184 - Two Seed Startup CEOs Talk Marketing Bets In 2024 (Merci Grace and Derek Osgood)

Happy MLK Day!

So I did this once before where I had a couple of startup founders join me on the show (check out Ep. 168) and I super loved the dynamic (listeners did too!) so I did it again. 

These are a couple of companies that, at first glance, look and seem similar. They’ve got similar sized teams. They both talk about Growth or GTM which are seemingly similar concepts. But after digging deeper, I realize that they’ve got a bunch of differences. Who they’re for, what they do for their target buyer, pricing structures, etc.

So one of the big takeaways from this episode is I ask a lot of clarifying questions. This is a helpful process, to bring in someone that doesn’t live and breathe your startup, tell them who you’re for and what you’ve built, and then see how much they understand.

We also cover:

Who's on their GTM team and hiring their first marketer;

Why did they decide to go Freemium or Self-Serve right from the start; 

What marketing big bets are they taking in 2024 and why;

What's been the hardest thing about marketing;

Why aren’t prospects inspired to take action, how do you get people to care about what you’re building;

Merci and Derek ask me their burning questions and I'll answer them in this week's BONUS episode.

About Panobi:

• Founded: 2022
• Funding: Seed
• Description: The platform for growth. Metrics, experiments and reports in one place.

About Ignition:

• Founded: 2021
• Funding: Seed
• Description: The GTM Ops platform. AI-powered Research, Roadmapping, and GTM Enablement.

You can find Merci on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/merci

Learn more about Panobi: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.panobi.com⁠

You can find Derek on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/derekosgood3

Learn more about Ignition: www.haveignition.com

Link to MKT1 marketing org hiring article that I talk about: https://newsletter.mkt1.co/p/marketing-org-chart

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