Building With Buyers (Anna Furmanov)

Blake Emal is CMO at Copy.ai. Prior to that, Blake was Senior Manager of Demand Gen at TalkDesk (a Series D SaaS startup that has raised almost $500M). Copy.ai was founded in 2020, has 18 employees, and is based out of … nowhere, bc it's a distributed team! Makes sense.

Copy.ai is seed funded ($2.9M). 

The tool helps you write better marketing copy, faster. Who doesn't love that? And it’s not just about writing marketing copy. It's a full-on creativity suite to help you start and grow a business.

Here's what we hit on:

What is marketing? (HINT: ideas that people collect about your brand);

What are some of the biggest content trends that startups need to be on top of? (HINT: don’t worry so much about trends, or be aware of them and go against them proactively);

Copy.ai has 13k followers on TikTok - why is a B2B company focusing on TikTok;

How Blake thinks about personal brand, and why companies that are just starting out need to leverage personal brands;

Top channels for Copy.ai 7 months into the game (HINT: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook Group, and now TikTok which is proving to be a bigger opportunity versus Youtube);

How long does it take to really see some traction (HINT: traction is directly proportional to how interesting the thing you’re sharing is);

Blake has been "doing Twitter" (his personal Twitter) since 2013, and he's still got room to improve;

How long should you test a channel before you know whether or not to continue (HINT: you have to show up every single day and give it your all, and this is more important than being different);

When you’re building an audience, it takes years of heavy work;

How do you differentiate when there are so many others in the same space;

We talked about the creative use of UGC (user generated content) on the Copy.ai homepage (where users are explaining the product);

Marketing and growth challenges - what are you still trying to figure out (HINT: focus focus focus!);

How has a failure / mistake set you up for later success.

You can reach Blake on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/uxblake

On Twitter: @heyblake

Find out more about Copy.ai: www.copy.ai

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Jeroen Corthout, co-founder at Salesflare, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Salesflare was founded in 2014, has 8 people, and is based out of Belgium. They've raised Seed funding ($406K).

Salesflare is the perfect CRM for any startup or small B2B business that wants to make more sales with less work. No more manual data entry. The CRM fills itself out by synchronizing with your email, calendar, phone, social media, and organizes all this data for you. There’s a free trial (no CC required) for those interested in test driving.

Here's what we hit on:

Why Jeroen decided to get on 100+ podcasts and the impact he's looking for from this effort;

Who's on the team and what they're focused on;

What marketing channels are working really well for them;

Deeper dive into SEO and how they're making it work with a lean team;

Marketing challenges they're trying to figure out;

How they differentiate from other sales tech/CRM players out there (HINT: WOM, customer support, and relationships);

How they’re automating social media distribution across 3 channels;

How Jeroen keeps his marketing fresh and stays creative;

What are some bad recommendations Jeroen has heard in the startup/marketing/sales space;

We talk about Doctura, the other company that Jeroen founded, and the learnings he got to help build Salesflare.

You can find Jeroen on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeroencorthout

Find out more about Salesflare: www.salesflare.com

Link to StoryChief mentioned in the episode: https://storychief.io 

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I got a chance to speak with Jen Root, co-founder and VP of Marketing at Manifest Commerce, and it was a great convo with an early stage startup that's got some exciting stuff in the works plus a "sprint and fix" mentality. It's such an exciting time. They've also been the podcast's sponsor!

Manifest Commerce was co-founded in 2021 by a team of four people including George Wojciechowski (ShipBob's co-founder, ShipBob has raised Series E and the company is valued at over $1B). Together, the team at Manifest Commerce has a passion for climate action. Manifest is earth-friendly e-commerce fulfillment and they're leading the logistics movement towards a greener supply chain.

Here's what we hit on:

Your 2022 marketing plan - how are you organizing your marketing budget, what channels are you leaning into (HINT: Partnerships);

What's the difference between a merchant and a sustainability-focused merchant;

What are your top marketing challenges right now (HINT: understanding CAC and CLTV plus finding the time to engage with our community on social);

How has the pandemic affected your marketing strategy (HINT: we're still focusing on in-person e.g. April/May sustainability summit where merchants can learn from other merchants);

What are the last couple of really good marketing ideas you've come up with;

What’s a tough question you’ve had to ask yourself recently (HINT: "what if this doesn't work?");

What are some goals you want to accomplish in 2022 (HINT: once we're bigger, one of our big goals is to speak at the United Nations!);

I found out that Jen is a singer so I asked her to sing a bit for us at the end.

You can reach Jen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-root-70249051/

Find out more about Manifest Commerce: https://manifestcommerce.io/

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

A request I've gotten from listeners is to bring on a VC firm to talk through “the view from the VC side” so here we go (again)!

I invited Andrew Bluestein, Managing Partner at Bluestein Ventures, to join me on the show and talk about the future of food, how the pandemic has affected food startups, what they're looking for before they decide to invest in a startup, and so much more.

I know Andrew from our days at Kellogg! And we recently saw each other at Kellogg's 10-year reunion.

More about Bluestein Ventures:

• investing in the future of food
• founded in 2014
• based out of Chicago
• early stage investments typically Seed and Series A
• portfolio companies include Crafty, FoxTrot and Factor_ (acquired)

Here's what we hit on:

Why the focus on the future of food, what's so cool about food;

How the pandemic has impacted the food industry;

What VCs want to see before they decide to invest in an early stage startup (HINT: an innovative GTM strategy);

What marketing and growth opportunities can B2B learn from B2C;

What do you look at to confirm if there's product/market fit (HINT: things are still happening despite all the shortcomings);

What are those unique ways that startups can reach customers (HINT: post COVID, we need to go offline again);

On building brands and acquiring customers, what seems to work really well;

Which 1-2 portfolio companies are you personally really excited about and why.

You can reach Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbluestein/

Check out Bluestein Ventures: https://www.bluesteinventures.com/

For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Tera Hudson, Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Gen at The Mom Project, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Prior to The Mom Project, Tera was at InStride (reinventing the education of today’s workforce in partnership with leading global universities) and TeleSign (communications platform as a service or CPaaS, a Series B tech startup).

The Mom Project was founded in 2015, has ~270 people, and is based out of my personal favorite, the hard-working Chicago, IL. They've raised Series B ($35.6M total).

The Mom Project is a digital talent marketplace and community that connects professionally accomplished women with world-class companies - companies like Accenture, DropBox, Pinterest, Etsy, Facebook. They're changing the way women work and redefining career structures by providing women with opportunities that are in balance with their personal goals.

This is HUGE and especially during COVID times. That respect that’s so desperately needed for work + life integration.

I'm a big fan of the mission of The Mom Project.

Here's what we hit on:

Tera's fascinating story of landing at The Mom Project;

Those first days and weeks at TMP - what did Tera focus on;

How the marketing team is structured;

What's working well with their marketing efforts and how they're making it work (HINT: paid and organic social);

The challenges of marketing for a 2-sided marketplace (companies vs. talent);

Why they decided to pause with Facebook and go big with LinkedIn;

How they're using proprietary research and leading insights to generate demand;

Is there a clear buyer journey at TMP, or not;

Bad recommendations related to attribution;

Tera's personal story of sacrificing her well-being to get the job done, and what she decided to do instead;

Tera's obsession with crime stories.

You can find Tera on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/terahudson

Find out more about The Mom Project: www.themomproject.com

Link to the Werklabs research: https://work.themomproject.com/resources/tag/werklabs

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

This episode is also sponsored by PDCflow, payment management made easy. Visit ⁠⁠pdcflow.com/flow-billing⁠⁠ to learn more.

It's Season 4 of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast and this episode is me continuing to share ⁠⁠MaaS⁠⁠ (Marketing as a System) which is the systematic approach to marketing that I built over almost 4 years of working with VC-backed early stage startups.

In this episode I cover Step 6 + 7: Homepage wireframe + design including What it is, Why it's important, Who should own this work, and How to do it right. I'll be mixing in some more ⁠⁠MaaS⁠⁠-focused episodes over the course of the season.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! I would love that so much.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing and advising for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠

2. ⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠⁠

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Hey MSM listeners! Anna here, the host of the show.

I hope you enjoyed Season 3 of Modern Startup Marketing and all the incredible guests and conversations I had. I'm officially wrapped with this season but will be back for more in the future.

In the meantime, make sure you follow me @AnnaFurmanov on LinkedIn and you can sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes.

Hey MSM listener! Anna here, host of the show. I hope you enjoyed Season 4 of Modern Startup Marketing.

I'm officially wrapped with this season, but will be back for more in the future. 

In the meantime, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn where I’ll continue to share top highlights from past pod episodes, and you can sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing frameworks and insights and cracking some jokes.

Peace and love.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Fractional Head of Marketing for early stage startups⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get marketers interested in your product

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing frameworks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building.

Hello and welcome back! On this episode of MSM not only do we talk startup marketing, but Dean also throws in some great life advice. We talk money. We talk kids. We chat about how parents traditionally handle money with their kids and why it's time to revamp that approach.

Dean Brauer is co-founder and president at GoHenry (US). Prior, Dean held senior roles at leading advertising and digital agencies for PlayStation, Unilever and O2 (a large European telco).

GoHenry was founded in 2012, is based out of London and New York, and has 200+ people. Funding: $66.2M total. GoHenry is the kids’ debit card and financial learning app that helps you nurture money confidence in your kids. Meant for kids ages 6-18 years old.

Here's what we hit on:

Chase has a banking service for kids (I just got a mailer recently and my friend mentioned she’s using Chase with her kids). How do you think about GoHenry (startup) vs. the big banks offering something similar? How do you step up as the challenger brand? (HINT: the biggest competition is cash, not banks);

2022 marketing planning - what marketing channels are you leaning into this year? Where have you seen the most success (HINT: organic growth is always happening and if you can deliver delight then people will tell other people);

What content (marketing) are you leaning into (HINT: our content efforts drive storytelling and inspires people);

How do you think about ROI from content marketing (HINT: give yourself 6 months of discovery with resources, figuring out KPIs, and to see how your hypotheses turn out);

How are you planning to build out resources this year;

How do you successfully change the status quo (HINT: build on the frictions);

What are your top marketing challenges;

What have you learned about the UK vs. US consumer and how does that help inform your marketing efforts;

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with (HINT: the Money Missions concept was a really creative approach to tackling financial literacy, we had product + marketing working very closely together);

What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022.

You can reach Dean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-brauer-a3a2126/

Find out more about GoHenry: www.gohenry.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I have so much respect for Camille Trent, make sure you follow her on LinkedIn to get a taste of her content.

Camille Trent is Head of Content at Dooly. She’s also an advisor for Swpely. Prior to Dooly, Camille was Managing Editor at MarketerHire and prior to that she was founder and lead copywriter of her own company, Camille Trent Consulting.

Dooly was founded in 2016, has 87 people, is based out of Vancouver, and has raised Series B ($102.3M total).

So here's the problem that Dooly solves for: only one third (!) of sellers are actually hitting quota. Imagine you had the best instincts from every person across the revenue team (including marketing) to help you close deals so you could hit your number. That's what Dooly helps with. Also they're not really into that "hustle and grind" sales culture, so that's kinda cool too. 

Here's what we hit on in the episode:

What does marketing mean to you? What about content;

Big marketing/content trends that startups need to start/keep exploring (HINT: community, conversations, and don't forget to just ask your target buyer questions that matter e.g. what they like to read, who they follow, podcasts they listen to, etc.);

What content does Dooly's target audience (salespeople) like;

How do you balance the qualitative data vs. quantitative data when you look at content's impact on the business; 

Dooly's "Fire Talks" - what happened to them, are they coming back (I added a link to that below if you're interested);

Marketing content - what has worked well for Dooly? What content across what channels? (HINT: double down on LinkedIn, memes, teardowns, webinars, analyze existing content to find what's working);

How big is your marketing team and how'd you create a content system;

Marketing content - what are the challenges, what are you trying to figure out (HINT: scaling, building a repeatable system, finding the right writers and designers);

How did you find your top writers? Camille shares her tips;

How Camille thinks about good copywriting that "works";

Camille's son Teddy said hello at the end of the show! What a treat!

You can reach Camille on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/camillehansentrent/

Find out more about Dooly: https://www.dooly.ai/

Check out Dooly's: Fire Talks

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Todd Clouser is The Worst Marketer In The World at Lavender. He's also Co-Host of the Cheat Codes podcast. Prior, Todd held marketing leadership roles at Refine Labs (demand strategy and research for B2B growth stage startups).

Why would I bring on the worst marketer in the world? I guess a better question to ask is, why would you want to call yourself the worst marketer in the world? Well, maybe you should just listen to this episode.

Will Allred (Co-Founder and COO at Lavender) joined me for Ep. 130 (this was before their next round of funding was announced) and it's called “How We Get 35%-50% Response Rates From Our Sales Emails.”

About Lavender: founded in 2020, 18 people now, and on the funding side they've raised Series A ($13.2M total). A quick description: The #1 sales email assistant. Write better emails, get more replies. 9.9/10 on G2. 10k+ users.

In this episode we cover:

What does “creative” mean to you (HINT: there are 3 types of content and you have to think about the purpose of your content so that you pick the best type);

A lot of people make educational content on LinkedIn but Todd makes entertaining content that actually gets people to chuckle and engage, what's Todd's creative process;

How does that creative process translate into results;

Top 1-2 creative marketing ideas from past roles;

What’s your advice for startups that want to push more on the creative side.

You can find Todd on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/toddclouser/

Check out Lavender >> www.lavender.ai/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

There's been a lot of buzz around PLG vs. Sales-led GTM models. Companies that started with one GTM method are exploring others. So I thought this conversation would be super interesting for many as they're thinking about a more blended approach.

Sei Suriyakumar is Head of Marketing at Superhuman. Prior, Sei was Director of Product Marketing at Dropbox and prior to that he held marketing leadership positions at HelloSign (acquired by Dropbox).

About Superhuman:

• Founded 2015
• 100+ people
• Funding: Series C ($108M total)
• Description: Superhuman is the fastest email experience ever made. Customers fly through their inbox twice as fast as before and save an average of three hours every week. More than half hit Inbox Zero within 4 hours of starting. They've recently expanded from an individual product (B2C) to one that's optimized for teams (B2B).

In this episode we talk about:

How Superhuman has a part PLG + part sales-led model;

How that model started with humans and evolved over time;

First 90 days at Superhuman;

What's working well, what's not;

Sei's thoughts on category creation;

One big thing Sei learned from his experience at Dropbox that he's bringing into his role at Superhuman.

You can find Sei on LinkedIn >> https://www.linkedin.com/in/seiyonne/

Check out Superhuman >> https://superhuman.com/

This episode is sponsored by 43North, a seed-stage startup accelerator that's on the hunt for its next cohort. This year, 43North will make five $1 million dollar investments, each at 5% equity. Visit 43North.org to learn more. Applications close on June 23rd, so get on it!

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I knew I had to get them on as soon as I stumbled onto their website (check it out if you haven't heard of them yet).

Aleksandr Volodarsky is CEO and Founder (and now Chief Twitter Officer, almost 12k followers) of Lemon.io. Prior to Lemon, Aleks held sales roles at various companies.

Lemon.io was founded in 2015, has 39 people, and is based out of Ukraine. They've raised an angel round ($60k).

Lemon.io connects early-stage startups with vetted offshore engineers. In 48 hours or less, they can help find the (remote) developer of your dreams. And I can see how this offering is only getting more popular now as more people are looking for devs and more devs are looking for good companies to work for.

Here's what we cover in this episode:

The website is killer, it still makes me chuckle. I’m a huge fan. Who made it? What does it take to create something so different that it stands out from everything else? What kind of mindset do you need to have;

How do you ensure that this voice carries through other parts of the company e.g. sales, customer experience, marketing;

How did you get your first customers? What has been your approach to building the brand and community;

What channels are working the best for you right now (HINT: Twitter and influencers);

What are your biggest challenges (HINT: finding that balance between supply and demand);

You grew Lemon from $2.7M to $7M in 2021 - awesome - we talk about building in public and why/how you do it;

What Aleks asked 500 people on Twitter and used that as insights for growth.

You can reach Aleksandr on Twitter: https://twitter.com/volodarik

Find out more about Lemon.io: https://lemon.io/

Follow Aleksandr’s growing the company in public - subscribe by going here: https://volodarik.com/

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Hi everyone! We're back with something a little different, fun and fast. Sorry about the sound on my side, it's totally my fault and we've since fixed it for future episodes, but I had a glitch connecting my microphone for a few episodes. Forgive me!!

This is a BONUS 10-min. episode with Jess Goss on how to find your content "tilt" and differentiate from a sea of sameness. Jess joined me from Australia and it was midnight her time, so you KNOW this is gonna be good. Jess is Marketing Director at Tribal Habits (ed-tech). She’s a marketer, designer, and developer. We met on Tuesday’s Demand Gen Live with Chris Walker (so many cool people, you should check it out).

Here's what we hit on:

Different is important, but RELEVANCE is key - you need to fill a need;

Some ideas on how to find your content tilt;

Stop looking at what others are doing, and start with having a deep understanding of your customer so you know exactly what they'd find helpful.

You can find Jess on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jess-goss 

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Ramli John is the Managing Director at ProductLed (community for PLG professionals) and host of Growth Marketing Today (top 5% podcast). ProductLed has a Slack community of 6,500+ product-led growth enthusiasts and world-class PLG practitioners.

If you're trying to get both a high-level understanding plus dig deeper into PLG, this is the episode for you to listen to.

Some more fun facts about Ramli:

- he's the author of Product-Led Growth and Product-Led Onboarding

- he's got an array of skills including marketing, design, and software development

- he's in Canada

Here's what we hit on:

What is product-led growth (PLG) and how does it fit into the context of marketing/sales? How do each of these teams work together;

Why is PLG so important for SaaS companies? What’s been happening in the market? (e.g. selling to the modern buyer); 

What are the benefits of PLG;

What’s the right price point for PLG;

How Ramli got into PLG and marketing and growth (from software development);

PLG is not for every SaaS startup. Which startups NEED to embrace PLG if they want to grow;

When is the right time to build in PLG into your SaaS startup;

What are the top 3 things companies get wrong with PLG? (1. They think PLG is the Product team’s job and 2. They offer FREEMIUM and think they’re product-led, when users don’t even experience the value of the product)

How does Ramli help SaaS companies analyze their whole customer's journey and funnel to identify growth opportunities to 2-3X their MRR;

You can reach Ramli on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ramlijohn

Find out more about ProductLed: https://productled.com/

OpenView Partners was mentioned on the show: www.openviewpartners.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

It's Season 4 of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast and this episode is me continuing to share ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MaaS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Marketing as a System) which is the systematic approach to marketing that I built over almost 4 years of working with VC-backed early stage startups.

In this episode I cover Step 10: GTM Strategy including what it is, why it's important, who should own this work, and how to do it right. This is the last step of the MaaS process! Let me know if you ever want to dig deeper into any of the steps #1-#10, happy to do that.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing and advising for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

Merry Christmas! You can snuggle up to the fireplace with this final episode of 2023.

I’ve been working with the Navattic team for 1+ years now as an advisor, great team and super love the space they're playing in and the problem they're solving.

I’ve had Natalie on the show before, check out Ep. 139 “To Be The Company That Seems To Be Everywhere, You Need To Eliminate The Funnel Mindset.”

This time we focused on the loaded question "what's the ROI?" on various marketing initiatives.

About Navattic:

• Founded: 2020
• Funding: Seed ($5.4M total)
• Description: Create interactive product demos to let prospects get hands-on with your product (without bugging engineering).

In this episode:

Why did you podcast; Why did you stop; Will you start back up again with the podcast; LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads vs. traditional paid ads and top learnings; The interactive demo space is so competitive, how’re you thinking about your positioning;

AMA - Natalie asks me her burning question.

You can find Natalie on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-marcotullio/⁠

Learn more about Navattic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.navattic.com/

Check out their podcast Revenue on the Rocks: https://pod.co/revenue-on-the-rocks

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com/⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

This episode is also sponsored by PDCflow, payment management made easy. Visit ⁠pdcflow.com/flow-billing⁠ to learn more.

I’d just like to take a brief moment of silence to remember those innocent lives that have been lost during the terrorist attacks committed by Hamas in Israel. Especially the children, babies, and families that were asleep in their homes. For all the victims of unspeakable terror, let’s please take a moment.

Daniel O’Reilly (CEO and Founder of Fuel Sales and FuelK12) joined me on the show for the second time for this BONUS episode. Dano is an edtech sales guru and my partner in crime for the Edtech GTM Bootcamp we run for edtech startup founders. I’ve had Dano on before, you should also check out Ep. 117 “Marketing & Sales: Show Some Respect.”

In this episode:

Why does fully understanding your buyer’s pain matter so much for salespeople AND marketers;

How do you know if you really do understand your buyer’s pain;

What results should you expect from a conference if you’re an early stage startup, and should conferences even be part of your GTM strategy;

When is the right time to bring in SDRs versus Head of Sales at your early stage startup;

AMA - Dano asks me his burning question.

You can find Dano on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/danoreilly/

Learn more about Fuel Sales including the GTM Bootcamp: ⁠https://gofuelsales.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! I would love that so much.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠

2. ⁠sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me which episodes you've listened to >> ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Pranav Piyush is Co-Founder and CEO at Paramark.

Paramark (Pre-Seed) helps CMOs and CFOs invest in marketing with confidence and predictability.

Here’s what we cover:

I see the book Alchemy on Pranav's bookshelf and it's about "chasing the magic" so have to ask what got him into it;

How do you incorporate customer research at Paramark? What are some of your goals with this research;

What have been the results;

Why is customer research important;

Challenges with customer research;

Pranav asks me his burning question.

Pranav on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pranavp

Paramark: paramark.com

For more content, subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Music by my talented daughter.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠

Website: ⁠furmanovmarketing.com

This episode is the 3rd in a 3-part series of episodes where I explore 3 topics:

1. Positioning (two episodes ago)
2. Strategic Narrative (last episode)
3. Category Design (this episode)

I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but not always fully understood.

What are the key differences? 

When should you use one method over another?

What’s my take on them? Which one do I think is actually the most helpful and WHY? That's comin' in a BONUS episode this Friday.

This episode was recorded for the Category First podcast. Josh Lowman (Founder and CCO at Gold Front) invited me on the show to literally help me category design my business. I love this episode because we are going deep on internal strategy. So I take a first pass and Josh has so much feedback for me, you gotta hear it.

Also in this episode:

Gold Front’s category strategy;

The unique problem my business solves;

Giving the problem a name that CEOs and Founders will connect with;

How to get more specific with language.

You can find Josh on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/joshlowman

Check out Gold Front: www.goldfront.com

Category First podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pod.co/category-first

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body (I can SO relate). I met Anthony through Pavilion where he was teaching a course in CMO School about how and why companies are increasingly becoming media companies.

Anthony is co-founder and CEO at AudiencePlus where the team is building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company. Prior to AudiencePlus, Anthony was CMO of Hopin and Front. He's worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec. Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he and the team created the Customer Success category and fueled the company’s growth from $0 to $100M+ ARR, and eventual acquisition by Vista Equity at a $1.1B valuation.

Here's what we hit on:

Why are companies increasingly becoming "media companies," why it's easier today more than ever and will continue into the future;

Why gating content is no longer necessary or preferred;

Instead of gating content, what can companies do instead (HINT: emails are important so you do need emails, you just need a better way for people to share their email address);

"Community-led marketing" - what's all the fuss, let's define what this means and explain how this works and how can early stage startups leverage this marketing play;

You gotta hook them on social media with video clips (demand creation) then bring them back to your website (demand capture) - but how to best run this play and who's doing this well;

Why engagement with your company's content is an important leading indicator to EVERY business outcome (e.g. sale, renewal, expansion, adoption, etc.) and not just a TOF strategy;

Anthony shares more about building AudiencePlus;

At the very end, Anthony asks me his burning question.

You can find Anthony on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/

Find out more about AudiencePlus: https://www.audienceplus.com/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

It's Season 4 of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast and this episode is me continuing to share ⁠⁠⁠⁠MaaS⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Marketing as a System) which is the systematic approach to marketing that I built over almost 4 years of working with VC-backed early stage startups.

In this episode I cover Step 9: Case Studies including what it is, why it's important, who should own this work, and how to do it right. I'll be mixing in some more ⁠⁠⁠⁠MaaS⁠⁠⁠⁠-focused episodes over the course of the season.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! I would love that so much.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing and advising for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. ⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Marc Brown is the founder of Byta. Before Byta, Marc was the owner of Fore! an independent promotion company. Marc worked with bands like Spoon, Yoko Ono, and Wilco, trying to get them on radio and TV.

Byta was founded in 2015 and has raised seed funding ($1.4M). Up until 2020, the company was totally bootstrapped, which in hindsight is crazy but that has also informed their marketing strategies which is awesome.

Byta is a (SaaS) platform that's enabling people to send and receive digital audio in a clean, simple and secure way. Byta helps music artists, their teams and collaborators share new mixes, rough demos, streams and downloads quickly and securely. 

We dived right into it and covered:

Content marketing efforts - what’s working well for you right now? What’s the goal? (HINT: you do need creative ways to reach people, but you also need to make sure you know how you did it and create those repeatable systems);

We discuss the microsite (where Byta can be the authority on music), their monthly online events, their weekly interview series, and SEO;

What are the marketing challenges, what are you trying to figure out? (HINT: making decisions that help us stay on the right track);

Remember what the goal is for you. We’re not just trying to have a good month. We’re trying to bring value to our target audience. Build something and give it to people who need it;

What are the last 1-2 really good marketing ideas you/your team has come up with (HINT: a whitepaper around music sharing, nobody has done this, and a PhD music writer is writing it so you know it's gonna be good);

What are some bad recommendations you hear a lot in your field;

If you could ask one question to 100 of your peers, what question would you ask them?

You can reach Marc on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/viznomics

Find out more about Byta: https://byta.com/

Check out the microsite: https://byta.com/howwelisten/

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Happy Presidents Day 🇺🇸 🎉

Does your CEO like the content your marketing team is producing? Does your CMO? Does your head of Sales? Do you know the answer for sure? Does it matter?

John Bonini (Founder of Some Good Content) has been meeting with founders and marketing execs that have said some variation of the following regarding their content marketing: “We’re doing SEO, but the content is not good, and it’s just not working very well anymore.”

So what’s broken with our content efforts? And how can we fix it? How do you ensure that your content isn’t just being created for the sake of content, but that it actually produces pipeline and revenue?

We also cover:

John's Content Motivation Framework that focuses on buyer motivation instead of a company's funnel;

AMA: John asks me his burning question.

You can find John on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/jbonini

Learn more about Some Good Content: www.somegoodcontent.com

John's podcast: Louder Than Words

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

This episode is also sponsored by PDCflow, payment management made easy. Visit pdcflow.com/flow-billing to learn more.

It's Season 4 of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast and this episode is me kicking off MaaS (Marketing as a System) which is the systematic approach to marketing that I built over 3+ years of working with early stage startups.

In this episode I cover Step 1: Voice of Customer Research including What it is, Why it works, Who should lead it, and How to do it right.

You can get the link to the playbook I mention in the episode here and I'll be mixing in some more MaaS-focused episodes over the course of the season. Next time I do, I’ll talk about MaaS Step 2: Marketing Foundation Deck which includes the persona(s), messaging, positioning, competitive landscape, and more.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! I would love that so much.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

Josh Ades is Head of Marketing at DwellWell. Prior, Josh was the Marketing Director at mPulse Mobile (a healthtech startup that has raised $42M in funding). Josh wrote me asking to get on the show and typically I don't bring people on that way but then I asked him some questions and he wrote back a very lengthy, thoughtful and interesting response so of course I said yes. Plus the company is very cool.

DwellWell is Seed funded ($6M total) and based out of LA in California. DwellWell is an end-to-end platform that guides homebuyers through their home buying journey. They provide education, decision-making tools, and personalized connections to vetted partners (agents) so instead of feeling frustrated and confused, DwellWell gives users a way better homebuying experience.

Here's what we hit on:

Your marketing plan - where have you been putting your dollars this year;

Josh's 30-60-90 day plan when he joined DwellWell ~1.5 years ago;

Fast learning from early mistakes with paid ads;

How they use TikTok to build a complete customer funnel (ad, landing page, form, CTA);

How to earn the right to get more marketing budget;

Creative ideas we tried that failed but still helped us understand who we are as a brand;

Creative ideas we tried that worked;

Top marketing challenges (HINT: email is a challenge for us, also how to create urgency);

Josh started in standup comedy - how his background has impacted his approach to marketing;

Josh asks me his burning question "How would you summarize your marketing philosophy at a high level?".

You can find Josh on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/josh-ades/

Find out more about DwellWell: www.dwellwell.com/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I welcomed Emily Dale, Performance Marketing Manager at Alto, onto the show because it was a unique opportunity to talk about paid ads and measuring attribution coupled with brand and creative. Emily is a paid marketing guru. Her past clients include Fossil, PayPal, Michelin, Starbucks, The Bouqs Co., Lagunitas, Ferrero Brands, and Organic Valley.

Alto is Series B funded ($59.5M total) and based out of Dallas, TX. Alto is ride-sharing, redefined. From their website: “Some people get there. Others arrive.” By hiring vetted, professional drivers and managing a dedicated fleet of 5-star crash rated luxury vehicles, Alto offers the safest, most consistent, and most personalized passenger experience on the market today.

Here's what we hit on:

Your marketing plan - where are you putting your dollars in Q4 and what are you starting to think about already for Q1 2023;

What’s working really well for your marketing/growth (HINT: influencers);

Paid ads - what have you tested and what have you found works well (HINT: our brand is our car);

Top marketing challenges right now (HINT: attribution);

How do you think about paid media attribution vs. other marketing tactics (HINT: we use a variety of metrics and trial/error);

What are 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team have been rolling with (HINT: gold boots involved);

What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) before 2022 is over;

Emily asks me her burning question "what are some of the trends you’re noticing for startups + marketing?"

You can find Emily on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/emilygreen12/

Find out more about Alto: www.ridealto.com/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

WOW these episodes are popular...which tells me that folks are lovin' the series...so let's keep this going! Sprinkling in another episode for the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back top startup founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, resources and so much more.

Alvaro De La Rocha is CMO at Bespoke Post. Previously he held roles at Ogilvy and Microsoft on the product/marketing side. We also went to business school together.

I've had Alvaro on before - check out Episode 30!

Bespoke Post was founded in 2011, has 80 people now, and is based out of NYC. They've raised Series B! ($48.9M total) Bespoke Post is goods and guidance, delivered monthly. Upgrade your day-to-day life through themed boxes full of gear – shaving sets, shoe shine kits, home bar essentials - for men.

Here's what we hit on:

2022 Marketing Plan - how are you organizing your budget (HINT: it's been a challenging year from paid ads perspective, so getting more creative);

How and why we've changed our attribution model (HINT: our new model includes relevant inputs like "how did you hear about us" survey);

What did we put in our TV ad (HINT: it's a kind of testimonial spot which performs really well)

What marketing channels are you leaning into (HINT: includes TV and radio);

What content are you leaning into (HINT: we're reinforcing the lifestyle to build the brand);

Some goals that Alvaro wants to accomplish this year, personal and professional.

You can reach Alvaro on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alvaro-de-la-rocha-2549b3/

Find out more about Bespoke Post: www.bespokepost.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I invited Lee Anne Grant, Chief Growth Officer at babylist, onto the show and we unpacked some very cool stuff happening at their startup.

Prior to babylist, Lee Anne held sales roles at Google, AOL, POPSUGAR and Brandless.

Babylist was founded in 2011, has 212 people, and is based out of CA (also remote). They've raised Series C ($40.7M total). Babylist is the leading vertical marketplace and commerce destination for baby, driving purchase decisions for more than 8 million people each year! Babylist is way more than a baby registry and we talk about those different revenue streams.

Here's what we hit on:

You’ve been in sales for much of your career and now you’re CGO. What does that mean, what are you in charge of, and how does that impact how you lead;

Babylist is a commerce company that has a media business - tell me more about how this works and how that affects your marketing decisions (HINT: having 3 revenue streams is incredibly intellectually interesting);

Tell me more about your growth strategy during this downturn, where are you putting your dollars, what marketing channels are you leaning into;

Their Halsey influencer story and how that has impacted their growth;

What kinds of marketing content are you leaning into;

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: in-person plays plus the metaverse);

What are your top marketing challenges;

Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022;

Lee Anne asked me a question to round out the conversation.

You can reach Lee Anne on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/leeannegrant/

Find out more about babylist: www.babylist.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things.

You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing

You can find me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Alexander De Ridder, Co-Founder and CTO of INK, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

We covered:

Marketing is a competitive sport and marketing campaigns can be as awe-inducing as great art;

Why have 15 software developers at a 30-people total bootstrapped startup;

Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to organize the inner-workings of the business;

How 64 blog articles brought 100,000 site visitors in 5 months;

Top marketing channels used to launch and grow INK including Product Hunt and contests;

How to leave "trail of breadcrumbs" so people can find your company;

How to think about and get exponential growth;

The future of sophisticated content creation and how search engines will need to morph.

Alexander De Ridder is the Co-Founder and CTO of INK (www.inkforall.com). INK is based out of Houston, TX,  started in 2019 and has been completely bootstrapped (so far). INK is patented AI software meant for content creators and writers. Writing your content with INK increases your chances of ranking on the first page in Google by 400% - and it’s completely free.  

You can find Alexander on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adridder/

You can get INK for yourself for free: www.inkforall.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify podcasts (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Happy Memorial Day!!!

I asked Chris Walker to join me for a second round on the show. Last time he was on was Episode 35 (called “Over-prioritizing sales is your SaaS startup’s biggest mistake”) and that was also a really good one. Towards the end of the episode, Chris has some great questions for me to answer.

Chris is Founder and CEO at Refine Labs. Prior, Chris was the Dir. of Mktg at Eversound, a wellness startup. And prior to that he was at Vapotherm, a global medtech startup that IPO’d in 2018. He's got 128k followers on LI and he's the host of the Revenue Vitals podcast (formerly State of Demand Gen).

Refine Labs is a demand strategy and research firm focused on growth-stage B2B SaaS companies.

In this episode we talk about:

What does "creative" mean to you;

When have you personally been the most creative;

What's your advice for startups that want to experiment more;

How should startups think about creating the best marketing content;

What's your stance on category design, is it worth the effort;

Chris asks me some of his questions.

You can find Chris on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/chris-walker-41597028/

Check out Refine Labs >> www.refinelabs.com/

This episode is sponsored by 43North, a seed-stage startup accelerator that's on the hunt for its next cohort. This year, 43North will make five $1 million dollar investments, each at 5% equity. Visit 43North.org to learn more. Applications close on June 23rd, so get on it!

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Hiya! This episode is the 2nd in a 3-part series of episodes where I explore 3 topics:

1. Positioning (last episode)
2. Strategic Narrative (this one)
3. Category Design (next time)

I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but not always fully understood.

What are the key differences? 

When should you use one method over another?

What’s my take on them? Which one do I think is actually the most helpful and WHY?

Andy Raskin is the master of strategic narrative. He helps CEOs align their teams around a strategic narrative to power success in sales, marketing, fundraising, product and recruiting. Clients include VC-backed companies funded by top VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Google Ventures, and First Round Capital.

Also in this episode:

Quick review of strategic narrative;

What's the best way to write it down;

Strategic narrative is one story to rule it all, from the old way to the new way, but in many cases there are multiple new ways, so how do you convince someone that your way is the best new way;

Investors and employees love old game vs. new game thinking and creating a movement but do prospects actually get it in a sales meeting;

Should you position yourself as an expert and "teach" on a sales call;

Why don’t more companies adopt the Strategic Narrative mindset;

What’s the difference between Strategic Narrative and Category Design;

Andy asks me his burning question.

You can find Andy on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/andyraskin

Andy's website: andyraskin.com

Andy's podcast: ⁠andyraskin.com/podcast

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I love bringing on other startup marketing experts and Emily Kramer is no exception. Plus she's just super down to earth and was fun to talk to.

Emily Kramer is Co-Founder at MKT1 (helps founders and marketers build and scale their marketing functions through their fund MKT1 Capital, advising & consulting, and content and courses). She's like a “CMO investor” because she's got a fund (MKT1 Capital) that’s focused on early-stage B2B startups. Prior, Emily led and built marketing teams from the ground up at Carta (now Series G), Asana (IPOd), Astro (acquired by Slack), and Ticketfly (acquired by Eventbrite).

Emily shares really useful articles that have to do with startups and marketing and I'm going to link to them in the show notes down below in case you want to check them out.

In this episode we cover:

What does “creative” mean to you (HINT: most people think brand and design, but it goes way beyond that);

First marketing hire at a Seed vs. Series A vs. Series B startup - what matters;

As the first marketing hire 4X, what is one thing you learned and then changed about your approach to heading up marketing;

How did you balance creativity with results;

Why you need to be saving time to make big bets;

When you’re setting goals (OKRs) you can’t just set KPI goals (e.g. leads + conversion rate) because your creative big bet projects won’t succeed.

You can find Emily on LinkedIn.

You can learn more about MKT1.

Here's a great article that Emily wrote on how to organize your early stage SaaS marketing org and here's another one about marketing goal-setting.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising, I'm like your fractional head of marketing (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Thanks for your patience, I usually post these episodes on Mondays MUCH earlier but we just got back from a road trip and I rushed over to the computer almost as soon as we got back :)

WOW! 100 episodes, I can't even believe it. Thank you to all my listeners, my fans, my guests, for being a part of something that I wanted to build so I could share what top startups and leaders are doing, what’s working, what’s not, just being very transparent. Truly a labor of love. 

Don't forget to leave a review if you've been joining me!

In this 100th episode I’m getting interviewed (again) by Kap Chatfield (CEO at Rveal Media and host of B2B Podcasting) and we talk through modern approaches to digital content strategy for startups.

Main topics we cover:

Why your B2B startup needs a digital content strategy;

What goes into your digital content strategy;

Digital marketing needs to work for you so that you don’t need to hire more salespeople to do that work for you;

Gartner’s Future of Sales research shows that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions with buyers will occur in digital. This is because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-FREE sales experience – a preference that climbs to 44% for millennials - what that means for you going forward;

How to assess the value of your content strategy (HINT: not through vanity metrics);

What it takes to create great content;

Your content strategy includes both content creation and distribution;

Your customer's sales experience is not a linear journey and what that means for you.

Here's the article I wrote mentioned in this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/modern-digital-content-strategy-startups-playbook-anna-furmanov/

You can find Kap on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kapchatfield/

Rveal's website: https://site.rveal.media/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

Prepare for something different, fun and fast!

This is a BONUS 10-min. episode with Sergey Ross on the fastest ways to understand how marketing works. Because when your marketing is working, you'll know it. And this goes beyond attribution.

Sergey is the host of the Media Camp podcast and now he's building out his Youtube channel (SRE. live) Sergey works on podcast and video production at Crowdlinker.

Here's what we hit on:

Don't forget to ask your customers "where did you find me?"

WOM is still the biggest driver;

Seeking out qualitative signals from the right people;

We run through examples of shopping at Costco and some of the basic psychological principles at play that get you to buy.

You can find Sergey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergeyrosslive/ 

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

In the last episode, Drew Brucker asked me “What are some creative marketing ideas that you or someone on the show has shared that are 100% worth experimenting with?” Drew, you’re in luck because I focused on creativity in Season 3 of the podcast and then I wrote a whole article called “36 Startups Share Their Top Creative Marketing Ideas” so in this episode I pull out those I believe startups should test.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Ann Handley is THE digital marketing and content expert. It's like meeting a rockstar. But better because she's a rockstar marketer! She's a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Keynote speaker. Writer. She's the Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs. 

In addition:

- 428k followers on LinkedIn (woah)

- author of the book Everybody Writes (I have that one)

- the Total Annarchy newsletter goes out every couple weeks with a focus on writing, marketing, and living your best life

AND Ann helped me land one of my first clients back in 2020! Listen in to hear how that happened.

Here's what we cover:

Voice - for companies and startups, how should they think about developing their voice for content creation?

What are the big marketing/content trends you're seeing today that every startup needs to be on top of (HINT: don't skimp on your newsletter);

Tell me more about MarketingProfs;

Marketing and content - what’s working well for you right now? what channels?

Events - the B2B Forum recently took place in October 2021. How are you planning to handle events this year and next (HINT: the biggest mistake is you take your in-person event and you shove into an online construct)

You can reach Ann on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annhandley

Find out more about MarketingProfs: www.marketingprofs.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Ian Faison is CEO and Founder of Caspian Studios where they create shorts, shows and moonshots (with podcasts and videos) for B2B companies. Ian wrote to me and said “I have an idea for your show…” and when Ian writes with an idea, I will of course say yes.  

Here’s what we cover:

The old and dusty content marketing strategy;

The new content marketing strategy and why companies are adopting an Owned Media Portfolio;

Examples of shorts, shows and moonshots;

How do you create a podcast that breaks through the noise;

What goes into a Moonshot like Murder in HR;

How does an Owned Media Portfolio create ROI and how do you measure it;

How can early stage startups best leverage this new way of creating content;

AMA: Ian asks me his burning question which I answer at the end of our episode.

You can find Ian on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison

Check out Caspian Studios: www.caspianstudios.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠

In a world where using AI to do more, automate more, get more leads (more more more!) is celebrated, one thing that early stage startups have as the upper hand over larger companies is the permission and ability to do those things that don’t scale. Build community and relationships in unique ways (like with events), be creative, test wild ideas, learn and pivot quickly, etc.

Why might a focus on doing more with AI and automation actually hurt early stage startups?

That's the focus of my conversation with Corrina Owens (Chief Evangelist Officer at Purple Cork). Corrina worked at Gong where she focused on ABM programs and on a Super Bowl ad. Now she's the GTM Advisor for companies like Navattic, GTM Partners, Aptivio and Postal.io.

Purple Cork helps B2B companies create polished events that drive revenue through virtual wine tastings.

We also cover:

The nuances of when it's appropriate to use AI so that you still stand out;

Which AI tools Corrina has been using;

When GenAI tools overpromise but underdeliver;

AMA: Corrina asks me her burning question.

You can find Corrina on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/corrina-owens

Learn more about Purple Cork: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.purplecork.wine

Direct w/ Corrina and Taylor podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/direct-with-corrina-taylor/id1688175099

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing frameworks, insights, cracking some jokes and keepin' it real

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Hi! I'm back! I missed you. Did you miss me? Well it's a completely different show now, and I can't wait to share more with you.

Tiffany McNeil is the coolest brand, innovation, and insights exec you’ll ever meet. Tiffany and I worked together at Del Monte Foods way back in 2010 (!) on the consumer insights and strategy team, specifically consumer food innovation for baby boomers. This was the perfect conversation to kick things off.

Here’s what we cover:

Let’s first define consumer insights and strategy in B2C;

When I came over to B2B from B2C, there was no customer research, insights, or strategy that came from that work. It was super strange. So naturally, I just did the work. What is the work;

Why is consumer insights important? How does this carry over to B2B;

What’s new in consumer insights that’s shaping the industry;

What do you still find challenging with consumer research;

Tiffany asks me her burning question.

Tiffany on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-mcneil-9b1615a 

Oaktown Strategy: www.oaktownstrategy.com

For more content, subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show. Music by my talented daughter.

Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Website: furmanovmarketing.com

Happy International Women's Day!

I promised to answer this question for ya and I always deliver. Ari Yablok, Head of Brand at Island (Series C), was on the show (Ep. 194) and he asked me: "Founders that are not Marketing-driven or not appreciative of the role, what are some of the things you do to help them buy-in to marketing?" I answer in this 2-min. bonus episode.

If founders ARE bought-in to Marketing but don't understand how to measure brand, or don't know what to prioritize first, or aren't sure how marketing fits into their GTM strategy, etc., well that's different.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building and how it's going >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I invited Kathleen Booth, SVP Marketing at Tradeswell, to the show and we had a blast talking about how to do marketing the way it SHOULD be done - with a customer/audience-first approach focused on community, great content, and building a brand that people love, whether they buy from you or not. 

Prior to Tradeswell, Kathleen served as CMO at clean.io (Series A). She's also the host of The Inbound Success Podcast and Board-level advisor to several tech startups.

Tradeswell was founded in 2019, is based out of Baltimore (MD), and has 38 people. They've raised Series A ($18.8M). Tradeswell is the real-time operating system for e-commerce. Like "mission control" for growing e-commerce businesses. Tradeswell is creating a new category called “real-time operating system”.

Here's what we hit on:

How buyers used to buy and how buyers are buying today (HINT: they go to peers, communities, Slack, LinkedIn, etc.) and how "meh" marketing still follows the old approach;

To truly succeed you need to win the hearts and minds of the buyer and the people they’re talking to;

How we organize our budget (HINT: it's not the usual 10% of revenue is spent on marketing);

What marketing channels are working well (HINT: podcasts, community, niche newsletter ads);

What marketing content are you leaning into this year (HINT: your content should shine a spotlight on your audience PLUS we have data that nobody else has access to);

How are you building out resources this year;

What are your top marketing challenges (HINT: saying no can be hard AND we're creating a category and that's a challenge for sure but there are things we are looking for in the short-term);

How we're aligning really well with sales (HINT: don't pit marketing against sales, it's about the channel and not the team);

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: niche Substack newsletter sponsorship, check out the link below to learn more);

Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022.

You can reach Kathleen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenslatterybooth/

Find out more about Tradeswell: https://www.tradeswell.com/

Check out Swapstack for niche newsletter advertising: https://swapstack.co/

For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com and you can also subscribe to Anna's monthly newsletter by going here: https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

Thanks for listening!

A ton of people I speak to in B2B talk about the JTBD approach. So I had to bring on Bob because I have many questions.

Bob Moesta is an entrepreneur and innovator known for his Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) theory. He started 10 companies and is currently the Co-Founder of the Re-Wired Group.

Here’s what we cover:

Define Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) for someone unfamiliar with it;

How sales and buying aren't the same and why that matters;

Where did JTBD Theory come from;

People don't buy things, they hire to help them make progress;

Deconstructing the parts of JTBD: push, pull, friction, habit, frame the solution;

Should we trust what our customers say;

How many customers do you need to talk to for good insights;

Which customer insights to ignore;

Bob walks me through an example for a company using the JTBD Theory;

What's the most important question to ask in customer interviews;

How to dig for energy in customer interviews;

Mistakes people make when implementing the JTBD framework;

The Jobs To Be Done Handbook is from 2014, what has changed about the way you think about and apply JTBD;

How do you see JTBD fitting into the context of AI and automation.

Bob on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bobmoesta

The Re-Wired Group: therewiredgroup.com

For more content, subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Music by my talented daughter.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠

Website: ⁠furmanovmarketing.com

Sometimes I like to sprinkle in some raw and unfiltered thoughts. 

In this episode I cover:

The purpose of content;

Before you come up with a content strategy, you need to figure out what your target buyer cares about, their challenges, goals, where they spend their time, etc;

What is a content engine and how to think about creating content for the full funnel;

Daily/weekly marketing ops activities to feed your content engine;

How to think about sales materials as part of your content strategy;

How to measure your content efforts;

How to measure your podcast efforts.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Welcome back! 

As you may have heard, I'm intrigued by category design. I've had both Christopher Lochhead and Andy Raskin on the show to chat more on the topic, and those are actually some of the more popular episodes on the podcast. 

Josh Lowman helps startups (like Robinhood, Newsela, Uber, Bizzabo, and Clari) create and own their category. I wanted to bring Josh onto the show and dig into exactly HOW he helps startups design categories and learn about some specific examples.

Josh is Founder and CCO at Gold Front, a category design studio based in San Francisco and LA. He's also the host of the Category First podcast.

Here's what we hit on:

What does category creation mean to you (HINT: it's a whole company strategy);

Exactly how you’ve helped different brands like Robinhood, Newsela, Uber, Bizzabo and Clari with category design. Where do you start? What does that process look like (HINT: everyone has a different context, but in common is to disrupt the old way of doing things);

Why the CEO collaboration is key;

What are the pitfalls or watch-outs if you’re a startup planning to create and own a category;

How does timing play into successful category creation? What needs to click out there in the world for this to work;

Can everyone be a category creator (HINT: we're just keeping people honest. As a startup you're not telling your investors that you have something incrementally better);

How did you bring category creation into Gold Front’s business strategy;

What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022.

You can reach Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshlowman/

Find out more about Gold Front: https://www.goldfront.com/

Check out the Category First podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/category-first/id1601824968

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Hi to my amazing listeners! This episode kicks of the beginning of what I'll call the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. I get questions from startups about this a lot (especially as the marketing landscape has changed so much throughout the pandemic) so I know this is on people's minds. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, and resources and so much more.

Cassidy Shield is VP Marketing at Narrative Science. Prior to that, he was VP Marketing at Gogo, VP Marketing at NetCracker and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent, purchased by Nokia. He also went to Kellogg (woop woop!).

Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 85 people, and is based out of Chicago. Funding: Series D ($43.4M total) and they just got acquired!! Narrative Science allows you to humanize analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards).

Here's what we cover:

2022 marketing plan - budget, channels, and resources;

How are you splitting your budget organic vs. paid;

What channels are you leaning into and why (NOTE: 90% of revenue is marketing sourced);

They launched their first event (Data Storytelling Summit) and realized "hey, we're good at this";

Who's on the marketing team now and how you're planning to build out;

Planning can't start until you know the goals of the business (HINT: we do this every 3-6 months on a rolling basis);

Cassidy shared some other unique/helpful things related to marketing planning e.g. galvanize around your "big rock" items;

Some goals (personal/professional) for Cassidy going into 2022.

You can reach Cassidy on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyshield

Find out more about Narrative Science: www.narrativescience.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Time for another solo episode! It's fast but packs a punch. I started creating TikTok videos and posting them to LinkedIn and so far it's going well and I love how it takes less than 5 minutes to record, add a title, and add captions and do it all myself. Talk about scrappy AND engaging. Video works, ya'll. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast.

I was asked on a recent discovery call: “Where should we prioritize marketing in the funnel, TOF? Middle? Bottom to help close? With Customers to grow WOM and referrals?”

Answer: Yes.

The cool thing is your content strategy can hit ALL those levels (even with a very small team) if you’re being thoughtful about it.

I like to use a 1-page marketing plan that includes specific marketing plays across the funnel.

For example:

TOF to Engage: podcast, social media video clips

MOF to Nurture: podcast, social media video clips, newsletter, 1:1 sharing on LinkedIn, weekly virtual events

BOF to Convert: case studies, testimonials, testimonial videos

Customer Success: surprise and delight e.g. super responsive Slack channel, case studies / video testimonials from superfans, give them a platform to share their expertise >> get them on your podcast to discuss wins and challenges

And then for each stage, also have objectives (e.g. increased website visitors MoM, 50% OR and 20% CTR for email, 5 new customers per month, etc.) How is your content strategy impacting your objectives?

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

Eric and I go way back.

Eric Rasmussen is Head of Consumer Insights at 23andMe. Prior to that, Eric led research at Groupon, Shutterfly, eBay, and Yahoo!

We both worked at Groupon a few years ago. We used to meet 1:1 to talk insights - I would share what we were working on with the growth marketing team, and Eric would share his team's research.

23andMe was founded in 2006, has 700+ employees and is based out of CA. They raised Series F ($868.6M total) and recently went public. 23andMe is the leading consumer genetics and research company. The mission of the company is to help people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome.

Here's what we hit on:

Marketing vs. insights - what’s the difference? How does insights fuel marketing?

What you're working on insights-related at 23andMe and how that has changed since your earlier days;

How does the marketing team use the insights your team gathers? How do you make this handoff successful?

How early stage startups should approach insights and research and customer-centricity;

Where do companies get insights wrong, and what's a better way (HINT: they want to cut right to the chase and make it about the product);

We talked about where Eric's insights/research impacted the various companies he's been at on a large scale;

How has a failure set you up for later success? (HINT: half the job is to answer Qs and the other half the job is to give it to people so they can go do something with it)

You can reach Eric on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ericrasmussen

Find out more about 23andMe: www.23andme.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Erin Balsa (Founder of Haus of Bold) asked me this question in our last episode:

“What is the #1 improvement area when you work with new startup clients?”

So I'm going to answer it now.

Happy Friday!

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get marketers hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building and how it's going >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠

Nemanja Zivkovic, CEO at Funky Marketing, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Mixing it up! This episode is a little different. I usually have venture-backed startup founders and marketing leaders come on as guests. This time I brought on a fellow marketing business owner to share his experience and wisdom.

Nemanja started Funky Marketing in Jan. 2020, with a total of 6 employees at the time of the conversation. Funky Marketing is based out of Novi Sad, Serbia. They're helping B2B tech companies generate revenue growth, primarily through inbound and content strategies and scale.

We covered a lot of juicy stuff, including:

The term “agency” vs. “team” to describe the business;

Nemanja’s role as CEO at Funky Marketing;

Who they look for in their ideal client (3 buckets);

The types of packages that Funky Marketing offers to customers;

Nemanja’s past experience in B2C and now focusing on B2B (because there’s so much to shake up);

Where most clients get marketing and growth wrong (the big challenges that he’s seeing repeatedly);

Why to go after SQLs (not MQLs) and how to succeed by building a content machine;

The problem with creating a content machine that’s optimized for SEO, and why using social media to have direct conversations with prospects can be more meaningful;

Marketing is not sales, so the timeline is not the same;

How to shorten the time to close (HINT: use ads);

Creating sales and marketing alignment (up to revenue);

Starting a marketing company in Serbia - opportunities and challenges;

Creating an event for marketers to do everything besides marketing;

Tips from Nemanja - read comics to get better at marketing, get used to putting yourself into uncomfortable situations, and more.

You can find Nemanja on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zivkovicnemanja

Find out more about Funky Marketing: www.funkymarketing.net

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Cassidy Shield is VP of Marketing at Narrative Science. 

Before Narrative Science, Cassidy served as VP of Marketing at Gogo, VP of Marketing at NetCracker, and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent (purchased by Nokia). He's also a fellow Kellogg alum!

Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 88 people, and is based out of Chicago, IL. They've raised Series D ($43.4M total).

Narrative Science humanizes analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards). Data should be understandable for everyone. Stop creating unused dashboards and start data storytelling.

Here's what we hit on:

More about Narrative Science, who you’re for, what problem you solve;

The challenge with finding early adopters/visionary leaders (that's the target buyer) and how they’re trying to figure this out;

Who’s on the Marketing team, anything unique? (HINT: the people in the roles have never done the specific work before - instead, Narrative Science sets a high bar and looks for specific behavioral traits);

Podcast "Leading With Data" - what are you trying to do with it? What’s the purpose and how’s it going;

Cassidy has 20+ years of experience. I asked him to explain his quote “the key to digital is great content that leads the buyer to what you sell”;

Narrative Science doesn’t have a PR agency, and that's because startups should do their own PR (if they can);

Marketing: what’s working well for you right now? what channels? (HINT: paid media - FB and Instagram, building community through events and the podcast);

Marketing: what are the challenges, what are you trying to figure out;

How do you track marketing’s impact on revenue? (HINT: the company's revenue is 90% marketing sourced! The team has not had much consistent, repeatable success with outbound sales);

What are the last 2-3 really good (marketing) ideas you've come up with;

What are some bad recommendations in your area of expertise.

You can find Cassidy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyshield

Find out more about Narrative Science: www.narrativescience.com

And here's the Leading With Data podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leading-with-data/id1535701027 

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg

or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

WOW these episodes are popular...so let's keep this going! Sprinkling in another episode for the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back top startup founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, resources and so much more.

Rob Singer is CMO at Remitly. Prior, Rob was CMO at Ancestry.com, and at Smule, and at Habit.

I've had Rob on before - check out Episode 17!

Remitly was founded in 2011, has 1,264 people (WOAH) and is based out of Seattle. And guess what?! They IPO'd September 2021!! Remitly helps people send money across borders. There are millions of immigrants around the world that make the huge sacrifice of leaving their families behind to live and work in another country. Remitly makes international money transfers easy.

Here's what we hit on:

2022 Marketing Plan (HINT: being public doesn’t matter, what’s gotten us here will enable us to keep moving forward);

For new customer acquisition and revenue growth, we spend to a certain payback;

Now we're focusing more on organic growth (creating demand in lower cost channels);

Marketing channels we're leaning into (HINT: audio, TV);

Marketing content we're leaning into (HINT: music and food);

Rob's personal and professional goals.

You can reach Rob on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rob-singer-313131/

Find out more about Remitly: www.remitly.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I had the pleasure of talking to Maya Grossman, Founder of Maya Grossman Consulting, about her experiences as VP of Marketing and how she prioritized her marketing efforts in those critical first 90 days.

Maya has 15+ years of marketing experience building brands and driving growth at companies like Microsoft, Google, and most recently Canvas. As the VP of Marketing at Canvas she built the marketing team, grew qualified pipeline 3X Q/Q, doubled ARR Y/Y, and helped secure Series C at $400M valuation. She was also the VP of Marketing at Colu ($40M VC backed startup).

Here's what we hit on:

What's your process for getting prospects to go from "what is this?" to "I want this!" (HINT: sell the CHANGE, this is the core of product marketing);

As VP of Marketing at Canvas, how did you build out the team, build out demand gen, build pipeline and sales, help secure Series C funding...all the things. How you prioritized that role the first 90 days and the results from there (HINT: start by talking to all different people and teams within the company about product, customers, positioning, etc. and see if there's a consistent message at home);

How to handle ambitious goals as VP of Marketing (HINT: there will always be ambitious goals, but how to balance that with being realistic and also having quick wins);

What would you have done differently while at Canvas;

How did you build out your marketing team early stage (HINT: product marketing, content manager, demand gen manager and this took 5-6 months);

How did you handle marketing attribution early stage (HINT: you don't have to measure everything, we didn't gate our content, we launched a podcast, community, created demand, created resources);

We stopped doing Instagram and Twitter and instead focused on LinkedIn > doing one thing really well versus a bunch of things not well;

Now your focus is "how to build a thriving career in marketing" - why did you decide to help people with this;

Maya shares her strategy/steps for how to build a thriving career.

You can reach Maya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayagrossman/

Check out her website: https://www.mayagrossman.com/

Check out her book: Invaluable

For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Matt Bendett, Co-Founder and VP of Ops & Strategy at Peerspace, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Peerspace was founded in 2014 and has raised Series B ($34.8M total). The team was ~85 people at their peak (currently a leaner team due to the impacts of COVID-19). Peerspace is your little black book for finding unique and undiscovered places to meet, create, or celebrate. Whether it’s a photo shoot, birthday bash, pop-up shop, or team brainstorm, Peerspace gives people the keys to our cities’ best spaces.

We covered:

How to think about marketing through the lens of Simon Sinek's "start with why";

The marketing team's specific roles and responsibilities (at their peak ~85 people);

Brand vs. performance marketing - you shouldn't get started on performance-based marketing if you don't have your brand house in order;

The marketing channels that are driving the business - SEO, content marketing, paid and community;

How Peerspace does content marketing - blogs, resources, whitepaper, user generated content (UGC);

Partnering with United - why it made sense to partner and their go-to-market plan specific to the partnership;

How Matt is thinking about riding the content creation wave;

How company focus (forced from COVID) is more of an opportunity vs. a challenge;

Experimentation as part of your overall marketing efforts;

Matt's (almost 9 years!) experience at Electronic Arts and the impact on his work at Peerspace;

Some introspection and life changes coming out of this crazy year.

You can find Matt on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bendett

Find out more about Peerspace: www.peerspace.com

Find out more about their partnership with United: https://teamtogether.peerspace.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

When I started recording the episode with Christopher Lochhead, I immediately felt like I was in the (virtual) room with a legend.

Christopher is a retired entrepreneur and 3X Silicon Valley public company CMO. He makes content (podcasts, books, newsletters, links to all those at the end of the show notes) for entrepreneurs and marketers with a different mind. I found out about Christopher from LinkedIn, left a comment on a post, and he invited me to read the Category Pirates newsletter. This is when I began diving more deeply into category design. I'm currently reading his book Play Bigger.

Here's what we hit on:

Explain category design like you're speaking to a 7-year-old;

Most companies compete for existing demand vs. create new demand and this is a trap;

Why most marketers waste their time in their career;

Companies that are great examples of category design leaders and what are they doing right;

What makes a legendary entrepreneur? (HINT: they force choice between past vs. future);

Companies that lead with category design are valued at 5x more;

Companies that lead with category design get 76% of market share (Source: HBR);

What are the most important steps to build category design and create a legendary company;

What are some bad recommendations about category design (HINT: people don't like change);

Why you need problem/category fit vs. product/market fit;

Why this is such an amazing time to be an entrepreneur.

You can reach Christopher on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christopherlochhead

Find out more about Category Pirates: www.categorypirates.com

Also check out these podcasts: Follow Your Different and Lochhead on Marketing

And these books: Play Bigger (on category design) and Niche Down (become legendary by being different)

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Picture this. You’re the first business hire at a 4-person early stage startup. Head of Marketing. So you get hired, and you’re trying to follow the Hubspot Playbook. The problem is, it’s taking too long. You’re impatient. The founders are impatient. You want to see something faster. You need to prove yourself. How do you cut through the noise? How do you get your target buyer to pay attention?

Trinity Nguyen (VP of Marketing at UserGems) was in exactly this situation and shares what happened next. And how what happened next was tied to more than 90% of their pipeline in those early days. 

We also cover:

What was the turning point from Seed to Series A;

Why early stage you need to loosen up your attribution model to get big wins;

Why does marketing fail at the early stage;

AMA: Trinity asks me her burning question. Here's a helpful resource that my SEO expert sent me after this episode was recorded.

About UserGems:

• Founded: 2019
• Team: 80 people
• Funding: Series A ($20M)

You can find Trinity on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/trinitynguyen

Learn more about UserGems: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.usergems.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

I had the pleasure of bringing Latané Conant onto the show. She's pretty amazing and let me tell you why. Latané is CMO at 6sense (4+ years). Prior, she held sales and marketing leadership roles at Appirio (B2B SaaS, raised $111.7M in funding). She wrote a book called "No Forms, No Spam, No Cold Calls" (I read it, you should check it out). She's big on pushing the boundaries in B2B marketing which I love. We didn't get to cover everything during this episode so I'll be bringing her back on again soon.

6sense was founded in 2013, has 1,256 people, and is based out of San Francisco, CA. They've raised Series E ($200M total). The 6sense mantra: you can’t guess your way to quota. For sales and marketing teams, 6sense uses AI to capture anonymous buying signals, targets the right accounts at the ideal time, and recommends the channels and messages to boost revenue performance.

Here's what we hit on:

What made you decide to write your book (HINT: customer and prospect experiences);

What steps have you taken to really nail sales+marketing alignment at 6sense (HINT: I don't care where it's sourced from, I'm going to make sure we hit our numbers);

If you're thinking like a salesperson, how do you hold true to marketing mindset vs. fall into sales mode (they're different disciplines);

What's your recommendation for early stage startups that don't have a lot of data points and can't rely on trends analysis to make decisions.

You can find Latané on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/latane-conant/

Find out more about 6sense: https://6sense.com/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/

3. (NEW) Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Daniel Huerta is Digital Marketing Manager at Udacity. Before that, Daniel headed up marketing at Workify (HR tech startup) for 4+ years, running their content and demand generation efforts. Daniel is also the co-host of The Modern People Leader podcast. We covered both Udacity and Workify during this podcast session. 

Udacity was founded in 2011, has 2000+ people, and is based out of Mountain View, CA. They've raised $235M in funding. Udacity’s mission is to train the world's workforce in the careers of the future. Learn digital, data science, programming, AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity and more. 200+ industry experts build the content. 100+ enterprise customers globally. 

Workify was founded in 2014, has 11 people, and is based out of Austin, TX. Workify has raised $1.3M in funding. Workify helps you unlock the power of your people. Analytics for modern employee engagement. 

Here's what we hit on: 

Dug a bit more into Workify, who it's for and the problem they're solving; 

Daniel is helping traditional orgs become more like tech companies - what does that mean; 

How does Udacity differentiate from other players in the space; 

Demand gen the old way, and transforming to the new way (HINT: they're working with the Refine Labs team!); 

Does a bigger budget mean better marketing; 

At Workify, how did you grow ARR from $40k to $1.2M from your content and demand gen efforts; 

If you could go back in time at Workify, how would your run marketing differently (HINT: we talked about all the effort that went into outbound and then getting low conversions, we also talked about inbound and what were some of the pitfalls); 

For inbound to work you need 1) unique POV 2) value prop 3) customer obsession 4) brand trust; 

We touched on The Modern People Leader podcast and some different ideas to grow the audience. 

You can find Daniel on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-huerta-74661390/ 

Find out more about Udacity: www.udacity.com 

Find out more about Workify: www.getworkify.com 

And here's The Modern People Leader podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-modern-people-leader/id1545875052 

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com 

Thanks for listening!

Katie Mitchell is one of the smartest brand and content marketers I know. She was the Sr. Director of Marketing (Product Marketing, Content Marketing, and Brand/Communications) at Sprig for 2+ years and in 2023 she's taking some time off before she jumps back into things. I met Katie back in 2020 on Chris Walker's Demand Gen Live (DGL) Tuesday night virtual events.

Sprig is a Series B startup based out of San Francisco that has raised $88M in funding total.

Here's what we cover:

What does creativity mean;

How the team approached creative marketing at Sprig;

How to figure out what marketing experiments to run;

How much time to spend on marketing experiments;

Being creative means you're able to reposition something so it feels different (e.g. I never do a webinar);

What startups are being creative with their marketing;

What's comin' up next for Katie.

You can find Katie on LinkedIn

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising, I'm like your fractional head of marketing (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Usually I'm asking my guests all the questions, but sometimes they have a question for me. So I created an episode that’s just guests asking me their burning question and then I answer their question. Some really great, thought-provoking questions in here. People do not hold back.

Here's the full list of people that had questions for me (in order) along with the episode number in case you want to jump back and listen to the full episode:

• Chris Walker (Refine Labs, Ep. 154)

• Lee Anne Grant (babylist, Ep. 103)

• MJ Smith (CoLab, Ep. 144)

• Terri Avnaim (Boulevard, Ep. 107)

• Dave Gerhardt (Exit Five, Ep. 133)

• Frankie Scerbo (Elude, Ep. 109)

• Sarah Breathnach (Hunters, Ep. 120)

• Drew Brucker (LASSO, Ep. 157)

• Jenn Deering Davis (Gradient Works, Ep. 137)

• Josh Ades (DwellWell, Ep. 121)

• Latane Conant (6sense, Ep. 128)

• Emily Dale (Alto, Ep. 122)

• Annette Cardwell (Lattice, Ep. 124)

• Anthony Kennada (AudiencePlus, Ep. 118)

• Katie Perry (Public, Ep. 135)

• Natalie Marcotullio (Navattic, Ep. 139)

• Jay Acunzo (Creator Kitchen, Ep. 151)

  
  

  For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

  And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

  1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

  2. Sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

  3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

  You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Christina Mautz, CMO and head of sales at Moz, joined me on the show. 

This is an interesting episode because Christina has that unique experience - a CMO that also heads up the sales team.

Christina's been a marketing executive at Amazon and Yahoo!, as well as a few Seattle VC-backed SaaS startups where she earned the nickname “Chief Problem Solver.”

Moz was founded in 2004, has ~170 people, and is based out of Seattle, WA with offices in Vancouver, BC and Cork, Ireland. They've raised Series C ($29.1M total).

Started by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig, Moz is a source of robust, reliable data, with accessible training and easy-to-use software to help SEOs. The folks at Moz believe there's a better way to do marketing. A more valuable way where customers are earned rather than bought.

Here's what we hit on:

“Customers are earned rather than bought” - what does that mean;

Quick pitch on Moz - why you exist, who you’re for (what segments are most popular), problems you solve;

SEO is not dead, but it’s changing. You can’t just write blog posts and expect to rank high in search. Ranking on Google is hard, especially for startups. Reaching your target audience through other channels like social media can be faster. What’s Christina's advice?

Christina joined 3 years ago - what stage was the company in with their marketing back then, and what was her team working on back then vs. focused on now;

What does Christina's (marketing) team look like;

I asked Christina to explain how she's both CMO and head of sales - how does that work? (HINT: very well);

We talked about MQLs and SALs and what's effective for shortening the sales cycle.

You can find Christina on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christinamautz

Find out more about Moz: www.moz.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I had the pleasure of welcoming Nairi Hourdajian (VP of Communications, Content and Community Marketing at Figma) to the show. Nairi is also the founding member of All Raise (programs to accelerate the success of female founders and funders to build a more prosperous, equitable future). She has held marketing leadership roles at Canaan (early stage VC firm) and Uber.

Figma was founded in 2012, has 550 people, and is based out of San Francisco, CA. They've raised Series E funding ($332.9M total). Figma is a design platform for teams who build products together. Customers include Slack, Twitter, DropBox, Square, AirBnB, Netflix, Zoom, Uber, and more.

Here's what we hit on:

Figma’s Marketing team, what are the different groups, who and how many people on your team;

How does your team integrate campaigns together across other teams within Marketing? Internal communications - how do you make sure the whole company knows and is excited about what you’re working on? What processes are in place (HINT: preview those BIG initiatives internally first, this gets people excited and talking which is more leverage for your company);

Your 2022 Marketing Plan. How are you thinking about and splitting your budget for content and community;

To build your content/community, what marketing channels are you leaning into;

What specific content are you leaning into;

What have you learned from your expert designers so far;

You're an expert in PR. Tell me about your experience with PR, what has changed, what has stayed the same? What are startups doing wrong with their PR efforts (HINT: if you’re the PR head at your startup, tell it straight to your founder "here’s what’s possible, here’s what’s not");

What are your thoughts on building a brand successfully for early stage vs. for later stage startups? What tends to happen and what should be done instead (HINT: your website is a channel and it's worth taking a beat to really think about your positioning, where you fit in the competitive landscape, what kind of response from customers are you looking for, that foundational brand work, what is the core narrative, what is the brand promise);

What are your top marketing challenges? (HINT: make sure there's philosophical alignment at your company around ROI from brand marketing efforts);

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with.

You can reach Nairi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nairi-tashjian-hourdajian-37601411/

Find out more about Figma: https://www.figma.com/

Check out the Figma store: https://store.figma.com/

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

Josh Lowman (CCO and Founder at Gold Front) joined me on the show for the second time for this BONUS episode. Check out Ep. 84 “What I've Learned From Category Designing 50+ Startups” where Josh shares how he's helped startups like Robinhood, Newsela, Uber, Bizzabo, and Clari create and own their category.

In this episode:

Why we leave happiness out of the business equation;

Why happiness matters;

Josh shares two mind tools that can help;

Tying it back to category design (HINT: the world is telling us to be reasonable);

Josh and I category design my own business.

You can find Josh on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/joshlowman

Learn more about Gold Front: www.goldfront.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing and advising for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠

2. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠⁠

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello >> ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Here’s what we cover:

• Why’d you decide to go product-led;

• Why’d you decide to go freemium vs. free trial (HINT: buyer-focused);

• What were the main steps to get there;

• What were some stumbles and how did you fix;

• What was your launch plan;

• How many demos built on the free plan, and what % have converted to paid;

• What have you learned since launch.

Natalie on LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-marcotullio 

Raman on LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/raman-khanna

Navattic:www.navattic.com

For more content, subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Music by my talented daughter.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com

Jen Saxton, Founder and CEO of Tot Squad, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Here's what we covered:

Partnerships and relationships as a growth hack (versus paid ads);

Intriguing and funny founder's story on how the company got started;

The case for doing more of those things that you're passionate about on the job (versus not so much);

Growth that's dependent on marketplace liquidity (enough demand and enough supply);

Marketing strategy to help clear the noise, prioritize and create a structured approach;

When working with partners, give them your marketing materials (make sure it's meaningful to their audience);

Questioning your customer targeting assumptions based on traction signals coming from another direction;

COVID's impact on family dynamics - running a business, taking care of a toddler and another baby on the way.

Jen is Founder and CEO of Tot Squad, founded in 2010 and based out of Los Angeles (CA). They've raised $3.3M+ funding and the baby gear cleaning part of the business just got acquired this year! Tot Squad is a baby services marketplace that connects new parents with health, wellness and safety services like car seat installation, lactation consultants, sleep consultants and more. Tot Squad offers virtual and in-home consultations which can be purchased through Amazon and Walmart.com when buying a related baby product. Because every parent needs a squad!

You can find Jen on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jenbsaxton

Find out more about Tot Squad here: www.totsquad.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify podcasts (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

I asked Christopher Lochhead (3X Silicon Valley public company CMO) to come back and talk with me on the show about the things we did not get to cover last time, so here's round 2! Christopher makes content (podcasts, books, newsletters) for entrepreneurs and marketers with a different mind. He's got a newsletter called "Category Pirates" and podcasts (Follow Your Different, Lochhead On Marketing) and books (Play Bigger, Niche Down).

Last time he was on the show was last summer! Episode 44. We talked about “Why 98% Of Startups (And Marketers) Waste Their Time”, how companies that lead with category design are valued at 5x more, what makes a legendary entrepreneur, and how to explain category design to a 7-year old. This is still one of my most popular episodes.

In THIS episode we hit on:

Given all that's happening in the world, is this still an amazing time to be an entrepreneur; 

Some startup marketing leaders that have done it are saying you shouldn't create a category! Why are they saying this, what's your take;

What's the best way to scale your business fast (HINT: category design, understand the power of WOM and super consumer and having a strong POV);

How does one actually go about creating legendary content;

What's the difference between obvious vs. non-obvious content;

Why solopreneurs (versus corporate) are actually really good at putting out great content;

How to generate non-obvious ideas.

You can reach Christopher on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christopherlochhead/

Check out the website: www.categorypirates.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things.

You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing

Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Nikolaus Volk, co-founder and CEO of Kyte, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Here's what we covered:

How the Kyte team formed in 2019 and is already onto their second round of funding (wow!);

How they've been able to achieve 20-40% MoM growth;

Their sharp focus on retaining current customers through paid search, paid social, PR, email reactivation, and partnerships;

Exciting opportunities with business travel for next year;

Challenges with figuring out the Kyte-specific brand DNA;

Challenges with multi-touch marketing and long-term strategy;

The making of the (scrappy and fun) surfer video - you need to check it out here;

The power of story and how Nikolaus is investing in himself to nail Kyte's story internally and with their target audience.

Nikolaus is co-founder of Kyte, founded in 2019 and based out of San Francisco (CA). Prior to Kyte, Nikolaus was an engineer at Uber. They've raised $3.8M+ in funding so far, and are about to close another round! What is Kyte? Glad you asked. Let’s say you don’t want to buy/own a car. Kyte gives you easy access to cars on demand. Rental cars delivered to your door. Kind of like ordering food, but instead you’re ordering a car.

You can find Nikolaus on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nikolaus-volk

Find out more about Kyte here: www.drivekyte.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify podcasts (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Final full episode of 2022!! Hope you've been having a wonderful holiday season and Happy (almost) New Year!

I asked Will Allred (co-founder & COO at Lavender) to join me for this episode and cover some good ole' sales topics that may be top of mind for folks going into 2023. Will is a LinkedIn Top Sales Voice (47K+ followers). Prior to Lavender, Will was co-founder and COO at Sorter and prior to that he was Senior Associate at TopRight, a marketing consulting firm.

Lavender was founded in 2020 and based out of NYC. They've got 8 people on the team and hiring for 2 more marketing roles. Lavender is the #1 sales email assistant. Write better emails, get more replies. 9.9/10 on G2 with 10k+ users.

Here's what we hit on:

Let's start with your website, that homepage header banner (play-doh wizard, listeners please go check it out) it's amazing, who came up with that and how's the performance of your website (HINT: our website converts 15-20% of all traffic);

What’s the biggest but not as widely known mistake salespeople make when they write outbound emails;

You’re PLG-focused so what’s been working really well for you for growth, how do you increase the chances of spreading WOM.

You can find Will on LinkedIn.

Find out more about Lavender.

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

This episode is also sponsored by Riverside, your online recording studio. Visit Riverside.fm to learn more and use the code HOLIDAYS22 for a 30% discount on your subscription.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I'll make you chuckle/smile/both guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This was a fun interview I had with Kap Chatfield, Host of the B2B Podcasting podcast.

In this episode, Kap and I talk about:

Marketing needs a mindset shift to evolve in today’s digital age;

How to find your ICP (ideal customer profile) and what questions to ask;

Most common marketing problems that I hear from startup founders;

Biggest issues startups have with their marketing;

Why you should start your own thought leadership podcast;

Why storytelling is so important for startups;

How video clips from your podcast help you reach your target audience;

How your business will grow from the influence of your podcast.

Here's a link back to the original episode with the full transcript: https://blog.rveal.media/why-you-need-to-treat-your-startup-like-a-media-powerhouse-with-anna-furmanov

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com. Anna's monthly newsletter: subscribe by going here: https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

Thanks for listening!

Anna McVeigh-Murphy, Marketing Manager at Curacubby, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Curacubby was founded in 2016, has 20 people, and is based out of Berkeley, CA. They are seed funded and preparing to raise Series A. Curacubby is an integrated business and payments platform for schools of all sizes. School management shouldn’t be a headache. With Curacubby, schools can focus less on administrative tasks and more on the students. Hurray!

We covered:

How to prove your company’s expertise through podcasting;

How podcasting directly impacts followers on social media;

Marketing = relationship-building and providing value through education;

Being hired as the first marketer at a 20-person startup with a clean slate - what do you start doing;

Who else do you bring onto your marketing team;

How to use email marketing with a lean team;

Being impatient (to 10x your growth) is normal when you’re at a startup;

How COVID has impacted Curacubby's audience targeting and their product roadmap;

The concept of giving value, building trust, and growing your audience before you ask them to do something;

How to think about differentiating your company and offerings in a cluttered market;

Feeling stuck in your marketing role and what to do next (including a mindset shift).

You can find Anna M. on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/anna-lillian-murphy

Find out more about Curacubby: www.curacubby.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna F. on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

When I asked Tyler to join me on the show, I thought I was bringing on a marketing leader from a video company (true) but I was also bringing on an amateur comedian, plus video expert, plus all around great personality and person to talk with!

Tyler Lessard is VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard (8+ years). Prior, Tyler was CMO at Fixmo (a mobile security startup) and held leadership roles at Blackberry (10+ years).

Vidyard was founded in 2011 and has 300+ people. They've raised $75.7M total funding. Vidyard is virtual sales made human. The easiest way to create, host, and share videos so you can keep connecting with customers and colleagues.

Here's what we hit on:

How has being an amateur comedian helped shape your career as a marketer (HINT: only use comedy if you're selling to humans);

What are your top customers doing with video (HINT: LinkedIn is where ADULTS watch TikToks);

Where do people go wrong with creating video content as part of their marketing strategy;

Your marketing strategy during this downturn - where are you putting your dollars, where are you spending time and energy (HINT: we're investing more in PLG programs and growing our base of users);

What marketing channels and content are you leaning into;

Top marketing challenges;

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with;

What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022.

You can reach Tyler on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tylerlessard/

Find out more about Vidyard: www.vidyard.com/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:  

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com  

2. (NEW) GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/   

3. (NEW) Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Happy Passover!

In my work with early stage startups, I've seen some of the ways that they approach their content strategies. Sometimes there's structure, but usually it's all over the place. It's not their fault, though. I haven't really seen any visual diagrams that would help startup founders and marketing teams build this out. Nothing too fancy, but at least some kind of easy to use, systematic approach that brings it all together. 

So I brought on Erin Balsa to help hash this out. Erin Balsa is Founder of Haus of Bold where she builds and executes content marketing strategies for B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions.

If you want to see the Content Strategy Canvas, you can now because I wrote up an article to show you.

We also cover:

AMA: Erin asks me her burning question which I will answer in the next BONUS episode.

You can find Erin on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/erinbalsa

Haus of Bold: hausofbold.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building and how it's going >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Hope you're having a meaningful Memorial Day if you're in the US.

Sam Dunning (Founder at Breaking B2B) asked me to come onto his podcast "Breaking B2B" via a live session where we talk about the top deadly B2B startup marketing sins, how to avoid them, practical advice you can use right away, and we answer an audience question.

Check out more of Breaking B2B: www.breakingb2b.com

Here's the full video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRBg1qG3XjI

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠

Gaetano DiNardi is the Growth Advisor for 10 B2B startups. Something you may not know about him is that he spent 5 years as a music producer & songwriter in NYC.

I first learned about Gaetano back in 2020 when he was doing Demand Gen Live sessions with Chris Walker. What I love about his content on LinkedIn is that it’s not fluffy and he's honestly trying to be helpful.

We cover:

Gaetano's past life as a music producer and songwriter;

The MaaS Method (Marketing as a System) has 10 steps, or 3 parts. What do you think early stage startups should focus on out of these 3 parts;

Define lead gen vs. demand gen and pitfalls you see with lead gen strategies;

Advice for early stage startups that are prioritizing SEO as part of their content strategy;

AMA: Gaetano asks me his burning question.

Find Gaetano on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/officialg

His website: https://officialgaetano.com

Link to the LI posts I mentioned in this episode: This post and This post

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcast.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

You can and should do voice of the customer research at your startup, ongoing.  

Ongoing, because things change pretty quickly in the world, and you want to have a good pulse on what's happening in the world of your target audience.  

In this episode I spoke with Nicholas Scalice, host of the top-rated Growth Marketing Toolbox podcast, on the topic.  Nicholas and I talked about the process to use to better understand your target audience including: 

What is voice of the customer research;

How to collect feedback (I created a resource for you that's linked below);

What questions matter;

How the process works for B2B and B2C;

Tools for conducting better customer interviews;

Where companies go wrong.

Here's a link to the playbook I wrote for you to use, including the questions google doc: https://furmanovmarketing.com/playbooks/use-these-6-steps-to-build-personas-like-a-boss

Here's a link to where you can find more info: https://growthmarketingtoolbox.com/anna-furmanov-customer-research/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

These episodes are pretty popular, which tells me that folks are lovin' the series, so let's keep this going! Sprinkling in another episode for the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back top startup founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022.

I get questions from startups about this a lot (especially as the marketing landscape has changed so much throughout the pandemic) so I know this is on people's minds. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, resources and so much more.

Kristina Simonson is Director of Demand Gen at Privy. Prior to that she was at Wordstream managing full-funnel marketing and sales results.

I’ve had Privy on before, Episode 55 - Dan Murphy, VP of Marketing at Privy. We talked about TikTok! Listen to that episode too.

Privy was founded in 2011, has 94 people, and is based out of Boston. Funding: Series A ($4.3M total). Privy is the leader in e-commerce marketing. Email & SMS for online brands that need the tools & coaching to grow sales. Privy is used by over 600,000 stores in 180 countries today, helping to generate $6B in sales. WOA.

Here's what we cover:

What does Demand Gen mean at Privy? (HINT: top of funnel + full funnel);

Privy's 2022 Marketing Plan - what's your budget split? (HINT: a big focus on plugging gaps, not just bringing in more);

What marketing channels are you leaning into;

How we're thinking about using TikTok strategically;

What content are you leaning into (HINT: working with influencers, building on our podcast);

How does the podcast help to impact your funnel;

Who's on the marketing team now and how will you plan to build out resources;

Anything else that's unique about your plan;

Some goals that Kristina wants to accomplish this year, both personal and professional.

You can reach Kristina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinasimonson/

Find out more about Privy: https://www.privy.com/

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Alright, folks. People that know me know that I'm a super, duper positive person. But sometimes? It's OK to vent a little!

So, if you want to come join me (and Sergey) vent on some marketing topics, we'd love to have you. Take a little break, grab a cup of coffee.

Sergey works on podcast and video production at Crowdlinker. He's also the host of the Media Camp podcast plus he's building out his Youtube channel (SRE Live).

Here's what we're venting about in this short episode:

People telling you to get on ALL the social media (pshhhhhhhh);

People that are not marketers by trade telling you what to do;

CEOs that don’t get marketing (they typically get sales…so what’s the difference?);

Just because you like it or understand it, doesn’t mean your target buyer does;

Having to work under someone that doesn’t get marketing.

You can find Sergey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergeyrosslive/ 

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

This episode is also sponsored by PDCflow, payment management made easy. Visit ⁠pdcflow.com/flow-billing⁠ to learn more.

Brad Pedersen is Co-Founder and Chairman at Lomi and Pela. We're focusing on Lomi in this episode (B2C). I always get so many takeaways from talking to B2C startups that I can carry over into B2B, and that's why I love this convo.

About Lomi:

• Founded: 2022
• Funding: crowdfunding using Indiegogo ($7.2M!) and then got VC backed
• Description: electronic device which turn your food scraps, organic waste, compostable packaging and home bioplastics into compost (plant food); they've already shipped 20,000+ units

In this episode:

Why does story matter with your marketing;

How to listen for the problem your customers actually want to hear about;

What is marketing and why does it work;

Why do superfans love Lomi and how do you further leverage that to create more superfans;

What can B2B early stage startups learn from the way that Lomi approaches marketing;

AMA - Brad asks me his burning question.

You can find Brad on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-pedersen-77075012/

Check out his book coming out in November: https://startupsantabook.com/

Learn more about Lomi: https://lomi.com/

Learn more about Pela: https://pelacase.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! I would love that so much.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠

3. ⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Time for another solo episode! This one's fast but packs a punch. I started creating TikTok videos weekly and posting them to LinkedIn and so far it's going well and I love how it takes just 4 minutes to record, add a title, and add captions and do it all myself. Talk about scrappy AND engaging. Video works, ya'll. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast.

In this quick episode, I cover my conversation with someone I know at a super cool VC firm that helps his portfolio of companies with marketing and growth. He said something and at first I was offended, and then I realized there's some nuance that needs to be unpacked and I do it right here.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com and you can also subscribe to Anna's monthly newsletter by going here: https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

Thanks for listening!

To all my US listeners, Happy 4th of July 🎉🎉

I first heard Jay Acunzo speak on Mark Schaefer’s podcast Marketing Companion and have been following him ever since. Jay says "Don't market more. Matter more." I agree so so so much with that statement.

Jay is a content entrepreneur, host of the podcast Unthinkable, writes the weekly newsletter Playing Favorites, author of the book Break the Wheel, and develops podcasts and docuseries for B2B brands. In his prior lives, Jay worked in marketing and media roles at Google, HubSpot, ESPN, and the VC firm NextView.

Ann Handley (CCO at MarketingProfs and bestselling author of Everybody Writes) says about Jay: “You can go ahead and create more content. Or you can create something special that stirs hearts and engages minds. If you are the kind of person who wants your work to really matter, listen to Jay. He’ll be your perfect guide.”

Here's what we hit on:

Resonance is today’s top marketing skill - tell me why this is so important today;

The art of storytelling - how to write stories that people connect with emotionally, and can you share your specific process;

How do you measure what resonates;

Great marketing is not about who arrives...it's about who stays;

How to tie storytelling concepts to the startup world, how can marketers level up (HINT: marketers create a lot of stuff but it’s not gripping);

How Lessonly and Kyle Lacy developed an original POV;

Why being their favorite makes you completely change-proof;

How do we tie storytelling back to ROI and revenue, how do we know we're really good at it;

Intuition should lead and data should course correct;

What are your top challenges, what are you trying to figure out;

Goals (personal/professional) for 2022.

You can reach Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/

Check out his website: https://jayacunzo.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

I recently spoke with Nadia Masri, founder and CEO at Perksy (for 6+ years). Prior to that, she was co-founder and CMO at foursixty (a digital marketing platform for e-commerce retailers).

She's Forbes 30 Under 30. She's CNBC's Top 100. She's also a TEDx Speaker. And now, she's building the next gen of consumer insights.

Perksy was founded in 2015, has 24 people, and is based out of NYC. It's a next-gen market intelligence platform that leverages the power of mobile to drive real-time insights from hyper targeted, hyperlocal audiences of Millennials & Gen-Z. With their mobile-first surveys, your company can drive research with younger audiences at unprecedented scale. Customers include Airbnb, Pepsi, and Ogilvy.

Here's what we hit on:

There are other players. How do you successfully differentiate your company + solution in your space;

Your customers NOW believe you're high-quality (because they became your customers), but how do you actually use that knowledge as part of your marketing efforts for new prospects that "won't believe it until they see it";

What are some big and important marketing/content trends you're seeing today (HINT: trends are not as important as knowing who your customer is and where they spend their time);

Tell me more about Perksy's "COVID 19 Pulse" (HINT: internal data that tripled their business during COVID);

What marketing channels are working the best for Perksy right now (HINT: the focus is on organic, and we take a very human approach to marketing, so being on podcasts and speaking on stage is a big part of it, content also plays a big part);

What are some bad recommendations you've heard floating around that relate to startups and marketing?

You can reach Nadia on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nadiagenevievemasri

Find out more about Perksy: www.getperksy.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

When I say "no fridge needed and 90 second convenience" what comes to mind? Well soon, my friend, you will be seeing Proper Good everywhere.

I invited Christopher Jane, co-founder and CEO at Proper Good, to talk about his delicious company and what they're working on with their marketing efforts. Prior, Christopher was co-founder and CEO at Montana Mex (clean label seasonings, sauces and oils carried by Whole Foods, H-E-B, Albertsons and more).

Proper Good was founded in 2020, is based out of Austin (TX) and has raised Seed funding ($1.5M). Proper Good is 90-second tasty meals with clean ingredients delivered direct to your door. Check out their keto, vegan & low-calorie options. I tried 'em and they're tasty!

Here's what we hit on:

Proper Good was on Shark Tank! How'd it go? (HINT: got a lot of interest from just the viewership but also a lot happened AFTER the show aired);

How'd you come up with that name, what's the backstory;

2022 Marketing Plan - budget, channels, resources (HINT: reduced spend on Insta and FB, increased spend on sampling and top of funnel);

How's TikTok working out for you;

What types of content are you leaning into (HINT: simple and focused messaging, customer reviews and testimonials, and emotional messaging);

Who's your competition (HINT: competition really "lifts all boats");

We grew 400-500% in 2021 with the same base team, who's on the team;

What are your top marketing challenges;

What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: it involves food donations and creating an enormous flywheel effect);

Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022;

How new product innovation works at Proper Good (HINT: we have a private Slack channel for feedback and our Broccoli Cheddar has been revised 5X over 2 years!

You can reach Christopher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisofthejane/

Find out more about Proper Good: https://eatpropergood.com/

For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Hello listeners! I love love love bringing on early stage startups onto the show and Gated is no exception. The thing I love about Gated's team is that they're small and nimble and they ooze good marketing from their bones.

Andy Mowat is co-founder and CEO (Chief Email Officer!) at Gated. Prior to Gated, Andy was VP of GTM Ops and Growth Marketing at Culture Amp (Series F employee engagement SaaS, he was there 4+ years) where he drove 10X growth in ARR, and prior to that he led marketing and customer success at Box.

Gated was founded in 2020 and has raised Seed funding ($3.3M total). Gated is noise canceling headphones for email. You get too many junk emails. Gated is a free solution that challenges unknown senders to donate in order to reach you.

Here's what we hit on:

Gated is a free tool and the way you make money is you’re getting a cut from those that donate - how are you growing users;

You’ve got a podcast called "Finding Focus" - why’d you start it and what's your goal with it (HINT: our vision is broader than just email, it's about defending your attention);

Looking ahead at your 2023 Marketing Plan, where are you putting your dollars;

What are your top marketing challenges right now (HINT: we are trying to change behaviors which is difficult);

What are 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team have been rolling with.

You can find Andy on LinkedIn or send him an email (no, really): andy@gated.com 

Find out more about Gated.

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I'll make you chuckle/smile/both guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

In this episode I was interviewed by Tristan Pelligrino, host of Recorded Content and co-founder of Motion, about a hidden treasure that’s within every podcast episode – beyond just the audio file.

A podcast provides a way to have amazing conversations. And it also provides a way to present raw & unfiltered thoughts through solo episodes.
But that’s as far as most podcasters go. B2B podcasters don’t realize there’s often a hidden treasure within every episode – beyond just the audio file.

Here's what we hit on:

Your unique voice is what makes your marketing "modern";

Talking is an essential part of business strategy, and podcasts are a good way of starting to hear yourself;

How and why I decided to start this podcast;

Startups start with the marketing activity that they’re supposed to do, like ‘we need to get blog posts up. Look at the competition. They’ve got tons of blog posts up. We need to be on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter. We need to do ads.’ This is a problem and here's what to do instead;

Podcasts with guests are different from the ones you do solo;

Creativity is important, but there should be a system behind it;

Companies spend a lot of time updating their website, but for digital to work, you have to be everywhere where your target audience hangs out.

Here's a link to where you can find more info and clips: https://motionagency.io/episode/sharing-your-point-of-view-in-solo-podcast-episodes-with-anna-furmanov/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

***This was my most engaging LinkedIn post across 2 years of posts***

Time for another solo episode! I started creating TikTok videos and posting them to LinkedIn. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast.

People asking me: “Anna, does your podcast drive leads?"

Me: “No."

People: "Then WHY are you doing it??"

Most people think about marketing in terms of "will this get me leads" (lead gen)

Few think about marketing in terms of "will this be really good content for my target audience"

And then there's the trickle down effect.

Bc if you have really good content for your target audience

then they will be more likely to want to know, like and trust you

they'll refer people over to watch/listen to your stuff

they'll refer people over to work with you

A podcast is just part of it

Can be a podcast, events, webinars, unique internal data, etc.

Most of it is HOW you'll develop high-quality content that stands out bc you have a unique POV you want to share out that your target audience cares about

Most of it is your strategy.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

I was asked to join a panel for Riverside's event "Content Repurposing: Turn 1 Conversation Into a Full Content Calendar" along with Emily Kramer (MKT1) and Ross Simmonds (Foundation Marketing). 1900 people registered! Really fun conversation and great group.

We discuss:

• What to consider before creating content with repurposing in mind

• Step-by-step how to recycle and repurpose your content
• Which posts and methods have worked best
• The tools and automations to use for repurposing
• How to decide when, where and what to publish
• and more

See the video version here: https://riverside.fm/webinars/content-repurposing-turn-1-conversation-into-a-full-content-calendar

For more content, subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Music by my talented daughter.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com

I got connected to David through Gidi Pridor (Workvivo) who I super respect, David and Gidi both worked at TravelPerk and Gidi raved about David so of course I wanted to bring him onto the show.

(Check out Ep. 146 where I talk to Gidi about why many startups stop being exciting too early and the advantages of hiring a Creative Director early. Workvivo just got acquired by Zoom.)

David Hooker is Brand Lead at Printify. Prior, David was Head of B2B Content at Gett (a Series F startup). David also built Prezi’s Evangelism and Creative Services teams and he built the Brand and PR function at TravelPerk.

About Printify:

• Founded 2015
• Funding: Series A ($54.1M total according to Crunchbase)
• Description: Create and sell custom products. The tech platform that's made it possible for millions to become global entrepreneurs selling high-quality merch online.

In this episode we talk about:

What does “creative” mean to you;

Top 1-2 creative marketing ideas at Printify;

What makes for an awesome Creative Director / Head of Brand;

What’s your advice for startups that want to push more on the creative side.

You can find David on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/hookerdj

Check out Printify >> https://printify.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Michael Klozotsky, CMO at IMO, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

We covered:

How storytelling makes the marketer's work authentic;

On team building and starting from a place of care;

How to swim downstream with your marketing when others are swimming upstream;

How to ensure your MQLs are quality leads that the sales team will follow up with;

How sales and marketing can become successful partners in crime;

Marketing simplicity will allow you to more easily shift and steer your ship;

How marketers will need to think about engaging buyers differently going into 2021;

Using ABM to approach key decision-makers;

How to systematically make the time to be creative.

Michael is CMO at IMO (www.imohealth.com). IMO is based out of Chicago, IL with ~270 employees. IMO received significant investment from Warburg Pincus (PE firm) and leading U.S. health systems in 2016. They've developed the most widely-accepted medical terminology solution for the management of medical vocabularies and software applications at healthcare organizations worldwide.

You can find Michael on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelklozotsky

Find out more about IMO here: www.imohealth.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify podcasts (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

*Hey listeners, quick note that the audio on my side for this one is wonky - sorry about that! Technical snag but we figured it out.*

Patrick Campbell is CEO at ProfitWell. Prior to ProfitWell, Patrick led Strategic Initiatives for Boston based Gemvara and was an Economist at Google and the US Intelligence community (very cool).

ProfitWell was founded in 2012, has 83 people, and is based out of Boston, MA.

And get this - it's completely bootstrapped. Wow.

ProfitWell helps recurring revenue (SaaS + subscription + DTC) businesses with their monetization and retention strategies. All of the metrics you need to grow your subscription business.

Here's what we hit on:

What does marketing mean to you? (HINT: Patrick's a math guy and actually changed his mind about this over time);

Big marketing/content trends that startups need to be aware of (HINT: here's where we talk about the difference between inbound marketing and inbound media and why the media strategy is more effective);

What marketing were you doing in the early days to grow the company;

What marketing channels are working well for you right now (HINT: we cover their content strategy, podcasts, videos, books, thought leadership etc.);

How adding video + audio to their pillar blog posts increased audience engagement;

How creating short books allows the ProfitWell team to make sure they have their talking points around the problem their target audience faces, plus helps evangelize the thought leadership inside and outside the team;

How does ProfitWell create so many shows with just 83 people?? (HINT: one of the ways is they shoot 1 season in 1 day);

We talk about events, specifically how can we do 100 dinners a year and not want to die (HINT: the team cracked the code right before COVID on how to do successful events and personalized dinners, and it involves thinking about what are the plays we’re doing to drive traffic to our booth and to our event);

How did Patrick's experience as Economist at the US Department of Defense help in his future roles;

Patrick wrapped a van with the ProfitWell logo and copy, and now he's going to drive it around the country to test if people are willing to meet up and also use this for content creation + awareness building. Super cool!

You can reach Patrick on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/patrickccampbell

Find out more about ProfitWell: www.profitwell.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Rob Singer, CMO at Remitly, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Remitly was founded in 2011, they've raised Series F (just raised another $85M July 2020), and have ~900 people.

Remitly is a fintech company that leverages digital channels, including mobile phones, to send money internationally. There are millions of immigrants around the world that make the huge sacrifice of leaving their families behind to live and work in another country. Remitly is helping them send money across borders.

Here’s what we covered:

Rob's experience joining and growing companies during key inflection points;

How getting traction across geographies shook up the marketing team's structure;

What marketing channels worked well for getting traction early stage;

Architecting the marketing team for scale;

How Rob leads marketing at 900+ people company (HINT: includes a daily morning spreadsheet update and hiring phenomenal people);

Rob's background in marketing (HINT: his first job as a marketer was straight to CMO);

As CMO, you're the head of HR for marketing - hire, retain and engage world class talent;

As CMO, you're helping the team stay focused and prioritize;

Rob's experience and advice when the data tells you an incomplete story;

Rob's magic spreadsheet - exactly what does he track and update every morning??;

How to measure and think about CAC across geographies;

Marketing channels working well today;

Transitioning from an app-first to an app company;

From static marketing to video creative to cut through the noise;

Positioning the brand around 'peace of mind';

Marketing is analytics + connection + emotion;

Rob's personal opinion on building brand early stage (including his experience at Ancestry.com);

Rob's advice on how to approach marketing early stage vs. later stage companies;

Rob's approach to staffing (e.g. early stage use boutique agencies as your marketing team).

You can find Rob on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rob-singer-313131/

Find out more about Remitly: www.remitly.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I asked Tyler Lessard to come back on the show and jam with me some more because their marketing approach is super creative and as you know, I'm pushing more into creativity and marketing innovation for Season 3. Welcome back Tyler Lessard! (check out Ep. 115 “Why You Need To Hire A TikTok Creator Instead of Another Writer” if ya haven't yet).

Tyler is VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard (he's been there 8+ years). Prior, Tyler was CMO at Fixmo (a mobile security startup) and held leadership roles at Blackberry (10+ years).

Vidyard was founded in 2011, has 300+ people, and has raised $75.7M total. Vidyard is virtual sales made human. The easiest way to create, host, and share videos so you can keep connecting with customers and colleagues.

Here's what we hit on:

What does “creative” mean to you (HINT: it requires stepping back from our day to day status quo and it requires that we be intentional);

Some cool creative approaches and experiments at Vidyard over the years (HINT: random creative concepts can become big results);

How do you sell the CEO on the creative stuff;

How to infuse creativity into your demand-led marketing programs plus those things that just seem interesting;

How are startups doing on the creative meter, are they experimenting enough (HINT: Tyler is optimistic here);

Why highly resonant content has a niche content focus and how startups should leverage this.

You can find Tyler on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Vidyard.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Amy Volas, founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners, joined me on the show. She's such a fun lady.

Amy helps startups hire sales leaders without the cringe. Amy has been a sales leader at ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and Yahoo! She has personally closed $100MM+ in revenue (and counting). She's got 70+ recommendations on LinkedIn. Woah.

Amy also co-hosts the #1 weekly virtual sales happy hour (Thursday Night Sales).

This is a marketing podcast. Why am I bringing on Amy Volas, sales rockstar, on the show? Well, my experience has shown that Marketing + Sales is SUPER intertwined. Marketers need to understand how sales works (and vice versa) in order to accomplish business growth. Personally, after starting my own business, I’ve been straddling both marketing AND sales and it’s becoming almost a blur. Like I’m doing marketing, but I’m also getting customers. So I must be selling otherwise people wouldn’t know to buy. It's a natural progression. What I have realized over time (and as we move more into digital) is that there is no buyer journey anymore. I've been asking founders and marketing leaders the same question and they have a hard time pinpointing exactly what journey their buyers take before they become a customer. There are many different steps, and the point is to be there with the right content to help build the relationship and the trust.

Here's what we hit on:

What does sales mean to you, what does marketing mean to you;

How has sales changed over the last 10 years;

How is growth in digital impacting sales;

What are the big problems you're seeing that your customers have, and what's your advice;

What kind of sales leader (or team) do you need for Seed/Series A (earlier stage) vs. Series C+;

You’ve personally closed $100MM+ in revenue...what are top 3 things that you’ve done/learned to make this happen;

What’s working well for you right now at Avenue Talent Partners, in terms of sales + marketing strategies;

Top tips on growing LinkedIn followers (Amy has 43k+);

Top mistakes or failures and how that has impacted how you lead.

You can find Amy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/amyvolas

Find out more about Avenue Talent Partners: www.avenuetalentpartners.com

Link to join Thursday Night Sales: www.thursdaynightsales.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Jonathan Metrick, Chief Growth Officer (CGO) at Portage Ventures and Fractional CGO at Wealthsimple, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

Lots of gold nuggets shared in this episode because Jonathan brings the insights from both a VC firm and startup perspective on growth.

Portage Ventures is an early stage fintech investor, formed in 2016 and with a presence in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Europe and Southeast Asia. Wealthsimple is one of their portfolio companies.

Wealthsimple was founded in 2014, has ~500 people, and is based out of Toronto, CA. Wealthsimple is "investing on autopilot." They build you a personal, low-cost portfolio and put your money to work like the world’s smartest investors. Wealthsimple manages $8.4 billion and has more than 1.5 million users.

We hit on a lot of important topics, including:

Jonathan's marketing experience across brands (including P&G, Live Nation, Policygenius) and what he most enjoys about marketing and growth;

How emerging fintech companies should approach marketing, education and connecting with their users;

The need for brand + growth teams to be better integrated in order to differentiate and leave competitors in the dust;

New and emerging channels (like TikTok and Clubhouse) can help you get in front of your target buyers, cheaply;

How influencer marketing helps new brands explain themselves and build trust;

The importance of being clear about who you are and what you do so that your target audience connects with you;

Startup brands that are willing to test in new and emerging channels have a leg up over established brands;

Education and value creation as the main challenges to tackle within fintech;

How will consumer behavior evolve in another year or two, and making sure your marketing and growth efforts align;

Startup fundraising and advice from Jonathan (HINT: people really matters, here);

Jonathan's marketing and growth efforts for Portage Ventures.

You can find Jonathan on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanmetrick

Find out more about Portage Ventures: p3vc.com 

Find out more about Wealthsimple: www.wealthsimple.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Megan Bowen is COO at Refine Labs. If you don't know her, you're missing out because she's a smart, kind and genuine leader. Prior to Refine Labs, Megan was VP of Customer Success at Platterz, COO at Managed by Q, and held leadership roles at GrubHub and ZocDoc.

I’ve had MJ Peters, now at Refine Labs, on the show (Episode 9 - we talked a lot about voice of customer research and insights) and of course Chris Walker (Episode 35 - “over-prioritizing sales is your SaaS startup’s biggest mistake”). Now Megan!

Refine Labs is a demand accelerator for B2B SaaS companies. They help companies increase marketing’s contribution to qualified pipeline and revenue while lowering CAC.

Here's what we talk about: 

Customer onboarding, success, retention is SO important but often we create our marketing plan and we leave that part out, we’re so focused on creating awareness and acquiring new customers. What does strong customer success look like for an early stage startup (HINT: it's NOT customer support);

When is the best time to hire a dedicated customer success person or team (HINT: as soon as you have customers);

Who should you hire (HINT: Megan shares a framework for building your team);

What are the most common pitfalls when it comes to customer onboarding/success;

How to ensure customer success + sales + marketing + product is fully aligned, and on what things do they need to align on;

What does Customer Success look like at Refine Labs (HINT: we've recently revamped our onboarding);

Megan embraces a “human-first” leadership approach - what does this mean and what are top 1-2 leadership lessons to share;

What are some goals Megan wants to accomplish (personal, professional) this year.

You can reach Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganwhitebowen/

Find out more about Refine Labs: www.refinelabs.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen).

You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

I asked Jay Acunzo to join me (again) on the show because he's a writer and content creator and I believe that we (startup marketers) can learn a lot from people that focus on creative work.

Jay is a writer, podcast host, speaker, and lifelong storyteller on a mission to help you make what matters most. Here's what Jay is up to:

• Host of the podcast Unthinkable
• Newsletter “Playing Favorites” that's helping people push themselves creatively
• Co-Founder of the Creator Kitchen, a membership program helping people push themselves creatively 

Prior, Jay worked in marketing and media roles at Google, HubSpot, ESPN, and VC firm NextView.

Also check out Ep. 99 “What Does It Really Take To Resonate With People?” where we talk about resonance as a top marketing skill, how to write stories that people connect with emotionally, why great marketing is not about who arrives but rather about who stays, how to tie storytelling concepts to the startup world and how can marketers level up (HINT: marketers create a lot of stuff but it’s not gripping).

In this episode we cover:

What does “creativity” mean to you;

Some of the unfortunate impacts of tools like ChatGPT on content creation (HINT: AI is just your intern);

You should care about the results from your content but you also need a space to get better;

Where do many people get stuck in the creative process and what to do about it;

How can marketers bring more of themselves into the work that they’re putting out;

What are you reading and listening to;

Jay asks me his burning question.

You can find Jay on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo

Check out his website >> https://jayacunzo.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I’ve cracked the nut on exactly what early stage startups need help with from a marketing and business perspective, and I wanted to share it with you in this episode. I built a systematic approach, and what’s cool is I can use the system I’ve built over and over in many different contexts.

For example:

• client work
• GrowthMentor calls
• friend calls
• VC calls
• accelerator workshops
• EdTech GTM bootcamp sessions
• high school presentations (yep, I’ve done this a couple times too)

I always wanted to “productize” my knowledge. So now I’ve got a product and it's called Marketing as a System (MaaS). I just want more early stage startups to apply this system as they're building their companies. Because the results will be MaaSive. Yea. I did that.

Here is MaaS in a nutshell:

1. Voice of customer research
2. Marketing foundation deck
3. Keyword research
4. Brand/design guide
5. Mood boards
6. Homepage wireframe with copy
7. Homepage design
8. Other website pages
9. Case studies
10. GTM strategy
11. GTM execution

In this episode, I dive into each part of the system.

This episode is sponsored by 43North, a seed-stage startup accelerator that's on the hunt for its next cohort. This year, 43North will make five $1 million dollar investments, each at 5% equity. Visit 43North.org to learn more. Applications close on June 23rd, so get on it!

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA

Sarah Breathnach works with early stage SaaS companies to build a strong marketing foundation for fast growth. She's currently Head of Demand Generation at Hunters. Prior, Sarah was Demand Generation Lead at Tamr, a SaaS startup backed by Google Ventures and others that has raised $69.2M. I happened to stumble upon Sarah while listening to her speak in a recorded webinar and thought "woah, I gotta bring her on the show."

Hunters is a Series C ($118.4M total) security tech startup based out of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Here's what we hit on:

Generating leads versus generating demand - what’s the big difference between the two and the big "aha!" for startups, why can’t you do both;

People think you need a big team and lots of money to generate demand - how many people do you really need and how much money do you really need;

What are some smart ways to approach demand generation when you’re lean and have a small budget (HINT: focus on the innovators and risk-takers);

We setup "kiosks" at trade shows and events to find out if we were selling to the right person;

How did marketing help 5X revenue (HINT: early on marketing built those important foundations);

Why we decided to focus on the "2 opportunities goal" from any demand generation effort we did;

Top marketing channels for Hunters;

From Chris Walker (CEO at Refine Labs): "It’s time to get out of the tech. Top marketing teams will be talking with customers every week and leaning into marketing fundamentals.” Are we too much in the tech and not enough in the fundamental, foundational marketing work;

Sarah asks me her burning question "what is the hardest thing about being a marketer today."

You can find Sarah on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbreathnach/

Find out more about Hunters: www.hunters.ai/

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review.

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Obaid Durrani is Head of Content at HockeyStack. He's also Creator Advisor at Cognism (a Series C startup) and he's the co-host of the Cheat Codes podcast with Todd Clouser who I also had on the show (check out Ep. 148).

Prior, Obaid was Associate Creative Director at Refine Labs. Prior to that he bootstrapped a 5-person content + animation team to $420k ARR.

In this episode we cover:

What does “creative” mean to you;

When Todd was on the show with me (Ep. 148) he talked about 3 content types. Can you help me understand what else is part of your "Easy Mode" framework to build a marketing content engine;

Top 1-2 creative marketing ideas from your past experience;

Where do you get your creative ideas.

You can find Obaid on LinkedIn >> www.linkedin.com/in/obaid-khan-durrani

Check out HockeyStack >> https://hockeystack.com

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

It’s the last podcast episode of 2022! I just wanted to say thanks for listening, thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate you.

In this episode I'm also sharing where I'm taking the show for Season 3 (I've already started recording episodes that I can't wait to share with ya'll).

Season 1 and 2 I brought on startup founders, marketing and sales leaders to explore brand, demand, what approaches work well, challenges and category design. For Season 3 we’re going deep into messy creative experiments, marketing innovation, pushing boundaries, how to make creativity achievable at a growing startup, why it’s so important today, balancing creativity with results, and how to sell the CEO on the creative stuff. I’ll also talk to creatives like artists and writers to understand their approach to creativity and what we can learn + apply to marketing at our startups.

Happy New Year and I hope you get to enjoy some good old fashioned down-time before we jump right back into things next year!

This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months.

This episode is also sponsored by Riverside, your online recording studio. Visit Riverside.fm to learn more and use the code HOLIDAYS22 for a 30% discount on your subscription.

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com

2. Sign up to get my monthly newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes that will make you smile guaranteed >> https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba

3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off.

Peter Light is Co-Founder and CEO at Lumen Energy. Peter and I worked together back in 2021 and at that time Lumen was just a handful of people and they were building out their GTM strategy, positioning, messaging, and team.

About Lumen Energy:

• Founded: 2020
• Funding: Series A ($15.3M total)
• Description: Lumen enables commercial buildings to generate new income from clean energy.

In this episode:

The early days of Lumen Energy (Seed stage) - who did you bring onto the GTM team, what was your GTM strategy;

How did you build trust with prospects as an early stage startup;

What were the high points and what were the struggles at Seed stage;

How much advice did you follow from your early investors;

Why is marketing important and why do you think marketing can be so misunderstood;

AMA - Peter asks me his burning question.

You can find Peter on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/pelight/

Learn more about Lumen Energy: ⁠https://getlumen.com/

For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show!

And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠www.furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠

2. sponsor my Top 5% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand >> ⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anna-furmanov⁠⁠⁠

3. ⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to get my monthly early stage startup marketing newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes

You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn, definitely say hello and tell me what you're building >> ⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov