Episodes

Daniel Huerta is Digital Marketing Manager at Udacity. Before that, Daniel headed up marketing at Workify (HR tech startup) for 4+ years, running their content and demand generation efforts. Daniel is also the co-host of The Modern People Leader podcast. We covered both Udacity and Workify during this podcast session. Udacity was founded in 2011, has 2000+ people, and is based out of Mountain View, CA. They've raised $235M in funding. Udacity’s mission is to train the world's workforce in the ca...

Cassidy Shield is VP of Marketing at Narrative Science. Before Narrative Science, Cassidy served as VP of Marketing at Gogo, VP of Marketing at NetCracker, and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent (purchased by Nokia). He's also a fellow Kellogg alum! Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 88 people, and is based out of Chicago, IL. They've raised Series D ($43.4M total). Narrative Science humanizes analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards). Data should be understandable for everyone. St...

Kyle Lacy, CMO (and Chief Mario Officer!) at Lessonly, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Kyle has been recognized as one of Indiana’s Forty-under-40, is the author of 3 books, built the content marketing team from scratch at ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce for $2.6B), led marketing at OpenView Venture Partners, and advises a couple of tech startups besides his full-time role. Lessonly was founded in 2012, has 200+ people, and is based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. They've ra...

Alvaro De La Rocha, CMO at Bespoke Post, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Another Kellogg connection on the show! Plus the co-founders are also from Kellogg. What a team! Alvaro has held previous roles at Ogilvy and Microsoft, on both the product and marketing side. Bespoke Post was founded in 2011, has 73 people, and is based out of NYC. They've raised $8.9M in funding. Bespoke Post is goods and guidance, delivered monthly. Themed boxes full of enviable gear – shaving sets, sh...

I spoke with Lesley Crews from Sweet Fish Media on the B2B Growth podcast. They've been going deep into the world of demand generation for the month of April - sweet! In this episode we discuss modern demand gen for startups and the playbook I wrote up that outlines key themes in more detail, including: The difference between lead gen and demand gen; Old vs. new demand gen and the key differences that will get you results; Your demand gen strategy should focus on the buyer, not you; How to be re...

Jeroen Corthout, co-founder at Salesflare, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Salesflare was founded in 2014, has 8 people, and is based out of Belgium. They've raised Seed funding ($406K). Salesflare is the perfect CRM for any startup or small B2B business that wants to make more sales with less work. No more manual data entry. The CRM fills itself out by synchronizing with your email, calendar, phone, social media, and organizes all this data for you. There’s a free trial (no C...

Tera Hudson, Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Gen at The Mom Project, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Prior to The Mom Project, Tera was at InStride (reinventing the education of today’s workforce in partnership with leading global universities) and TeleSign (communications platform as a service or CPaaS, a Series B tech startup). The Mom Project was founded in 2015, has ~270 people, and is based out of my personal favorite, the hard-working Chicago, IL. They've raised Serie...

Peep Laja, founder of 3 companies (Wynter, CXL and Speero) joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Peep has been building companies for years. He founded a SaaS startup back in 2009 for building and selling online courses (it didn’t work out) and now running these companies. Peep has really grown his audience on LinkedIn and Twitter. 37k followers on Twitter and almost 26k followers on LinkedIn. Wow. People (including me) are following Peep's thought leadership on building companies, ...

Grace Woods, VP Global Head of Marketing at Patreon, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Prior to Patreon, Grace held executive roles at Flexport, Kloudless (Series A startup), and Salesforce (for 5 years). Patreon was founded in 2013, has over 200 people, and is based out of San Francisco, CA. They've raised Series E ($258.3M total). Patreon is a creator-founded membership platform that helps creators change the way their art is valued through a direct relationship with their fan...

Jared Jost, VP of Marketing at PatientPop, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Prior to PatientPop, Jared was at Twistlock (cybersecurity startup that got acquired by Palo Alto Networks) and Smarsh (SaaS). PatientPop was founded in 2014, has ~450 people and is based out of Santa Monica, CA. They've raised Series C ($125M total). PatientPop makes it easy for healthcare providers to attract more patients, manage their online reputation, modernize the patient experience, and automate...

Are you ready for this? A twist on the typical Anna + guest format! One of my listeners suggested I ask myself the same questions I typically ask my guests...so basically interview myself. If you ever wanted to learn more about me personally, this will help! And as an added bonus, I ask my 7-year-old daughter some of the same questions. The result is sometimes hilarious and always super cute. In this episode I cover: What does marketing mean to me; Quick pitch about my company, who I'm for, what...

Aaron Pollack, CMO at Nanit, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Prior to joining Nanit in 2017, Aaron held various marketing roles at global brands such as Canary, BlackBerry, GreatCall and SiriusXM. Nanit was founded in 2016, has ~65 people, and is based out of NYC. They JUST finished raising Series C! ($75M total) Nanit has created an HD baby monitor that lets you track your baby’s sleep, breathing motion, and growth. So you get the sleep analysis, personalized tips, and immedi...

Mark Kilens, VP of Content and Community at Drift, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Drift was founded in 2015, has ~400 people, and is based out of Boston, MA. They've raised Series C ($107M total). Drift helps companies (specifically, marketing and sales) engage in real-time, personalized conversations so they can build trust and accelerate revenue. Drift combines chat, email, video, and automation to remove the friction from business buying and make it more enjoyable and huma...

Jonathan Metrick, Chief Growth Officer (CGO) at Portage Ventures and Fractional CGO at Wealthsimple, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Lots of gold nuggets shared in this episode because Jonathan brings the insights from both a VC firm and startup perspective on growth. Portage Ventures is an early stage fintech investor, formed in 2016 and with a presence in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Europe and Southeast Asia. Wealthsimple is one of their portfolio companies. Wealthsimple wa...

Michelle Heath, Founder and CEO at Growth Street, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Mixing it up! I usually have venture-backed startup founders and marketing leaders come on as guests. This time I brought on a fellow marketing superstar to share her experience and wisdom. Michelle and I are clearly spirit animals, once you listen to this episode you'll understand why. Michelle started Growth Street in 2013, based out of Boston, MA. When businesses need to achieve the next level...

Sometimes I like to sprinkle in some raw and unfiltered thoughts. In this episode I cover: The purpose of content; Before you come up with a content strategy, you need to figure out what your target buyer cares about, their challenges, goals, where they spend their time, etc; What is a content engine and how to think about creating content for the full funnel; Daily/weekly marketing ops activities to feed your content engine; How to think about sales materials as part of your content strategy; H...

Rob Singer, CMO at Remitly, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Remitly was founded in 2011, they've raised Series F (just raised another $85M July 2020), and have ~900 people. Remitly is a fintech company that leverages digital channels, including mobile phones, to send money internationally. There are millions of immigrants around the world that make the huge sacrifice of leaving their families behind to live and work in another country. Remitly is helping them send money across...

Dan Frohnen, CMO at Sendoso, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Sendoso was founded in 2016, they've raised Series B ($54M total), and have ~370 people. Sendoso provides new ways to engage with customers throughout the buyer journey, including with personalized gifts, branded swag, eGifts, Cameos, virtual experiences & more. This directly impacts pipeline and revenue. Here’s what we covered: How to approach gifting prospects effectively (to help with relationship-building, remind...

Sometimes I like to sprinkle in some raw and unfiltered thoughts. In this episode I cover: Startups don't have a lot of people, time or money. So how should you think about prioritizing your marketing efforts? I break it down into three parts; 1. Foundation - clean up your house; 2. Owned Channels - create beautiful spaces within your house; 3. Awareness - let people know you have this clean, amazing house; Quick note about the 1-page marketing plan, not being overly complex so that it's useful ...

Paige LaNasa, Head of Marketing at Forager, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Forager was founded in 2018, they've raised Series A ($10M), and they're 75 people strong. Here’s what we covered: Logistics is the backbone of global e-commerce. Millions of dollars of goods move between the US, Mexico and Canada (cross-border). Despite that, it still happens to be a logistical nightmare to move commerce across these countries; What Paige worked on with Forager's marketing efforts in ...

Nemanja Zivkovic, CEO at Funky Marketing, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Mixing it up! This episode is a little different. I usually have venture-backed startup founders and marketing leaders come on as guests. This time I brought on a fellow marketing business owner to share his experience and wisdom. Nemanja started Funky Marketing in Jan. 2020, with a total of 6 employees at the time of the conversation. Funky Marketing is based out of Novi Sad, Serbia. They're helping B2B...

Anna McVeigh-Murphy, Marketing Manager at Curacubby, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Curacubby was founded in 2016, has 20 people, and is based out of Berkeley, CA. They are seed funded and preparing to raise Series A. Curacubby is an integrated business and payments platform for schools of all sizes. School management shouldn’t be a headache. With Curacubby, schools can focus less on administrative tasks and more on the students. Hurray! We covered: How to prove your company’...

George Wojciechowski, Co-Founder at ShipBob, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. ShipBob was founded in 2014 and has raised Series D ($130.5M total). Based out of good 'ole Chicago, IL, ShipBob has ~650 people. ShipBob is a tech-enabled 3PL (3rd party logistics) that fulfills e-commerce orders for direct-to-consumer brands. You can outsource your logistics, from warehousing to delivery (and more) so you can focus on other aspects of your business. ShipBob was recently ranked #1 on...

Matt Bendett, Co-Founder and VP of Ops & Strategy at Peerspace, joined me on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast. Peerspace was founded in 2014 and has raised Series B ($34.8M total). The team was ~85 people at their peak (currently a leaner team due to the impacts of COVID-19). Peerspace is your little black book for finding unique and undiscovered places to meet, create, or celebrate. Whether it’s a photo shoot, birthday bash, pop-up shop, or team brainstorm, Peerspace gives people the keys t...