Ep. 34: The power of events in B2B marketing (Feat. Anthony Kennada, CMO at Hopin, ex-Gainsight CMO)

This week's How the Fxck interview is with the incredible Anthony Kennada, CMO at Hopin.

Anthony was the first marketer and founding CMO at Gainsight, which grew to $100m ARR and sold for over $1bn to Vista in 2020.

At the time of recording this episode, Anthony had just joined Hopin, the explosively fast-growth hybrid events management platform.

(Hopin is the fastest growing SaaS business ever with a valuation of $5.6bn in under 2 years.)

So, safe to say, he knows his stuff and had a ton of tactics to share.

The episode focuses on the demand gen and content tactics that Anthony has used along the way.

In particular, we focus on events.

The Gainsight team is well known for creating the category of customer success, and a big part of that journey was championing the profession through events.

You’ll hear the story of how Anthony and his team created a conference of 300 like-minded people and grew it to +6,000 yearly attendees.

"I started breaking it apart and saying, 'what do I love about my career? What do I love about marketing?' And at the atomic level, I realized it was connection between people, whether digitally or in person, and events are the channel by which that happens. Some of the most inspired work we had at Gainsight was there."

We discuss why most startups should not create a category and the difficulties and common mistakes of those who do.

Towards the middle-end of the interview, we dive into Anthony’s first three weeks at Hopin.

We chat about:

- Why Hopin is not just a natural fit for Anthony, but a brand mission that aligns with his own.

- What growth strategies are underway already.

- What will be prioritised at Hopin? And how will marketing contribute to Hopin’s continued fast growth?

Visit www.thefxck.com for the breakdown, video and timstamps.