230: Startup Legends Talk Hiring, Branding, and Core Values, With Oli Gardner of Unbounce and Ryan Deiss of DigitalMarketer

Dec 18, 2018

Join Ryan Deiss, founder of DigitalMarketer and a digital marketing guru, alongside Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce and landing page expert, as they explore the intricacies of branding and hiring in the startup world. They discuss the significance of core values, with Ryan revealing how defining a mission can help guide pivotal business decisions. Oli shares his resume-free hiring strategy and practical tips for attracting top talent. The conversation also dives into the power of community-driven branding and the importance of quality content.

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INSIGHT

Branding As Relational Equity

Branding is about making deposits of relational equity through content and values.
Once you’ve made deposits you can appropriately make withdrawals via offers.

ADVICE

Put Employees First

Put employees first to create exceptional customer experiences and defend your brand.
Hire people who align with core values to avoid cultural poisoning.

ADVICE

Document And Reevaluate Your Values

Define your mission and values early, but avoid doing it before you have customers.
Reevaluate values as the company evolves and use them to guide decisions.

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Most of Foundr’s podcast episodes are one-on-one chats, usually focusing on a particular foundr or their business. This time around, we were fortunate enough to sit down, in person, with two startup icons, and explore some of the most important facets of running a business.

Oli Gardner and Ryan Deiss are both digital marketing pioneers who have grown their online businesses to millions in revenue. Gardner, the instructor of our Landing Page Formula course, co-founded landing page builder Unbounce in 2009. Deiss, a serial entrepreneur, founded DigitalMarketer in 2011.

Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a fascinating conversation, in which Gardner and Deiss share both similar and differing opinions on everything from branding to hiring.

For example, both founders insist that creating core values is an important business practice that will inform your branding and your decisions. “I have had more businesses come close to failure because of too much opportunity,” says Deiss, who adds that having a mission makes it easier to know when to say no.

In addition, as both Unbounce and DigitalMarketer grow, Gardner and Deiss have each honed their strategies for hiring top talent. The details might surprise you, as one of the two companies doesn’t even allow candidates to submit a resume (it’ll get thrown out).

Listen in as Gardner and Deiss join Foundr for this lively chat in Barcelona, where they share their hard-learned lessons from growing online businesses and the sacrifices they’ve made along the way.

Key Takeaways

How to build a great brand
The one thing that keeps your customers coming back again and again
Why creating core values for your company isn’t just a nice thing to do, but a necessity
The latest interaction and design trends—and which ones you should steer clear of
Why community is the new brand and how to build a community that boosts your business
The biggest opportunity in ecommerce right now
How to stay relevant in a changing content marketing landscape
Sure-fire tactics for hiring and vetting top talent
The big sacrifices they’ve had to make as founders