Building With Buyers: Startup Marketing and Growth Fueled By Customers

Elaine Zelby is Co-Founder and CRO at Tofu. Tofu puts top-of-funnel on autopilot for B2B marketing teams, so you can ship integrated marketing campaigns 8X faster. Series A funded (recent). Also check out Ep. 96 “First Time Founders Think Product Wins, Second Time Founders Know GTM Wins”. Here’s what we cover: Your recent funding round, what did it take to get there (HINT: 4 main things); How do y...

Megan Bowen is CEO at Refine Labs. Refine Labs is a demand gen agency for growth stage and enterprise B2B SaaS companies. Also check out Ep. 78 "Hire For Customer Success, Not Customer Support." Here’s what we cover: Brand, Demand, and ABM. What's your approach to client work; I’m exploring the role that customers play in helping startups build to the next round - how have you seen this play out w...

Ivan Barajas Vargas is Co-Founder and CEO at Muuktest, world-class QA 100% done-for-you. Seed funded. Here’s what we cover: What is Service-as-a-Software; How do you incorporate customer research at Muuktest; What are some of your goals with customer research; What questions are you asking; How are you using research insights; Do you ask customers where do they learn and hang out; Why understandin...

Emily Steele is Co-Founder and CEO at Hummingbirds. Mari Tippman is Head of Sales at Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds helps brands drive awareness and sales with hyper-local content creators. The platform connects brands with “hummingbirds” who are trusted friends and neighbors with buying power and local influence. Hummingbirds recently raised Seed funding ($10M total!). Emily has been on the show befo...

Peter Mollins is VP of Marketing at Nooks. Nooks just raised Series B funding in October. Woop! With Nooks you can boost pipeline with AI assistants that automate the busywork of dialing, coaching, and prospecting, so sales reps can focus on the human side of selling. Here’s what we cover: Your recent funding round - what did it take to get there; How do you incorporate customer research at Nooks...

I was asked to join a panel for Riverside's event "Content Repurposing: Turn 1 Conversation Into a Full Content Calendar" along with Emily Kramer (MKT1) and Ross Simmonds (Foundation Marketing). 1900 people registered! Really fun conversation and great group. We discuss: What to consider before creating content with repurposing in mind Step-by-step how to recycle and repurpose your c...

A ton of people I speak to in B2B talk about the JTBD approach. So I had to bring on Bob because I have many questions. Bob Moesta is an entrepreneur and innovator known for his Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) theory. He started 10 companies and is currently the Co-Founder of the Re-Wired Group. Here’s what we cover: Define Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) for someone unfamiliar with it; How sales and buying aren&#3...

Joseph Lee is Co-Founder & CEO at Syncly (Seed funded). Syncly is a customer feedback analysis platform that let’s you see customer pains and prevents customer churn. Here’s what we cover: How do you incorporate customer research at Syncly? What are your goals; Using the JBTD framework; How have you actually used research insights; How do you connect insights to your product roadmap; Your pric...

Natalie Marcotullio is Head of Growth and Ops at Navattic (Seed funded). Raman Khanna is Growth Lead at Navattic. Navattic makes buying easier with interactive demos. 28k+ demos built so far. You can also check out Episode 139 and Episode 180 where I had Natalie on. Since 2020, Navattic has been a sales-led company. Plans start at $500/mo. They just released a product-led motion. One interactive d...

Stella Garber is Co-Founder and CEO at Hoop (Seed). Hoop is AI task management for busy people. From meeting to Slack to yet another meeting to your email inbox, Hoop captures and prioritizes your tasks. Here’s what we cover: How do you incorporate customer research and insights at Hoop, what are your goals; What have been the results; Do you have a systematic approach to customer research; In you...

Pranav Piyush is Co-Founder and CEO at Paramark. Paramark (Pre-Seed) helps CMOs and CFOs invest in marketing with confidence and predictability. Here’s what we cover: I see the book Alchemy on Pranav's bookshelf and it's about "chasing the magic" so have to ask what got him into it; How do you incorporate customer research at Paramark? What are some of your goals with this research; What have been...

Hi! I'm back! I missed you. Did you miss me? Well it's a completely different show now, and I can't wait to share more with you. Tiffany McNeil is the coolest brand, innovation, and insights exec you’ll ever meet. Tiffany and I worked together at Del Monte Foods way back in 2010 (!) on the consumer insights and strategy team, specifically consumer food innovation for baby boomers. This...

You're a startup founder. You think your product is amazing and feel like more people should be buying.  But the road is long and slow. You've got some customers, surely you're on the right path? Why aren't deals closing faster? Why does it feel like a slog?  You've tried a bunch of stuff. Or maybe you've tried a couple things, not sure where to go from here. It feels like you're stuck. There's al...

Hey MSM listener! Anna here, host of the show. I hope you enjoyed Season 4 of Modern Startup Marketing. I'm officially wrapped with this season, but will be back for more in the future.  In the meantime, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn where I’ll continue to share top highlights from past pod episodes, and you can sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter  where I’m sharing fr...

Ryan Staley is Founder and CEO of Whale Boss where he does sales consulting and AI consulting. I heard Ryan present for an AI session earlier this year and thought “I gotta have him on my show.” So here we are. Here’s what we cover: What AI tools are you mostly into right now; Biggest value use cases from AI for sales and marketing teams; What are you still weary about when it comes to using AI; A...

Sam Dunning is the Founder at Breaking B2B and host of the Breaking B2B podcast (Top 2.5%, 377 episodes). Sam came onto my podcast to talk more about the company he's building, plus: The Breaking B2B podcast is 377 episodes and Top 2.5%. How do you decide what to talk about and who to talk to? Do you have Seasons? How has the show changed over time? What’s been the impact on your business; Sam...

Hope you're having a meaningful Memorial Day if you're in the US. Sam Dunning (Founder at Breaking B2B) asked me to come onto his podcast "Breaking B2B" via a live session where we talk about the top deadly B2B startup marketing sins, how to avoid them, practical advice you can use right away, and we answer an audience question. Check out more of Breaking B2B: www.breakingb2b.com...

For this BONUS episode I brought on a friend. Friend episodes are great because you've talked to this person so many times and they just hit different. Come hang out with us. Meredith Hein is the Founder of Unicorn Content & Growth Marketing where she works with growth stage companies, she also went to Kellogg. Here’s what we cover: On writing books for her clients and what books accomplis...

Ian Faison is CEO and Founder of Caspian Studios where they create shorts, shows and moonshots (with podcasts and videos) for B2B companies. Ian wrote to me and said “I have an idea for your show…” and when Ian writes with an idea, I will of course say yes.   Here’s what we cover: The old and dusty content marketing strategy; The new content marketing strategy and why companies are adopting an Own...

In the last episode, Drew Brucker asked me “What are some creative marketing ideas that you or someone on the show has shared that are 100% worth experimenting with?” Drew, you’re in luck because I focused on creativity in Season 3 of the podcast and then I wrote a whole article called “ 36 Startups Share Their Top Creative Marketing Ideas ” so in this episode I pull out those I believe startups s...

Drew Brucker is the Founder and Creative Director at brainchild, a solo agency that helps brands with their creative and marketing execution. He's also master of Midjourney (genAI that generates beautiful images). Here’s what we cover: Why are you going big on Midjourney; What are some of your best prompts; How will Midjourney impact photography in the future; Why images are so important for s...

There are so many skills you need in a rockstar marketing hire, plus so many marketing channels. It's really challenging for a company to spend $120k+ and hire one single marketer and be happy with the result. It also takes time to find just the right (full-time) person. Traditionally, companies had to choose between hiring an in-house marketing person or an agency. With the rise of remote wor...

I was on Marketerhire's podcast (The Marketer Show) where Blake Emal asked me to talk about MaaS Method, the 10-step systematic approach I built and use after working with dozens of early stage startups. Here’s what you’ll learn: - Why you should start with the customer in your marketing research - How to think about positioning and messaging at your early stage B2B startup - How to build a co...

Erin Balsa (Founder of Haus of Bold) asked me this question in our last episode: “What is the #1 improvement area when you work with new startup clients?” So I'm going to answer it now. Happy Friday! 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 if you're lovin' the show! And whenever y...

Happy Passover! In my work with early stage startups, I've seen some of the ways that they approach their content strategies. Sometimes there's structure, but usually it's all over the place. It's not their fault, though. I haven't really seen any visual diagrams that would help startup founders and marketing teams build this out. Nothing too fancy, but at least some kind of ea...