Bonus - Matt Hirst (West): Brand and Marketing - What is Brand?, How to Hire at the Early Stages, and Trusting Your Gut vs. Data Driven

Matt Hirst is the Managing Partner at West. West is a venture studio, a team of market and brand experts with investor discipline. Since 2011, West has partnered with some of the world’s most innovative companies and founders to maximize their opportunity and make impact including Impossible Burger, GofundMe, Square and Twitter.

Matt joined West 4 years ago after serving as the Global Head of Brand Experience at Google. Prior to Google, Matt spent 10 yrs at Red Bull as head of Sports, Events and Culture and the Director of Culture Marketing.

One book that inspired Matt personally and professionally is Alchemy by Rory Sutherland.

In this episode you will learn -

1. Some of the differences working for Red Bull vs. Google. How he thinks about the differences between brand strategy vs. growth marketing. How he thinks about data vs. trusting your gut when it comes to brand and marketing? What are questions founders should ask when building a brand identity? The differences in skill set that founders should be aware of if they are hiring a brand management professional from a large company vs. someone with startup experience to join their team?
   
2. When an entrepreneur is thinking about brand for his or her startup, the types of questions should they be asking themselves? Why does he feel that brand is still undervalued asset? Why is building a brand the most expensive assets you can build and the hardest? How he thinks about the brand agency ecosystem and if a startup is looking to hire an agency, what are some questions should they be asking?
   
3. Is this best time or worst time to build a CPG Brand? His due diligence process at West. One thing he would change when it came to the perception of brand? One piece of advice for founders when it comes to brand?
   

To follow along behind the scenes of the show, you can follow @mikegelb and @consumervc.