How to Scale Startups and Master Growth | Kat Wendelstadt | Glasp Talk #30 by Kei

How to Scale Startups and Master Growth | Kat Wendelstadt | Glasp Talk #30

Kei

Nov 4, 2024 11:45 AM

Summary

(00:08 - 00:27) Introduction of Cat Wendelstad, CMO at Flores, noted for her multiple roles in successful startups valued collectively over $1 billion, as well as her investment in over 30 startups in various sectors including healthcare and AI.
(01:05 - 01:35) Discussion on Cat's time management and focus, emphasizing her commitment to her role at Flores as it undergoes significant growth and detailing her coaching at a UK growth program for early-stage startups.
(04:51 - 06:55) Insights on her investment strategy, including the importance of understanding the team’s capability to solve significant problems and the necessity of go-to-market advantages for successful investments.
(09:31 - 11:14) Cat describes her hands-on approach in her CMO role, where she actively creates marketing strategies aligned with overall business goals, indicating her preference for joining companies at a later stage where she can optimize and scale their marketing efforts.
(20:00 - 21:51) Highlighted the importance of clear goal-setting in startups, with an emphasis on specificity in planning while being flexible with adaptation strategies to navigate changing market needs.
(31:59 - 35:16) Discussing the transformative impact of AI on marketing workflows, sharing specific AI applications that enhance productivity without replacing the unique human elements in creativity and communication.
(54:29 - 56:05) Cat expressed her desire to leave a legacy focused on health, environment, education, and supporting women, showcasing her commitment to social responsibility through her investment efforts.

Transcript

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Grasshopper Talk. Today, we are excited to have Cat Wendelstad with us. So, Cat, we have so many hats from CMO, investor to advisor and a mentor to many startups. And Cat is currently serving as CMO at Flores, a company leading the Gen AI revolution in film. And Cat has been CMO roles at multiple successful startups with collective valuation of over $1 billion. And she's also a 2X co-founder

and with one successful exit. And as an investor, she has invested in over 30 startups in healthcare, AI, and B2B SaaS, including notable companies such as Anthropic, Pica, Prey, and Neuralink. It's pretty impressive. And with deep expertise in content development, B2B marketing, and early-stage startups, Cat has driven significant growth across diverse markets. And today, we will dive into her journey in marketing, her approach to scaling startups, and her

insights on connecting strategy to redentorist execution. Thank you for joining today. Thank you so much. Really excited to be here. Thank you. So, first of all, you wear so many hats. You know, you are CMO at Flores and also coach at System, and also angel investor, and also content contributor at eForge. And I really wonder how do you spend your day and how do you allocate your time? And what's your current

focus now, these days? My current focus is my day job. As CMO at Flores, and that's what I dedicate the bulk of my time to. So, it's a normal job. So, that is what I'm focused on, and the company's going through a really exciting growth phase. So, that requires quite a lot of my time. In terms of coaching, that is a... I work for a... I'm a coach at a growth program called System in the UK, where they take early-stage, but not super early-stage companies between sort of

seed and series B, and help them essentially figure out their path to growth. And that is a activity that takes place several times a year, but it's not continuous. So, you essentially check in with your companies several times a week. It's not too intense. In terms of how I spend my days, I try and plan my week ahead. That normally... There's always something that gets thrown out of the window, but I plan the most important things that I have to get allocated, and I'm

quite focused about my focus time. So, there's between 9 and 12 every day. Essentially, it's my time for deep work, when I don't take meetings, and you can't... Essentially, you can't talk to me, can't reach me. And so, that's... That way, I make sure that my time is protected, and I also chunk out the larger activities during my day. I put them in as meetings in order to protect my time and give me the ability to focus. I see. Thank you.

Does that answer your question? Yes, that answers, yeah, the question. And how about the investor side? Do you... Investor side. Yes. So, there's several things that... Essentially, when you're an angel investor, you have less ability to do due diligence than a large VC fund, because you have less resources, less time. So, the way I tend to do it is I have some inbound from my network, and people know what I like to invest in, but I also invest in with several groups and syndicates. So,

essentially, they do part of the heavy lifting for you. So, they only invest with top-tier startups, and for that, they take a fee, essentially. So, I invest through those syndicates. There's one in the Bay Area that I... That's how I do some investments. And one in the UK called Ventures Together. That's how I do another part of the investment. So, they essentially come with deals, and then you decide based on your preferences

where you allocate your money. I've done more than half of my deals by myself, i.e. sourcing and betting, but that is... That's not a scalable model, at least not. When you're investing, so, like, what part or what elements do you see? So, like, the team, what scalability, so market, so technology. So, there are many elements you can see, right? So, what is the most important? Sure. I think I only invest in what I can understand. So,

if I can't understand it, I don't invest in it. That's number one. So, if it's extremely technical and requires a high degree of understanding in an area that's maybe not familiar to me, I probably wouldn't invest in it. What's most exciting to me is a team that solves meaningful problems. And specifically, the earlier the company, the more important the team is. It's sort of... There's a very, very high correlation between the two, because if you have an inspiring

founder who's great at communicating, who... If you're great at communicating, to me, that's the number one skill, because it means you can articulate the problem you're solving effectively. You can hire people effectively, because they want to come on the journey, and you can raise funding effectively, and you can communicate to your customers effectively. It's a core skill, almost at least as important as a technical skill, as a specific technical skill. And so,

I look for founding teams and for founders that bring that to the table. And then I look for go-to-market advantages, because at the end of the day, you can have a great idea, but if you can't execute, you might just be stuck with a great idea. And so, it is how they think about the go-to-market and what do they have in place in order to be able to execute it. So, that is the second element that I look at and test. And then, it has to be big market,

but it doesn't have to be the biggest market, because each market is different, right? Right now, everybody's investing in AI. It doesn't mean that every AI company is going to be successful just because a lot of capital is going to get ploughed into that. So, differently to a VC investor that is looking for, you know, probably portfolio, the entire fund returns on one, two, or three deals, I can be a little bit more flexible. So, for me,

on some deals, if I find it an interesting project, an interesting founder, I'm also happy to invest in companies that maybe don't – where I don't think they will do 100x, but maybe I'm relatively sure they're going to do 10 or 20x. But overall, I'm looking for deals where I think, okay, this has got the potential to get really big. That's the idea. Interesting. Yeah, communication. So, point – so, it reminds me, like Warren Buffett was like,

you know, great investors are great writers. So, yeah, because they can articulate, so what they are thinking. So, if you're a techist, so yeah, it reminds me. But so, how do you evaluate? So, like, you know, founders are, you know, management is a communication skill. So, PCs are, you know, great communicator or like – so, this person has a great communication skill. Do you see any, like, things? So, when you are, like, communicating while meeting founders?

The first hurdle is the pitch. When you hear a great pitch, you just know it because they are able to take complex information and distill it in a way that is incredibly exciting. You get the sort of FOMO feeling. And the simpler they can make it, but not any simpler, is a sign of a great founder. The tendency very often is to try and pack everything in and show everything off. But really, you have to distill it down to the basics. And for an investor, you have to anticipate what

they're going to say next. So, each slide has to be sort of hitting every point that you as an investor are already thinking about. So, that you stay with them throughout that story. So, I think you can get quite a lot from that, from the pitch and then when you have the chance to interview them afterwards when you see their founder interviews. Sometimes it's a case of, for example, in Anthropic, I invested because there was a secondary share sale at a very good

rate. I didn't interview the founders. I just knew Anthropic is a very, very powerful company building a very, very powerful technology. And I had a good opportunity to get in on the deal, so I did. I see. And at the same time, you are a really well-experienced CMO, marketing growth person. And do you help startups for their marketing or strategy, like thinking about strategy sometimes, or is it hands-on usually? No, I'm very hands-on. So, I

do the doing, basically. So, I come up with a strategy that feeds off the overall business strategy and then figure out what is the role of marketing to help achieve the overall business goals, be it get new customers, more brand awareness, revenue. And so, I devise plans that align to the business strategy and then execute them. I build the systems, I hire the people. I sometimes, you know, recently I've been writing all of our content. Like there's, I'm very hands-on where it needs

to be and it's a bit like, yeah, being in founder mode sometimes when you're at an early stage company because you have to do bits of everything. So I'm very hands-on, yeah. And at the same time, I'm curious, you know, because you are currently serving as CMO at Flores, right? So meaning you invest in some company, but you help some companies. Do you have criteria? Oh, I want to join this company. Oh, I am okay with investing in this company.

I mean, of course I have criteria. What I find the most interesting when I think about joining a company, I have to be excited about the problem. So in Flores' case, what they do is they take content, films in foreign languages. So let's say a Japanese film and they translate that through the software and outcomes the same film with the same actors in English or Croatian or Swedish. So we can translate to over 40 languages. To me, that is incredibly exciting

and the mouse movements are absolutely perfect, can't tell the difference. And so suddenly it unlocks content at a global scale. And it's interesting to me to be part of how a company like that is being built. That's the first thing. And secondly, the company's at a very, very exciting stage. So there was some marketing in place, but it hadn't been built for scale yet. So I was able to come in and help set the strategy and help

build the systems in order to then execute faster in a more focused way. And so that to me is a very, very exciting time. And so when I join companies, I try and come at a time where I know that my skillset will be most valuable. So if I'm the first person, let's say there's a founder team and they're looking to hire the first marketeer, that's a little bit less exciting to me because you're still going through so much iteration on who's your customer, what's your positioning,

like you have to design everything from scratch. I prefer, I've done that, but I prefer to come in a little bit later when you can sort of bring that knowledge and scale it. I see. And I still remember the first time I saw the Flores video and changing from English to, I remember Japanese or explanation and then speak like the mouse moved, changed, and that was really impressive. And so, yeah, so surprising. And then in that sense, as a marketer

or a marketing person, if the technology is really great, is it easier for you to spread the product or do your marketing job? It doesn't matter. Very good question. It's definitely easier to spread it to a generalist audience. I don't know when you saw that video, right? But maybe you saw it a long time before you discovered me because it went viral, right? That language change video. So to me, it was exciting because

everybody can understand that problem of how to translate films in a better way. And the technology is really great. But it doesn't mean that more niche problems are less interesting, but there are different ways to get your message across to different audiences. So I just spoke to somebody who has a medical device that helps detect skin care and they need to, their audience is less the general public. It's more key opinion leaders,

medics and practitioners in specific hospitals. So it's a different challenge. How do you get to them? What message resonates with them? So you just, I think you just have to, the product has to work and has to be good. It has to be solving a valuable problem, but then you just have to figure out the way to get to your target audience in the best way. So in a nutshell, I can get excited about many things,

but when the product is as great as Flawless is, it's easier. I see. Thanks. Yeah. So you mentioned that, so you want to join a company as a CMO later phase, but so yeah. What do you know about startup marketing? So as a founder or as a first marketer, so what kind of skills or experience do you need for a fast marketer in a startup company? I think you have to be what they call sort of T-shaped. I think the first, it depends on what

the first problem to solve is, but most of the time when you are the first, the brand and positioning in the market often isn't clear. So that's often where it starts. And in order to get that clear, you have to start with a customer. So you have to know how to understand the customer and the market. That's number one, because otherwise you can't market to them. So you have to find, be able to find customers to interview them, understand where they are, understand

their jobs to be done. Like what are the outcomes that these, that the prospective customers are looking for, and then how you can help build a solution and market a solution that's relevant. So that's, I think the first skill is, it's almost being like being a journalist. And then the second skill, you have to be able to think like a business person. You have to find the shortest way, the most efficient way to get to that customer, to tell them what they want to hear. Not what you

want to tell them, but what they want to hear. Because if you tell them what you want, it has to be relevant to them. They don't really care about you, right? And you have to make it relevant. So the second skill is that you have to have, you have to understand business metrics and you have to understand the role of marketing in delivering customers and revenue to a business. So you have to be business minded. And then depending on what your market is and what you're selling to

the prospective customers, you have to understand, you have to be able to think in systems and how to build systems so you can make it repeatable so that not every process you have to start from the beginning, but you can make it scalable and repeatable and automated. And then lastly, you have to know tools. So it can, and tools can range from frameworks on how to think about problems right through to marketing automation tools.

Nice. And so, so maybe this is a dumb question, but you know, I have seen many startups, like, you know, like especially early stage startup that, you know, the marketers try to create a like brand marketing, like based on what they have now, what they want, as you mentioned, what their customers want to hear, right? But sometimes founders is visionary. So they say, well, we are kind of, how to say, if they are bookstore, they should say bookstore, right?

But there's a founder sometimes too visionary. So, oh, we are collective knowledge, everything store, whatever. So that doesn't make sense for them. It's like, oh, it's a future we want to go. So that's the branding we want to send to people, send out to people that bought it from customer wise or what's this company doing? They don't understand. So have you seen this miscommunication mismatch? And I, I sometimes see this and then, you know, how would you?

This is a very good point. Actually pick up. There's, there's a, um, uh, a lady that I follow. You should get her on the podcast. She's amazing. She's called April Dunford and she is the world's expert in, in positioning. And she actually talks about this, this problem. So founders, they have a vision and the vision is the everything store 10 years in advance. I watched a video today about the shake of Dubai. We drove through Dubai in the sixties. There was nothing. And he was

talking about what Dubai was going to be. And you think like, it's completely crazy when you just have a desert, right? And so it's the same, it's the same thing. So you have to know what you say to whom. So to investors, you want to sell a big vision. We're going to build the everything store and it's going to change, um, um, um, how people buy everything. And we're going to focus it on one thing, which never changes, which is people want better products, faster and cheaper. That's

the principle that I'm going to build my company on. And then you work backwards and you go, okay, what's the easiest thing I can start with? Okay. I'm going to start with a bookstore and then I'm going to add an, I don't know what a second product was that he added, but gardening tools or pet food, and then you build it up from that. That's what you tell investors and maybe employees, but your first customers, you have to tell what you're able to do today. And maybe a little bit

ahead of that. Um, we're, we are the world's best bookstore. We have all the books in the world and you can get, get them tomorrow because that's, what's going to sell. They're not going to care about the everything store because that's doesn't mean anything. So, so there's, there's two different messages for different audiences. And what you have to figure out is from the vision, what is the strategy to get there? You work.

backwards. And then you talk about the thing that people can already see and relate to and make that important to them. I see. And I remember I watched a video that you show, you know, like each executive's roles and the CEO has a KPI and each CXO has KPI. And in each year, what kind of goals, you know, each executive should hit, you know, something like that. Do you recommend that way to track the goals backwards to achieve, to get to everything?

Um, I, in terms of getting to the vision, I think you have to be flexible on how to get there because in each year you need to achieve different things. But I do really believe in sort of, you know, you need to be specific, need to be extremely specific about the next six months, possibly a year. At the moment, like things change so fast. So for example, in companies I've worked in recently, we don't plan for a whole year

because it's, it's too far out. Um, we plan in loosely for six months and then very tightly for three months. And that's kind of more work, but you get higher accuracy. Um, in my view, you should have your vision and then you work backwards. It should be sort of in 10 years where the everything's still in five years. Um, we cover most major categories in three years. Um, we, we dominate books and a second category. Therefore this year

we do this in December, this in November, this in October, et cetera, et cetera. So it does make sense to have that clarity in your mind that you, you then need to translate into KPIs that mean that you are on the way to achieving that. So that might mean number of, um, partnership deals in place that might mean, um, VC funding secured that might mean higher ahead of logistics. Um, and so you have to translate the vision into meaningful things

that happen every year and what each CXO does in my opinion, absolutely has to ladder up to what the CEO delivers. So I can give you a specific example in a previous company I worked in, the CEO had to deliver revenue. He had to deliver EBITDA. He had to deliver patient, um, NP and net promoter score. And I think cashflow marketing's role in delivering revenue was very clear because we were the only revenue driving channel. Um, but operations had a clear role

because they could roll and together with product could roll out new products. So they had a link to revenue, um, uh, in this case, uh, net promoter score and quality sat under operations because it was a clinic chain. So they had a very clear direction to that. Um, um, and so you, you have to break down what each CXO can do in a meaningful way that ladders up to what the CEO has to deliver. And if that is well done, all the CEO has to do is raise money and hire people.

I see. Is that about the doctor consultant you work for? Yes, you got it. And sometimes, sometimes I see, especially communication between marketing team and product team kind of conflict sometimes because product team want to increase conversion rate and, but marketing team sometimes want to increase more, how to say acquisition, user acquisition, but product team, don't bring, you know, that only bring right, right users.

Otherwise conversion will get low. And so have you seen this like issue conflict and do you have advice for these situation? I mean, of course, CEO should have, you know, clear goals, but internally, I think it's quite good to have those levels of tension sometimes because I think it's healthy. Um, because it makes me, if my job is to bring leads, it makes me focus on driving better leads, right? And maybe I should have a conversion goal also, right? Maybe, maybe I should

share that with a product team. Maybe the product team should share traffic because, um, if the website is, is, is bad, you don't get any, uh, repeat users, right? So you can share, uh, KPIs. I think, um, I think healthy, healthy tension, I would call it a, is a, is a good thing. It definitely happens. I've, I've seen it in particular, um, between, um, yeah, most often it happens between product and marketing. I have to say I'm very lucky right now because that's not the case,

but I've definitely had the experience before. I see. Yeah. And when making like no struggle, so I think this is difficult to make it. So usually how long does it take to like make a North star goal? And so if there are any like common mistakes or pitfalls that like startup, so, you know, you know, long doing only, I think, I think, uh, what I would say the mistake is thinking about a North star goal without mapping out what your customer journey is,

because you have to, and, and, and your, what your, excuse me, what your growth model is. You have to understand how your company grows and you have to draw it on one page. Like what are the things that are going to go in at the top SEO events, um, LinkedIn, whatever, where does it go to? Um, does it go to a trial? Does it go to a landing page? What happens there? If somebody signs up to the trial in a case of a SaaS company, what do we want them

to do? Do you, you know, do they, is it revenue or is it a number of, um, I don't know, uh, engaged minutes or, um, active users per day or a number of songs played if you're, if you're Spotify, what is the thing? What is the quickest indicator that shows you that you're adding value to someone that I would think about it like that. So you, you, you draw it and then, and then you go backwards from there. And, and perhaps for Spotify, if you think about it, minutes listened per day

could be the, the number one indicator to show that their product is adding value. And therefore if their product is adding value, they can charge for it. And people are not going to, um, people are going to pay for the product because they don't want to have the ads and they're going to tell others about it. So you get word of mouth and, um, they're going to convert easier through the website. So, so think about what the number it's, it's often something more

nuanced than revenue because revenue is just a consequence. Yeah. That helpful. I don't know. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. But we need to dig into metrics, analytics, and so yeah, map out what is causing this program, this, you know, KPI. Yeah. At the same time, you know, things don't go as we expected in startups, right? So let's say you set the ideal customers and then some goals, but let's say you wanted to set a book, you know,

because we were talking about books for the bookstore, but realize, Oh, people are coming to a website or pet, pet food or something. So if in that, then it's grown. So this happens sometimes, right? In that, in that sense, you know, would you recommend people to that idea or I tell you why I tell you why, because the number one job of a startup is to not die. If you keep on, if you keep on selling books, when people want pet food and you run out of money,

you're dead. So it's better to go and pivot it to that pivoted pet food. And you can come back, you can come back round. I've had this experience where in a startup, it was really focused on focused on selling a clinical product, a clinical diagnostic product. It was an online mental health evaluation tool. And they realized that that's what they wanted, because they wanted this product in doctor's hands. That's the most important way. It's going

to make a difference to the patient's lives. However, they realized the tool could work as an indicator of mental health problems before they emerge in large scale populations like truck drivers, flight attendants, doctors, people who are tired often and exhausted. There's a simple test you can perform through the tool, which then says whether you are, it's a sort of almost mini triage. And there was a lot of tension in the company at the time,

because they didn't want to go down the wellness route, because they wanted to be a medical product. And I argued for going down where the customers were, because they were willing to pay. And so if you have money, you can then develop the clinical studies and that product. And you can't ignore the customer, essentially. And you can come back round to the original vision over time. It doesn't really matter how you get to your North Star or to your long term vision.

Me personally, I would pivot. I see. In that case, you know, the startup should change North Star to adjust to that market for now. Yes. I think so, because you don't know what you're going to get from the market and you don't know what essentially is going to resonate. I can't remember the name of the startup now, but they were selling different tools for designers and it turns out that there was one product feature that

kept being used which was sort of to make your own postcards that you could then print and send to your friends and they just kept getting so much traction on this particular feature and they actually just pivoted the company to do that because that the money was there and then over time they added on and started focusing on the other features but the number one driver was that one thing they discovered when they looked at the data

that that was where they could gain traction. Steve, thank you. I was curious about it about that part but also you know I'm curious you know and this is a little bit different topic but you know nowadays you know AI is dominant and people use Chachapiti, adapting Chachapiti, Anthropic Cloud and Gemini, Google Gemini and so on. Has that, and also it's people use it for their work right, has AI development advancement changed how marketing team work

or I'm curious about the impact of AI. Like I was in a marketing function a year and a half ago and I just started using a bit of Chachapiti. I mean I literally can't do my job now without it, impossible, absolutely impossible. The entire, the workflows, the information summary, content writing, video editing, analytics, it's changed everything, it's changed everything. And how do you use it like I'm curious the specific use case or examples if you can share.

Sure, so I use it for everything. I did customer interviews last week so I recorded them like I would have recorded this interview. I got the transcript. So I only had the video, the transcript didn't work so I used AI to turn it into a script and then give me a summary. But not only give me a summary but give me a summary and a jobs to be done framework. I did that to then put it into an Excel spreadsheet, tease out the main insights

and the sort of next steps. I then still had to read it of course but it basically summarized five hours of interviews for me into a useful framework. We have a custom GPTs to write content in the different voices of different people which again all needs to be checked by human but we use it for spell checking. We use tools like OpenAI, not OpenAI, Opus Clip, excuse me, to cut down video content and add

voiceover, not voiceover, to add subtitles on it. God, what else? So a lot of it is around content creation essentially. Canva, we use the AI function in Canva. I use the AI function on research. I use any market research, reading of large documents, summarizing, organizing information. That's probably my main use cases. I've used it also for Excel. So I just talk to it and say put this piece into rows and columns and write these formulas and explain this formula. I've used

just a voice interface to go like what is this sort of if error function again and what have I done wrong? Why is it not working? Make it work. So it's done pivot tables for me. I mean it's quite remarkable. I'm not a power user. I feel like I'm a complete beginner when it comes to it. I'm sure there's much, much better but yeah. Is that a job previously someone's doing I think? Is that a junior content people or whose job is that AI is replacing with?

It's a content person. I mean I don't think AI is good enough to replace a content person. It has just changed how a content person works because you can tell when content is made by an AI even if you train it on your own voice. It just always cranks out the same format. Hey, interesting news. Here's what I learned. One, two, three. You can just see this tick, tick, tick with it with all the emoticons and then all the hashtag. What do you think? It's always the same format.

You don't want to sound like that. So somebody who's in charge of content can take that and make it better and make it more human but where it's invaluable is building like we've built an automation so it goes and scrapes content from the internet, from Feedly, helps us divide it into topics and into content pillars and then generate content ideas if you're in a rush for example or summarizing large parts. So it hasn't really replaced the job and I think it's just

made the job of the content marketer more important because they have to add the human element. I'll give you an example. I worked with a copywriter the other day and he had a really great, so he writes great copyright and so and you should think he could be getting replaced right because an AI can just write a blog post but his tagline is which he had on his LinkedIn and I thought it was brilliant was wordy words and thoughty thoughts and so as a

copywriter, it's kind of funny, it made me laugh, it showed me his personality and he has to think thoughty thoughts to write wordy words. An AI can't do that. It can't have that sensibility, that sense of humor. So not yet. I see but I like your tagline so on your website so it's saying working with the world's best companies before they are the world's best companies. Yeah, I like it. Thank you. So it's not AI made, right? No, it was made by that copywriter.

Thank you. He's very good. I can give you his name. Yeah, thank you. Just curious, do you have any companies you've been watching in terms of marketing? For example, maybe like many companies like list up Nike as a great marketing company but do you have any companies you've been keeping watching or get inspired? All the opposite, you know, we shouldn't follow this company. Politics or something. You know, the first thing that just

came to my mind just now was IKEA. I think they've got really good marketing, like they've always got the Swedish, you know, they had a radio ad this morning I heard, you know, it was a Swede talking Swedish and they made something out of the meatballs, you know, people go to IKEA now just have meatballs. That's kind of a crazy thing, right? They love eating Swedish meatballs. It's really solid and I kind of always see it. Who else has got good,

marketing that sort of, as long as, if it's humorous and slightly controversial, I love it. So the other thing that comes to my mind is a really old one but I think it's brilliant. It was an old Avis ad and they said, it just said when you're number two you always try harder because Hertz was the first car rental company, you know. So yeah, I think IKEA comes to my mind. I can't think of anyone else. I mean Donald Trump, he's a love him or hate him but he's got a pretty

good, he is unbelievable how he is able to navigate. He's like Teflon, he's everywhere. Nothing seems to be able to stop him and that is quite remarkable in terms of the, it's quite shocking also but something seems, somebody is doing something right for him, right? So what I'm interested in is personality branding, like how founders are being used to do marketing. So Mark Zuckerberg, I've seen more about Mark Zuckerberg than about Meta,

for example. Sorry, you were saying something. Yeah, my favorite marketing banner is, I forgot which company but they paint using Windows Paint and then, oh, we need a designer or something. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's a great advertisement. It's usually stuff that's really simple, right? I quite like the HSBC there. You know, when you fly away, they always have the, the jet in London. They have the, the jetways, you know, that lead to the airplane.

And they always used to have, and now it's a bit, um, less funny, but they always used to have, ask you interesting questions as you were walking to the plane. And you always like reflect on something. It was always a message about sort of connecting the world. And it was, I don't know. It just, I always saw that, or obviously I still see, see that. Um, and I love it when companies say they, when they make fun of other companies,

basically, I saw easy jet making fun of Ryanair, which had two airlines here. I think that's always quite funny. Yes. Uh, and so like, uh, in the early state of startup, so like what channel. So yeah, of course it depends on the companies or product service, but so what channels, so do you recommend to use as a marketing channel? Like, for example, SEO, Twitter, social media. So YouTube, so, or like offline.

So marketing. So there are many marketing mix, right? And there's a lot. Yeah, it's, it's, you can't really generalize. I think you, you, you have to figure out where you can get the most distribution, um, in the quickest way. So we did something in a, in Dr. Consultor, Brazilian healthcare company, very counterintuitive. We had clinics and you would think, okay, basically posting on social media and getting PR would be the best way to grow, but you know, that you can only improve

your channels and you can only spend so much money, like even if I bid for all the keywords, like I'm still not gonna, um, get that much more traffic, right? There's a limit. Um, so, so we actually went to outdoor media. So we just plastered the entire town, uh, in relevant locations, um, with all the media, bus shelters, buses, um, the underground televisions in the underground, the seats in the underground.

I mean, you couldn't get away from it. And that was quite cheap actually, because, um, people, um, it was a, um, really impactful and, and the advertising in, in this was in Brazil wasn't, yeah, we've got good deal on those channels and, and massive awareness. Um, but for example, for flawless wouldn't really make sense, right. For this company, I work for now digital company, I wouldn't out of home makes no sense for them.

So they're here. It's much more about showing the output of what you're doing and showing how your, you know, like runways doing or like mid journey. They're showing that output of their technology. So that's, you have to be on digital channels in this case. I think PR is the number one. If you need, need one, if I have to reduce it to one PR is the most effective. So this is a little bit off topic, but you know, I was always wondering, you

know, from your LinkedIn and your profile career, and I always wonder like, have you thought about becoming a CEO? Because it seems like you are co-founder you have done marketing job and also gross chief growth officer, gross officer and co-founder CEO, but we sort of becoming CEO in your career. I've thought about it, but, um, um, I don't want to, I don't want to do that job because, uh, um, I think it's very lonely.

I think it's very lonely because you have nowhere to hide. Um, and everything hangs on your performance. The buck always stops with you. And, and I'm a mother, I have three young children and it's being a CMO is quite difficult, but a CEO is, is another level of difficult and another level of responsibility because you, at the end, you're responsible for all the people, all their jobs, their livelihoods.

It's, it's, it's you. I see. Yeah. Or maybe later. Yeah. Maybe, maybe later. Yeah. In the future at the same time, you know, nowadays, you know, like, uh, the new concept, like a fractional, fractional CXO, the new concept, you know, came up and people, you know, some company adopted and I've never had a fractional CEO, but you know, what, what's your thoughts on fractional, uh, like position or role? I think especially for marketing, it's a really great thing because, um, CMOs have

the lowest average tenure of any CX role. So, um, CMOs last usually 18 months, whereas a chief operations officer or CFO or chief people officer, they last longer. Um, do you know why? Yeah. I know why, uh, well, I have my theory why this is because as a marketer, you interpret part of your job is interpreting the founder's vision to the audience, and that is a, is difficult for a founder who has a vision because it's

their baby, it's their idea, their, their everything. And so you have to take that idea very carefully, deliver it to somewhere. Plus you can't measure everything in marketing and, and you can measure a lot of things, but you can't always get to a clear why. And, and sometimes things take longer and the patient runs out, or sometimes you have tried a wrong channel because you have to try things to see whether

they work and, and it's very easy for marketing to be the first on the chopping block because it seems like the function that most people have an opinion about. Whereas if you're a CTO, it's harder to know the code and how good is the code, right? Whereas, ah, I didn't like the advertising campaign. It's easier, right? Everybody can happen to me. And so, so I think that's part of the reason. So what do I think about, um, fractional?

I think having the right person in place is a really good thing because they come in, they have done this before. They're just repeating a set of, um, they have a particular approach and they come in, they solve a particular problem and then leave, leave again, ready for the next person. And so very often when you go through a, companies go through stages and, and when you, you know, it's highly unusual that, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is still, for

example, the CEO of Meta and very often there's a certain life cycle to a CXO because different skills are required at different stages. So when, for all this where I work now and that's a multi-billion company, maybe there's a different profile needed, um, for different roles and the companies it's quite normal, right? Um, and so the concept of fractional reduces the risk on both sides. Um, so they come in and do the job and then, and then leave, which is still 18

months, 12, you know, 12 months. It's a, it's a, it's a relatively long time, but, um, you get expert help without having a downside risk on needing to get rid of an employee when it doesn't work out and the associated costs. I see. So it doesn't, I was curious, you know, having fractional CXO and versus like freelancers or contractors, but do the CXO job, is that same or different? Or I'm curious about it.

I think it's just a mindset question. It's probably contractually the same thing, right? They're freelancers or consultants, same. But I think if you say you're a fractional CMO, you're committed, you're committed to a phase, whereas, uh, and you're committed to a project. If you're a freelancer, I think it's a bit more non-committal. I mean, you could also say, oh, I, I, you know, you're an employee that leaves every 18 months.

It's kind of the same as a fractional person, if you will, but it's different because your mindset is different about it. So I think it's, uh, that's how I would answer it. It's the same, but you think people think about it in a different way. Also, this is kind of stupid question, but so when, when you are hiring marketers, so, and so what, what kind of skills or experience, what things, so do you see?

So in the candidate, for example, so there's like a marketing interview. So for example, there's a, like, you know, how to say so scenario. So scenario, so this company X is want to, it want to like increase the conversion rate. So, so if you are a marketer at this company, how would you do so? Or like, you know, you just want to like interview marketers, marketing candidate, and see the like background experience skills.

So what is a like typical marketing interview flow and what elements do you see in candidates? Oh, um, so, so this is tough question. Sorry. I think the first thing you have to get a sense of the culture fit, you know, because like, are they nice people? Like, or are they, you know, is there some element when you, you know, you want to know whether someone's a high performer, but you also want to know, are they nice?

You don't want any sort of backstabbers or assholes, basically like an asshole can like destroy the whole, the whole team. Right. So you've got to filter for, for that, for the, for the no assholes. Um, and then I'm interested in people's experience, but I'm more interested in their ability to learn and think through problems. And especially like I did a post about this this week about hustle. Like you've got to hustle when you work for a.

startup. You've got to figure out problems, you've got to talk to people, you've got to pick up the phone, you've got to find solutions, you've got to think creatively, you've got to just come up with something. Like, you can't just go, oh, I asked chatGBT and it didn't give me the right answer. Like, you can't do that. You've got to just go after it and be hungry. So I look for people that are hungry. I saw your LinkedIn post and I did love it then. Oh yeah, okay.

Yeah, well, yeah, since you know, you're tapped on like kind of advice and we want to know, you know, our audiences are aspiring product managers, marketers, and content researchers, and do you have any advice to them to do their job better and to become a better marketer or to do the job better? Sorry, generic question. Oh, it can be a life advice as well. Yeah, I think my mind is going sort of more life advice. Like,

what's the best thing to do? It's like, you have to read. Like, I incessantly read and I'm really sad because I don't read any, I don't read fiction. I only read like marketing blogs. It's all I read. I love it. I can't stop myself. I just read, I don't know, read four or five a day and it's just seems to be constantly like, I'm just obsessed with it. So you have to read and dominate your field of knowledge, number one. And number two is, I think my second advice is network.

You have to network with people. You have to get out of the building and meet people and say yes, and go to an event and go up to people and get over your shadow and ring people up and send them a message and nurture your network because that is something technology can't replace. It is a source of knowledge. It's a source of work. It's a source of inspiration. You have to work on your network. Yes, that totally makes sense. And by the way, do you have any favorite books? You said,

you know, you read a lot of marketing books. What's your best or best top five or, you know, books? I really like Traction. It's a little bit older now. I forget the name. That was a really good book. But I follow more people. So not necessarily, second book, probably the best book on management ever. It's called High Output Management by Andy Grove, who was the CEO of Intel. Amazing. And then I follow three people who I think have

the best content on marketing and the Internet. One is Emily Kramer, who is from Marketing One. The second one is Elena Werner and the third is Carl Poglia. And those three are just absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I will. Yeah, I will look into the recording again so that I can capture the name. You can send me an email. I'll write it down for you. Thank you. But I'm curious. Sorry to dig in. But, you know, what aspect do you think or makes you think they are legend or they are genius?

Because they constantly add value. Like their content is easy to read. It's not. It's just genuine value. I pay for those three. I pay the money every month because it's every time it seems to solve a problem that I have. There's frameworks in it I can reuse. I don't have to start everything from scratch. It talks relevantly. And I feel that content keeps me really at the forefront of where the conversation is. So it's an inspiration for me. I share it with the team. I

use it to educate my management or other people in the company. So it's relevant. And useful. Practical. Practical in the natural practice. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for sharing. And so and this is the last question. So we came through. And so since Grasp is a platform where people share what they are reading and learning as a digital legacy, we want to ask you what legacy or impact do you want to leave behind for future generations? Sure. I love that question.

And so the way I think about it, I think about what is the most on the Maslow's pyramid of needs. What are the things that are right at the bottom that, you know, if we build them up, if we look after them, the rest can sort of flourish. And so number one is health. So I've the second is environment, education, and then in particular, looking after women. And so what I hope to do in particular with the investment work is that if that's successful,

that's anything I don't need at the end of my life goes towards causes that support those organizations that look after the environment, women or health care, health care organization. So I've started with one company that I'm one organization I'm extremely passionate about. They've just won the they've won the Golden Prize for the environment and the sort of Nobel Prize equivalent for the environment for protecting indigenous lands in the Ecuadorian rainforest.

And with them, I've built a couple of schools where the old, let's say, like the traditional knowledge gets preserved. And provides education, support for local women and children. So that's something that sort of combines quite a lot of those things I feel passionate about. Yeah, it's really beautiful. And thank you for sharing all the, you know, insight and sharing your learning and knowledge with us today. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the

conversations. Really, really pleased to be on here. Great questions. Thank you. Thank you.

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How to Scale Startups and Master Growth | Kat Wendelstadt | Glasp Talk #30

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