Sonia Baschez - Why you need to hire a fractional CMO!

Segmentation and personalization of like programs and emails and everything are just super important because people want to feel like you're talking to them and not just blasting out, say, an email or like a text message to everyone and anyone, right? And not add in that like personalization that really makes people feel like, hey, you're talking to me and I want to actually participate in this because you're making me feel welcome. So the whole idea of like community on a smaller scale and like how to build that when you have like 10 million people like a day, which is kind of crazy. So, but you can't just email, you know, that many people all in one go and expect them to all actually pay attention. So it's like you have to create those programs to really, you know, go after folks.

Welcome to the Undefeated Underdogs Podcast, where I unpack and narrate stories of ambitious people who turn obstacles into opportunities. My goal for this podcast is to create a platform to narrate underdog stories and maybe play a small, teeny tiny role in inspiring you. I intend to highlight the underdog mentality and make authentic conversations with people who play the long game, take action with a chip on their shoulder, and convert obstacles into opportunities. Buckle up, as I'll be bringing some authentic founders, VCs, community builders, and content creators who got underestimated their whole lives And yet they beat all the odds to become insanely successful. Now today I want to tell you a little bit about our awesome sponsor acquire.com. Selling a business is as tough as building a business. As someone who went through this process once, selling my own startup, I know the pain it takes to get to the end zone. This is where our sponsor shines. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a solid SaaS product. Acquired customers and generating consistent monthly revenue. The problem is you're not growing for, for whatever reason— lack of focus, lack of skill, or just plain lack of interest— and you feel stuck. What should you do? The story I'd like to hear is you buckle down, somehow reignited the fire, get past yourself and the clichés, and start working on your business rather than just in the business. You start building an audience, move out of your comfort zone to do sales and marketing, and in 6 months you triple your revenue. The reality isn't as simple. Situations may be different from every founder facing these crossroads, but too many times the story ends up being one of inaction and stagnation until the become business— the business becomes less valuable or worse. Worthless. If you find yourself here, or your story is likely headed down a similar road, I offer you a third option. Consider selling your business on acquire.com. Capitalizing on the value of your time is a smart move. Acquire.com is free to list, and they've helped hundreds of founders already. Go to try.acquire.com/sharath and see for yourself if this is the right option for you. Now let's get into today's episode. My next guest is a seasoned marketing pro who played a key role in ranging from political campaigns like Hillary for America to playing a very, very pivotal role in building early-stage startups like Makerpad, Atmos, Holloway, Trusted4, so on and so forth. Sonia is also an advisor at the council where she helps founders Think Marketing in the Right Way. I have to tell you this, guys, people mentioned her so many times whenever I asked on Twitter about who should I interview next. And a big, big shout out to Amanda Nutvidat, who was previously a guest on the show, recommended Sonia. And finally it's happening. Sonia, welcome to the show. How are you feeling today?

Well, after that intro, wow, I'm feeling amazing. Yeah, no, it's a good day.

Awesome. And so, first of all, right off the bat, I want to first of all give you kudos for being there at Atmos as an early employee and doing your really incredible job building that, taking that shape, building that marketing wing. And like, I think I saw you kind of leaving Atmos. So Right off the bat, first question, how are you doing? What is your day-to-day like after Atmos now that you have an ample amount of time? What's your feeling? And are you consuming any content? What are your hobbies like, habits like, and all that?

Yeah, so I am taking kind of a bit of a break as I transition to the next thing, but I've already started working. Like you mentioned, I'd been an advisor For portfolio companies at the council. So a few of them have pretty much commissioned me to start working with them part-time as like their fractional CMO. So I've got a few companies that I'm already working with and, you know, but still trying to keep it slow. You know, I have my almost 2-year-olds that were, you know, taken care of. Oh my God, that's awesome. Yeah, taking some time day to day to spend with her and then yeah, really setting up the next portion of, um, what I'm gonna be doing, which I'm super excited to, um, talk about and announce, uh, here.

Yes, I'm excited to unveil, give people, uh, what, you know, Sonia is up to next. But talk about 2-year-olds. Oh my God, they are so adorable. At the same time, they are so, you know, you— they'll, they'll extract every ounce of your energy. So how How's mom life? How's mom life treating you? Well, is it hard on you? How are you balancing things?

Yeah. So luckily we have my mom who comes every day to take care of Sophia, which is a huge help. Super privileged to have that opportunity. She comes to our house, takes care of her while we're during the workday. So we both work from home though, so she's constantly there. Actually, something funny just happened literally right before the conversation is she just learned how to open the door to my office.

Oh my God.

All by herself. So now, um, you know, meetings won't be able, uh, to be as, you know, cordoned off as, as they usually are. But, you know, um, on the other hand, I'm super proud that she's reached this milestone. So, you know, it's like one of those things where you're just kind of like, oh no, but then you're like, oh, but good for her for learning this new thing that, you know, she didn't, didn't do. Um, and I feel that that's kind of what toddler life is all the time. We've also transitioned, like we do a weekly, not a weekly, like a nightly walk. And before it was like she was in the stroller the whole time and now she's basically transitioned to like wanting to walk half of the time. So now we're like dealing with, okay, she wants to walk, which, you know, now we have to like make it safe for her to do that. 'Cause walking around the neighborhood, we still have, you know, cars driving around. Yeah. So that's a constant thing that we're keeping an eye out. But, you know, things change and it's all for the better 'cause now we just like, You know, stop and notice things a lot more that we didn't used to before. It was like, oh, you're just like walking, going fast. And, you know, she's now like stopping for the flowers and she points out like every, every animal that she sees and we're just like, oh yes, another squirrel, you know? But it's like the enjoyment she gets from it of like seeing, you know, squirrels, you know? Um, yeah. I think it's twofold. It's the animal, but then also the fact that she now knows what a squirrel is, you know? Um, so it's like really cute for her to be like learning all these like new things and then like showing us that like she's learning. So it's great. I love it.

I think you'll, you'll have more guest appearances, uh, in the future, uh, whenever you have meetings, uh, you know, Sophia being— you should, you should ask for a credit featuring Sophia, featuring Sophia everywhere. I know, right?

Oh, she'll, she'll come. She loves being on, uh, on Zooms and like FaceTimes and like looking at people and saying hi, you know?

That's awesome. I think wait till, uh, I don't know how far she is like kind of talking, but once they started like framing, you know, words and forming sentences, that's when things get really intense, you know. Yeah, I have an almost 3-year-old.

Oh my gosh.

What I, what I heard from others, other parents, and, you know, my, my mom, my dad, and, you know, so on, generations back They all say that. I don't know if it's true or not. I think girls tend to be little, uh, how do I put this, they're very loving towards their parents in the early age, you know, in the beginning. Uh, boys are like ruthless, you know. Um, my boy extracts like every, every freaking ounce of that, you know, last energy of mine. And it's fun, it's fun, it's fun though. It's all— It's all like adorable because, you know, at the end of the day, uh, they, they just kind of give us a— gives a solid reason to do what we do today.

Yeah, no, definitely.

So, uh, but yeah, awesome. Uh, I think let's switch gears a little bit and I want to talk about, uh, marketing again. Like I said, Amanda, so many others, you know, they mentioned every time, uh, And also they kind of tag you in so many times and you also kind of have this knack of creating social content that pretty much goes viral in one way or the other way. So talk about marketing. When did you fall in love? What's the backstory of Sonia being

in that

marketing product? Yeah, in that space.

Yeah, I always like to joke that so many of us that make it into marketing got here circuitously. Like, it wasn't what we intended to do. And that's the case for me. I went to Berkeley and I studied political science and peace and conflict studies, and I thought I was going to work in government or in nonprofit sector. But I graduated in 2009 and the government wasn't hiring. And nonprofits, the main comment that I got was like, oh, you don't have any experience. And I was like, well, I just graduated. Of course.

Yeah.

I have like some internships and stuff, but it just, you know, wasn't what they were looking for. So I got my first job working as like an office manager at this company called Kodak Gallery, which was eventually bought by Shutterfly. And they would, you know, make all the photo products, you know, like the mugs and the t-shirts and all that. And so when I was there, my boss, he's like, well, obviously this isn't what you want to do with the rest of your life. You should go to the other departments and see if there's something that you like a little bit more. So I got in with the marketing team, specifically the social media arm, as the resident millennial, as Facebook was becoming this channel that companies started realizing, oh, you can reach your audience and slash customers directly.

Right.

So they would come up to me and it's like, oh, like, you know, tell me more about how Facebook works, you know? So I started helping them do that. And then, you know, that slowly became, you know, what I started doing there. And so the next job I got was doing like social media plus like content creation for like an architecture firm. That wasn't really for me. Um, um, uh, it just, you know, wasn't, it just didn't work out. So I, the next job I got was at an immigration law firm and it was a 2-person marketing team. Right. My boss basically handled business development and then I handled pretty much the rest of it. So then I helped set up, um, email marketing, um, the blog content creation and then social media. So those kind of became the 3, 3 arms of like what I feel are my strengths. Mm-hmm. And from then I moved to Ernst& Young cuz I'm like, oh, you should work for like a big company, you know, see, see what that's like.

Right.

Hated it. It was too much. You have to. Yeah. It was too much of like internal marketing versus like outward. And then at companies like that, you generally have like, this is, you know, what we're supposed to do. It's already been decided on by, you know, like higher-ups. There's really no opportunity to try things out and experiment. And I realized that that's That's what really attracts me to marketing is like, how do you change the brand, the voice to like really fit your audience? So the next thing I did was go to the Hillary Clinton campaign. I was an email writer there and that was just like being thrown to like, you know, the sharks, you know, you just, it's sink or swim. You just immediately have to start, you know, experimenting and trying things. Yeah. One of the consequences of her not being, you know, such a popular candidate was that, you know, we had to try new, new messaging to really attract people on the one end. On the other end is, you know, her audience, the people that like really love her, are willing to do a lot. So it's like, how do you talk to that audience to convince them to help you convince other people to vote for her or, you know, to attend events and stuff? So that's what I was in charge of. I was in charge of the 38 non-battleground states. Mm-hmm. So that's all like California, New York, Illinois, like all the most populous states, right? But that unfortunately don't really affect elections because you generally know which way they're going to go. So one of the programs that I helped come up with was they were already setting up people to canvass within the state. But what I helped to create and enable was to have people from the states that don't matter, my audience, to take buses to go into the states that do matter. So folks in California would go to Nevada, folks in New York would go to Pennsylvania, folks in Illinois, so mainly Chicago, would go to Iowa. And so that became a huge way for creating, kind of getting people involved and excited in a way that they hadn't been able to do before. So we did that, and then I created a whole bunch of other events because, you know, people in California, New York, they're usually called the purse strings to the Democratic Party because they're the ones that have, like, you know, money and funding for, like, the other states that you want to get to vote. So we had to create more events for them to attend within their own states to, you know, get them excited to donate money. And so I helped create a few of those events. We started realizing specifically that a lot of women wanted to attend events without men, which is really curious 'cause that never really happened before. So we just started doing a lot of like women-only events where you could come and like support Hillary Clinton. So they got like super excited about that. So that just kind of like really helped me to realize like how segmentation and personalization of like programs and emails and everything are just super important. Right. Because people wanna feel like you're talking to them and not just blasting out say an email or like a text message to everyone and anyone, right? And not add in that like personalization that really makes people feel like, hey, you're talking to me and I want to actually participate in this because you're making me feel welcome. So the whole idea of like community on a smaller scale and like how to build that when you have, you know, we were emailing, geez, like, or I was emailing like 10 million people like a day, which is kind of crazy. Wow. And so I never had that type of access. I mean, who does? It's very rare.

Oh yeah, of course.

Usually to have that. So, but you can't just email that many people all in one go and expect them to all just be like, oh yeah, and actually pay attention. So it's like you have to create those programs to really go after folks. So that was kind of what I learned there after obviously the election didn't go our way. Um, it, I took a step back and I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Um, cuz I didn't wanna go back to like, you know, a big company. Um, and I hadn't quite gotten into startups. Um, though my husband Nathan Baschez, who you've also had, you know, on the podcast. Yes. Um, had been in startups his whole career and he was always saying like, you know, go work startups, work at startups. Um, but, you know, I wasn't quite ready to, you know, dive into, uh, you know, like, uh, basically drink the Kool-Aid as much as you need to with like really early stage startups. Um, after like the heartbreak of, you know, the Hillary Clinton campaign. Mm-hmm. So I started freelancing and this is kind of where this, you know, other arm of, um, my work, um, of like, you know, working with like individuals and like companies, um, to help them build up their, um, presence on, you know, social media and create like email programs, content programs that are specifically for them and their marketing. So I, I was working with a, um, publisher in New York that, um, wanted to work with authors to build up their presence online so that they could sell their books directly to their audience, which, if you think about it, in 2016 wasn't really a thing. It's become a huge thing now, right? People are going direct to audience to try to sell their books directly, which is having such a huge effect, I think, in the publishing world. But at the time, it wasn't really a thing. So, I was working with 3 authors at the time to help them build up their social media presence. So one of them ended up becoming a New York Times bestseller. Some of the content we put out, one of the things I remember was, this was when Medium was a thing or a lot more of a thing than it is now. It went super viral. And then we did this thing where at the end of the year, journalists kind of talk about an article that they wish they had written. And somebody from Bloomberg had chosen like one of the articles that like we had worked on. And I was like, holy shit, like, this is so cool. You know, that it's like, you know, people are, you know, learning about like my work, you know, indirectly, of course, because obviously through like the author themselves. But that was like, like, you have such potential to like reach more people when you try to go directly to like your audience. So that's kind of been like a huge, you know, thesis of like, how I've made my marketing work. So from there, we moved back to San Francisco from New York and I started working with startups, you know, because in San Francisco you have such an easier time getting to those people. Yeah. And so basically there, what I learned was a lot of startups as they're first growing don't really bring on marketing. It's always kind of like, you know, kept to the side. So I started coming on as like their, you know, part-time marketing person to kind of like handle all those things for them. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And that kind of became the basis for, you know, the rest of my career. So that's how I met Atmos. I came on board with them, what, April, I guess, 4 years ago. And, you know, started working with them to build up social media presence, content marketing. And from that, it kind of just grew into a full-time role. And that's where I kind of, you know, spent the last 4 years of my career learning about like startups, you know, the whole go-to-market process, building out, you know, everything I'd learned, you know, PR. I had to take on so much because it's like we had nothing, nothing was set up, right? It was like we had the 4 founders and then me. I was first employee. I was brought on and I just started taking on all these things and, you know, Learning more and more and then realizing that, hey, there's more startups that could use this, you know, and that need this. And so that's where I'm, you know, going to now where I'm starting a company that will basically do that. It's called Bend Growth.

Wow.

Where, yeah, I'll be helping startups basically build out their like branding, positioning, go-to-market plan strategy. press launching. And then, you know, hopefully, you know, they'll hire me to do all that and we'll move on once they're like at the point that they're ready to, you know, hire a full-time marketing person.

That name is so awesome. I have so many questions actually.

Yeah. I kind of talked about everything, a little bit of everything, so let me know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, such a, such an elaborate answer by the way. And it's, I have so many follow-ups, but Bend the Growth. That's a phenomenal name, by the way.

Thank you.

Yeah, just my, just my 2 cents, sharing my 2 cents. You should start a podcast. That would be a killer, killer, killer name for a podcast. Yeah, Bend the Growth. You know, it's awesome. But okay, so many follow-ups, but right off the bat, I think one of the things So you've worked, you've started, you know, going to school thinking that you'll work for government and you had that opportunity. I'm curious, uh, what are some lessons or what are not lessons per se, but what is the commonality that you found, uh, working at a political campaign that large, 10 million people, 20 million people, like so on and so forth, like bigger, bigger it's a bigger market in, if you wanna talk about in startup terms, right?

Mm-hmm.

With compared to what you did with, you know, your experience working at early-stage startups. So like, what is that something that, that is common and that you've kind of implemented instantly? Like, okay, this is what we can work together. And this, this is something that I can take away from my experience working for that political campaign, like quickly adapted. With startups?

Yeah. So I'd say 2 things. One is figuring out what your audience is and how to talk to them. Super important. I feel that that's part of where startups miss the message sometimes. They think that by, you know, building a product, what is it? Build a product and they'll come. I think that's a short-sighted way of seeing things because your product can be like the coolest thing ever. But if you don't have your audience that like, you know who to go after and how to speak to them about why your product is what they should be choosing, they're not gonna like, you know, come on board, you know? And then the second thing is experiment, experiment, experiment. Mm-hmm. The best thing I ever learned at the Hillary Clinton campaign was that, you know, create an experiment and like learn the results. And with startups, it's like you have that opportunity, right? Because it's like you're, you're small enough that like nothing's going to affect you really in like a wrong way. If anything, you'll learn faster and more easily what works and what doesn't work. Even when like your audience is small, right? Because it's like— Right. With, you know, the Hillary Clinton campaign, it's like we could segment enough and like know which way, like every email was like A through like E tested, right? And then from that, we would then send out the top email that like people were responding to, right? The way you do that on a smaller scale is you like reach out to people more directly, right? And you can do that because it's like you're smaller and your team should care about those results far more than like, you know, you would think a bigger company would. But that was like a thing that we just cared about. It's like, what are people actually responding to? And we tested every single message. Mm-hmm. And that's how we learned like what works and what doesn't work. with smaller startups, it's like, do that, you know, obviously what's his name, Mark Zuckerberg, had that like fail, fail and like fail often, right? That like applies to startups so much more because you want to figure out like what's working, what's not working as fast as possible. And that doesn't happen until you start talking to your audience and that doesn't happen until you find your audience, right? Mm-hmm. So it's like all these things need to be set up in order to be able to do that. And I think that's where marketing can really like step in and like help that happen from the beginning, right? A lot of things that I've also learned too is that, um, sometimes startups want to build the product first, like in totality, um, before they like ship it. Uh, right.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then that's, they realize they do that and then when they ship it, all of a sudden, like the audience isn't responding the way that they wanted to.

Yeah.

Well, the way you do that is you ship something earlier, like with like the hypothesis, of course, of how you think people are gonna react. And then see how people react. And then from there, build out what you're gonna build next. Um, in order to not waste a lot of time and effort from, you know, the developers and the designers and everybody that's like working on this thing. Um, to figure out that like, you know, something isn't working the way that you thought it would.

I think the first way to kill a startup is not launching an MVP, but launching an entire product or the, you know, going after the bigger vision.

Yeah.

Because that is going to like kill you like anything. You know, I've been there.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've kind of like, you know, had my front row seats watching other founders, you know, doing that. So going back to that particular thread, you also mentioned in previous answer that not many founders or not many startups bring marketing folks early. And can you elaborate, like, when should a founder prioritize? Is there a phase that you think that's At least ideal. Okay, this is when people should— founders should like, okay, they should have a helping hand and they should, you know, have this wing, marketing wing, slowly and steadily developing. You don't have to necessarily have 10 people in the beginning, but what is your take on that?

Honestly, I think they should be, you know, if you can't have them be one of like founding like team, then they should be one of the first hires. I see so many companies just you know, want to expand their engineering team, their like product team, and then start missing out on bringing in someone that will help, like marketing person come in and help and like really, you know, push the direction of the product in the way that like the customer actually wants. Mm-hmm. So that, that's kind of what I was saying where before, where it's like, I sometimes I'm talking to a client, like a startup, and they're, you know, telling me all these things about like, audience that they're going after. And then I ask a question that completely disarms them and then they realize that like, oh, I guess we haven't actually been going after that audience. And actually what we're seeing is this type of person is responding to what we built more than like what we thought our actual audience is. And then that kind of takes them down the rabbit hole of like, well, are you designing the product for the right person or the right audience that you thought? You know? Was like your audience. What I've also seen is companies kind of make the mistake of thinking about the product as like the end thing about like who the audience is going to be if they succeed, if they make it all the way, as opposed to like, how do you make a difference for your customers in the beginning so that you have that product market fit and then from there expand outwards. And sometimes I think what they don't like is they feel as if they limit the product to one audience that they're missing out on the rest of the audience. Whereas the way I see it is that by choosing the one audience, you really get to cater and build a product for the people that are actually going to love it in the beginning. And then those people are going to help you then expand outwards because you're going to find that your solution has been built for people that have an actual specific problem as opposed to trying to solve everybody's problems from the beginning when like you're not getting that customer feedback from the off. So I say bring in, if not like, I don't think companies necessarily hire like a full-on marketing person to start, but definitely, you know, talk to You know, with what I'm trying to build, right, is like bringing that fractional CMO person early so that you can get that advice from the beginning and then figure out how you're building that out and to eventually bring on a marketing person. Or companies can also do like, which is what I've been doing with The Council, is, you know, being that marketing advisor for, you know, early stage startups so that they start thinking about that early and often. So those are, I'd say, be kind of like your options if you want to get that product market fit right from the beginning and the positioning, branding and all that.

Right. So fractional is, fractional X is becoming a thing these days. Fractional chief of staff, fractional CFO, COO, you know, in your case, CMO. We keep on hearing this trend becoming popular and popular. I'm very curious and kind of playing devil's advocate. What are the downsides? Like, why should— why do you think it's getting— the trend is getting up for sure. It's like everybody's adapting to it, but why do you think it's not mass adapted? Like every startup actually is about, okay, let me actually hire this fractional CMO, not worry about you know, bringing someone full-time. So talk to me about the slow adaptation or the downsides or the things that people are not fully convinced. Like, so in a way, what is something that you would tell them, this is why you should bring for this particular reason, even there is like a downside, but there's also an upside?

Yeah, I think part of the— that's like, you know, kind of speaking to like the greater, like, like industry waves that we're seeing and like the economy and where it's at. A lot of companies right now are not, not only doing layoffs, but just really wanting to like make lean teams work. Yeah. Which, which is good. I think like you definitely want to have like the core team and like everybody is necessary and they're, you know, each providing value and everything. I think also what's attractive to like, you know, hiring a fractional person is that they're not full-time, right? So it's like you don't have that additional cost and burden of having to have them, you know, be on the team. Um, but, um, obviously, you know, the biggest downside is obviously going to be that because they're not part of the team, they're not gonna, um, um, know, like, uh, or I guess like it's always like the— they're not talking to the entire team, right? Most of the time I'm talking directly to the CEO. And sometimes we'll bring in other members of the team, but that usually happens kind of like down the line. So it's like up to, you know, the CEO then communicating everything to the rest of the team. So having that kind of fracture to like the system, unless, you know, the CEO's very good at communicating, some things can kind of get lost in translation. Mm-hmm. But I think that's something that like, you know, the fractional person should be helping to kind of set up. Much like, you know, where you're helping, you know, the startup position themselves to their audience, the fractional, like at least in terms of like me, the CMO needs to learn how to position what they're doing, the work that they're creating into value. Yeah. So that, and have it be easy enough and understandable enough for the CEO to understand and then be able to communicate that to the rest of the team. But, you know, obviously communication within teams is always, you know, a difficult thing, right? Until you kind of figure out how, how to do it. So, you know, the fractional person needs to come in and like be able to learn how that particular team works and fit into like what they're building so that your value comes across and the rest of the team recognizes that what you're doing is bringing value.

You've briefly covered on segmentation, personalization. I'm very curious, Let's talk about email marketing for a second. Those two are quite normal nowadays without— I think we get these emails with our names on it. Some of the times they go beyond saying that this is your last action, why are you not taking this action? So it's so personal. It feels like someone—

I would quibble that actually.

Yeah, go please. Please. That's what I think. I would love to know your take. My curious question is, at least to some extent, I think going back to a few years ago, 5 years, 6 years ago, that was kind of like a cutting-edge thing, right? Like, if you don't personalize, you basically are losing your audience. I think some people do that now, I guess. I don't know. But at least most of the time, it's quite normal. It's like every freaking product right now has a design standard thanks to Apple in a way, right? Like they started at some level. Going back to 10 years, every product is so shitty. They don't have like a design sense. Similar to that, my question is, if you agree to that point, first of all, what's coming after segmentation personalization in email marketing?

Yeah. Yeah. So first thing, I would say that the idea of personalization and segmentation are far more like, people think that they're instituted far more than they actually are. What you mentioned about, you know, oh, an email is addressed to me, I think is like the low, low bar. Like, yeah, you know my name, I filled out your form, you know? I think personalization needs to get to the point that like, hey, I know exactly the things that you, you personally like. Mm-hmm. And I'm sending you only the things that I know that you're going to like. Um, I think part of the reason why this isn't as, um, you know, fully fledged, that is, you'll see it in, um, like in e-commerce a lot more because, um, You know, it's kind of like twofold. One, obviously they're seeing what people are clicking on. And so you mentioned the like, oh, you know, the, you left your cart, right? Okay. Yeah. That's at least one stop of like what it could be, but it could go so much farther with the amount of data that we're actually collecting from our users to give more personalized, like products that you would like, something more fitted to what they're actually buying, what they're actually doing from all the information that we already know. I'll say that one reason I think that that's not, you know, as, you know, across the industry as we would like is the idea that people don't want to know that their, like, data is being recorded as much as it is. I think we see that with, you know, folks not wanting, you know, Apple or whatever to track you across, um, Apple, Facebook, Google, to track you across, you know, all the various websites that you're going. Um, so, but you start— it's so funny because then you started seeing the backlash. Like, people were complaining on Twitter saying like, oh, all of a sudden the ads I get suck. And it's like, well, yeah, because you're, you know, you just told these companies to not give you the ads that would benefit you to like, you know, look at because, you know, based on the things that you, you are actually you actually want, you know? So there's that discrepancy there between what people say that they want versus what people actually want. I saw this a lot. So I, one of the other companies, I actually didn't mention that I worked there, but I worked for an ebook publisher. And one of the onboarding things that we would do is we would ask people the genres of books that they liked. Mm-hmm. And then try to create personalized emails for them based on the the genres they said they liked. Now, the discrepancy was that there was a difference between the genres that people are willing to admit that they like versus the things that they actually would buy. Interesting. One of those being the romance category. So if we put the romance genre on top of it to let them know that, hey, we gave this to you because, you know, you clicked on it, people get mad and they would say, oh, why are you sending me romance? You know? But if we remove that, all of a sudden, like, they're just like purchasing the book because that's, hey, that's the type of book that we saw you purchase. You bought this. We know that you like it. And so we, you know, by making it seem as if like, oh, we're just sending this to, you know, a bunch of people as opposed to them specifically, we saw more conversions in like them buying those like genre of books. And, you know, same thing you'd say with like sci-fi fantasy and all that. But it was just, it was one of those realizations that like people think that they like something, but the things that they're actually doing and clicking on are completely different, right? So that's when I, you know, that's to me like actual personalization. One company that's actually doing this really well is Barnes& Noble. They've updated like their emails to like basically be based on like the genres that like you're buying and like other books that you're buying. But there could be so much more that like we're doing. One of the things that also pisses me off with like e-commerce, like the big stores like Nordstrom, you know, Saks, all those companies that like I buy from, I'm like, I know that, you know, the things I'm clicking on, why are you sending me these random, like, you know, like it's great that you think that I'm gonna buy Versace, but I'm not, you know?

Right, right.

Like there's no need to send me those emails. Right. So that's where it's like the personalization segmentation can get so much more refined than it actually is right now. The other thing is I think that frequency segmentation should become a thing. We have basically just, most people have just, you know, kind of let their inboxes go and you're just getting emails all the time from people. And that used to be a very popular way of working, like maybe 5 years ago. And it was fine because like we didn't have as much like, you know, email being sent out, personalization and all this. So it, it was like the volume didn't affect people. But I think we've gotten to the point that like companies that like change their strategy to send email more sporadically to the point that like it's only like, you know, once every week, once monthly, quarterly or something would start to see better results than like sending the email every day. And then I think content segmentation could also be a thing where it's like, Um, I'm always only going to be on like the, um, the seller side and not— I'm sorry, I'm only going to be on the buyer side. Don't ever send me things about like the seller. Um, something other things like, um, with like e-commerce, right? Like I only ever want to hear from companies when they're doing a sale. Like don't ever send me just like a regular email to send me your products. Like I only want sales stuff. Um, and that's easily found out. Like you'll see which people Actually only pay attention to like like your sales stuff. The other thing is like sometimes you only buy one product, and like that's fine. You know most people like are only ever going to buy that one thing. Like don't continue sending them email, you know. And people will say, you know, like if you ask them from the off, like you know they'll they'll be willing to say that. I think what happens is we just treat everybody the same. And that's not the case, right? I think the other thing that I've thought about before is in terms of sales, we're giving them out to too many people. Why not switch that and have it be like you're only sending it to your top users? So we saw that recently with Kitsch, where it's like you could join this. The more that you purchased, you would get these levels of you know, access. And from that, you were then able to buy, you know, different products, right? And then that's something we saw recently with the Hermès, right? Where it's like, oh, yes, it's been like this, like trade secret this whole time that you have to continue buying products to eventually get that Hermès Birkin bag, right? Mm-hmm. So we've seen that these things work, that people actually behave the way that it's intended. It's just that it hasn't, you know, kind of gotten that way with across the board. with less either like non-luxury items or just like customer to like the store relationship type things. But those I'd say are like the future of actual personalization and segmentation that like companies, if they really care about like their customers and want to actually give them what they want in the way that they want, will start, you know, trying to do something like that going forward.

Love that. Yeah, thanks for correcting me. I think I should up my game in terms of email marketing. I'm not a pro at all. Like, you know, I don't have a newsletter or I do have some products, but those are all pretty basic. So, but definitely there are some lessons for founders to how to be more specific, yet you are not kind of showing away that you're stalking them or anything. It should be intelligent enough to say that. Hey, this is something that you're interested in based on XYZ. So I think the consent is, you know, needs to be given upfront. But love, love, those are the predictions, I would say. I think one thing curious about when it comes to personalization, where do you think the line— where is it like, what is the line like, you know, how far people can go? The data, you know, you collect. And that's part 1. Part 2 is, who do you think right now is kind of nailing personalization when it comes to email marketing? Like, they're damn so good. They're like the Apple standard of iPhone standard of smartphones. So part A and part B, 2 questions.

That's hard. I would say for the second one, The ones that are doing best, I'd say, are like content creators, right? So the folks that like are actually creating specific content for the audience because they already have like the most personalization that you can get, right? Which is your audience is there for your specific content that you can't get anywhere else, right? Which is why I think the whole, you know, Substack you know, Beehive and all this has grown so much is because, you know, people are now, you know, authors, writers, journalists, and all are able to go directly to like their audience far more than they've ever been able to before.

Right.

But that also leads to, you know, a lot more, you know, segmentation and not like, I mean, it is segmentation, but I guess in a more negative way, because it kind of puts people more in silos where it's like you It's on the user now to try to find the things that they're interested in. Um, and find whatever channel, you know, Substack, YouTube, whatever is gonna give them the type of content. Um, which makes it less likely that you're gonna overlap and become more well-rounded about knowledge. Um, and like what people are kind of like, you know, paying attention to and like learning about. Um, because, you know, if I wanna learn about, you know, something in healthcare, I can now just go find, you know, an author that like writes about, you know, healthcare only. Uh, whereas like before with like newspapers, it's like you were learning, uh, uh, you know, well, what the different sections of the newspaper, right? Like, um, so that, that would I, I say is, uh, I think is, is a detriment to too much segmentation. Um, though I have seen you with where some creators, they're like making it work, um, where you have like guest posts. Um, so, Mm-hmm. Actually, I saw a tweet yesterday where, um, Lenny, who writes, you know, Lenny's newsletter and like, you know, podcast, uh, was saying that like, uh, his most popular posts are now guest posts, right? So it's like he's now finding that like, um, he's becoming more of a curator as opposed to like the actual, you know, creator. Right. Um, which is like great, right? Because it's like, it's showing that his audience wants to learn about more than just what he specializes in, right? So it's like now he's learned that and he's trying to bring in more people to do that and is starting to like expand outwards and having like those conversations with, um, you know, his podcast and like, you know, having, having those folks bring their knowledge and sharing it with their audience, which I think is great. Obviously what you're doing here as well. Um, so, um, it's good that creators are, are realizing that. Um, so I think we'll see that, um, far more going forward. It's also adding like a level of, you know, there's the level of trust. Like if there's a writer that I follow, then I'll trust a little bit more like the other viewpoints that he brings on. So I'm already a little bit more inclined to, you know, pay attention to these, you know, guests that they're bringing on. In terms of the data, yeah, that's, it's like tricky because, you know, you're always gonna have, you know, folks that quibble with, you know, being tracked and— Yeah. Not wanting that to be as obvious as it is. And I think that's up to the companies to try to not have those like moments, right? I mean, we've heard the horror stories of, you know, is it Walmart or Target or whatever sends like a flyer, you know, telling, you know, the customer like, hey, you might like these baby diapers, you know, to find out that like, oh, you just outed. you know, a teenager to their parents about being pregnant, you know. Um, it's like, oh, you could take things a little bit too far. Um, I've also seen where, um, um, one of the, um, um, when like there's a miscarriage or like, um, the baby unfortunately, you know, uh, dies early, um, those companies don't make it easy for, you know, the parents to update, um, the status. Um, so they'll keep receiving notifications about like, oh, your pregnancy should be at this stage, or, oh, your, you know, your, your baby is almost, you know, 1 year old. Here's what like you'll want to buy for them, right? So that, that can be, you know, a pretty hard thing for, for parents to have, you know, the customer to like have to endure. And I think it's up to companies to have that empathy and create that, you know, culture within their own team to constantly be thinking about what their audience is going to need in terms of everything, right? Right? The good and the bad. And I think we focus too much on the good sometimes as opposed to the bad. Yeah. But, you know, that's where bringing in someone that like really understands the customer and like, and the data can help you, right? Where it's like, oh, like you see the data, what hypotheses can we draw from this? You know? And then like, but then also have like, I guess a level of sensitivity of like, okay, we learned this, but do we actually want to like let our customers know Actually, ooh, one person that's doing, not person, company that does really well in terms of like email segmentation, personalization, it happens every year, right? Is the Spotify Wrapped, right? Like everybody loves that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's like, how can companies take the data that they're learning from their customers and put it to them in a super interesting, fun way that they actually love? So I did have this conversation recently with Nathan where he is like, oh, imagine if DoorDash sent a You know, wrapped. And it's like, I don't think I want to learn how much I spend on DoorDash actually, or, or like what I'm buying, you know?

Yeah. What, what cuisine I'm into in terms of how much, how much I ate, because sometimes it makes us feel bad that you're eating too much pizza. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So there's definitely companies it wouldn't work for. Um, but that's worth exploring if like within your company and like your, um, your customer, if there's ways to create those moments of magic that like make your company like, I like that they know that and I like that they know me. And it makes me feel more at one with the company and want to actually continue, you know, paying for them and their services, you know?

I love that. Yeah, I think what you said is absolutely true. There's always a line, and I kind of like the way you— the examples. I think the virality effect of reaching out to your direct audience through Substack, through Beehive, these platforms, it is actually enabling more people to write and adding more personalization in one sort or the other way. So let's switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about You know, startups, every startup cares about if, you know, at least early stage is achieving product market fit. It's like, that's the ultimate goal. And beyond that, it's, you know, you can talk about a lot of other things, other goals, but, and most of the founders try to fix the product, which is really important. But what is your take when it comes to the fit part, like the market fit, like marketing part in, into during that phase? And what did you kind of, you know, battle-tested strategies that you implemented at early stage? You know, take Atmos, for example, you were the first, one of the first employees. Yeah. Talk to me about that marketing role in PMF.

Yeah. So I'll start. One of my favorite authors in marketing is April Dunford. She does this positioning. She has a positioning book and she just came out with the follow-up about creating sales pitches to fit the audience. And those 2 things go hand in hand, both from her, but then it made me realize, like, after reading them, what I had been doing at Atmos and how we kind of came to, you know, try the different strategies and then figure out who we're actually selling to, as opposed to, you know, just assuming that everybody wants to buy a house. And of course, if you had the option to customize the house to, you know, be exactly what you want, why wouldn't you choose that? Right? That was like the the main thing that we thought at first. But then you start realizing it's like well, not everybody right now can afford to you know pay for these extra services to build a custom house, right? So you start kind of chipping away at the type of people or sorry the audience that you're going after. And I think just really going into like how she wrote about it made me realize that that's what I was doing like the whole time. So I think the main thing is like basically figuring out like what your specific competitive advantage is versus your competitors. Yes. But also what like the default behavior is, right? Mm-hmm. So, and a lot of people, a lot of people including, you know, and startup founders get that wrong. where it's, you think, oh, you know, there is no competitor right now because what I'm building is brand new.

Mm-hmm.

And technically that may be the case, but what you're going up against is what people are actually doing right now. And so a lot of the times that's like just using like email and like spreadsheets. So say I work with a few, you know, what is it, ERG or like management Like TMSs, right? Where it's like you're managing your company through like a system that you've basically hacked together through like spreadsheets and emails, right? So that's what you're going up against, right? And the bigger thing that you're also going up against is people not wanting to change. Change is hard, especially for work stuff.

Absolutely.

So what your job is, is to convince them that your product is the easy way to do what they wanna do. Um, and a lot of times companies don't position themselves in that way. Um, they're just like, oh, well obviously we're better than this because of, you know, XYZ, you know, like these product features. Um, and a lot of the times people don't really care about product features, um, the way that founders do. Uh, most of the times people don't care about the product features the way that founders do. Yeah. So how is it that you're positioning your product to be more results-oriented or value-oriented about how we're actually gonna help you? And not like, oh, we built this like new thing that makes it easier to like do things. Okay. But you know, what does that mean for me? And that's like the main thing that people care about is like, what does it mean for me? Right? So with Atmos, it became less about, of course everybody would want like a, you know, custom house if they could. And it's like, no, well, Mm-hmm. This is why you specifically need a custom house, right? So we started going after like older folks who wanted to like, you know, buy a house and it's called like aging place. You would stay in the house until, you know, the very end. And so those folks require a different type of house, right? It's like you can't have the same type of like doorways in case they need like a wheelchair later on. Or like the bathroom can't have like like a huge step for them to get into, like the tubs, right? So we would help those people realize that like these are the ways that you would customize your home to fit your needs from now until, you know, you eventually, you know, pass away. Or one other thing was like with like families, right? Right. There aren't that many houses that are now built for, you know, you know, bigger families. Sure. In terms of like the types of rooms, the types of like hangout spaces. So that was like a thing that we would, you know, emphasize is like, hey, you can like create these entertaining spaces for, you know, to bring, you know, your whole family together. You could create individual rooms for like your kids so that they're not all the same, right? Because all the kids have different needs. And then the other type was like folks who wanted a smaller house. So, you know, one of the conversations out there is, oh, there aren't enough starter homes. And it's like, yeah, there aren't enough small homes for the people that want them. So how could we help them build a smaller home that had everything they needed without them having to pay extra for all this extra, like all the extra rooms or like, or amenities that they didn't even like want or need? Mm-hmm. So really going after those audiences helped us to really hone in on the types of people that were more likely to, want a custom home now versus like eventually want a home. So by learning to position it in that way, we are solving people's actual problems in a way through storytelling and like curation and, you know, visual like storytelling what they actually needed. And a lot of the times they hadn't even realized that this was an option or that they could, you know, take it, take it that, that far. So it was like really amazing to kind of see those people then convert and be like, oh my God, I didn't know this was possible, you know, like to, or I hadn't even thought about that, having, you know, to do that for like the house. Right. Because a lot of these folks, it's like, you want to stay in that home the rest of your life and not have to upgrade to like an upgrade or downgrade eventually.

Right. Oh my God, now I see why Nathan is always spot on when it comes to marketing. Yeah, you've been fueling him. I hope you're charging him.

You know, the mates rates, right?

But

yeah, no, that's definitely— he's one of my first and early clients, you know, for sure.

How much of your impact is on Nathan?

Sorry?

How much of your impact is on Nathan? Like Lex, what he does, you know, when it comes to marketing, you know, what do you guys— how do you guys work together? Because you both are founders, you know, you both have this different lens, I would say. I think when I talk to Nathan, well, a big fan, he's always like very product-centric. How can we make the experience better? And you are like, you know, how can we package this better? You know, so yeah, I'm very curious how this duo contribute to each other's projects or, you know, each other's work.

Yeah. Well, I'll say I'm his first user for every product he's ever built since back in the day at Product Hunt. I was the first one on that website when he was building that website. And then, you know, onto Every, you know, I read many of his essays before they went out. And, you know, we talked through what he was, you know, wanting to, you know, talk about and whether, like, a point made sense or not. So that was definitely incorporated into many of his essays for Divinations. And then now with Lex, I mean, that was, you know, from the beginning. I remember, like, we had this conversation in October where he said, you know, I have this idea to do this thing. Um, but I don't think it's the right time. You know, we just had Sophia. Um, like, what do you think? And I just had to be like, you know, um, if this is like what you're, what you're feeling, what you're thinking, like, how do we make it work? You know? Um, so Mm-hmm. from the beginning it was like, okay, uh, this is what I'm thinking about Lex. And then so I would always give like my input in terms of like marketing stuff. Like one of the early things I remember is when When he was launching, I was like, hey, let's post on social media to give out, make it invitation only for the first 500 people. And he's like, oh, I don't think that's going to work. And I was like, ye of little faith. Let me do it. I will handle it. Give me the codes that I have to give out to people. And sure enough, I mean, I think he touts the numbers like 25,000 signups on the first day. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, well, that was a portion because of like the work that I did. And obviously, you know, he's already like Twitter famous, so he has like a lot of followers. I'm like, okay, let's use that. Right. And most of your audience is there because they wanna know what you're working on. So we did that and it, you know, went viral and, you know, that kind of grew the project so much that it was just like, it made sense to then be its own company. And then, you know, certainly now everything that's like marketing related, he always like, you know, taps me in and is like, hey, what do you think about this? What about this?

I love that.

And then now I, you know, the same thing with, you know, Ben's, with Bend Growth, right? Where in terms of like the product, he's helping me build that out, the website, he's helping me, you know, build everything out. And it's funny because it's like, I think where the main thing is just like helping support each other in terms of how we want to communicate with like the audience. Because obviously, you know, he's been in startups his whole career and knows it far better than I do. So he knows how to, you know, talk to the people better than I do. So there's a lot of input that he has into everything. And then in terms of like coming to putting together the product of like what the offering is gonna be, he was super instrumental in that and like how it's gonna work. So yeah, I mean, we both like rely on each other very much for both of our projects.

I love to hear that. I think it complements what you're doing. um, individually, together, and it stays in the family, right, in a way. So yeah, definitely. I

think, you know, imagine if I had to pay for that, or if he had to pay for the marketing thing.

Oh my God. Yeah, I think in maybe 10 years Sophia is going to start her own thing and is like, you know, Mom, Dad, I need, you know, need something from you.

Yeah, I mean, wait, we think about that, right? And like, um, you know, with, uh, with Nathan and him saying like, no, like you need to do this, you know, go out on your own. Because, you know, basically the reason why I left Atmos is like I reached my like my, my 4 years and I'm like, okay, like, wow, that's a long time to spend with one company. Um, you know, what's next? Yeah. And then it really, you know, was this idea of like, you know, wanting to go back to like my roots and really, really start with like, you know, startups, um, at the beginning and really, you know, get them to like, you know, launch and then go-to-market strategy part product market fit, branding, positioning, all this, right? All the initial stuff that goes into building and creating a company and getting that first customer. And then me being like, oh, but is now the right time? And him being like, no, you need to do this. Like Sophia needs to have that in her life and know that her mom is doing this, right?

Yeah.

So that was definitely like the spur to actually move forward and do it. And it's just like, yeah, She gets to see that like both mommy and daddy are like working hard, you know, to like, you know, uh, give her things.

Awesome. Uh, that's so awesome. That's so, you know, wholesome, I would say, uh, to hear, you know, you kind of like thinking about her having her own thing in the future. I always think about my boys, you know, one way or the other way. I think we kind of tend to or wire towards that because we are so into Uh, building, uh, or creating, right? Uh, it's always nice to probably like, you know, we never know, maybe I'll interview Sophia in the next, you know, 10, 15 years, bringing her on the podcast. Maybe. Yeah, there you go.

Right, because they usually do, you know, follow in their parents' footsteps, right? Yeah,

yeah, yeah, you never know.

So if you're a creator, they'll be a creator of some sort, or, you know, The next iteration of whatever the, you know,

yeah, the thing

is technology is then, you know.

Yeah. Lastly, I want to talk about Bend the Growth. Talk to me about like, I think, you know, let's, that's, I would love to wrap this up. Where can people find it? And what is something that you're really excited about with Bend the Growth? And, you know, over to you.

Yeah. So it'll be at bendgrowth.co. The website will be up and running soon. Yeah. And so basically it was just kind of trying to productize what it is that I do in a way that's easy to understand for startups and early stage startups. So as I did with Atmos, as

Mm-hmm.

Being there for pre-seed, helping, you know, taking it through seed, taking it through Series A, and then like beyond, like everything that kind of like is needed. So strategy, you know, obviously full funnel support with, you know, awareness acquisition, conversion retention, and all that, creating the metrics and iterating from there so that they know like what's working and what's not working. And then, you know, one of the other things that I think that I do differently is that on top of, yes, the marketing work, I really became proficient in doing PR and reaching out to journalists to get them set up for our launches. So with Atmos, I got us on Forbes, TechCrunch, Business Insider. So that really helped us to get our foot in the door. And then With those are obviously all national, but specifically with like Atmos, what I realized was like how important it is for like local media to like know about us. So I like, you know, did the same thing with like the newspapers in like North Carolina where we're, you know, building houses, which ended up being far more, you know, successful for us because it, local newspapers, the people there trust them a lot more than, you know, the Forbes and TechCrunches of the world. And then with The Council, I helped her get her Forbes article. And so I've helped a few other of her portfolio companies to also get featured. So that's been super exciting. I know that right now there's the whole argument of, why do we need the media? And I think that the answer to that is, well, unless you have enough of an audience on, you know, across, you know, your platforms, which let's be honest, most founders don't. The media's gonna be like the quickest way that you do that in order to reach like your intended audience. The hard part is that obviously you're trying to like find a moment that makes sense. Launches are, you know, easy, especially if you raise money, enough money that, you know, makes it buzzworthy. But then also the types of investors If it's like a trend that's like, you know, fits in at the time, then that, you know, also works as well. But then when you're going to do this huge launch, how are you setting up everything within your company to make sure that it's ready for this, you know, influx of traffic that you're going to be getting? So a lot of companies don't set that up properly. You know, when we first launched with Atmos, One of the mistakes we made is we launched this like viral, like rent calculator. And, you know, it got a whole bunch of like traction and like emails and stuff. But we realized that we didn't ask where the person is based. So, you know, we then had to try to weed out from within the data only the people in like North Carolina, because those were the folks that we were able to service at the time. And that was like a huge mistake, right? So it's like, How do I take my learnings for like how we, you know, took Atmos from like, you know, zero to like nothing? Sorry, not nothing. From like nothing to like, you know, building, you know, a lot of houses and like, you know, earning, you know, money and everything and help other startups do that as well.

I'm so pumped for you, Sonia. I think this is going to change a lot of A lot of trajectories of startups introducing marketing into their, you know, into their DNA. And again, love the name. You should start a podcast.

Yeah, well, if I do, you will certainly be a guest on it.

Oh my God, that would be, that would be so awesome. Uh, and we'll, we'll link all the, you know, uh, all the links to the, in the show notes. And, you know, I'm very excited, pumped for you. But folks, that's it. You know, it's— I get— I never get tired of these conversations. I always learn a lot. And I think today I majorly learned about segmentation, personalization. I think, you know, we all have our email marketing game thanks to you, Sonia. So appreciate you for, you know, being here, sharing your knowledge and wisdom with all of us. Good luck, and I'm rooting for you. Thank you. I'll be there on the launch day. We should do like how we did, how you did, Lex, like make it viral.

The thing about going viral, man, is that you never know what it, what is going to work and then repeating it is, is hard. But yeah, I mean, you learn, you learn along the

way.

Thank you so much for having me. This is great. It's really helped me to like think about what I do and like marketing in a more focused way. Which is always what you want to want from these types of conversations. So thank you for that.

Absolutely. And appreciate you and appreciate for the folks listening. Cheers and stay tuned for some amazing guests like Sonja coming on the pod. Cheers.

Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. Bye.