachel Gurman

Enterprise Growth Strategy @ Clay

Research frameworks that uncover hidden pain points, goals, and decision-making pressures across orgs

Map customer realities

Craft pitches that align with both organizational priorities and individual stakeholder success metrics

Speak their language

Leverage Clay to deliver research that identifies and supports expansion plays for prospects and existing

Research that converts

Not just someone who talks to customers - but someone who knows how to get under the surface. Someone who walks into a call with confidence and clarity, and walks out with insight no one else could have found. Most teams have a shallow understanding of their customers. They leave interviews with answers that a survey could have gotten. That's because talking to customers isn’t just about talking or asking smart questions. It’s about reading people in real time. It’s about noticing when someone gives you a safe answer and knowing how to coax out the messy truth. It’s about making the conversation feel comfortable while you quietly hunt for the insights you need. This balance of managing both the customer and the needs of the business is what separates someone who “talks to customers” from someone whose insights change what gets built. When you understand how your customers think and make decisions - and how to relay those insights back into the business in a way that sticks - you become a voice the team can’t ignore. You become the person people want in meetings. The one leadership listens to. The one who doesn’t have to fight for a seat at the table because everyone’s already looking to you for your POV. That’s the edge this workshop gives you. This cohort will show you the exact approach I use to lead $35K+ research projects - blending psychology, conversation design, and interview techniques to help you unlock insight that actually matters. But it doesn’t stop there. You’ll also learn how to share what you’ve found in a way that earns trust, shifts thinking, and drives action. So your insights don’t just get heard, they get used - and they get the team excited. Here's what clients have told me. "Hannah, that was excellent. By far the clearest and ost articulate view of how our business and customers work than anybody has been able to present in the past 5 years." - James D, ex-CEO at Sensat "I thought we knew our buyers but Hannah found insights we never knew existed. She helped us pinpoint why our site conversions were low and design a new product based on real user needs." - Bobby M, VP of Digital at AS Beauty "There is an art to question design and Hannah knows it. Her questions got us the exact insight we needed to optimize onboarding and her work will benefit us far into the future." - Jonathan S, Competitive Intelligence at Shopify "Hannah's research helped us unlock deeper insight than we'd considered before.&nbsp;It was the missing glue in our messaging strategy." - Christian M, GM at Resident" " Happy clients and high-flying testimonials are what happens when you know how to deliver the goods. When you can walk into any customer conversation with the right strategy, the right questions, and the confidence to dig for what really matters. And then take what you find and package it up in a way that gets the whole team excited to act on it. These testimonials aren't accidents - they're the result of a systematic approach to collecting and sharing customer insight. An approach I'm going to teach you, step by step, in this workshop.

Become the only person your team trusts to understand your customers.

Course syllabus

You talk to customers - even if your title isn't Researcher - and want your insights to actually shape decisions.

You know there's deep truth in customers' heads but can't always get past the polite answers they give you.

You want to be the go-to customer expert - the one who understands what customers want and need better than anyone else.

This workshop is for you if...

Key outcomes

Spot the difference between what customers say and what they actually think and do - so you get psychological truth, not just polite responses.

Read customers like a therapist 

Build the reputation as the one who truly understands what drives customer decisions when others just collect surface feedback.

Become the customer expert everyone defers to

Walk into any customer conversation knowing exactly how to get the insights you need - no more hoping for good answers.

Build unshakeable confidence in how you run customer calls

When customers shut down, give vague answers, or seem guarded - you'll know exactly how to draw out their real thoughts.

Turn difficult customers into open books

Become the voice the team can't ignore - the person leadership turns to when they need to deeply understand the customer voice.

Earn your seat at the decision table

Master the art & psychology of customer interviews - and become the go-to person for rich insights & deep customer understanding

Hannah Shamji

Former psychotherapist turned customer researcher

Cohort 3

Cohort 4

🚀 This course will teach you the core principles and methods behind Customer Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) research — leveraging the power of OpenAI's ChatGPT (Generative AI)! 🎉 BONUS 3RD SESSION just added! You'll learn:🔍 → How to create Synthetic Personas to evaluate customer progress through the eyes of individuals with different motivations, desires, avoidances, and jobs-to-be-done.🧠 → How to apply the Big Five Personality Traits model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) to create three or more synthetic personas.🛠️ → The critical difference between Product-Market Fit and Language-Market Fit — focus, goal, indicators, and outcome.🎯 → How to use ChatGPT prompting to uncover Language-Market Fit across synthetic personas, testing headlines, sub-headlines, social proof, and features-as-benefits.📣 → How to apply what you learn about Language-Market Fit across your website, email marketing, and social media.. 🧑‍💻 Hands-on Case Study ExperienceWe'll work through a real-world case study using 30+ interactive ChatGPT prompting scripts (yours to keep!) to make the learning process fun and interactive. You'll also master 📚 The Wheel of Progress® Framework, covering the Cycle of Customer Progress:🌀 First Thought🕵️‍♂️ Passively Looking⚡ 1st Triggering Event🔎 Actively Looking⚡ 2nd Triggering Event🤔 Deciding✅ Hiring/Firing📱 Consuming♻️ Continuous Use 🛤️ You'll dive deep into identifying the Twelve (12) Elements of Progress:📅 Events🎯 Forces and Desires (habits, pushes, desires, avoidances, pulls, anxieties)🎯 Jobs, Pains, and Gains🧰 Solutions (core job, prior, in-conjunction, co-existing)🚧 Constraints (internal, external, temporal) Plus, you'll understand how Switching Behavior happens when promoting forces (pushes, desires, pulls) outweigh blocking forces (habits, avoidances, anxieties). 🧘‍♀️ Case Study Focus:You'll act as a researcher, product marketer, product manager, or experience designer, exploring the customer JTBD of "achieving mindfulness" through The Serenity App. 🎥 ALL SESSIONS RECORDED!By the end, you'll walk away ready to apply:✨ Customer Jobs-to-Be-Done✨ The Cycle of Customer Progress✨ Switching Behavior✨ Synthetic Personas✨ Language-Market Fit... directly to your organization or projects!

Learn and apply customer JTBD research using an interactive ChatGPT case study.

Course syllabus: Three Sessions

1st Session: The Wheel of Progress® Framework and Cycle of Customer Progress 2nd Session: The Twelve Elements of Progress and Switching Behavior (additional topics)

Two Sessions (Tuesday and Thursday)

LIVE sessions held with the entire cohort enabling conversation and interaction during the course. Over 25+ ChatGPT prompt scripts around a tailored Case Study to help teach JTBD principles and methods. All activities performed during the class sessions. Pre-read materials.

LIVE Cohort Sessions with Interactive ChatGPT Exercises

Leveraging the Maven community for posting announcements, reading materials, general discussion, and takeaways from the class..

Maven Community

Course schedule

Anyone seeking to learn how to apply jobs-to-be-done research to drive better customer engagement and experience design.

The Digital Marketer seeking to better understand the customer journey from first thought (struggling moment) to continuous use (habit).

The Content Marketing Manager who wants to tailor messaging around the progress customers are seeking to make in their lives.

The Researcher who wants to understand the entire customer cycle of progress (first thought to continuous use/habit formation).

The Product Marketer seeking to gain a better understanding of switching behavior (pushes, pulls, habits, anxieties).

The UX Designer looking to broaden their understanding of customer's beyond their interaction with a digital product.

The Product Manager who wants to rethink product roadmaps based upon desired customer outcomes rather than features or outputs.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Quickly build a strong foundation for applying JTBD to brand, marketing, product, and service experiences.

📚 Master the principles and methods of Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD)

Understand how customers move from first thought to habitual use — and spot opportunities to influence them along the way.

🌀 Unlock the Wheel of Progress® and the Cycle of Customer Progress

Use powerful ChatGPT prompting scripts to reveal customer situational context, aspirations, functional jobs, emotional and social jobs, and desired outcomes.

🤖 Leverage ChatGPT to uncover deep customer insights

Pinpoint critical moments across the customer journey — from pains and gains to constraints, desires, and anxieties.

🛤️ Identify the 12 Elements of Customer Progress

Learn how pushes, pulls, habits, avoidances, and anxieties interact to drive (or block) customer decisions — and how to tip the balance.

⚡ Decode Switching Behavior and Motivation Forces

Design realistic personas by applying the Big Five Personality Traits, helping you simulate different customer mindsets for sharper research and messaging.

🧬 Create Synthetic Personas using the Big Five Traits

Adapt your websites, emails, and social media to match the way customers naturally think, talk, and decide — boosting engagement and conversions.

✍️ Achieve Language-Market Fit across your channels

You'll leave with practical tools and frameworks to uncover customer jobs, map progress, decode switching behavior, build synthetic personas, and sharpen your messaging for smarter growth. 🎯

🚀 Apply everything you learn directly to your own industry, product, or service.

🚀 Learn customer JTBD principles & methods through an interactive ChatGPT case study (30+ scripts) using The Wheel of Progress® framework.

JOHN GUSIFF

CX Strategist

Cohort 8

Cohort 9

Shipping great products, managing teams is the foundation. Take the next step in your career to VP and CPO. You've mastered product sense. You even have taste! Your features launch on time, and users love them. Your manager keeps giving you kudos but....But you're stuck LinkedIn stalking less experienced PMs who get VP and CPO roles while you remain in execution mode. Overlooked. The C-suite works on the business.The gap between Director and CPO is about driving business outcomes and getting executive and board buy-in. CPOs design GTM strategies that unlock new markets. CPOs present revenue models that secure board approval. CPOs get stakeholder buy in before entering the room. Business fluency and the ability to articulate it is what I teach. Why I'm uniquely qualified to teach you. I've done it. Twice. I've lived this exact journey. I started as a business analyst at BlackRock, learned product management before it was cool, and climbed from individual contributor to leading product organizations at LiquidSpace and then went on to becoming the GM leading units worth hundreds of millions. At Braintrust, I transformed a struggling marketplace into a $285M AI-powered platform. At Nextdoor, I built an entirely new B2B vertical from scratch that became 30% of their IPO revenue. I've been the person in the room making the case to boards, securing funding, and getting executive buy-in when the stakes were highest. I even got the feedback "You don't come across confident" from my CEO. I took that feedback and worked on it, and now I am teaching you how to do the same. Executive Presence is a skill. In this intensive 4-day live program I teach you GTM Strategy, Financial fluency, Executive Presence and Influence. AI Executive Stack systems design to help you 10X your and your team's impactOnce you have the frameworks down, I teach you how to create AI enablement and AI systems design to help 10X your team's productivity by getting out of the guessing and copy and pasting and developing an AI Executive Stack that tackles your business, your stakeholders, communication frameworks and influence. I built AI recruiting tools that saved $500K in operational costs. I'll show you how to apply similar thinking to your role and move to AI native operations. How You'll LearnDevelop CPO-Level Skills is a live, hands-on, intensive course where you'll learn to combine product execution with business strategy. Learn proven GTM frameworks through real case studies from my personal experience as the CPO at Braintrust, the GM at Nextdoor and the VP at Liquidspace. Immediately apply the learnings to your work in boutique peer cohort deep dives where you get feedback from me and your peers. Go even further through Homeworks that I read and provide feedback on within 24 hours. Then leverage AI tools and prompts to improve your day to day execution so you have time for the impactful work. Then take the next advanced step and build your connected AI Executive Stack, I'll show you how. I combine individual coaching, group coaching with the power of collective learning and ongoing community. Each student has the option to retake future cohorts and learn from past students. What You GetLive Interactive Sessions with fellow professionals facing the same challengesReal-World Case Studies from Elena's experience scaling products at Braintrust ($285M), Nextdoor (IPO), and other high-growth companiesProven Frameworks you can apply immediately to your current roleAI-Powered Tools, systems and templates for revenue modeling, GTM planning, and executive influenceHomework with personal feedback from Elena within 24 hoursLifetime Access to all materials, templates, and future cohorts

Transform from Feature Builder to Business Leader


Growth-Stage PM You're trusted to ship features and lead projects, but you're hitting a ceiling in your career growth.

New Product Leader Your first management role is exciting, but no one taught you how to speak business and influence executives.

Product Director or Leader that needs to influence or own GTM . Learn the playbook and move the business forward.

<ul><li>Launch the GTM strategy for your product that converts</li><li>Leverage systems, templates, and AI tools to 10X impact</li><li>Get cross-functional buy-in and impact the business</li></ul>

GTM Strategy Design


<ul><li>Build compelling business cases and revenue models that get executive buy-in </li><li>Create a financial strategy and experiments for your product</li><li>Master Portfolio strategy: Allocate resources across innovation horizons like a true executive</li></ul>

Speak the Language of Finance

<ul><li>Command the room in C-suite meetings with proven communication frameworks</li><li>Present with the confidence and clarity that signals leadership potential</li><li>Handle tough questions and emerge as the go-to person for strategic decisions</li></ul>

Executive Presence


<ul><li>Create your Influence map</li><li>Design launch strategies that drive immediate revenue impact</li><li>Build your personal "promotion portfolio" to accelerate your next career move</li></ul>

Influence

<ul><li>Develop the AI Executive Stack Framework</li><li>Get the step by step prompt to execution system design that works of your company data</li><li>Move from copy and pasting to influence at your finger tips</li></ul>

(New!) AI Executive Stack


Master GTM strategy, financial acumen, and executive presence to influence the business and advance to CPO.

Nextdoor

OpenTable

BlackRock

LiquidSpace I Work from where it works.

Braintrust 🧠

Elena Luneva

2X CPO, 2X GM, 2X VP |  Braintrust, Nextdoor, LiquidSpace, Opentable, BlackRock

July

Awesome

Does this sound familiar? You’re expected to deliver more with less. Fewer people, tighter deadlines - and now AI is somehow your problem too. Your team depends on you for everything, and senior leaders have crazy expectations. You’re working harder than ever, but still feel like you’re not doing enough. You barely have time to think, let alone grow. And when things slip, you’re the one who has to explain. You don’t need another framework -you need a practical system that actually works. You’ll learn how to get your team moving without needing you in every step, how to build trust with leadership so they stop second-guessing you, and how to finally carve out time for your own growth. Together, we will:✅ Build a personal focus map that shows your blind spots and where to aim your efforts✅ Raise your team’s visibility - and your own - across the company✅ Create clear plans for each engineer, based on what actually motivates them✅ Connect your engineering work to business outcomes people care about I know you don’t have full days to spare. That’s why this course is built as a tight, practical program - no filler, no theory for theory’s sake. 6 super-focused sessions, each designed to give you tools you can use the next day. Here’s what we’ll cover: Session 1: Managing Engineers (Without Losing Your Mind)- The 3 drivers behind every engineer and how to spot them- Map your team using a simple grid, so you know what makes each person tick- Tactical ways to keep people motivated - without needing a new budget or promotion cycle- How to help your employees create a system that fits THEM (focused on day-to-day, not career growth with KPIs) Session 2: A Motivated Team That Delivers- Team meetings and focus days: two simple levers you’re probably - underusing.- The “Always Green” system: how to make sure you are meeting the executives' expectations- Tech debt + morale: match people to work they care about - and how to fix tech debt and morale at the same time.- The knowledge mapping method - how to measure your team as a whole and find the gaps to take your team forward Session 3: Your Own Growth- The EM Grid system: we'll create a map of where your current focus lies, and what are your blind spots.- The slow death of the hands-on EM: How to stay technical enough to be useful, without getting in the way.- How to avoid the ‘victim trap’ of engineering managers. Session 4: Building Visibility Across The Org- Getting taken seriously outside engineering: The simplest way to build trust with non-tech stakeholders.- Make some noise: Why it’s not enough to “just do the work” anymore - and how to make sure people actually notice.- Leadership trust: How to get senior leadership to take you seriously, know your name, and ask your input before making decisions that hit your team.- Other EMs: Why building real relationships with other EMs matters more than you think - and how to start. Session 5: Real Problems, Real Time- Decision Making 101: Recap of the approaches to solve problems from the best leaders in the world- We’ll focus on solving YOUR real challenges by applying the tools and tactics from the course. Session 6: Driving Real Impact- Product: How to stop launching features no one uses.- Business: Make your work matter to people outside your team.- Industry: Know your space well enough to be taken seriously.- PM partnerships: what a real partnership looks like and how to build one. Every day will have an optional 30 minute Q&amp;A session, to make sure you will be able to actually apply the lessons in your specific scenario.

Build a motivated team that’s trusted by leadership and runs without you.

This course is aimed at active Engineering Managers. We won't cover getting promoted to that role, and neither job searching.

Directly Managing Engineers

You should have at least a few years of experience in the role you are managing (Software/data/QA etc). 

Not covering outsider challenges.

Technical background

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Tuesdays & Thursdays

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

Weekly projects

You are an Engineering Manager and you want to have a bigger say on things beyond your own team.

You have 2-10 years of management experience. You know the basics and you're ready to grow beyond the day-to-day and take the next step.

You manage 3-12 engineers, and don't have enough hours to do the kind of work you want to do.

What you’ll walk away with:

You’ll use the EM Grid to build a clear snapshot of where your time goes - across work like growing your people, shipping projects, or building relationships - and at different levels (you, your team, the org). You’ll spot what’s missing and where to shift focus.

A personal focus map to spot your blind spots and redirect your time to what actually moves the needle

You’ll learn how to get leadership to notice the work your team is doing — without begging for credit or flooding Slack. Expect specific tactics you can use to build trust and make sure your team isn’t overlooked.

A system to raise visibility for you and your team - without chasing credit or cringe

You’ll learn how to map each engineer to what they actually care about - and use that to assign work in a way that drives motivation, delivers results, and takes A LOT off your plate.

A plan to motivate each engineer on your team in a way that drives results (and frees you up)

We’ll break down how to understand the product, business, and industry context around your specific product and company - and how to tie your team’s output to metrics business stakeholders company actually care about. This applies even if your team is “infra” or “internal”.

A method to connect your work to business outcomes in your specific scenario

Learn the system to always deliver high-impact results as an EM under pressure.

Lightning Lessons

Driving Expansion Through Deep Customer Empathy