Episodes

Ok, I know I said the last episode was the LAST one, but I just wanted to slide this BONUS one in here if ya don't mind. I asked Christina Pawlikowski (CEO and Co-Founder at Causal) to join me on the show so we could talk about what they're building, the value they've gotten from working with me as their fractional head of marketing, and why they decided to hire marketing before sales. About Causal: Founded in 2021 Funding: Seed Description: Causal is product optimization in a box for data obses...

Hey MSM listeners! Anna here, the host of the show. I hope you enjoyed Season 3 of Modern Startup Marketing and all the incredible guests and conversations I had. I'm officially wrapped with this season but will be back for more in the future. In the meantime, make sure you follow me @AnnaFurmanov on LinkedIn and you can sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing playbooks and insights and cracking some jokes. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotif...

Usually I'm asking my guests all the questions, but sometimes they have a question for me. So I created an episode that’s just guests asking me their burning question and then I answer their question. Some really great, thought-provoking questions in here. People do not hold back. Here's the full list of people that had questions for me (in order) along with the episode number in case you want to jump back and listen to the full episode: Chris Walker (Refine Labs, Ep. 154) Lee Anne Grant (babyli...

Sprinkling in another customer conversation (love doing these) I asked Tyler Wells (CTO and Co-Founder at Propel) to join me on the show so we could talk about what they're building, what stage they're at, the value they've gotten from working with me as their fractional head of marketing, and how they're ramping their marketing efforts. Tyler is also the host of the podcast " Data Chaos! " so check that out. About Propel: Founded in 2021 Funding: Seed ($4.6M) Description: 99% of product dev tea...

Happy Juneteenth to all my listeners! Drew Brucker (VP of Growth at LASSO, first marketing hire) has been a longtime listener of the podcast and he's one of the people that's given me some great feedback about the show. I decided to invite him on to talk about what he's been building, creative marketing plays, and more. Prior to LASSO, Drew was the first marketing hire at Fullsteam (a tech payments company) and prior to that he was Head of Brand and Digital at Rubicon (had a successful unicorn e...

Udi Ledergor is Chief Evangelist at Gong. He went from marketer #1 to Gong's Chief Marketing Officer and has been there for over 6 years. Udi led the creation of the Revenue Intelligence category, and led the company from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue. He's a 5X marketing leader in B2B startups AND he's also really good at playing the piano. About Gong: Founded in 2015, based out of SF, 1300+ people Funding: $583M total Hit unicorn status August 2020 Description: The revenue intelligen...

I’ve cracked the nut on exactly what early stage startups need help with from a marketing and business perspective, and I wanted to share it with you in this episode. I built a systematic approach, and what’s cool is I can use the system I’ve built over and over in many different contexts. For example: client work GrowthMentor calls friend calls VC calls accelerator workshops EdTech GTM bootcamp sessions high school presentations (yep, I’ve done this a couple times too) I always wanted to “produ...

Happy Memorial Day!!! I asked Chris Walker to join me for a second round on the show. Last time he was on was Episode 35 (called “Over-prioritizing sales is your SaaS startup’s biggest mistake”) and that was also a really good one. Towards the end of the episode, Chris has some great questions for me to answer. Chris is Founder and CEO at Refine Labs. Prior, Chris was the Dir. of Mktg at Eversound, a wellness startup. And prior to that he was at Vapotherm, a global medtech startup that IPO’d in ...

There's been a lot of buzz around PLG vs. Sales-led GTM models. Companies that started with one GTM method are exploring others. So I thought this conversation would be super interesting for many as they're thinking about a more blended approach. Sei Suriyakumar is Head of Marketing at Superhuman. Prior, Sei was Director of Product Marketing at Dropbox and prior to that he held marketing leadership positions at HelloSign (acquired by Dropbox). About Superhuman: Founded 2015 100+ people Funding: ...

Obaid Durrani is Head of Content at HockeyStack. He's also Creator Advisor at Cognism (a Series C startup) and he's the co-host of the Cheat Codes podcast with Todd Clouser who I also had on the show (check out Ep. 148). Prior, Obaid was Associate Creative Director at Refine Labs. Prior to that he bootstrapped a 5-person content + animation team to $420k ARR. In this episode we cover: What does “creative” mean to you; When Todd was on the show with me (Ep. 148) he talked about 3 content types. C...

I asked Jay Acunzo to join me (again) on the show because he's a writer and content creator and I believe that we (startup marketers) can learn a lot from people that focus on creative work. Jay is a writer, podcast host, speaker, and lifelong storyteller on a mission to help you make what matters most. Here's what Jay is up to: Host of the podcast Unthinkable Newsletter “Playing Favorites” that's helping people push themselves creatively Co-Founder of the Creator Kitchen, a membership program h...

I got connected to David through Gidi Pridor (Workvivo) who I super respect, David and Gidi both worked at TravelPerk and Gidi raved about David so of course I wanted to bring him onto the show. (Check out Ep. 146 where I talk to Gidi about why many startups stop being exciting too early and the advantages of hiring a Creative Director early. Workvivo just got acquired by Zoom.) David Hooker is Brand Lead at Printify. Prior, David was Head of B2B Content at Gett (a Series F startup). David also ...

There is so much I love about Goodles and so much that both B2C and B2B startups can learn from them. So I brought on Paul Earle because he was very deeply involved in Goodles' creative work. Paul works with brands on their creative and he teaches innovation, new ventures, and new brand creation at the Kellogg School of Management (go Kellogg!!). Prior, Paul was the co-founder and executive director of global creative agency Leo Burnett’s “Farmhouse” (its innovation and new venture center). Jen ...

Todd Clouser is The Worst Marketer In The World at Lavender. He's also Co-Host of the Cheat Codes podcast. Prior, Todd held marketing leadership roles at Refine Labs (demand strategy and research for B2B growth stage startups). Why would I bring on the worst marketer in the world? I guess a better question to ask is, why would you want to call yourself the worst marketer in the world? Well, maybe you should just listen to this episode. Will Allred (Co-Founder and COO at Lavender) joined me for E...

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! Lately I've been thinking about this simple equation: Marketing = Experience + Revenue (credit: Drew Brucker) I just love the simplicity of it. Something you can explain to a 7-year-old. I brought back Kyle Lacy (CMO at Jellyfish) to talk about creativity, testing new ideas, brand vs. demand, giving your team the space to be creative, and more. Kyle is also an advisor to startups including Demandwell and Postal.io. Prior, Kyle was the CMO at Lessonly (...

Hey listeners! Hope you had a wonderful Spring Break and if you're still on it enjoy those last few days!! I brought back Gideon Pridor (CMO at Workvivo) because he is just the coolest to jam with. We always have a great time. Prior to Workvivo, Gidi was the VP of Marketing at TravelPerk and prior to that he was the VP of Marketing at Perfecto Mobile. Check out Episode 59 “Your Story Impacts Your Go-To-Market And Inspires Your Product Development.” That was when Workvivo was Series A (now they'r...

Katie Mitchell is one of the smartest brand and content marketers I know. She was the Sr. Director of Marketing (Product Marketing, Content Marketing, and Brand/Communications) at Sprig for 2+ years and in 2023 she's taking some time off before she jumps back into things. I met Katie back in 2020 on Chris Walker's Demand Gen Live (DGL) Tuesday night virtual events. Sprig is a Series B startup based out of San Francisco that has raised $88M in funding total. Here's what we cover: What does creati...

One of the big reasons why I love working with startups is because they're so nimble and fast! Having a small team is a huge benefit to moving quickly. I asked MJ Smith (VP of Marketing at CoLab) to join me on the show again. She’s been VP of Marketing 3X. Prior, MJ was VP of Growth at Refine Labs and prior to that she was VP of Marketing at Firetrace. Please also check out Episode 9 “MJ Peters, VP of Marketing at Firetrace, challenges industrial companies to innovate their marketing.” It was on...

Andy Raskin is the storyteller of Silicon Valley, the master of strategic narrative. Andy helps CEOs align their teams around a strategic narrative in order to power success in sales, marketing, fundraising, product and recruiting. Clients include VC-backed companies funded by top VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Google Ventures, and First Round Capital. He’s also led strategic narrative training at Salesforce, Uber, Square, Yelp, VMware, Intel, General Assembly and more. On Andy's podc...

A bit of a different flavor for this episode, I wanted to share answers to the top 15 questions I get in a kind of rapid-fire model. I asked Nick Bennett to join me for this episode, Nick is the Sr. Director of ELG & Evangelism at Airmeet (Series B startup). He’s also host of the podcast "The Anonymous Marketer." Prior, Nick was the Director of Evangelism and Customer Marketing at Alyce (Series B startup). I’ve known Nick for a while, he's always sharing useful content on LinkedIn, he's always t...

I love bringing on other startup marketing experts and Emily Kramer is no exception. Plus she's just super down to earth and was fun to talk to. Emily Kramer is Co-Founder at MKT1 (helps founders and marketers build and scale their marketing functions through their fund MKT1 Capital, advising & consulting, and content and courses). She's like a “CMO investor” because she's got a fund (MKT1 Capital) that’s focused on early-stage B2B startups. Prior, Emily led and built marketing teams from the gr...

A twist on the typical episode! This is something I did two years back with Episode 23 (Reverse Podcast Episode with my then 7-year-old daughter where we talked about marketing) and so I decided to do it again but have a different flavor. I brought on my 9-year-old daughter to ask her some questions around creativity...and I answer those same questions. It's so fun to compare how we answer. The result is sometimes hilarious and always super cute. In this episode we cover: What does being creativ...

Natalie Marcotullio is Head of Growth and Ops at Navattic. I’ve been working with Natalie and the Navattic team for 4+ months now as a Marketing Advisor so I personally have seen some of the creative work they’re putting out, and especially as an early stage B2B startup! Prior, Natalie held various roles including Marketing Director and Chief of Staff at Map My Customers (a Series A SaaS). Navattic was founded in 2020 and is based out of NYC. They've raised $5.4M funding (Seed). Navattic helps y...

I’ve been having some very insightful conversations on the podcast about creativity, pushing boundaries, marketing experiments and innovation 
and I’ve had some time to think about the stuff we covered so far and just wanted to share these 5 points with you guys: 1. Creativity comes in two forms: - for the sake of creativity (in art, writing, music, etc.) and - in business 2. Creative means: trying new things, sharing new ideas, connecting seemingly unrelated concepts to share new ideas. It's go...