formula for diSaaSter: message-market fit, product-market fit, & a non-working product

we’ve all done it.

sacrificed long term goals for short term gains. 

and startups are just as tempted as people to take shortcuts, hoping to reach a destination of product-market fit and massive success faster.

but sometimes shortcuts take you down the wrong road. one you can’t come back from.

on this episode of the diSaaSter recovery podcast, we’re guided by our esteemed guest who's a marketing maestro with 16 years of experience across 12+ different startups. 

you can expect a fascinating discussion ranging from the essence of product marketing to the impact of data-driven decisions devoid of a certain critical ingredient.

we'll also delve into the dynamic nature of product-market fit and the often-underestimated role of luck and timing. we'll navigate the intricacies of data interpretation and emphasize the value of context when making decisions. building on lessons from april dunford's "obviously awesome", we'll address challenges in saas sales and marketing, and highlight the significance of accurate positioning.

of course, no episode of diSaaSter recovery is complete without some thrilling diSaaSter stories. listen as our guest shares her journey through product launches, company mismanagement, financial struggles, and the aftermath. together, we'll extract valuable lessons that can pave the way for startup success. 

so, grab your headphones and prepare for an enriching tour through the tumultuous realm of startups. let's learn from these startup diSaaSters and turn them into stepping stones for success.

Episode Transcript

josh (00:07):
Welcome to the Disaster Recovery Podcast.
I'm your host, josh Santow, andthis is the show where we
reveal the untold horror storiesand hard-learned lessons of
software as a service start-uplife as told by the sassholes
who lived through it.
Their stories about themanagers, departments and
companies they worked for willleave you thinking what a
disaster.
Our mission is to help youbring order and sanity to the

(00:30):
chaos you will undoubtedlyencounter in your own adventures
in sass.
There's stories andconversations with our guests
who have been there and donethat in all aspects of sass from
sales, marketing, product andmore.
You'll get the tools andinsights you need to recover
from disaster.
Today on the show we're talkingmarketing and the importance of

(00:56):
product marketing.
We'll examine where marketingshould start, the failures of a
very common strategy inmarketing.
We'll talk about how beingsolely data-driven can
negatively impact results and,finally, we'll cover the dangers
of hope and addiction tostart-up life.
Our guest is a marketingprofessional with 16 years and

(01:19):
12 plus start-ups under her belt.
She's always been a marketer atHark, but that wasn't her
original career choice.
Initially, genetics was herpassion, but in college she made
the switch to marketing andfocus specifically on consumer
behavior and what drives themconsciously and subconsciously,
which is critical forunderstanding the personas that

(01:41):
you need to target and reach outto in marketing.
After school she began hercareer in corporate marketing
before eventually moving tostart-up life and has done
everything from digitalmarketing to product marketing,
demand-gen marketing, acow-based marketing and more.
I'm excited for you to hear herstory, but before we get into

(02:02):
the interview, I ask that youplease keep the following in
mind the stories shared on theDisaster Recovery podcast are
based on anonymous individualexperiences at real companies.
The goal in sharing thesestories and perspectives is to
help fellow sassholes learn fromeach other, get a much-needed
sanity check and build empathyalong the way.

(02:24):
No specific company or personis mentioned.
If a story feels like an attackon you or your company, then we
encourage you to reflect on whythat is.
And with that, on to the show.
Welcome to the DisasterRecovery podcast.
I'm so glad that you decided tojoin us today.

(02:46):
Now I know you're kind of inbetween homes At the moment.
You've got some renovationsgoing on in Florida, although it
does sound like the placeswhere you spend your time Boston
and Florida.
You've got a lot of homeprojects going on.
How's that been going for you?

guest (03:02):
Yeah, I felt, you know, this year I was taking a
sabbatical to just relax andrefresh and then I thought what
better way to do that than tofully remodel the entire
apartment.
So lots of learning lessonsalong the way.
I did this in Boston.
I should have known better, butI thought maybe it might be
easier, considering the placeisn't 115 years old down in

(03:22):
Florida.
But now different set of issues.
But it'll look great after.
So I'll just skip the beforeand after pictures to see the
difference and make myself proud.

josh (03:31):
Has it felt refreshing and relaxing.

guest (03:34):
It did until we were in the mess at construction,
permitting delays, Like now, the1980s, the Money Pit movie
that's my life where everythingis done in two weeks.
Two weeks is actually threeplus months, and that's just the
norm.

josh (03:52):
And it keeps going and going.

guest (03:54):
All right.

josh (03:55):
Well, you certainly earned your sabbatical.
I hope you are able to findthose moments of refreshment and
relaxation.
Definitely we're so excited totalk to you about your own
disaster experience today.
But before we get into that,you know the show.
The episode is going to centervery much around marketing and
I'd love to start with you withyour experience in marketing

(04:17):
across all aspects of marketing,across a wide variety of
different types of companies,different sizes of companies,
different products that you'rebringing to different markets
with different personas, and allthese other marketing terms.
Had the lift to simplify andstart, how do you define
marketing?

guest (04:35):
Yeah, I think it depends on who I'm speaking to.
So simplistic terms, simplelike creating an interest in a
product and service and thengetting prospective buyers to
buy it, simply enough.
And there are tons of differentfacets of marketing, but for me
, I think the what are, thespecial key word is at the time

(04:56):
and the focus is on the trend.
All great marketing actuallyoriginates from product
marketing.
So, depending upon the companythat you're at, they define that
differently too, right?
There's no easy explanation, Ithink.
To me, this is basicallyproduct marketing is responsible
for getting the right productto the right customer at the
right time to make sure thatthere is adoption, simply enough

(05:19):
, behind the details of that,basically, if product owns the
product roadmap and how theproduct is developed, product
marketing owns everything fromthat product out to the market,
the go-to-market strategy orplan, how it's going to be
communicated, how the long-termroadmap is followed, what the
product needs to have in termsof taking that product to market

(05:39):
and how to generate demand andinterest and evaluate that for
customer adoption going forward.

josh (05:45):
Well, I love how you started out your answer with.
Well, it depends.
It depends on who I'm speakingto, and I couldn't help but
think how officially marketingthat response is, because that's
what it's all about.
It's understanding who is theaudience.
What is the message that theyneed to hear, which ties into
your comments about productmarketing how do you make sure
that the right product gets theright people at the right time?

(06:06):
And a good deal of that is notjust understanding the market,
aka people.
What is the context?
Who are the people, what is theworld like that they are living
in and the way that theyperceive it?
What is the product and howdoes that enable a better life?
Is that something that theywould want and provide value,
and does it provide value tothem?

(06:26):
Which gets into the productmarketing discussion.
So I'm so glad that youhighlighted that Product
marketing is obviously veryclose to my heart, since that's
actually where I learned a lotfrom you about was product
marketing.
So, for those of you listening,this is someone who helped me
develop my own understanding ofproduct marketing as a newer
product marketer who had no ideawhat he was doing.

(06:49):
So it was very helpful to havesomeone with such a strong
perspective on what it is.
Share that and help shepherd meto the right people at the
right time and be the rightproduct.
Now, next question that I'mgoing to throw your way what do
you find that people typicallyget wrong about marketing?

guest (07:12):
I wouldn't narrow it down to one particular thing.
I would say the challenge isthe perception of marketing
versus the reality.
So typically and you know, yousee this across the board you go
on LinkedIn, you see people'sprofiles and in their header
they're like X, uber, x, square,x fill in the blank of the top

(07:32):
successful companies thatthey've been at, that have had
acquisitions or have gone public, et cetera.
And so then startups who arejust growing, maybe a series A
or C, and they need that saviorto come in and really develop
the product that they want to bethe next Uber or Square.
And so there's this perceptionthat that person brings their
success with them and it's likea copy and paste playbook.

(07:55):
Now, I can't tell you how manytimes I've seen that go wrong.
I would love to say I've seenit go right because it does
happen.
Some people are at the rightplace at the right time, just
like product marketing.
They just figured it out.
In my case, you know companieshire that key sales guy and that
sales guys must bring all thesecustomers, and then it's a
different company, it's adifferent aspect, different

(08:16):
timing, different product andeverything changes.
And a lot of times the startupswant all that success to ride
on that one individual, thecheap product officer, cheap
sales or cheap marketingindividual, and it doesn't end
up working out exactly like theyhad anticipated or their
expectations aren't lived up to.

josh (08:35):
So I completely agree with that idea of you can't just
copy and paste.
But before I share what I thinkpeople should do, I'd love to
hear from you If it's not copyand paste which you said,
there's an exception.
Sometime you could just happento be the right person at the
right time in the right marketcircumstances.
Assuming that's not the case,if no copy paste, then what can
you do or what should you do?

guest (08:56):
Yeah, I think that the mindset is there, like, if you
truly understand how to evaluatethe customer, what the customer
lifecycle looks like, you know,granted, the customer or the
buyer personas will shift, themessaging might change, but you
understand how the process works.
You've seen enough to where youcan fill in the gaps with

(09:17):
enough knowledge of whatevercompany and product that you're
at currently.

josh (09:21):
So it's almost like not necessarily focusing on the
specific details, ratherthinking more about the
framework which got you to thoseoriginal details.

guest (09:35):
The foundational elements .

josh (09:37):
Foundational elements, yeah, framework.
Where do you think thisperspective comes from?
Because, like you mentioned, alot of people are on LinkedIn.
They'll post I love that youcalled that out X Facebook, x
Uber, x Twitter, and sometimesyou look and it's like customer
support, tier one.

(09:57):
It's like true, I'm still XApple, which is the case for me.

guest (10:02):
I'm X Apple Right time right.

josh (10:05):
Right, right, right time, right title, all that stuff,
this idea of copy and paste.
Like you mentioned, decisionsare often made.
This person was successful inthis role at this company.
They drove these results.
They must have the secrets thatwe need to come in and get
those quick wins.
What does that perception comefrom?

(10:26):
What are your thoughts there?

guest (10:30):
I think by that time they feel like it's the person that
makes the change and not thecompany, not the culture, not
the reality or the market.
At that specific time, perhapsbefore they hire those
individuals, they report to aboard and when we talk about
startups getting funding, we dothe same thing.

(10:50):
We say who's the investmentboard that's invested in your
company?
And we lift off the top names,top BCs, and that's just kind of
how it's driven.
It defines credibility if youhave some really great names to
show on your resume, and I thinkthat's just how we're hardwired
.
We think somebody comes from,somebody goes to a great Ivy
League school.
Wow, they must be smart.
We don't know how they gotthere, perhaps.

(11:12):
Or we work with that person andwe're like maybe this isn't the
right person and through tarotand error, I guess we just
realized the pedigree that we'resupposed to come with just
doesn't live up to theexpectation of what we have
regarding the brand names.
It's funny saying marketingbrand names, because that's
basically what we focus on inmarketing.
So we're trying to tellourselves not to do the same

(11:33):
thing when it comes to hiring,and it's contradictory and I
don't really have the answer.
I just feel like that'stypically how things are done in
education and professionalenvironments.

josh (11:46):
I'm struck by this term that I heard a lot in working
with sales teams and developingsales content.
Social proof.
And when you're thinking aboutthose people who are saying I
should appeal to you.
I stand out because I worked atthis previous company with the
assumption being that you wantto emulate that type of success

(12:08):
that they had, or repeat thatsuccess that they had.
And I'm the key one, A keyplayer in that, because I've
been around success, I'vetouched the success, I have the
mark of success and I've provenit by this logo that's
associated with my name.
So that's a thought that I wasstruck by, of just how wired we
are to look at what others aredoing and say, okay, that worked

(12:31):
for them, they had this person,let's have this person as well.
Maybe, I don't know, it couldbe completely wrong.

guest (12:38):
Sometimes there are those visionaries like Johnny.
I right he was the visionarybehind Apple and maybe Steve
Jobs was a wonderful executorand also somewhat of a visionary
, but if it weren't for Johnny Iit wouldn't have happened.
I think some people it's reallydifficult to differentiate the
true visionary and then otherswho worked with that individual,
who are writing the coattailswith that success.

josh (12:59):
Absolutely.
I have often heard descriptionsof product market fit very much
being this when you haveproduct market fit, you know it.
That's the first vaguedefinition that I often hear.
And the other part of it islike a nonstop adrenaline fuel

(13:21):
roller coaster where you'regoing super fast and you're
hoping things don't break, butthe success just keeps rolling
in and I am completely lost mytrain of thought.
What's that With product marketfit?
Yep, I completely lost where Iwas going with that.

guest (13:41):
A lot of times we think that product market fit is
static.
Right, we're basically taughtthis.
I don't think the curve haschanged much throughout this 30
year time period, but we'retaught.
The minute that we hit productmarket fit, we cross the chasm.
We've had large scale adoption,hockey stick growth.
We made it.
We're going to go public andthe challenging time is actually

(14:02):
maybe now is the best pointthat we can relate to is that
you might have had productmarket fit with a lot of early
adopters and maybe you trulydidn't understand when that
changed.
Or maybe your product was anice to have and the market has
changed.
Customers needs have changedand what would have been great

(14:23):
two years ago now, if your niceto have product doesn't define
ROI, the CFOs who are drivingthe budget now determine that
product market fit changes andjust because you have it at that
one point at a time, doesn'tmean it continues.
It's more like a dynamicecosystem.
It's not a static point.

josh (14:40):
And your point there reminded me of what I was
originally trying to say, whichis product market fit can help
you cover for less than idealfoundations and certain elements
.
When you've got that boom, themarket hits the problem.
Wow, you might not have thebest messaging and positioning,
maybe you're the first out thereand people just instantly get

(15:00):
it.
But the point that you justbrought up, when the time comes
to adapt, if you don't havethose right foundations in place
, which are processes as much asthe people themselves like you
mentioned Johnny Ives being thevisionary and other people
writing the coattails of hissuccess or the success that he
brought I should say that's kindof the same of when you have

(15:23):
this thing that's reallysuccessful and it's really good,
you can overlook thesedifferent foundations and really
understanding what made itsuccessful can be hard to
analyze.

guest (15:34):
Yeah, that's you're right .
Maybe it's a combination offactors and most of the times it
is Now.
It's not that one person whowas successful, it's a team of
individuals, it's market timing,it's product.
It's early to market everythingright.
It's like product meets some.
Luck is when perseverance meetsopportunity.

josh (15:50):
Yeah, the timing and luck is such a big big factor there.
So, speaking of the ins andouts of marketing, what's a
strongly held opinion inmarketing that you completely
disagree with?

guest (16:06):
Yeah, the data drives everything.
I remember even putting on myin fact, it probably still is
there in Millington ProcellMarist.
They like data during marketerbecause a lot of times at the
beginning, marketers werefighting with being so brand
focused and vanity metrics andthat really wasn't the core data
that you need to focus on.
The core data was KDIs that youwere driving, so there was a
difference between marketing atthe time and how that shifted

(16:28):
when everyone was focusing onbig data.
And what did that mean?
So, everyone's data driven,everyone's consumer insights
driven, but what does the coreof that truly mean?
How does that define you andhow your working style is?
And over time, it's great to bedata driven.
Obviously, you need numbers toback up your decisions going
forward, but there's a lot ofcontext behind that data that's

(16:50):
not even surfaced and that's thechallenging part.
As a marketer, we are alwaysfought to go for the number, and
where the scapegoat of manydifferent times where you see
there's sales and marketingfriction or product marketing.
It's product and marketingfriction and the challenging
part is we all have a number Now, whatever that number may be

(17:12):
number of leads, number ofconversions, number of sales,
number of bookings, et cetera,and we're all striving to hit
that number so much we don'tunderstand the context of why
we're not hitting it or why wedid in the first place, like why
we have a certain number ofleads, for example, why those
leads are or aren't converting,for example, and potentially
over time, like over manyquarters, or when we have to go

(17:33):
back to the board meeting andstate we're not going to hit
that goal even though wecommunicated we were full steam
ahead, is because we neverreally got the context behind
why we were doing or making ourachievements or not.
For example, we don't know whythe customer bought to begin
with.
It could have been they wereunder the wire and they had to
hit the budget number beforetheir fiscal year was done.

(17:55):
It could have been they neededsomething to put the steam
behind their career and theirnext career progression that
they were going to make.
We don't truly know all thecontext that's there, but when
we try to replicate that andscale it, it's really
challenging without having thatcontext behind the KPIs and the
data.

josh (18:15):
So, when you were breaking that down, the understanding or
the summary that I took awayfrom it is this idea that
decisions with data withoutcontext could potentially put
you at risk.

guest (18:30):
Absolutely.

josh (18:31):
So it's not enough to be data driven.

guest (18:34):
It's not enough because you know when you are hiring
someone or when you're trying toget these big players at your
company, you're trying to showoff all the success you've had
in your state.
We have X number of bookings,we have X number of retention
for existing customers andnobody really explains why they

(18:54):
think they have product marketfit.
They have the numbers to showwhy, and then you get there and
you're like, okay, these numberswere inflated.
You threw a bunch of money atthe game and you decided to go
all in on paid advertising andperformance marketing and that's
why you have a huge influx ofleads.
It's not because the market wasdriving interest to begin with,
and then over time, you findout all of the pockets of

(19:16):
missing information and thecontextual data that you would
need behind that.

josh (19:20):
It's to be clear.
Your argument is not that datais unimportant or data should be
ignored, right?
The whole thing is, you need tounderstand what the data is
actually telling you.

guest (19:33):
And to do that.

josh (19:34):
You have to dig into why.
Why are we having these results, which can kind of be hard
going from numbers to getting tothe actual why?
The example that you brought upis one of the examples being
inbound leads and looking atthose different data points, how
would you dig into a numberlike that to really make sure

(19:54):
that you understand the contextand then make sure decision
makers understand the context ofthe data?

guest (20:02):
Well, that's the thing.
When you were the manager, thetactical executor, of the
specific marketing campaign, youknow what's happened, you know
if you've increased your budget,you know if you've adjusted
certain channels fordistribution, for marketing.
But as you go up and report onthose metrics and that those
metrics get reported to theboard, they just want the number
, they want another percentageor decrease of that number and

(20:26):
they want to see it obviouslygoing up and trending upwards,
going forward.
So a lot of that reasoning andexplanation gets lost or not
communicated in until it's toolate in your three or four
quarters down where they want.
That reasons why they didn'thit their goal for the year.
So it depends upon the level ofhierarchy and how many people
are involved in the strategyversus the tactical execution.

josh (20:49):
And then from a numbers or metrics perspective, because
there's no way that we're goingto get away from that and being
data driven to support that.
Like you mentioned, you knowyou're the people that you
report to are reporting thesenumbers up to the people they
report to, are reporting thenumbers up to the people that
they report to.
The context is absolutely goingto be lost.
In some cases, the contextmight not even matter to those

(21:13):
individuals, which, we couldargue, is you know right or
wrong.
But I'm curious are there anymetrics or you know data points
you found in your career to beconsistently the ones that
should be focused on orprioritized above all others?

guest (21:32):
Yeah.
So I think, as a productmarketer, I think it's more on
the middle of the funnel metricsand bottom of the funnel
metrics when you compare productmarketing with demand gen.
Demand's goal is to get as muchinterest top of the funnel,
beginning the process right.
How many people come to ourwebsite?
What's the conversion rate fromthose individuals to leads, et
cetera?
What ends up happening is theKPIs that our focus on is, if

(21:55):
they're stuck in the funnel,like they're not really
converting, they're not closingdeals, they're just kind of
sitting there waiting, andthat's when we truly need to
evaluate whether thoseindividuals are part of our
personas.
How many of those closed dealsare actually the intended market
that we built the product forand that we got the market
validation for, versus randomindividuals that happened to

(22:15):
just purchase the product?
I think that's true evaluation.
How many of those customers areyour actual buyer personas
versus outside?

josh (22:22):
the realm Absolutely, because you're spending sales
resources, marketing efforts andmaterials, different internal
resources, beyond just that, tosupport what you're calling out
people that may not actually bethe people that we should try to
sell to or invest in, notwithout the research and context
needed Because the productmight work for those individuals

(22:45):
, but that doesn't mean thepositioning, the collateral, the
things that are going to helpthem make a decision work for
them and that takes research andyou got to prioritize what's
going to be those easy winsversus those hard wins.

guest (22:56):
Or they might have a higher churn rate.
That tends to happen a lot morein SaaS, where they buy but
then they realize it's not thebest fit for them.
The sales rep's already soldthe deal.
There's no claw back.
They already made theircommission and yet we're stuck
with a high retention.
I mean a low retention and ahigh churn rate.
That we need to fix later on.

josh (23:12):
Yeah, which is a prime indicator.
I'm reading a book right nowcalled Obviously Awesome by
April Dunford, which is aboutpositioning and the importance
of it.
One of the things that shecalls out is exactly what you
describe if you're finding thatyou're closing deals but those
customers are churning andbefore they churn, what they're
asking for are features thatyour team is like.

(23:34):
This will never be a part of ourproduct because, they're trying
to get your product to be whatthey understood it to be or what
it was sold to them as and whenthat's not the case, that leads
to churn and it's typicallyindicative of a positioning
context research issue.
So that's a very timely point.
Yeah Well look, you've got alot of experience in stories.

(23:57):
I would love for us to hearyour disaster stories.
So tell us about thisexperience you had that, lest
you feeling like what a disaster.

guest (24:12):
Yeah, I think I had a difficult time with this, trying
to figure out the true disasterstory that I wanted to share,
one.
I wanted, maybe others to havesomething to go off of If they
hadn't experienced a challengeor something like that.
I wanted them to use this redflag and not make the same
mistakes, right?

josh (24:30):
Absolutely, and that is the goal it is.
Let's hear stories from realpeople who are cutting through
the crap and sharing.
Hey, when this happened, thisis what I learned, and if you're
experiencing it, you might wantto be on the lookout, because
it's a rip.

guest (24:46):
Absolutely so.
I thought of one, and it's notjust one mistake.
It was like early on in mystartup career and I always come
back to this example and nomatter how great the startup is
that I'm at for a particulartime Unfortunately marketing
doesn't have a long tenure Ialways refer back to this

(25:07):
example.
I'm like, oh, I remember I hadexperienced just this and at the
time tech was so important andit was all over.
The media was blowing up techindustry.
Everything was great.
Large tech publications werecovering everything.
Large mainstream media wascovering tech and it was just a

(25:28):
great time to be in the industryperiod and I had recently left
my corporation that I was at,who also had technology, and I
wanted something that was morelively and engaging and just
like fast speed.
And I had these rose coloredglasses on, like many of us do.
Sometimes they come on,sometimes they go off, and I
followed TechCrunch and Ifollowed all the blogs and I was

(25:51):
on top of everything the top VCfirms.
So I made a list.
You know, here's what I wouldlook for in, you know, great
technology company.
Now, mind you, I had to haveexperience in that realm and the
startup that I was at or goingto.
It was right up my alley Interms of the experience that I
had and what they were lookingfor in terms of the fit and they

(26:11):
had great VCs at the time.
They had a really goodexecutive team.
Everything seemed to check allthe boxes.
I think the only thing thatdidn't check off was I was
living in the city of Boston.
I didn't have a car because Igot rid of my car when the other
company went remote and Ithought, oh crap, I can't get
out of the city.
So the only checkbox thatwasn't checked was I needed

(26:32):
transportation out of the cityto the Burbs to work at the job.
That was it, easy enough.
And then I just thought likethat was a great opportunity
because I was going to be a onewoman show.
So I had a lot ofresponsibility of the huge
growth opportunity for me.
So I was the only marketer thatthey had at the time.

(26:52):
Well, they had a VP ofmarketing and she had all the
product managers that reportedto her.
So I was the only regulargeneral product marketing
manager and I was responsiblefor brand awareness and
generating leads for the salesteam across, like numerous
different activities, publicrelations and marketing sales

(27:14):
support in terms of enablementthat they needed.
I was there to help launch andpromote the two product lines
that they had.
This was before I even knew ofproduct marketing.
This was just marketing of whatit was.
We weren't so siloed in termsof the activities that marketing
did, so they had one softwareand two hardware.
They were doing two differentmarkets.
So I had to do the brandrefresh for the website.

(27:34):
The marketing material is acollateral and I worked with
contractors obviously becauseone person can't do that.
Oh, product marketers, the datascience team, the sales team
every day was different in termsof their responsibility.
They had lots of moving piecesand lots of people and I was
working nonstop and I just lovedit and I thought what a great

(27:55):
time to be at this companyBecause they had just raised a
series being funding before I'darrived.
They didn't have enough brandawareness at the time, so I was
going to be responsible to helpme increase that and the focus
of the company was such a greattime where you know, when you
raise around the funding, youhave all this money and you want
to focus on the culture and thevisions and the values because,
as you hire, that's what you'regoing to be hiring for is the

(28:17):
shit.
It was wonderful.
So marketing obviously getsinvolved in that side of things
internally.
A lot of people don't thinkabout marketing internally at
the company, working with HR andthe team, and that is also an
area that we do.
And so we were in the processof raising another round of
funding, series C, and we hadone of the top 10 VC firms that

(28:42):
we were trying to secure fundingwith, and I just remember the
CEO of the company saying onetime I tried to raise with them
a while ago and they wouldn'teven take my phone call.
And now, look, they'reinvesting in our company.
I had no idea what that wouldlook like and how that would

(29:02):
change the game, but I knew itwas extremely important and I
knew having the major investorwas going to take us to another
level and everything was great.
Everything was great for thefirst year.
Everything was awesome in thefirst year and I bragged about
it.
I was so happy and proud and Iloved my call.
I actually, throughout my career, I've had some great colleagues

(29:23):
, bosses, et cetera, and I'vebeen very lucky on that side.
I haven't timed startupscorrectly, but I've worked with
some great people that manycouldn't right, and I've learned
in some outs at the startupsfirsthand, and what I refer to
as the smoke and mirror show,what we tell the world is our
startup, what our positioning isexternally, and then the behind

(29:43):
the scenes stuff that we'rereactively piecing together,
that we don't want anyone toknow about, and you don't ever
know what's behind the sceneuntil you're actually there,
you're in the thick of it andyou're like oh my gosh.
And then you reevaluate andyou're just like maybe this
wasn't as great as I thought itwas.

josh (30:02):
I think that that's such a common experience.
I've certainly felt thatfirsthand.
You're right, you don't knowuntil you actually get there.
And I've learned firsthand thatyou, as an interviewer speaking
to an interviewee, you're stuckbetween how honest do I really
get without scaring this personoff because we could use their
talents and their expertise andtheir ex Uber, ex Apple LinkedIn

(30:29):
profile?
It's a good club to have thatsocial proof to say we're a team
that really has it together,but you really don't know how
much is actually happeningbehind the scenes or how chaotic
it is.
So I love that you brought thatup.

guest (30:43):
So we were writing this huge wave of high profile
success and we had had researchgrants at the time.
The product was award winning.
It was foundationally in termsof social proof.
You can't get anything betterthan research validation and if
you have that technology, itputs you in a different level.
It's not just like oh, you havecustomers, you actually have

(31:04):
data signers, that's rigorouslyvalidated, so your product works
.
So we were writing this quick,high profile success and we are
invited to participate in CESconsumer electronics show, which
is enormous Over 100,000 peopleprobably even more so now than
it was then just gatheredtogether in Vegas, and our

(31:27):
invitation was to be a part ofthe startup section where we
were the disruptive new,innovative technology at the
time, great branding, especiallyfor marketing, and we knew that
all of the big brands weregoing to be there All our
prospective customers that wewanted to have, like Sony's and
the Samsung, et cetera, and thenall of the market research
partners who we were alsoselling to in the channel.

(31:47):
They were also going to bethere to see what new technology
was on the market.
So this was the perfect time todo a product.

josh (31:54):
It's a big deal.
You got me amped to just thinkit about it.

guest (31:58):
Yeah, we were in the advertising research space and
the advertisers were going to bethere, the publishers, the
investors, everything.
So it just made sense, it wasvery logical and we had done
this campaign with ouradvertising about like eight or
nine months before that where wehad amassed enough data from
our existing customers andmarket research partners where

(32:19):
we could leverage that into ademo.
So we had all these individualstudies that were like piece
mail and then certain ones thatwe could share and certain ones
we couldn't.
So that was, you know,important in terms of getting
all of the data that we needed.
But we had to package all thosepieces into one nice public
facing demo with a cleandashboard.

(32:39):
That was like exciting andentertaining and engaging,
because when people come to yourbooth and everyone's doing the
same messaging, you want toreally stand out.
When TechCrunch comes by yourbooth, you want them to do an
interview with you.
At the time TechCrunch wasreally important Not that it's
not now, but I do remember somany other publications out now
and so we were a small team and,like many startups, especially

(33:04):
now, or even technologycompanies, we were heavily
engineering driven right.
We had big backlog of customerfeature requests.
We had a big backlog of bugfixes and we had additional
feature enhancements that we hadalready put on our product
roadmap that you communicate tothe customer and secure.
You know here's where we'regoing with Azure.
You get them aligned and thenhere we go.

(33:27):
But because we were a small team, we were limited in terms of
our resources.
Something had to kip and weknew if we were going to go all
in across all departments.
It was a big decision to do so.
We had to shift our otherpriorities and go in with this
one product launch and we had toput Band-Aid fixes on
everything else, and we had tohope that we could.

(33:50):
We had a great customer successteam at the time Thank goodness
for them and we had greatcustomers.
You know those ones who arepretty flexible in terms of like
the lot of stuff slide becausethey believe in you.
So we had to hope that thecustomers loved us enough to
wait a bit longer for theirfeature request that we had
already committed to like two orthree quarters back.
And our data science team theywere very fast, very nimble and

(34:17):
very smart and intelligent, andthey had so many great
algorithms that worked.
Some worked better than others.
So we decided to leverage ourstrength and, much like magic,
focus everyone's attention onthe algorithm that worked, and
then a redirection ploy to notfocus on the things that didn't?

josh (34:36):
That makes sense.
That's the common vaporwarestrategy, right?

guest (34:41):
Yeah, and then with this one demo, we had like everything
going in our favor but we hadproblems with the demo.
And we didn't have problemswith the demo when we were in,
you know, the lab or in ouroffice.
We had problems with the demoeverywhere.
We had problems with the demo.
The night before, when it wascrashing, we had problems with

(35:02):
the demo.
The time like maybe I rememberlike 30 minutes or an hour, I
was on the phone and the VP ofengineering was yelling at me
because I was freaking outbecause the demo wasn't working
for the biggest show and he wastrying to keep it together for
his engineering team and it wasa high stressful situation and

(35:23):
they did what they could do.
But we all knew that we weredoing it so fast that we were
trying to crank out like a fullscale demo within such a short
period of time, and so we hadcrashes and we just assumed that
was going to happen.
One thing that worked in ourfavor was, if you haven't been
to CES, you have all of theseattendees and exhibitors.
What you don't have is reallygreat internet signal, you know.

(35:46):
So we just blame the democrashes on the poor signal.
So the reality of the bugs thatwe were having that we just
couldn't fix in time.
Thank goodness for thatrepositioning, I would say.

josh (35:58):
Yeah, the redirection here .
You know, obviously it can'twork if the signal is
overcrowded.

guest (36:05):
You get that right yeah of course, but give us your
contact info you're veryinterested in the marketing team
and make sure that our salesteam follows up with you on the
appropriate and that was ourIndirected yeah.
So it was great.
We managed to work it out andCES ended up being a huge
success, just like we hadanticipated, which thank
goodness, because for everythingthat the team put into and all

(36:27):
the hours worked and all thetime and effort across the board
at the whole entire companylike it worked out in the best
way that it possibly could havefor us.
So thank goodness.
And then we came back from theshow we were able to secure.
When you got a trade show, youspent a lot of money filling all
the expletives that youpossibly can, because it's

(36:48):
exhausting, it's expensive andmany times than not you have a
bunch of crap.
You have some good leads inbetween the crap and then you
have to convince the team tofollow up on everything and it's
exhausting.
You know, I'm surprised afterall these years they haven't got
out a better way to do withmarketing and sales than trade
shows.
And so, yeah, we had partnershipdiscussions that we didn't

(37:10):
previously have or we weren'table to secure before the event.
We had the large scale brands Imentioned to you.
They were coming to us asinbound leads instead of all of
our outbound efforts.
And we had the mainstream press.
We had hit beyond the techpress we had done.
The international press wasactually asking for requested
interviews Vasco, forbes, wyattscientific mag and I was like,

(37:33):
wow, this is bigger than Ithought it was going to be.

josh (37:36):
Yeah, that's a lot of success.
When you started out this story, I was expecting a bit of a
crash and burn, but despite thehiccups and the stumbles, it's
great that you had a verysuccessful outcome included with
all the redirection there.
So if this was so successful,what happened?

guest (37:57):
The crash and burn came after.
So when you have all thesuccess from an event or a
strategy or campaign, there isthis huge high where you're
writing and everyone believes inwhat you had originally
anticipated your product success, market success, product market
fit to the extreme.
And then all of the challengesstart to arise when the wave of

(38:20):
the hype come down off of thethe hope, I call it and you have
this hope and things start tobreak through that very, very
thin layer of hope.
And then, when we got backafter the demo, after the CES
exhibit, we realized all thestuff that we had deep

(38:40):
prioritized.
We were extremely behind.
We had positioned it a littlebit in a more optimistic manner
than what it was.
Our products still neededsignificant improvements.
It wasn't just a demo thatwasn't working.
The algorithms still needed tobe improved across the board
rather than just that one wefocused on.
And we realized that, althoughwe had tons, of tons of interest

(39:03):
, the adoption part just wasn'tfast enough within our burn rate
.
It was a longer sales cyclethan we had originally
anticipated.
We had the early adopters,which they couldn't wait to buy.
We had the testing and researchones, like Honda.
They were always involved sincethe beginning of the
conversations, but yet theyweren't moving the needle, they

(39:24):
weren't closing the deal.
And then we just realized wewon't be able to continuously
fund this, we won't be able todeliver on the backlog that I
had mentioned earlier, that wehad postponed for so long.
And then the customers startedthe ones who loved us started to
get really frustrated becausenot only were we behind in
prioritizing that demo, thatalso put us behind for the next
two quarters of our productroadmap.

(39:46):
So then what happened?
Well, then you run out of money, you overexpand and you grow,
you over hire based upon yourlast round of funding, and then
things start to change and youkind of see the train kind of
going off the tracks.
Now I identify it way earlier on.

(40:06):
At the time I just thought, wow, this doesn't look good, but
let's see where this goes.
Because the company was great.
I believed in the company, Ibelieved in the product, I
believed in the people, Ibelieved in the market.
And we were going and I wasdrinking the Kool-Aid and taking
all the hope you might get, andthen the CEO who brought that
VC, who brought the executiveteam, then he left and I was an

(40:31):
utter shock.
I mean, I was so naive at thetime I think I actually remember
crying and I put all of my hopeinto these people that were
running and leading the company,which, of course, because it's
top down right Success startsfrom top down at companies, and
if they're leading it and ifhe's not going to be there, what
the hell are we going to do?
Because our vision and strategywas based upon this guy, our

(40:53):
investors was based upon thisguy, and then he left and that
was besides, when the productstarted to not work.
That was like the first thing,that was the first sign, because
before engineering and productwas, they were able to hide the
ineffectiveness of the product.
And then, kind of after thatbig show, and then marketing and
sales and HR and everyone elsewas involved, we all got to see

(41:15):
the challenges that our producthad.
And then, when the CEO left,there goes the vision, there
goes the strategy, and then theother executive started to fall
suit and my VP of marketing leftand I just adored her and I
thought, when she leaves and theculture changes, and it does.
And then they did another roundof layoffs and another round of

(41:38):
layoffs and then finally I wasa part of like the third round
of layoffs, I think, and theyreplaced marketing with HR.
Well, that's very strange, butI guess if you were running out
of money you're going to dowhatever you can do.

josh (41:55):
And they weren't raising enough and they didn't have
enough customer adoption at thetime to really pull it through
it's so much happening like veryfast, right, and some of it
actually ties back to ourconversation around product
market fit, because youcertainly, especially with the
CIVET, found the market fit butthe product didn't actually meet

(42:15):
what the market was needing.
And what the market was needingwas what the team was marketing
and what the team was selling.
So it sounds like thingsstarted to get a bit oversold,
over marketed and, like you hadmentioned before, prioritizing
all these resources for thisevent took away from delivering

(42:38):
on the success that customersneeded, delivering the things
that the customers needed andyou mentioned, you get by with
really great customers who arepatient, who understand the
stages of the company and whoare willing to wait to some
degree.
But at the end of the day, ifwe think of the customer trust
like a bank account, not onlywas the product being oversold

(43:02):
and over marketed, but thecustomer trust bank account was
being overdrawn, essentiallyconstantly having to take trust
out of it.
And I think that's sointeresting that you have such a
clear moment of we're almost atlike peak success and the
montage would start right hereCredence Clearwater Revival

(43:26):
would start playing and youwould just see these successes
and these deals going over andover, but instead this montage
is not the greatest montage,it's a plunge, is what you
described.
You saw this start to tank andcalling out the fact that the
CEO left and other execs leftand for whatever reason, if that

(43:49):
was their own choice or not,those are still very alarming
signs.
And then layoffs alarming,alarming, alarming.
And then finally, you got caughtup in one of the rounds of
layoffs.

guest (44:02):
Yeah, and it was my first layoff and I wasn't
understanding at the time thatit was based upon resource
constraints and moneyconstraints.
And we first get laid off intech world, which is happening
across the board beyond techright now, but you think maybe
it's a performance issue andthen you don't realize it's
beyond you, it's gonna happenanyway, yeah.

josh (44:24):
So you rode this waves and you experienced the crash.
What happened after that?

guest (44:32):
Yeah, so they had two co-founders and they had two
different products, like I hadmentioned before.
So one co-founder took oneproduct and the other one took
the other, and then they partedways and I followed the
co-founder.
She was starting up her ownstartup and it was great timing

(44:53):
and I thought okay, and she saidthat they didn't need a full
time resource at the time, butshe would love to work with me
and I could just do themarketing there, and so that's
when I decided to scratch theitch up, wanting to start my own
thing and do marketingconsulting and start my own
little firm for other startupsas well.

josh (45:10):
Oh, so that's so great.
You went into this newexperience of the startup world.
You rode this roller coaster,you experienced a tragic for the
company type ending, and thenyou found your own business as a
result.

guest (45:29):
Yeah, and when I consulting for I think four
years, I had that consultingagency, and so a lot of the
startups I worked at werethrough consulting.

josh (45:38):
Wow.
Well thinking about yourexperience.
What was one of the toptakeaways, or what were some of
your top takeaways and lessonsthat you learned, that you now
apply, going forward?

guest (45:51):
Yeah, absolutely Okay.
So I think that the first thingis you have to believe in the
leadership team, because theteam of the leaders in the C
level, that's who's gonna driveyou to success or failure.
And, surprisingly enough,marketing tenure, the CMO, is
not very long right, maybe twoyears for startups, maybe even

(46:12):
less.
But if a top C level leaves,like a CTO, a CPO, a COO or the
C, like everyone else except theCMO, if one of them leaves, you
should really try toinvestigate why.
Because in my experience iswhen someone leaves to that high
of a level, there's a biggerreason why, and then that's the

(46:36):
first indicator that the companyis having some challenges.

josh (46:41):
It's an interesting call out.
The data point you have to goback to our previous
conversation is an executivedeparture aside from the CMO.
So make sure you understand thecontext, which goes right back
to the argument you're making.
Data-driven decisions requirecontext.
You learn a data point toconsider and then dig into the
context is executive departures.

guest (47:02):
Yeah, the other thing is the check boxes are still there.
You still wanna work for a verystrong executive team as the
leaders.
But throughout all of theoffice politics that I've been
involved in through startups andevery company has it right you
wanna make sure, when things areextremely tough and challenging
and you're really pissed offand you're fighting against each

(47:23):
other for whatever it may be,that those executives can get
through the challenging partstogether.
If not, the relationshipsignificantly tumbles and
everything around thatrelationship is a challenge.
And then going forward, there'ssome issues with that.
For example, the CTO doesn'tget along with the chief product

(47:46):
officer or the CMO doesn't getalong with the CSO chief sales
officer.
What does that mean?
Because if they don't get along, their teams are heavily loyal
to that leader of thatdepartment and there will be
delays and there will befriction, and some friction's
acceptable, obviously healthyfriction, I call it and then
some friction is reallychallenging for teams and people

(48:08):
to get through.
So if the executive team hasworked together in the past,
that's a great sign.
If you just have individualexecutives that have great
careers or pedigrees or profilesor whatever it may be, but
they've never worked together,how do I know when shit hits a
fan Cause it always does they'regonna be able to get through it
and then they're gonna leadtheir teams and departments and

(48:28):
the company as a whole throughthat challenging time.
And this still happens.
I think this will continue tohappen as funding goes and as
startups raise funding, theyspend a lot really quickly, and
when we talk about the data, thecontext behind data, a lot of
that is driven by short termvision and short term goals.
We have to hit this number forthis time period, for this

(48:52):
around the funding andeverything is short term, and by
I mean short term, I mean likea year, a year and a half, maybe
, max I'm like max, maybeanything less.
On your short term for startups, right, and if those startups
are only focused on going forthat one goal, one product
launch, one feature, one roundof funding, they're not looking
long term and they're nevergonna anticipate what could

(49:12):
happen in the market that wouldsignificantly affect their
startup ahead of time.
So start to evaluate the shortterm goals that the company has
and long term and I don't meanlong term like vision we're
gonna be the number onedisruptor.
Fight the vanity messaging,fight the marketing messaging
that they're gonna give you andrealize the long term growth and

(49:34):
vision?
Is it sustainable and does thecompany have what they need to
try to go beyond that next roundof funding or whatever?
That first or second milestoneis that they need?
And the last, which is probablythe most challenging, because
humans are emotional regardless.
If we try to be as logical as wecan, fight the hope EM and get

(49:55):
out sooner.
You always want to hope for thebest in startups and technology
.
You always people who areeither startup people or they're
not, and those startup peoplehave a profile.
We love change, we loveinnovation, we want significant
growth and want stuff fast, andthat's just typically how we all
roll.

(50:15):
But we have that hope EM thatwe ride.
It's very addictive and then,once we have more of it, we just
want more and more and more.
The challenging part is it withthe rose colored glasses does
not make you and does not helpyou to realize the reality of
the situation.
You think it's gonna get better.
It doesn't get better.

(50:36):
There's just more red flagafter more red flag.
You leave a bad relationshipbecause you finally can't stand
it anymore.
It never got better what youthought it was gonna get better.
The same thing is true inprofessional environments.
You should get out sooner thanlater.
Don't ride it to the endbecause you're gonna wish not
that you got out, but that youdidn't get out sooner.

josh (50:58):
I think those are great takeaways and so specific.
Just to recap, do you believein the C staff?
Does the C staff have a history, a successful history or record
of working together?
Can the top leadership get theother members of the top
leadership team to effectivelywork together so that you can

(51:18):
accomplish the goal in whichwe'll get to with that idea of
hope, em?
But I think that's such a greatcall out.
Do you, as an individual,believe in the C staff and do
you believe that the C staff canwork together successfully and
effectively?
You also caught up this idea ofis there a focus on short-term
or long-term goals and gettingaway from the idea of the vanity

(51:42):
messaging like we're going tochange the world by doing X, y
and Z with this product thatdelivers ABC, but really get it
into.
Okay, how are you planning todo that?
What's happening next?
What do you need to accomplishright here, right now?
What do you need to haveaccomplished in a year?
What does the next year and ahalf look like?

(52:02):
Questions like that can helpyou as the person thinking about
joining a company, or personwho is at the company hearing
about new OKRs or new orwhatever the case may be that's
being thrown out can ask thesequestions to really understand
for yourself.
Is this a short-term focus,which is unavoidable, that you

(52:23):
will have short-term goals, butthey should all tie to the
longer-term goal and reallyunderstand what that is.
And finally, and I think one ofthe most important points,
fighting hopeium, being able tosee things as they actually are,
not the way that your very teamhas positioned them, really

(52:44):
understanding the context andthe applicability of the product
within the market.
Is there actually a fit?
Because you're right, there isthat hope.
There's a hope of a verysuccessful outcome financially,
personally, professionally, Iwould love to put X, whatever on
my LinkedIn and have that carryweight.

(53:04):
And that ties to that idea ofhopeium.
Am I going to get rich off ofthis?
Am I going to change the worldin a positive way and leave my
mark?
Those types of things?
So I love that you called itout.
You have to be aware of thatand really sometimes the
solution is just to get outsooner.
Because I know I've been on thehook before.

guest (53:25):
Cut your losses.
The culture will change.
More negative stuff will happen.
You will become jaded and thenyou'll resent how much you let
affect you, even though younever anticipated it at the
beginning.

josh (53:36):
So get out while you still can and spoiler alert you can
still get out.

guest (53:42):
Yeah, we hear about the crash and burn right, the big
companies, the inflated numbersthat they got funding for and
they're being sued, or the onesthat run out of money completely
.
We never hear about themajority of startups that are
doggy paddling year after year,eight years, 10 years, and
that's not success.
It just means somehow somewaythey're laying off enough people
to keep their money.

josh (54:02):
That's right, and it's OK if that's the type of experience
that you want to be a part of.
Just see it from what it is.
I think that's such a greatlesson.
I appreciate you taking thetime to join and share your
disaster story with us so thatwe can all learn from it.

guest (54:18):
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it, Josh.

josh (54:22):
Great conversation with a seasoned marketing pro who
shared some solid and maybe evensome controversial perspectives
.
We talked about how marketingis about getting the right
product to the right people atthe right time.
And then we discussed that,when it comes to marketers or
sellers or executives or reallyany roles you cannot copy and

(54:43):
paste success.
Instead, you must stick tobuilding the right foundation at
that company, using frameworksand principles to guide efforts.
And then we also explored thefolly of making data-driven
decisions without the contextthat's necessary to understand
what the data is indicating.
And now, how about that story ofdisaster?

(55:04):
But she spoke about an eventthat could change the entire
trajectory of the company, andit did.
But the problem was that thedecisions that were made were
prioritizing short-term gain asopposed to long-term goals.
And even though they discovereda market fit, it all came
crashing down because theproducts could not live up to

(55:26):
the hype, to the expectationsand to the overselling.
And then came the plunge.
And you heard those lessonsthat she learned directly about
identifying the plunge and whatto do about it.
Now, before you go, please takea second and subscribe to the
show and let us know how muchthese stories resonate with you
by leaving us a rating and areview in Apple Podcast or

(55:47):
Spotify or any podcast player ofyour choice.
Also, share these lessons witha co-worker or even a boss who's
going through it with you.
Who knows, maybe your story ofdisaster could be next.