Building With Buyers: Startup Marketing and Growth Fueled By Customers

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA A bit of a different flavor for this episode! I had my friend Lina Erez on the show, she works with brands and people that are pushing for positive change, to design their story and spark action. Lina's got a whole slew of clients including Adler Planetarium, BallotReady and Birthright Israel. Here's what we hit on: When you say “pushing for positive change” what does that actually mean (aren't we all pushing for positive change); How do you help brands design their story for action, what’s your process; What do many companies get wrong when it comes to brand design (HINT: a lot of times they're looking for BIG and BOLD but that's actually not what you want to do, you want to think about your BIG idea); What has been your favorite project; Goals for this year. You can reach Lina on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/linaerez/ Check out her website: www.talinadesign.com 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! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can also connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov Thanks for listening and don't forget to leave a review!

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA I'm such a big fan of April Dunford. I've read her book "Obviously Awesome - How to Stand Out in Noisy Crowded Markets" and consider her the startup positioning pro. April Dunford is founder and CEO of Ambient Strategy, a consulting firm that specializes in positioning for tech companies. April has worked with 200+ companies across the globe. For early stage startups her focus is on GTM strategy, she also works with large companies on new product intros and market positioning. Prior, April held executive roles in a series of successful startups as CEO, COO, VP Marketing and VP Marketing and Sales. Here's what we hit on: Where most companies go wrong with their positioning; April's approach to positioning for early stage startups (HINT: ask customers to "take me back before you bought our stuff, what was the trigger"); There's a handful of things that are important early stage when you only have your first few customers; After you get your first customers that love you and learn more about why, then start working on your GTM strategy; What are your top challenges, what are you trying to figure out these days. You can reach April on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/ Check out her website: www.aprildunford.com/ 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! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can also connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

I invited Lee Anne Grant, Chief Growth Officer at babylist, onto the show and we unpacked some very cool stuff happening at their startup. Prior to babylist, Lee Anne held sales roles at Google, AOL, POPSUGAR and Brandless. Babylist was founded in 2011, has 212 people, and is based out of CA (also remote). They've raised Series C ($40.7M total). Babylist is the leading vertical marketplace and commerce destination for baby, driving purchase decisions for more than 8 million people each year! Babylist is way more than a baby registry and we talk about those different revenue streams. Here's what we hit on: You’ve been in sales for much of your career and now you’re CGO. What does that mean, what are you in charge of, and how does that impact how you lead; Babylist is a commerce company that has a media business - tell me more about how this works and how that affects your marketing decisions (HINT: having 3 revenue streams is incredibly intellectually interesting); Tell me more about your growth strategy during this downturn, where are you putting your dollars, what marketing channels are you leaning into; Their Halsey influencer story and how that has impacted their growth; What kinds of marketing content are you leaning into; What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: in-person plays plus the metaverse); What are your top marketing challenges; Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022; Lee Anne asked me a question to round out the conversation. You can reach Lee Anne on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/leeannegrant/ Find out more about babylist: www.babylist.com 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! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can find me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Have you ever met a workplace futurist before? Well, let me tell ya, they're pretty awesome and very helpful in exploring what's to come in the future of (all) work plus specific to marketers. Marti Konstant is a workplace futurist and best-selling author of “Activate Your Agile Career: How Responding to Change will Inspire Your Life's Work.” She's also the owner of Konstant Change. Prior, Marti held marketing and demand gen roles at Samsung and Open Kernel Labs (acquired by General Dynamics). Try typing in "career agility" into Google and her article still comes up #1 in the results. Here's what we hit on: What in the world is a workplace futurist;  What has made you successful in this field; Marti explains her DNA framework for how to bring your future into your present (HINT: Disrupt the model, Notice the signals, Act); How do you stay ahead; What does the Marketer of the future look like, what will they need to do and know (HINT: the expiration date for your set of skills is 4 years or less); How do we continue to stay relevant in the field of marketing as we get older; Why today’s workforce is no longer a "workforce," it’s really a “work net” (different people that are augmenting your team); What does the Metaverse have to do with all of this; What are your top challenges, what are you trying to figure out these days. You can reach Marti on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martikonstant/ Check out her website: www.martikonstant.com/ 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! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can find me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

A request I've gotten from listeners is to bring on a VC firm to talk through “the view from the VC side” so here we go (again)! I invited Andrew Bluestein, Managing Partner at Bluestein Ventures, to join me on the show and talk about the future of food, how the pandemic has affected food startups, what they're looking for before they decide to invest in a startup, and so much more. I know Andrew from our days at Kellogg! And we recently saw each other at Kellogg's 10-year reunion. More about Bluestein Ventures: investing in the future of food founded in 2014 based out of Chicago early stage investments typically Seed and Series A portfolio companies include Crafty, FoxTrot and Factor_ (acquired) Here's what we hit on: Why the focus on the future of food, what's so cool about food; How the pandemic has impacted the food industry; What VCs want to see before they decide to invest in an early stage startup (HINT: an innovative GTM strategy); What marketing and growth opportunities can B2B learn from B2C; What do you look at to confirm if there's product/market fit (HINT: things are still happening despite all the shortcomings); What are those unique ways that startups can reach customers (HINT: post COVID, we need to go offline again); On building brands and acquiring customers, what seems to work really well; Which 1-2 portfolio companies are you personally really excited about and why. You can reach Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbluestein/ Check out Bluestein Ventures: https://www.bluesteinventures.com/ For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

Thanks for your patience, I usually post these episodes on Mondays MUCH earlier but we just got back from a road trip and I rushed over to the computer almost as soon as we got back :) WOW! 100 episodes, I can't even believe it. Thank you to all my listeners, my fans, my guests, for being a part of something that I wanted to build so I could share what top startups and leaders are doing, what’s working, what’s not, just being very transparent. Truly a labor of love.  Don't forget to leave a review if you've been joining me! In this 100th episode I’m getting interviewed (again) by Kap Chatfield (CEO at Rveal Media and host of B2B Podcasting) and we talk through modern approaches to digital content strategy for startups. Main topics we cover: Why your B2B startup needs a digital content strategy; What goes into your digital content strategy; Digital marketing needs to work for you so that you don’t need to hire more salespeople to do that work for you; Gartner’s Future of Sales research shows that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions with buyers will occur in digital. This is because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-FREE sales experience – a preference that climbs to 44% for millennials - what that means for you going forward; How to assess the value of your content strategy (HINT: not through vanity metrics); What it takes to create great content; Your content strategy includes both content creation and distribution; Your customer's sales experience is not a linear journey and what that means for you. Here's the article I wrote mentioned in this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/modern-digital-content-strategy-startups-playbook-anna-furmanov/ You can find Kap on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kapchatfield/ Rveal's website: https://site.rveal.media/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

To all my US listeners, Happy 4th of July 🎉🎉 I first heard Jay Acunzo speak on Mark Schaefer’s podcast Marketing Companion and have been following him ever since. Jay says "Don't market more. Matter more." I agree so so so much with that statement. Jay is a content entrepreneur, host of the podcast Unthinkable, writes the weekly newsletter Playing Favorites, author of the book Break the Wheel, and develops podcasts and docuseries for B2B brands. In his prior lives, Jay worked in marketing and media roles at Google, HubSpot, ESPN, and the VC firm NextView. Ann Handley (CCO at MarketingProfs and bestselling author of Everybody Writes) says about Jay: “You can go ahead and create more content. Or you can create something special that stirs hearts and engages minds. If you are the kind of person who wants your work to really matter, listen to Jay. He’ll be your perfect guide.” Here's what we hit on: Resonance is today’s top marketing skill - tell me why this is so important today; The art of storytelling - how to write stories that people connect with emotionally, and can you share your specific process; How do you measure what resonates; Great marketing is not about who arrives...it's about who stays; How to tie storytelling concepts to the startup world, how can marketers level up (HINT: marketers create a lot of stuff but it’s not gripping); How Lessonly and Kyle Lacy developed an original POV; Why being their favorite makes you completely change-proof; How do we tie storytelling back to ROI and revenue, how do we know we're really good at it; Intuition should lead and data should course correct; What are your top challenges, what are you trying to figure out; Goals (personal/professional) for 2022. You can reach Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/ Check out his website: https://jayacunzo.com/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

***This was my most engaging LinkedIn post across 2 years of posts*** Time for another solo episode! I started creating TikTok videos and posting them to LinkedIn. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast. People asking me: “Anna, does your podcast drive leads?" Me: “No." People: "Then WHY are you doing it??" Most people think about marketing in terms of "will this get me leads" (lead gen) Few think about marketing in terms of "will this be really good content for my target audience" And then there's the trickle down effect. Bc if you have really good content for your target audience then they will be more likely to want to know, like and trust you they'll refer people over to watch/listen to your stuff they'll refer people over to work with you A podcast is just part of it Can be a podcast, events, webinars, unique internal data, etc. Most of it is HOW you'll develop high-quality content that stands out bc you have a unique POV you want to share out that your target audience cares about Most of it is your strategy. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

I brought back Amy Volas, founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners, to talk about how marketing and sales have fundamentally changed (and also what has remained the same). Last time I had Amy on was last summer, Episode 40! So I was so glad to have her back. Love her. Amy helps startups hire sales leaders without the cringe. She has been a sales leader at ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and Yahoo!, she has personally closed $100MM+ in revenue and counting, and she's got 70+ recommendations on LinkedIn. Saweeet. Amy also co-hosts the #1 weekly virtual sales happy hour (Thursday Night Sales), link in the show notes below. Here's what we hit on: Top ways sales has changed due to the pandemic; Top ways marketing has changed due to the pandemic; What hasn't changed? You can find Amy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/amyvolas Find out more about Avenue Talent Partners: www.avenuetalentpartners.com Link to join Thursday Night Sales: www.thursdaynightsales.com For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

A request that I've gotten from listeners is to bring on a VC firm to talk through “the view from the VC side” so here we go! I invited Elaine Zelby, Partner at SignalFire, to join me and talk about all things investing in startups, building a strong relationship with port companies, product market fit and what that actually means and how that's changed over time, and more. I’ve helped advise and have also worked with SignalFire’s portfolio companies on their marketing efforts. More about Elaine: on the Board of Directors at SVEN (Silicon Valley Executive Network) worked on the product and marketing side at Zazzle, Capriza (Series C), Slack and Consensys (Series D) host of the (un)sexy podcast - ranked Top 3% globally - an exploration of just how sexy unsexy industries can be! sends a weekly newsletter called “3 Things” - a dive into 3 rabbit holes and you can join her if you want More about SignalFire: founded in 2013 based out of San Francisco invests in startups Seed through Series B Here's what we hit on: What VCs want to see before they invest in an (early stage) startup, what matters (HINT: Team, Market and Product and it's very rare to find companies with tech moats so you should be creating brand and distribution moats); What do you want to see during the relationship (HINT: be an A+ at 1-2 things and B- in everything else and we'll help get you A+ support in those other things); What does product market fit mean today, how do you know, what do you look for (HINT: customers rip it out of your hands faster than you can sell it); Which 1-2 portfolio companies are you personally super excited about and why. You can reach Elaine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elainezelby/ Check out SignalFire: https://signalfire.com/ Check out the (un)sexy podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/un-sexy/id1527034265 For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!