A podcast where I interview some of the most knowledgeable and accomplished marketing leaders in tech. We discuss growth models, brand building, retention and engagement techniques, tech stacks, and measurement methodologies, all while examining the organizational structures that enable marketing teams to thrive. Our conversations span consumer, business-to-business, and business-to-business-to-consumer models, ensuring that the show remains comprehensive.
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Leaning into a community first approach to brand, acquisition, and retention at Duolingo | Manu Orssaud (Duolingo, Spotify, Play Station)
Season 3 · Episode 31
Tuesday, December 12, 2023 • Duration 36:10
Manu Orssaud is the Chief Marketing Officer of Duolingo, where he is responsible for building the brand and driving user growth globally. Prior to Duolingo, Manu led Global Marketing Strategy at Spotify and one of the things he was was responsible for was leading the award-winning Wrapped annual campaign. Manu was also at Sony PlayStation and developed the digital marketing function across EMEA for the global entertainment brand.
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We cover:
How Duolingo moved from a paid advertising to a social first approach
This approach which has led to a much more significant impact to acquisition, retention, and driving the brand globally
Focusing on developing locally relevant content
Building a team that is nimble, resourceful, and understands the brand extremely well
(02:16) An intro to Duolingo and its business model
(02:57) Duolingo's mission and the problem it's trying to solve
(05:58) Science backed language proficiency framework that Duolingo uses
(07:44) Main audiences around the world
(09:19) The alternatives to Duolingo and what is specific to the experience
(13:12) Building a global brand and Duolingo's approach to this
(16:52) Learning from the community and the magic that came out of those interactions
(22:08) Driving new user growth and retention rates through social media
(24:05) The marketing mix
(26:57) Expanding the brand globally and being locally relevant
(29:39) Doing social media locally really well
(31:00) Developing specific story lines and how fast content travels
(32:59) Approach to team structure, a focus on being nimble, resourceful and understands the brand extremely well
(35:32) Where to find Manu!
Content marketing growth bets and using a portfolio based approach | Alex Birkett (Omnicient Digital, Hubspot, Workato)
Season 3 · Episode 30
Tuesday, December 5, 2023 • Duration 43:05
Alex Birkett is a co-founder of Omniscient Digital, an organic growth agency that builds content & SEO programs for ambitious B2B brands. Previously, he worked on growth and experimentation at Workato, HubSpot, and CXL.
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We Talk About:
Figuring out the right opportunity areas for content marketing
Effectively using Generative AI to develop a unique POV
Applying the barbell strategy to make bets on approaches
The Yik Yak story. Building thriving communities across college campuses | Brooks Buffington (Yik Yak Co-Founder) and Justin Oh (Yik Yak Product Marketing Lead)
Season 2 · Episode 20
Tuesday, September 5, 2023 • Duration 01:06:18
Yik Yak is a psuedoanonymous social media platform primarily focused on on-campus college students. Yik yak first launched in 2013 and at it’s peak hit about 7M Monthly Active Users and about 2.5M daily active users, spending roughly 30 minutes per day on the app. They consequently raised north of $60M. But the app hit a ceiling with growth and in 2017, unfortunately, was sold to Square. The name and logo have since been purchased from Square in 2021.
Justin led product marketing at YikYak and was one of the first employees. Brooks is one of the co-founders, and has since gone on to build another startup, Switchyards, which is a neighborhood work club. Justin has gone on to lead Product Marketing at Discord.
We talk about:
How Yik Yak got started
Building engaged communities on and off platform
Dealing with challenges like bullying and negative content
(6:37) Driver of immediate growth and access to an immediate audience
(7:40) How the app quickly scaled
(9:28) Initial engagement metrics and awareness compared to Twitter, Instagram, and Snap
Building the Gojek brand to compete with Grab in Indonesia | Piotr Jakubowski (Nafas, GoJek)
Season 2 · Episode 19
Tuesday, August 29, 2023 • Duration 41:33
Piotr is the co-founder of Nafas, Indonesia's largest integrated air quality platform. Before Nafas, Piotr was the CMO of Gojek, Indonesia's first super-app which combines payment, transportation, logistics, food delivery and multiple other services under one roof. At Gojek, Piotr was responsible for building the brand into one of the most loved & well-known in Indonesia through marketing, performance and brand campaigns.
We discuss:
The development of super apps in Southeast Asia
Gojek vs Grab and the David and Goliath story
Leaning into the Indonesian culture to drive brand affinity
The elements that worked in competing with an incumbent or a larger competitor
(2:22) Understanding the context of Jakarta and the genesis of Gojek
(13:02) The offerings of Gojek and Grab in the market
(15:55) Grab's larger initial valuation (10X of Gojek) and what drove it
(17:23) Gojek leaning into Indonesia culture to compete
Defining lifetime value and using predictive LTV for paid media | Ido Wiesenberg (Voyantis, Kaltura)
Season 2 · Episode 18
Tuesday, August 22, 2023 • Duration 45:39
Ido is the co-founder & CEO of Voyantis, an LTV prediction platform powered by AI. Ido is an entrepreneur with over 15 years of expertise in building growth and marketing teams. Before Voyantis, Ido co-founded Tvinci, a platform that allows media companies to create personalized, social TV experiences, which was later acquired by Kaltura.
We talk about:
Defining LTV for specific companies and the right ways to use payback periods
Bidding for audiences relative to their LTV
Using predictive LTV models
How to operationalize these models in-house or with a partner
Building Marketing Ops and Martech at Plaid | Kiki Burton (Plaid, Credit Karma, Adobe)
Season 2 · Episode 17
Tuesday, August 15, 2023 • Duration 43:19
Kiki spent her career in various marketing and product roles spanning both B2B and B2C companies. She currently leads growth marketing, new business, and content marketing at Plaid. Prior to Plaid, Kiki led growth marketing at Credit Karma, which was subsequently acquired by Intuit. Prior to her roles on the brand side, Kiki led product management for Adobe’s data platform products.
This was a pretty topic dense conversation. We go through:
Building a centralized marketing ops function that covers creative production and martech capabilities for Plaid, which has three customer motions
The core components of a Martech stack
Measuring both brand and growth specific marketing initiatives for business customers, partners, and end consumers
Establishing the models for retention and lifecycle marketing
(2:49) Overview of Plaid's business model, their core audiences, and primary revenue drivers
(5:53) The role of marketing in driving revenue
(6:44) How marketing operations is structured
(7:40) The efficiencies or unlocks that an actual operations team can provide and a look at how the structure works from the inside
(10:01) Structuring the martech team
(11:23) A usual case scenario versus a realization for Marteach team being separate
(12:29) The approach on building out the Martech stack for Plaid
Advice for CMO or Head of Marketing job candidates in the current B2B market | Erica Seidel (The Connective Good)
Season 2 · Episode 16
Tuesday, August 8, 2023 • Duration 40:49
Erica is the founder of The Connective Good, a boutique retained executive recruiting practice that she started 12 years ago. She focuses on placing CMOs and VPs of Marketing in high-growth SAAS companies. She’s spent time at Forrester Research, where she ran peer-to-peer executive education businesses for CMOs and digital marketing executives of Fortune 500 companies.
We go through:
What early to late stage B2B SAAS companies are looking for in CMOs in 2023
Finding your product-market fit as a candidate
The differences between CMOs who scale and those who don't
Advice for candidates looking for their first CMO roles in B2B SAAS
Harnessing the power of community to drive growth at Notion, dissecting the marketing playbook for a B2C2B model | Rachel Hepworth (Notion, Slack, LinkedIn)
Season 2 · Episode 15
Tuesday, August 1, 2023 • Duration 41:33
Rachel is the CMO at Notion where she leads a team that combines the best of B2B and B2C marketing. Previously she led a variety of teams at Slack and LinkedIn, including growth marketing, product marketing and platform marketing. She was the founding marketer at Climate Corp., which sold to Monsanto in 2012 for over $1 billion.
We cover:
The dynamic of marketing for a B2C2B model. Reaching consumers while ensuring relevance for B2B companies
Fueling word of mouth by understanding the underlying drivers
Global approaches and expanding communities with local market relevance
Conversion and expansion capabilities
Using lifecycle marketing to drive engagement and as a feedback loop to the growth product roadmap
(2:43) Defining the B2C2B model at Notion and how Rachel's team approaches it
(6:27) Prioritizing channels by stage and channel across consumers and businesses
(8:27) Balancing messaging and relevance to both audiences
What founders should look for in a CMO, lessons in building great leadership teams, and why brand strategy comes before growth | Joanna Lord (Reforge, Skyscanner, ClassPass)
Season 2 · Episode 14
Tuesday, July 25, 2023 • Duration 45:05
Joanna is an Executive in Residence at Reforge, marketing advisor and angel investor. For over 20 years she has helped build and scale companies across a number of categories, business models, and audiences. She was previously the CMO of Skyscanner, one of the largest travel marketplaces in the world, and CMO of ClassPass, a leading health and wellness platform.
We discuss:
Establishing the right brand strategy
Building the foundations of leadership with the right partners
A more effective way to find the right CMO for founders and CEOs
Building accountable and high performing marketing orgs
(3:51) Connecting the brand strategy to the company and product strategies
(6:24) Breaking down the components of the brand strategy
(7:10) Companies who have done brand well
(10:22) If you don't have a 10X product, you should be thinking about your brand
Composing the marketing capabilities of a global Web3 company | Neal Gorevic (Consensys, Spotify)
Season 2 · Episode 13
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 • Duration 42:05
Neal is the CMO of Consensys, a global blockchain company focused on building and scaling tools and enterprise software products powered by Ethereum. At Consensys, Neal leads the the product marketing, community advocacy, brand development, content and communications, creative, and growth teams. Prior to that, Neal was the Global Head of Consumer Marketing at Spotify.
(2:43) What the current market is looking for with CMOs and VPs
(6:04) Leaders should spike in efficiency and immediate impact
(7:22) Contrast between founder-led and professionally-led searches
(9:37) Nuances in partnerships between a CMO and the founder and the CEO
(11:25) Finding your own job-market fit and defining your differentiation
(15:25) Using two distinct areas to communicate fit to a role
(17:34) The two areas that are important in B2B SAAS today
(21:06) Advice for candidates looking for their first CMO role
(24:00) 360 degree management style as a new CMO
(26:56) Differences between CMOs who succeed and those who don't
(30:01) The importance of solving real problems
(32:43) Consistent alignment. Collaboration is continuous
(35:00) Dynamic of growth and discomfort
(37:26) Interview questions to determine adaptability for a role
(39:43) Where to find Erica!
(9:09) The challenges with calculating LTV for the business given the land and expand type nature of the company
(10:45) Signals to use to determine customer value and the limitations of performance marketing for PLG companies
(12:10) The underlying causes of word of mouth and supercharging it through community, influencers, partners, SEO, paid media, and affiliates
(18:42) Keeping a close eye on word of mouth and its effects to the business
(19:51) Most of the customer base is outside of the US. The natural fit to APAC markets and ensuring that local context is communicated through marketing
(23:53) Pipeline management and optimization through PQAs and PQLs
(26:11) Consumers are one significant way to drive customers, but not the only way. Some of the challenges with the focus on consumers and the tradeoffs with B2B capability needs
(28:28) Going deeper with the messaging dynamic and other acquisition tactics between consumers and businesses
(29:55) What most people are surprised by with Notion's success
(32:00) Land and expand opportunities between understanding usage patterns and shrinking the time between value realization
(34:11) Investing in lifecycle for onboarding, education, engagement, and expansion
(37:53) Empowering the community for experts and advocates. Inspiring Notion influencers
(39:50) The structure for the lifecycle marketing team globally
(40:43) Where to find Rachel!
(11:55) The four pillars of a brand strategy
(15:25) The relationship between a marketing and product leaders
(17:49) Short term and long term planning across the leadership team to sustain the growth model
(19:40) What to look for in a CMO or in a new marketing leader beyond the domains they spike on - growth, brand, or product marketing
(24:30) Why tenure among the C-level for CMOs is the shortest
(28:10) Lessons in building a great leadership team
(32:06) A lack of diversity in the team is a predetermined conversation
(34:35) The X factor has more power than experience
(35:24) Org structures and when and why to restructure
(38:27) Building high performing marketing organizations the commonalities behind them
(41:40) Ensuring the right values. Culture usually comes from the founder
(44:15) Where to find Joanna!
(15:01) Determining the effectiveness of new projects and marketing initiatives
(17:37) Composing the marketing organization at Consensys
(20:05) Managing and engaging with developer communities
(22:48) Recruiting partners and micro communities to expand reach and sense where the next beach heads are coming from
(25:45) How the marketing org at Consensys evolved to where it is today
(29:19) Founding the marketing team with Product Marketing skillsets and embedding with product teams
(30:26) Where Web3 is headed
(34:12) Global implications and use cases outside the US
(37:15) New creator specific use cases coming in
(39:19) What's next for Consensys and looking at emerging markets
(41:17) Where to find Neal!
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