Frank Growth

Episode #239: Adam Spector - Why startups should automate or outsource before they hire How to decide whether a task needs a new hire, AI, or an outside vendor. For founders of early-stage, venture-backed companies with 5 to 75 employees who are about to add headcount. Adam Spector is the founder and CEO of Chore, which runs the back office (HR and fractional chief of staff work) for early-stage,...

Episode #238: Ozge Erturk - Hitting #1 in the App Store on zero paid media FloSports is profitable, covers 25+ sports, and has a million subscribers. Its CMO explains how that math works. For subscription operators, growth leads, and anyone marketing to an audience the mainstream ignores. Ozge Erturk is the CMO of FloSports, a profitable streaming company covering wrestling, motorsports, cheer, ji...

Episode #237: Michelle Matthews - Acquisition is the easy part in health and wellness This episode is about the gap between what marketing promises and what the product delivers, and what that gap actually costs a company. For growth leaders, founders, and product teams building for people who show up on a bad day. Michelle Matthews is a product and service designer with over 15 years of experienc...

Episode #236: Elyssa Steiner - Rebuilding a 21-person marketing team in 30 days Marketing is not a lead factory. It is a growth system, and the operating model is the ceiling on what ships. For CMOs and marketing leaders who inherited a team built for a smaller company. Elyssa Steiner is Chief Marketing Officer at Kahua and a B2B growth leader with more than 15 years of experience. She came from n...

Episode #235: Nick Lafferty on Marketing Engineering, Category Creation, and Closing His Own Deals He was the first marketing hire at Profound, and within weeks he was shipping production code and taking sales demos himself. For founders making their first marketing hire and for marketers deciding what to learn next. Nick Lafferty is the Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound, where he joined as...

Episode #234: Dave Steer on repositioning a brand around AI in three months Webflow's CMO had 90 days to relaunch the website, reposition the brand, and ship an ad campaign. For marketing leaders whose board just told them to become AI native, and who don't have a playbook for it. Dave Steer is CMO at Webflow, leading brand, demand, and product marketing after two decades at GitLab, Cloudf...

Episode #233: Jesus Requena — Dropping SEO entirely to optimize for LLMs Sanity stopped producing SEO content and started building pages only machines will read. Roughly 60% of last month's signups came from LLMs. For B2B growth leaders watching organic traffic fall and trying to work out what replaces it. Jesus Requena is CMO at Sanity, and previously led growth marketing at Figma, demand gen at...

Episode #232: Andrew Mok — What the CMO job becomes when AI runs the mechanics HeyGen doubled to $200M ARR in eight months, is cash-flow breakeven, and runs on about 130 people. Its CMO explains how marketing actually operates there. For marketing leaders deciding what to keep, what to cut, and what to hand to an agent. Andrew Mok spent 12 years at Turo building a category nobody believed in, then...

Episode #231: Philip Lowe - Growth creative isn't art, and the customer is the judge How to build creative that moves a number (a click, a conversion, a download) instead of creative that only wins the room. For growth marketers, creative directors, and in-house studio leads deciding what to test, what to produce, and what to kill. Philip Lowe runs creative, brand, and marketing operations at Quic...

Episode #230: Sara Wallace — Repositioning a consumer cashback app into a B2B platform Ibotta is known as a cashback app. It's also a white-label promotions platform for the largest retailer in the world. For marketers at consumer companies standing up an enterprise or platform business alongside the one that made them. Sara Wallace is Head of Brand Marketing at Ibotta, which runs both the consume...

Episode #229: Jim Donnelly — Franchising longevity medicine without losing medical quality How to scale a medical franchise when you can't train a local owner to interpret biomarkers. For operators and founders standardizing a complex, high-trust service across many locations. Jim Donnelly scaled Restore Hyper Wellness to 260 locations before starting Humanaut Health, a concierge longevity practic...

Episode #228: John Zdanowski — Why you're losing money on 80% of your customers Most owners can tell you last month's revenue but not which customers actually make them money. This episode gives you the math to find out. For founders and operators—especially DTC brands—who suspect they're spending too much to acquire customers who never come back. John Zdanowski is co-founder and CEO of Weekly Acc...

Episode #227: Robin Izsak-Tseng — Marketing one brand to three audiences at once Most B2B companies fight to win one customer segment. WellHub has to win three at the same time. For marketers and operators running multi-audience, marketplace, or multi-country growth. Robin Izsak-Tseng is VP of global B2B marketing at WellHub, a corporate wellness platform serving over 40,000 companies across 18 co...

Episode #226: Seth Lowery — The $10M rule that kills good ideas, not just bad ones How to decide which growth bets to fund when every idea on the table already looks good. For marketing and growth leaders drowning in too many opportunities and a team that's too small to chase them all. Seth Lowery is VP of Marketing at Octane, a fintech that has originated over $8 billion in consumer loans and run...

Episode #225: Blakely Neilson — Building a high-growth EdTech brand when buyers aren't on LinkedIn This episode is a tactical playbook for marketing to a buyer that ignores LinkedIn, retargeting, and white papers: the school district. For operators and founders selling into education, or any relationship-first market where you can't performance-market your way to pipeline. Blakely Neilson came fro...

Episode #224: Alex Roy — Bootstrapping an AI company for 12 years, no funding He founded an AI company in 2014—when AI was a punchline—bootstrapped it with zero outside capital, and landed Fortune 50 clients. For founders and growth operators figuring out how to build (and sell) AI products in a market that shifts every few weeks. Alex Roy is the founder of SalesBox AI, a single-founder, bootstrap...

Episode #223: Divya Ramaswamy — Running one growth function across travel and fintech How a lean team runs acquisition, retention, and cross-sell across a travel marketplace and a fintech suite on a single brand. For growth leaders who own multiple products serving one customer across very different trust thresholds. Divya Ramaswamy runs growth across travel and fintech at Super.com—acquisition, a...

Episode #222: Simon Heyrick — How CFOs become real growth partners What it actually takes to turn your CFO into a growth ally instead of a gatekeeper. For founders, CEOs, and CMOs trying to align finance with marketing and growth investments. Simon Heyrick is the CFO of Sun World International and was Jason's CFO and then CEO at Soothe. In this conversation, Simon walks through what changes the mo...

Episode #221: John O'Donnell — Selling AI Trust When Your Best Outcome Is Invisible How do you sell infrastructure that works best when nothing bad happens? For GTM leaders, founders, and sellers building pipeline in category-creating, mission-critical sales motions. John O'Donnell leads go-to-market at Alice, where he sells AI trust and safety to the top foundation model companies and the enterpr...

Episode #220: Jacob Batist — Launching the first new health insurance company in Canada in 70 years How a European challenger broke into a market controlled by three incumbents — without a CEO on the ground, without brand awareness, and without growth-at-all-costs spend. For founders and growth leaders entering markets dominated by entrenched incumbents, where trust is the real constraint and spee...

Episode #219: Wade Lowe — Why GTM in the AI era is a Rubik's Cube The business takes on the personality of the founder. If there are problems, look at thyself. For founders running $5M–$50M companies trying to crack go-to-market when the playbook keeps changing. Wade Lowe is a 3x co-founder with two exits, focused on bootstrapping, AI, and mindset. He's led revenue at two Inc 500 companies (ranked...

Episode #218: Pashmina De Shon — Why Friction Is The Moat In Craft Chocolate How a bootstrapped founder built a $3M+ craft chocolate marketplace by owning the operational pain everyone else outsources. For e-commerce operators, bootstrapped founders, and brands weighing the jump from DTC to physical retail. Pashmina De Shon is the founder of Bar and Cocoa, a curated marketplace for craft chocolate...

Episode #217: Jeff Bishop Hill — How Swiss Army knife operators scale marketplaces What breaks first when a marketplace expands into new markets. This episode is for founders and operators balancing growth, ops, compliance, and enterprise sales at the same time. Jeff Bishop Hill breaks down what it takes to scale marketplaces when one operator is covering multiple functions at once. Drawing on his...

Episode #216: Matt Putra — Cracking paid lead gen for a services business How to lower lead costs by teaching instead of pitching. For service founders stuck with expensive, inconsistent lead flow. Matt Putra of EightX explains how he finally cracked lead generation for his fractional CFO business after spending $150,000 over 18 months on cold email, outbound, hiring, and agency support that did n...

Episode #215: Jay Sapovits — Turning branded merch into a strategic growth tool How to stop wasting money on swag that gets ignored. For founders and operators buying merch without a plan for impact. Jay Sapovits of Ink’d Stores explains how branded merchandise becomes useful when it starts with audience, objective, and distribution instead of a last-minute product order. He shares lessons from a...