🏜️ Surviving the ‘Messy Middle’, Finding your magic moment, ...
Hello! Adam Thornhill here. ‘The Podcast Guy’ saving you 10 hours a week. Ready for the 61st edition of Podup? Enjoy the best bits from Marketing Against The Grain, The SaaS Podcast, and Lenny’s Podcast:
🤳 The power of creators
🔮 Finding your magic moment
🏜️ Surviving the ‘Messy Middle’
Quick note, a lot of readers have said this email is too long and they’d rather have it sent in three different emails. As of next week, you’ll get Podup in your inbox on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with one podcast featured in each send. Onwards!
Thanks to Acquire Digital Talent for making this post possible…
Hiring the right leader is the hardest thing you'll ever do.
We tell ourselves we're good at it. In reality, we fuck it up at least 20% of the time. For many of us, it's more like 50%.
So how do you find the right leader? Particularly in marketing and growth where the average tenure of a CMO is 16 months.
The answer: find an expert like Alex Marriner. With consumer technology clients like Roam, Starling Bank, and GoHenry, he knows how to hire the best.
P.S. Acquire Digital Talent have the rare ability to find growth and performance marketing talent in both the US and the UK.
🤳 The power of creators
🥉 Marketing Against The Grain (2 min read vs 31 mins listening)
Brace yourself. The impending flood of AI content is coming. As content creation becomes commoditised, it becomes increasingly difficult to stand out. Kieran and Kipp weigh in on the rising importance of video content and human creators.
Bet on video
I think we're going to consume way more video tomorrow than we do today.
YouTube Shorts. TikTok. Podcasts. They favor creators with personalities and points of view, not brands.
It's going to be awkward for brands moving into that world.
Kieran Flanagan
Focus on creators
With AI driven content being created all the time, you need to connect with the people who are consuming your content.
You have to build community around your creators which will subsequently become the community of your brand.
For a brand to be a creator it needs to partner with other existing creators and employ creators.
The brand is really the sum of its creator presence.
Kipp Bodnar
Why it matters
With finite hours in a day to watch YouTube, binge Netflix, or scroll TikTok, you'll need a recognizable face, a unique personality, and a strong opinion to break through the noise. So what do we do? Embrace creators.
Next steps
AI-generated video is coming, but it's still a few years out from becoming a significant force. Now is the perfect time to build your audience with video content. The way I see it, you have three options:
Buy a creator, like Spotify did with Joe Rogan
Build a creator, like HubSpot did with Kipp Bodnar
Partner with a creator, offering equity in exchange for their brand, like Mint Mobile did with Ryan Reynolds
Don't wait for AI to catch up. Start developing your distinct personality today.
Your thoughts?
🔮 Finding your magic moment
🥈 The SaaS Podcast (3 min read vs 52 mins listening)
Your onboarding experience can make or break your relationship with new users. Great onboarding can turn users into advocates, while a poor one leads to churn. John Li, co-founder of Vimcal, shares his insights on the value of onboarding and the critical role of the 'magic moment'.
What's your magic moment?
We designed everything in Vimcal - whether it's our onboarding calls, our self-serve onboarding, our website, or our Twitter pin - around one magic moment.
Our magic moment is when a user uses our feature Slots for the first time. Once they experience this, anything you tell them after is amazing. It's like something flipped in their brain.
I tell other founders to find your magic moment. Capture it and bring it as early as possible into the process.
John Li
Combine it with referrals
We have an active referral system because of our onboarding calls. We learned that once people get to the end of the call they're super ecstatic.
But there's a half-life of excitement about your product. For the first day, you can ask them 'Hey, do you mind sharing this with a couple of friends?' They're like 'Of course. I love this. I want to show everyone.'
3 days after that, it’s a little less. By day 7, their excitement starts to plateau. By day 14, they're back to their day-to-day lives.
Our goal is to get them to refer as early as possible after the first time they experience our magic moment.
John Li
Why it matters
We've all heard the mantra 'do things that don't scale.' And it's repeated for good reason. The goal is to deliver value and wow your customers from day one. Then, while they're still in the honeymoon phase, you activate referrals.
This approach can be a powerful engine for growth, but it requires an understanding of your product's unique 'magic moment' and a commitment to making that moment shine.
Next steps
Whether you've identified your magic moment or not, it's time to play the role of your customer. Walk through your onboarding flow - it's probably been a while.
Ask yourself: were you blown away? If not, what can you change to ensure you are next time? Once you've nailed that, then, and only then, should you shift your focus to encouraging referrals.
Your thoughts?
🏜️ Surviving the ‘Messy Middle’
🥇 Lenny’s Podcast (3 min read vs 1 hour 2 mins listening)
Success isn't linear. It's messy, filled with highs, lows, and a lot of uncertainties. Today, Scott Belsky shares his insights on navigating the 'messy middle' of business - when the excitement of the launch has faded and you're left facing the realities of making it work.
The messy middle
These years in the middle are messy because they're full of lows. Whether you're at a startup or a turnaround within a big company, it's very volatile.
When you're in those lows you need to find a way to endure the anonymity, uncertainty, and anxiety.
It's hard to do something that no one knows or cares about. You have to stick together long enough to figure it out.
So how do you do that? Part of it is culture. You should want to serve the customers you serve and work with the team you're working with.
Scott Belsky
The cross country analogy
Part of it is short-circuiting the reward system. You should find micro goals and milestones that are mutually agreed upon.
Celebrate these even though in the greater scheme of things they don't matter much. That's a key part of keeping the dream alive.
I always use the analogy of we're driving our teams cross country with the windows blacked out and everyone's sitting in the back seat.
They don't know that we're making progress. The traffic is clearing. We've just crossed state lines.
If they don't receive the narrative they go stir crazy.
Progress begets progress and is a source of motivation.
Scott Belsky
When should you quit?
I've had this conversation again and again with founders.
I say 'In the beginning, before you knew all that you know now, you had tons of conviction. That's what caused you to leave your job and take all this risk.'
I ask 'Knowing all you know now, do you have more or less conviction in the problem and and the solution you're building?' I get different answers.
Some people say 'I have more conviction than ever before. We’ve learned a lot and received validation from customers. We just haven't figured it out yet. It's driving me crazy.' For those people I say 'You're just in the messy middle. Stick with it.'
But oftentimes people say 'Honestly, if I knew then what I know now, I would not have done this.' I'm like 'Holy shit. Then quit! Your life is too short. Pivot.'
If you've lost conviction you should not be doing what you're doing in the world of entrepreneurship.
Scott Belsky
Why it matters
The 'messy middle' is inevitable in any venture. It's a period filled with struggles and uncertainties that can easily erode morale. Cultivating a strong culture, setting micro goals, and celebrating milestones are essential to enduring and eventually overcoming this phase.
Next steps
Reflect on where you are right now in your entrepreneurial journey. If you’re in the 'messy middle', reassess your conviction.
Do you believe more in your solution now than when you started?
If the answer is yes, keep pushing. Set small, achievable goals. Focus on the problems you need to solve today, not the ones you’ll face 12 months from now.
If the answer is no, it might be time to consider a pivot or even an exit. Entrepreneurship is not about stubborn persistence but smart resilience.
Your thoughts?
Note, these quotes were pulled at different points of the episode. Some sentences were left out to make the narrative more concise. I am not associated or affiliated with any podcast (unless otherwise stated). All roundups are independently written and do not imply any sponsorship or endorsement by the podcast.