Building With Buyers: Startup Marketing and Growth Fueled By Customers

Guess who came back on the show? YUP. One of my faves, Latané Conant. Check out Episode 116 where we dig into how they've been running no forms, no spam and no cold calls at 6sense. Guess who I ran into at Trader Joe's after having her on the show? YUP. You guessed right. Turns out she's my neighbor. It was a wonderful surprise! Latané is CMO at 6sense (4+ years). Prior, she held sales and marketing leadership roles at Appirio (B2B SaaS, raised $111.7M in funding). The new edition of her book (No Forms, No Spam, No Cold Calls) is out now so you can check it out. 6sense was founded in 2013, has 1,000+ 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 this time around: We talk about the new edition of the book (HINT: there's a new chapter from their Head of Sales and his perspective on the "no forms, no spam, no cold calls" methodology); 2023 Marketing Plan - where are you putting your dollars, what channels (HINT: we're introducing a PLG motion in 2023); How do you measure pipeline? Does marketing-sourced vs. sales-sourced actually matter; What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with (HINT: when the market changes, your message needs to change); What are your top marketing challenges right now (HINT: this is true across the tech industry, I worry about the team and staying enthused); Goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2023 (HINT: what makes me want to play?); Latané asks me her burning question to round out the episode. You can find Latané on LinkedIn. Find out more about 6sense. 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

Another unique episode for the show! I've never done this before but thought it might be cool for listeners to hear from someone that I've worked with. I asked one of my customers, Matt Barinholtz (Founder of FutureMakers), to join me on the show and talk about our work together. Maybe some listeners will connect with what he's been building and the challenges that he was experiencing. I was Matt's coach (together with my colleague Daniel O'Reilly) during a 7-week EdTech Founders GTM Bootcamp that included instruction on both marketing + sales. We did a bunch of 1:1 feedback sessions as Matt implemented some of the strategies and drafted a playbook for scalable growth. FutureMakers was founded in 2011 and sparks playful hands-on learning for a future fueled by makers. Basically they've created these cool machines that students can make in the classroom and then get to keep. Here's what we cover: Background on Matt's business; Why'd he decide to do the GTM Bootcamp; What's been the biggest lesson/value from the bootcamp; How has he started to implement the learnings. Find out more about FutureMakers: www.kidsmakethingsbetter.com Find out more about the EdTech Founders GTM Bootcamp 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

Can you believe 2023 is just around the corner? Trying to pack in a few more awesome episodes for ya before the new year AND before Season 3 of the show kicks off. For this episode I brought back Patrick Campbell (founder and CEO at ProfitWell). I’ve had Patrick on before, Episode 54 (that was 1 year ago!). Go check it out if you haven't yet. We talked a lot about “inbound media” (vs. inbound marketing) and how ProfitWell was building up their marketing engine. ProfitWell got acquired by Paddle (Series D startup) in May 2022. ProfitWell was founded in 2012. They've been bootstrapped all the way through acquisition. ProfitWell helps recurring revenue (SaaS + subscription + DTC) businesses with their monetization and retention strategies. Their tagline: “Drive subscription revenue while you sleep.” Here's what we hit on in this follow-up episode: ProfitWell's Marketing Plan before being acquired, what was your planning process like? Where did you put your dollars; Paddle acquisition - what did you have to get right on the marketing + sales side in order to set yourself up for being acquired? And what allowed you/the team to get those things right. You can find Patrick on LinkedIn. Find out more about ProfitWell by Paddle. 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

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

Hello to my wonderful listener peeps! I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and your turkeys all turned out moist and delicious. I am so excited to share this episode with you, this is one you'll want to listen all the way through. I reached out to Annette Cardwell because I read this article on why brands have been investing in podcasts and I saw her quote in there and it really resonated with me. I’m fascinated by how podcasts are becoming part of the entire company strategy and helping startups get deep insights, expertise, help build out their thought leadership, impact their product roadmap plus also drive sales. Annette is VP of Corporate Marketing at Lattice. Prior, Annette was VP of Content at Brit and Co. which is one of the largest digital media companies for women with a community of 175M+!! Lattice was founded in 2015 and has raised Series F funding ($174.2M total). Lattice is the complete people success platform that helps you put people first. When people succeed, your business succeeds. Customers include Slack, Imperfect Foods, Reddit, and Asana. Here's what we hit on: Tell me more about your show “All Hands,” why’d you start it, who’s it for, what content are you sharing (HINT: it's grown from 10k downloads to 49k downloads through Season 3); What have been the podcast results, why are you going to continue doing it; What were you working on back when you first started at Lattice summer 2019 - just closed Series B (HINT: "There were buyers but without an audience for why anyone should care, there’s not much you can do."); How has your marketing evolved since then; Looking ahead at your 2023 Marketing Plan, what are you starting to think about for Q1 next year (HINT: 18K members Slack community); What’s working really well for marketing/growth - specific channels, specific content (HINT: 25K HR professionals subscribed to our newsletter); How do you break through the noise (HINT: make them feel like you're paying attention); What are your top marketing challenges right now; What are 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team have been rolling with; Goals you want to accomplish before 2023; Annette asks me a cool question. You can find Annette on LinkedIn. Find out more about Lattice. 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

Happy Thanksgiving to all my listeners! I don't think I need to say this because you already know but I will say it - I am super thankful for you. For listening to the episodes I put out, for sharing your favorite episodes with others, for being a part of this podcast community that I started back in 2020. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends. And if you're making turkey, I'll be thinking of you because I'm going to be making turkey too. May our turkeys turn out flavorful and moist. In this episode I’m getting interviewed by Rachel Gombosch (Community and Content Marketing Manager at Virtuance). Virtuance is a real estate tech-focused company based out of Denver, CO. They’re building out their podcast as part of their content marketing strategy which of course I love. Specifically we talk about: Why is going digital and investing in content creation so important today; What is the value of content and how can people think about content as useful; Why is there such a disconnect or hesitation with creating content or investing in digital marketing; Where do most people or businesses go wrong when measuring their content/marketing efforts; Obviously content takes time to gain traction, how can people judge the success of their content during this phase of waiting; Is there any way for businesses to get a faster ROI while they wait on their content to start gaining traction; What are some unconventional ways that someone who isn’t a marketer by trade can approach marketing? Said another way, how can people reposition their mindset for how they approach content. Find out more about Virtuance: www.virtuance.com/ You can follow them here: Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/virtuance/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/virtuance_photography/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/virtuance 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

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

*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

*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

Hi listeners! I decided to post this quick raw TikTok video on the podcast as a BONUS episode (I posted it on LinkedIn with more info/commentary on what I'm thinking about for my podcast strategy for next year if you wanna check it out).  This is going to hit close to home for many startups that are running the content creation engine. How does our content tie back to business results? It should. To create demand you need to create content. But just because you're creating content doesn't mean you're creating demand. Companies fall into this trap - they're creating content and so they check the content marketing box. And then someone goes "wait, the content isn't doing anything. It's not working" (or maybe nobody says anything and they just keep rolling with the content production, yikes). So here's me thinking out loud. My podcast is doing well - after 2 years (happy anniversary today!!) listenership continues to grow 100%+ YoY. Most episodes get 100-200 plays with the top episodes getting 300+ plays. I've also got a great sponsor. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback that people are enjoying the material and like listening to episodes regularly. But just because I created a podcast and invite amazing guests onto the show and people love it and it’s growing doesn’t mean I’m creating demand for my offerings. It's really hard for someone listening to make the connection and go "I need HER help." Why? Because there's this thing called status quo + other marketing consultants out there. Also I never really talk about how I help my clients, it's just not really the type of content I share on the show. You can visit my website for that kinda thing (just built a new landing page called "Love" it's like a customer love wall). A few weeks ago I thought "in order to monetize the podcast beyond sponsors, just include an ad about my offerings." Yea maybe. But that's not going to work because people listening (startup founders, startup marketers) don't think they need what I offer. Because I'm not creating any demand. Now we've come back full circle: How can your content create demand? What should I be doing differently? Here's what I think I’m missing: Sharing a strong POV. A strategic narrative. Old way to New way. Unique expertise on a specific topic. Obvious + non-obvious insights. OK, I do some of that, I give myself some credit! But not enough to where it feels like MY thing. And so I got to thinking. What's MY thing? Well, that's what I'm figuring out these next few weeks as I plan for 2023. 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