The Start-Up (R)evolution

Big ideas, changing startups, and difficult decisions - Season Trailer

New episodes coming in spring 2024!
We are excited to change the world of startups for the better.
 
But trying to make a difference and turning out good intentions into reality has proven to be more complicated than expected.
 
We constantly encounter unexpected second-order effects: When we solve one issue, we end up unintentionally creating another one.
 
It is dawning on you that being a good leader is more complex than simply having that one big idea.
 
True leadership is about the difficult decisions and trade-offs you encounter whilst executing it.
 
On this show, we explore the entrepreneurial zeitgeist with the aim to work and lead differently. 
 
Between all of us, we can decode what it will take to be a leader today.
 
New episodes coming in spring 2024!
 

Navigating the shifting landscape of marketing - Frederik Hermann

This week’s guest is Frederik Hermann, the VP of digital marketing at software startup Beekeeper. We met two years ago when he started the role and have worked together directly since then.
 
Interestingly enough, Frederik studied in Karlsruhe, near my hometown. He has lived in California for almost two decades, serving as a marketing leader for various startups.
 
In today's conversation, we talk about the turbulent year that 2023 has been so far - and why AI changes everything.
 
Frederik shares with us how he measures engagement and happiness in his team, what he looks for when he hires, and what it takes to progress from individual contributor to VP.
 
Let's dive in.
 
⭐ More about Frederik Hermann
 
Frederik is a senior marketing executive passionate about technology and innovation with a focus on marketing strategy, user acquisition, and growth.
 
He’s a resourceful, dynamic, and effective marketing executive with a record of achievement in developing and directing strategic marketing activities in challenging and highly competitive markets. Frederik is an influential leader with exemplary business sense and expertise, leading cross-functional teams and efficient campaigns that drive pipeline and revenue. 
 
⭐ Follow Frederik on social media:
 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederikhermann/ 
 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frederikhermann 
 
Company website: ​​https://www.beekeeper.io/ 
 
Personal website: https://www.frederikhermann.com/ 
 
⭐ Don't forget to follow us:
 
Linktree: linktr.ee/the_startup_revolution
 

Thriving in startups - Brett McGrath

Brett and I met at a B2B marketer mastermind led by Jay Acunzo, a previous guest.
 
In the mastermind, Brett was working on The Juice, and I was working on the premise of this very show, The Startup Revolution.
 
We kick off this episode by discussing what it takes to go on vacation without your laptop. And I must admit that I am very guilty for not turning off my laptop during holidays this year - and planning to be better at it again.
 
Brett McGrath is The Juice's VP of Marketing and the Modern Day Marketer podcast host. We discuss the difference between working for a small early-stage startup vs. bigger and more corporate companies.
 
This is really a conversation of two marketers feeding off each other, talking about personal brands in B2B, pipeline creation, email marketing, experimentation, and building a brand.
 
⭐More about Brett McGrath
 
Brett has spent 13 years in the B2B SaaS industry in various marketing functional and leadership roles. His passions are messaging and positioning, sales alignment, demand generation, and content creation. Brett is highly focused on building out go-to-market strategies that elevate the organization's brand and develop sales pipeline. He’s results-driven and believes it's all about bringing in the right people.
 
⭐Follow Brett on social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettmcgrath/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IndyMcGrath 
Company website: https://www.thejuicehq.com/ 
Podcast & Newsletter: https://www.thejuicehq.com/modern-day-marketer  
 
⭐Don't forget to follow us:
Linktree: linktr.ee/the_startup_revolution

Navigating chaos in company culture - Grant Donovan PhD

My guest today is Grant Donovan PhD, Grant and I met whilst developing a Search marketing and content strategy for his new company Chaos Cultures.
 
His perspective on leadership immediately inspired me: He embraces the Chaos that is inherent to organizations.
 
All workplace cultures are complex and chaotic by nature because they contain an array of genetically diverse people, with varied personal experiences, a range of intelligence levels, differing belief systems, broad personality variations, mixed motivations and assorted aspirations that are all thrown randomly together in a group where productive outcomes normally rely heavily on collaborative efforts.
 
I don’t know about you but acknowledging that leadership and teams are chaotic by nature was a relief for me!
 
⭐More about Grant Donovan, PhD: 
Grant Donovan is a specialist in culture change and the development of leaders.
With a background in performance psychology, Grant moved to corporate coaching and
consulting in 1984.
 
He is a frequent presenter at International Management Conferences and has led many management tours to the best performing worksites in Europe and North America.
 
Grant has written five management books including the best-selling, “The Customer and the Performance Power of Self-Managed Work Teams,” and is co-author of the very popular “Coffee Conversations: The Simple Leadership Secret of High Performance Workplaces.”
 
⭐Follow Grant on social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantdonovan/
⭐Don't forget to follow us:
Linktree: linktr.ee/the_startup_revolution 

Tales of transformation - Alison Murdock

My guest today is Alison Murdock - Alison has worked as a marketing leader for many tech startups in the Bay Area, including Firstup and 6sense.
 
On today's episode, we talk about what is working for startups in the wild year that 2023 has been so far. We dive into go-to-market motion and how it affects marketing, the channels we use, the metrics we track, and the teams we build. 
 
Alison and I meet at a conference in Austin this spring and immediately hit it off. Her consultancy offers startups and growth-stage companies the marketing resources, experience, and talents to make a greater impact on their business.
 
If you're wondering how to build your marketing team from scratch, this episode is for you!
 
⭐Follow Alison on her socials:
🌀Company website: https://www.trustedcmo.com/ 
🌀LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonmurdock/ 
 
⭐ Don’t forget to follow us: 
🌀Instagram: @the_startup_revolution
🌀LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-revolution-podcast/ 
🌀Website: http://the-startup-revolution.com

Make marketing weird again - Nick Gaudio

The SaaS marketplace is getting more and more crowded by the day. We are more distracted than ever as we get flooded with content, especially this year with the rise of AI content tools. So the voices advocating for uniqueness and creativity for B2B brands are getting louder and louder. 
 
However, saying you need to build a strong brand is always easier said than done. Today, we take a dive deep with Nick Gaudio into what it truly means to make it weird as a B2B brand. We discuss creating unique brand messages and building your marketing organization around that. 
 
Nick is a former seventh-time AP award-winning writer and creative writing professor. He has served as a brand and marketing expert for the last 10 years. Most recently, he's been working for the revenue workflow tool Rattle. 
 
Let's dive in.
 
⭐Follow Nick on her socials:
 
🌀Company website: www.gorattle.com  
🌀LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gaudio-a88229132/ 
⭐ Don’t forget to follow us: 
 
🌀Instagram: @the_startup_revolution
🌀LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-revolution-podcast/ 
🌀Website: http://the-startup-revolution.com

Overcoming adversity - Abril Lombardi

My guest today is Abril Lombardi; we met a few months ago when she wrote me this bold message from LinkedIn: “The truth is, I really admire your work, and I follow your webinars regularly, and since I'm looking for a new remote work opportunity, I thought you were one of the big ones I wanted to contact.” 
Since then, she has supported Flow as an SEO specialist. But this episode is not about SEO. 
It's about Abril's journey from a journalism degree to marketing professional. It's about outreach, job hunting, and the challenges of remote work. April is bold, and she doesn't give up. She is a great example for Gen Z and millennials that want to dream bigger and take a leap of faith, especially when searching for a new job.
So let's dive in.
⭐ More about Abril
Abril's career path began at the age of 15 as a fashion model. Four years later, her passion for communication and journalism led her to obtain a degree in the field and quit modeling. By then, she began creating content for her social media, which sparked her love for marketing and growing businesses online. 
Driven by her passion for telling stories, Abril has honed her SEO Specialist, Copywriter, and content marketer skills, collaborating with remote teams and startups from the U.S., Canada, and Germany. She's now looking forward to combining her marketing and journalistic skills as a business storyteller. 
⭐Follow Abril on her socials:
🌀Instagram: @abilombardi🌀Tiktok:@abiroad__🌀Youtube: https://youtube.com/@abilombardi 🌀LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/abril-lombardi/ 
⭐ Don’t forget to follow us: 
🌀Instagram: @the_startup_revolution🌀LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-revolution-podcast/ 🌀Website: http://the-startup-revolution.com

Enabling true ownership - Juliana Mendez

In today's episode, Juliana Mendez and I decode some of the myths around startup growth and what it takes to be successful in B2B SaaS.
 
Juliana is a Fractional Growth Marketing leader for B2B SaaS startups. She leads growth marketing teams for a fixed time of three to six months. So she needs to make good things happen quickly. 
 
She gets hired to sell specific growth challenges. To build, hire, and develop growth marketing teams and implement cross-functional processes and a culture of growth. Growth marketing is a cross-functional approach across marketing, product, and sales that is looking to optimize end to end, from acquisition to retention and monetization.
 
Juliana has a very data-led lean and experimentation-based approach, and I really appreciate her learnings from knowing the behind-the-scenes of a variety of startups and teams. 
 
So let's dive in.
 
⭐More about Juliana: 
Juliana is a tri-lingual fractional VP of growth marketing and startup advisor for B2B SaaS, with more than a decade of professional experience in creating data-driven growth strategies from the early stage to the growth stage (0-30M ARR). 
Her industry focus: (product-led, hybrid, Sales-led) B2B SaaS, product-led Sales transformation, TravelTech, FinTech, PropTech. 
⭐Follow Juliana on social media:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/julianamendez/ 
⭐Don't forget to follow us:
Linktree: linktr.ee/the_startup_revolution

The art of creating stories - Jay Acunzo

My guest today is Jay Acunzo, a podcast host of many shows, writer, speaker, and a major inspiration of mine on the intersection of art and marketing. 
He was also our coach for developing the premise of The Startup (R)evolution, which is this: It always sounds easy in the business books and Ted Talks. But the kinks and second-order effects get unraveled in the implementation. 
So in this episode, we talk about creativity and authenticity in B2B.Jay says: "The problem isn't bots replacing tons of creators; the problem is tons of creators acting like bots. "
Let's dive in.
 
⭐ More about Jay
He’s an author, show host, speaker, and brand consultant. His narrative-style podcast, Unthinkable, has been heard by over a million people worldwide. (It’s kinda like Radiolab but for creators.) Jay also writes books, develop & hosts original series for brands, and offer 1:1 coaching to help you resonate more deeply and build your brand and audience.
In 2023, Jay founded a membership program to help you push yourself creatively: the Creator Kitchen.
Previously, he worked in marketing and editorial roles at Google, HubSpot, and ESPN and as a creative leader for a tiny startup and the VC firm, NextView.
Jay’s grand aspiration/delusion is to be the Anthony Bourdain of workplace storytelling.
Make sure to follow Jay:
⭐ Website: https://jayacunzo.com/ 
⭐ Twitter: @jayacunzo
⭐ Instagram: @jacunzo
⭐ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/ 
 
Follow us: 
⭐ Instagram: @the_startup_revolution

Becoming the CEO - Julio Taylor

My guest today is Julio Taylor. He is the CEO of Hallam Agency, a digital marketing agency with 60 employees and almost 5 million pounds in revenue. 
 
In this episode, we discuss the path to becoming CEO and embracing the visionary and oneself. What is special about Julio is that he compares his business journey to his time playing full-time and an alternative metal band. 
 
⭐ We discuss creative differences, power struggles, and setting the right incentives. He talks about how you need to know your instrument, but also your role in a band, and that not everyone needs to be a songwriter or front center. From here, we have a side discussion about agency operations and time tracking specifically; again, this is all about incentives. 
 
For many agency owners, just like myself, time tracking is at the core of capacity planning and profitability analysis. But now that AI is making us so much more productive, time spent might have just become obsolete as a way to evaluate the value of our work. Who says that if you could start over again, he would build a culture without time tracking poorly is open, honest, and well-reflected; you will enjoy this one. 
 
Let's dive in! 
 
⭐ More about Julio: 
 
Julio is a highly experienced leader with a proven track record of leading successful teams on demanding and high-performing projects and campaigns. Skilled in Digital Marketing Strategy, UX, and brand strategy.
 
CEO of Hallam, winner of Google's Growing Business Online 2019 award and 6 of The Drum's awards including Agency of the Year 2019. Hallam is an emerging force in the digital space, helping clients to thrive in a digital world.
 
He also works closely with senior leadership teams at global companies to improve the way they think, work and deliver digital experiences for their audiences.
 
Don’t forget to follow Julio: 
⭐LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliotaylor/?originalSubdomain=uk 
⭐ Website: ​​https://www.hallaminternet.com/team/julio-taylor/