Post acquisition integration: 3 marketing decisions to make in the first 90 days
Post acquisition integration has 3 marketing decisions that are expensive to undo: What happens to the acquired brand, what happens to its website and domain…
Blog
Thinking out loud on content, positioning, and what it takes to grow a company worth running alongside.
Voice of customer research: Start with the decision, then work through the evidence
Voice of customer research works backwards from a decision. Write down the decision you have to make, pick the sources that can answer it, review the evidence…
Customer discovery interviews: What to ask, and the probes that get a real answer
Customer discovery interviews work on one rule: Ask what happened rather than what someone would do. Reconstruct the last real purchase in order, from the…
What win/loss misses, and what voice of customer research catches
Win/loss analysis only reaches people who entered your pipeline. Voice of customer research covers the market outside it: The buyers who solved the problem…
The marketing section your commercial due diligence checklist is missing
Most commercial due diligence checklists cover marketing in one line: review marketing materials and spend. This is the section you can paste in instead: 9…
Win/loss analysis: How to run one that changes what you do next
Win/loss analysis works when it runs every month on every closed deal above a threshold, with the calls made within 4 weeks of the decision by somebody who was…
7 things your marketing workstream should include in your value creation plan
In most value creation plans, marketing appears as a single budget line with a growth number next to it and nobody named against it. A workstream that holds up…
How to get a repeatable growth model with marketing due diligence
Marketing due diligence finds out whether the growth in the model is repeatable. In a company of 40 to 200 people it usually surfaces 5 things: how…
Why positioning built from customer interviews beats an AI-generated guess
Positioning from customer interviews works because it produces evidence rather than plausibility: the words your buyers use, the event that started their…
SEO and AI search for B2B companies that grew on word of mouth
SEO and AI search for B2B companies that grew on referrals starts from one diagnosis: you are findable by name and invisible to everyone who does not already…
What should you budget for marketing after an acquisition
Your marketing budget after an acquisition is set by the company's unit economics, not by a percentage of revenue. Month 1 is mostly senior time on…
Who actually does marketing for mid-market portfolio companies
Marketing for portfolio companies of 40 to 200 people is handled by 4 kinds of provider: large consultancies, advisory boutiques, generalist agencies, and…
AI changed the economics of GTM. Here’s the new stack for 100-Person companies
A 100-person company does not need more marketing tools. It needs a GTM system where each layer has one clear job. The CRM holds one reliable record of every…
How to build a repeatable marketing process for VC platform teams
VC platform portfolio support works best when every company follows the same marketing process, rather than being sent to a different agency, freelancer, or…
Repositioning after an acquisition: when the ICP moves upmarket
Post-acquisition repositioning is necessary when a company starts winning larger, more sophisticated customers while its marketing still speaks to the buyers…
The CMO gap: a search takes a quarter, the value-creation clock doesn't wait
CMO alternatives for a portfolio company all have to solve the same problem first: the gap between deciding to hire a marketing leader and that leader shipping…
Fractional CMO, agency, or hire: filling the marketing gap in a portfolio company
Newly acquired portfolio companies usually face two marketing gaps at once: senior strategy and the capacity to execute it. A fractional CMO, an agency or a…
Portfolio company positioning: the playbook platform teams wish every portco ran
Portfolio company positioning gives platform teams a repeatable way to identify who each company is best placed to win and why those buyers choose it. Run…
GTM modernization after an acquisition: where to start (hint: don't fix it by buying software)
Post-acquisition GTM modernisation should begin with positioning and team design. Once the target customer is clear, three senior roles can rebuild the…
So you’ve just acquired a company. Here’s your 100-day marketing plan.
A 100-day post-acquisition marketing plan runs in a fixed order and should begin with buyer research and positioning.Days 0 to 30 establish the target customer…
Founder narrative strategy, from origin story to category point of view
A founder narrative strategy connects your origin story to a distinctive category point of view, creating a consistent narrative that builds authority over…
Founder storytelling strategy: Tthe narrative spine behind content that converts
A founder storytelling strategy turns a positioning claim into content that resonates with the right buyers by giving it a clear narrative structure. This…
Building a personal brand for startup founders without sounding like everyone else
A personal brand for startup founders is the recognizable pattern buyers attach to you before they ever speak to you. It comes from one clear point of view…
Thought leadership for startup founders who don't have time to post
Thought leadership for startup founders is all the rage lately. But what does it mean to post thought leadership content and why does it feel so tedious, and…
Founder brand strategy: What funded founders get wrong before the first post
Founder brand strategy is the set of decisions about what you will stand for publicly, which market belief you will challenge, and how that shows up…
Why founder-led positioning has to come before your content engine
Founder-led positioning is the process of identifying the specific point of view, customer insight, and market contrast that only you can credibly own as the…
Getting Started with Stride: A Founder's Guide to Content That Actually Converts
Most founders treat content as a box to tick. Stride treats it as the sharpest growth lever you have. Here is how to stop publishing into the void and start building a content engine that brings in the right clients.