Four great founders who are also amazing marketers

In my fifteen years working for tech startups, one area that I've seen some founders do exceptionally well and others do abysmally badly, is marketing. I worked for one CEO who called marketing 'the colouring in department' - not great for my self-esteem! 

Several CEOs considered Marketing a drain on money and obviously didn't like or trust their marketing leadership. But here are five founders I know understand the value of marketing. 

Jay Chaudhry, founder of Zscaler

Jay had already founded and sold three companies before he set up Zscaler, a leader in cloud-based cyber security. Firstly, his idea was brilliant. All the cyber security providers were producing hardware. He had the vision to see that cloud-based solutions were the future. Also, that employees will not be working in a physical office in the future. His entire company has been remote- or hybrid-based since its inception in 2008. He ‘drank his own Kool-Aid’ –a powerful marketing message.

We used to say we wanted to be 'the salesforce of cyber security'. Our marketing messages resonated - whether it was CIO or CISO white papers discussing 'what was keeping them up at night' (a lot, it turned out - Chief Information Security Officers spend days and nights stressing about their company's being hacked!). 

Or setting up 'Smash booths' at some of the biggest cyber security events in the world - like Infosec - where we encouraged attendees to smash up our competitor's hardware (a few raised eyebrows there - but whatever!).

In addition, he had a clear marketing strategy. He fired two CMOs who pressured him to focus on building the brand over developing lead generation. Jay knew that at an early stage of a business, the best way to build your brand was not to spend a fortune on fancy branding. It was simply to drive new customer acquisitions. 

Once you have a strong roster of clients, it is the ideal time to work on branding in the ways we usually understand - from website redesign to clarifying your brand image and tone. But when no one has even heard of you, it's premature to harp on your 'values'! When You are a well-established marque, like Apple, then they care.

Jay's sales and marketing approach was unusual for a startup as we aimed to secure Enterprise customers right out of the gate. Most startups begin with smaller customers and build up to larger ones. It was a tough sell sometimes - but the approach worked; within a few years, we had many large customers like Barclays Bank, Walmart, the NHS and BMW. This was our Sales Bible at Zscaler.

Jay never skimped on marketing – he spent generously. He upped the marketing budget in downturns because he knew this was the best time to capture new customers.

When your competitors cut back on advertising, which is cheap (during recessions), it is the best time to increase spending. Jay had a profound vision and a total belief in his company, meaning he could double down on marketing in tough times.

Brian Halligan, Co-founder (with Dharmesh Shah) of HubSpot

I got into marketing relatively late in my career. After college, I bummed around the world for a few years doing odd jobs (including a few interesting ones in TV and News). 

Then I was in sales, then finance, and finally, in around 2008, I hit on this career I love and have stuck with. One of the first practical marketing books I read (after the standard MBA business school ones like ‘Data-driven marketing’), was Brian Halligans ‘Inbound Marketing’.

Brian and his co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, practically invented inbound marketing, and they’ve been ahead of every trend in my industry – right up until now, with their idea of the marketing content ‘flywheel’. 

It helped that when I started my career, I lived about five blocks from their HQ in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So I used to bump into some of their senior executives at restaurants like Legal Seafood, just by MIT on Kendall Square.

It also helped that I have used HubSpot as my go-to platform at numerous successful startups. And I have utilized all their incredible free resources – from buyer persona and A/B testing templates, to using their Hubspot Academy to learn and get certified (it’s free unlike the super expensive salesforce ones).

Brian Halligan has an innovative approach to inbound marketing and the ability to understand and adapt to the evolving landscape of digital marketing. Under his leadership, HubSpot developed a comprehensive platform that integrates various marketing tools, making it a one-stop solution for businesses looking to optimize their online presence. 

Halligan's strategic thinking and commitment to customer-centric marketing have driven HubSpot's success and positioned him as a thought leader in the industry. His forward-thinking mindset, focus on building relationships, and dedication to staying ahead of marketing trends contribute to his reputation as a great marketer in the business world.

You can probably tell that this company makes me feel warm, fuzzy, and inspired, just like all the other companies I’ve written about today. You can read about a project I ran setting up HubSpot Marketing Automation and CRM for a company here. 

Tan Hooi Ling, co-founder (with Anthony Tan) of Grab

Tan Hooi Ling, co-founder of Grab, showcases brilliant marketing strategies that have contributed to the success of the Singapore-based transportation company in Southeast Asia. Founded in 2012 as a taxi-hailing app, Grab has expanded its services to include private car services, motorcycle taxis, social carpooling, food delivery, and more. 

Tan Hooi Ling played a crucial role in promoting the mobile app, and under her leadership, Grab has become a prominent player in over 500 cities and towns across eight countries in the region. 

The company's marketing brilliance lies in its ability to adapt to the diverse needs of customers, offering various services such as ride-hailing, food delivery, and digital payments. 

Grab's strategic partnerships with consumer brands, promotional offers, and unique features like GrabFood and GrabPay contribute to customer loyalty. 

Additionally, Grab's commitment to safety, transparency, continuous improvement, and responsiveness to government regulations and market trends sets it apart from competitors. 

The Importance of Grab's marketing approach, emphasizing consistency, innovation, and customer satisfaction as vital elements in maintaining a competitive edge in the evolving Southeast Asian market.

'We hire for humility. We cannot believe we are better and smarter than everyone else'.

Cheryl Goh, Grab CMO

I particularly like this quote because it highlights having an attitude of 'continuous learning' to problems. If you read 'Why smart executives fail', you'll see that thinking that you have nothing left to learn in your business is often fatal. 

I worked for one founder who was a bona fide 'genius'. He gained a top triple major degree in Computer Science, Russian and Maths at the age of 16 and was Bain's youngest Consultant at 18 years old (by then, he also had an MBA). 

But he lacked humility. He thought he was better than everyone else and that regular rules didn't apply to him or his business. When founders think like this and don't accept reality, it invariably destroys their company.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla

Some might argue that Elon Musk is the anti-marketer! He has famously said he would not promote or advertise Tesla. He has built Tesla into an almost legendary brand without spending money on advertising. 

How has he accomplished such a feat? How has he built a car company worth more than all the other companies in less than 20 years? And how has he run four other companies at the same time? 

Calling his drilling company 'The Boring Company' was a masterstroke!

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink, is a remarkably effective and talented marketer due to his unique ability to craft compelling narratives and communicate a grand vision that captivates the public imagination. 

Musk's adept use of social media, particularly Twitter, allows him to directly engage with a massive audience, providing updates, sharing insights, and injecting a sense of personality into his companies.

His relentless pursuit of groundbreaking technologies and audacious goals, such as colonizing Mars and revolutionizing transportation, creates an aura of innovation and excitement around his ventures. 

Musk's charismatic and visionary leadership style attracts attention and instils confidence in investors, customers, and the public, contributing significantly to the success and widespread recognition of his diverse ventures.

I have been an investor in Tesla for about five years now. In addition, I read the excellent biography of Elon Musk written by Isaac Samuelson. He also wrote an excellent bio of Steve Jobs. How can you read this book and fail to be inspired by the genius of Elon Musk? 

Now that he is the wealthiest person on the planet, few people remember or appreciate how close he came to bankruptcy, and how recently that happened (in 2008). 

Demons undoubtedly drive Elon, and I’m not sure I’d want to be him. However, He is undoubtedly a genius. He also understands the 80-20 principle – that 20% of your best…..will drive 80% of your results. 

He laid off about 80% of Twitter, yet it still functions well (OK, some people are saying 'Twitter is dead,' but I disagree). He got a lot of flack for that – yet it worked. 

Are your 'loyal employees' lying to you?

According to People Management, 60% of employees are actively looking for work. Let that number sink in. 

How about in your company? Frank, your best salesperson, who ‘loves your company’. Is he interviewing at three other companies right this minute? How about Sally, who ‘couldn’t work anywhere else’ and is your 'client onboarding ninja'? Is she really with you? Or is she ‘Open for work’ to recruiters on LinkedIn? 

John, your network engineer, sure, he is slow, but he's talented, and besides, it's so hard to hire good engineers!

- Turns out the reason he's so slow is because he's moonlighting at your competitor's company, as a contractor (fully remote, of course!). That's one way to crack the cost of living crisis! 

Employee loyalty has been diminishing for years now. Covid and the cost of living crisis have accelerated that trend - anyone in talent acquisition or recruiting will tell you that most employers are vastly over-optimistic in their assessment of their own employee's loyalty levels. Many employers are living in a fool's paradise - and soon, reality will bite.

Times are tough – interest rates are rising, making those once easy-to-pay mortgage payments almost unbearable—everything has gone up in price, except for salaries, which have flatlined. 

Employees are not getting raises because usually their company cannot afford them – until it’s too late. Then their companies must pay the new salary, which is often 5%, 10% or even 20% above the old one.

What can an HR leader do to alleviate this situation? Particularly with 2024 around the corner. And you know what that means, right? 

Your employees could barely afford their Christmas last year. This year, they know it'll be even worse. They feel stressed, overworked, under-appreciated, and underpaid. And now they have some New Year’s resolutions:

• Join a gym.

• Go on a diet.

• Find a new job!

The last few years have been tough for HR Heads. First Brexit (in the UK), then the pandemic, then quiet quitting, the great resignation, and even loud quitting. How can Human Resources leaders calm those evil thoughts and sleep tight into 2024?

Another side-effect of having so many employees actively searching for better roles, is that even when at work, they are disengaged and unproductive. This is one reason why the UK,  and many other countries have experienced stagnating productivity over the last fifteen years.

I recently attended ‘Employee Benefits Live’, and one message came across clearly: The importance of collecting and harnessing your data. Not only to develop insights to make your decision-making more effective but also, to communicate better with your Executive Board, your CEO and your CFO.

    The keynote at Employee Benefits Live, in London, UK, on Oct 3rd, 2023

Have you ever had a brilliant idea that you were sure would make an enormous positive difference in your company? An initiative you were sure would build trust, engagement and loyalty in your employees? Or even help to acquire more talent? 

- Only for it to be shot down immediately by your CFO?

• CFOs don’t care about your ‘great ideas'

• They need data and numbers. And ultimately, they only care about the money. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS to them except the return on investment. 

• Many HR Leaders still use data ineffectively. Some even need help to understand their own data.

• If you can't speak the language of the C Suite and CFO, (Numbers and metrics), the programs you believe in will not progress past the idea stage.

Mastering and using your data more effectively is one way to step up your game and bring important initiatives to your company; 

Getting those vital programs off the ground, you know, will be critical to ensure fewer of your company's employees are ‘actively seeking a new role right now’.

What is marketing strategy?

Marketing strategy comes up regularly as a topic at B2B Startups. However, often it is confused with operational effectiveness. 

Operational effectiveness Is Not Strategy.

The root of the problem in answering the question of 'What is marketing strategy?' is the need for more clarity in distinguishing between operational effectiveness and strategy.

Of course, companies must be flexible to respond rapidly to competitive and market changes. They must benchmark continuously to achieve best practices.

Marketing has more platforms, ways to measure, and analytics benchmarks than ever. Although the resulting operational improvements have often been dramatic, many companies have been frustrated by their inability to translate those gains into sustainable marketing profitability. 

Despite improvements in all aspects of marketing technology, hitting the right metrics like cost per click, cost per impression, cost per lead, opportunity, and, of course, return on investment of marketing campaigns (ROMI) continues to be a challenge. 

‘A rising tide lifts all boats’

When everyone benefits from these incremental operational improvements – anything from better buyer intent data, to a clearer understanding of which marketing channels, campaigns, and ads drive the best results (Marketing ROI or ROAS), by the same logic, no one benefits.

That is too stark an option since, yes, some companies are in the top 5% of utilizing the latest marketing technology the most effectively and naturally, they will benefit relative to the competition. But the problem is that those methods can be duplicated.

Yet many B2B Startups don't want to admit that their often bigger, wealthier competitors may have a strong edge—a bigger brand and deeper pockets than them.

In my 20 years in Marketing, in some companies I've worked at, no one, even in the marketing department, had a clear idea of the marketing strategy, nor could they articulate it.

Occasionally this topic comes up profoundly. For example, about ten years ago, the CMO of a fast-growing and successful cybersecurity software company I worked for wanted to move away from marketing focused on lead generation, to almost exclusively on branding. 

Eventually, the will of the CEO prevailed; the CMO left, and the company shifted back from branding to a heavier investment in lead generation. 

For a B2B Startup, what's more important - Branding or Demand Generation (Activation)? Turns out the CEO was right. According to research, creating new customers early is more important than creating a brand. 

Your brand will develop from your customers and your employees. That's no doubt why that start-up is now a $30 billion market cap listed company on the Nasdaq. Of course, once you have a solid roster of customers, that is the ideal time to focus on the brand.

Operational effectiveness and strategy are both essential to superior performance. However, a company can only outperform its rivals sustainably in the long term if it has a superior marketing strategy.

Operational effectiveness means performing similar activities better than rivals. Another reason that improved operational effectiveness is insufficient—competitive convergence—is more subtle and insidious. The more benchmarking companies do, the more they look alike.

So what exactly is a Marketing Strategy for a Business to Business company?

A business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to promote and sell products or services from one business to another. This strategy is tailored to the unique dynamics of B2B interactions, where the customer base consists of other businesses, rather than individual consumers.

The first key aspect of a B2B marketing strategy is a deep understanding of the target market. 

This involves conducting thorough research to identify the specific industries, companies, and decision-makers most likely to benefit from the products or services offered. 

Once the target audience is defined, the strategy creates a value proposition that addresses these businesses' specific challenges and needs. This might involve showcasing how the product or service improves efficiency, reduces costs, enhances productivity, or provides a competitive advantage.

The second component is communication. 

Effective B2B marketing strategies utilize various channels to reach decision-makers within the target businesses. These include industry conferences, trade shows, professional networks, email campaigns, and content marketing. 

Content is crucial in B2B marketing, as it demonstrates expertise and thought leadership. Case studies, whitepapers, webinars, and informative blog posts can help showcase the company's knowledge and ability to solve complex business problems. 

However, you should not indiscriminately and blindly churn out vast quantities of information. An overarching marketing content strategy should drive all marketing campaigns, from webinars to white papers, from blog posts to case studies (in video form or traditional, written).

How do I decide on what content strategy to pursue?

The key is to research the market and your competitors and interview every component in your buying cycle, including decision-makers, influencers, and partners. Do not make assumptions, even if they are based on received wisdom and accepted as fact. Ideally, as described in The Challenger Sale, you want to challenge your readers to think differently about their problems to solve them best.

Lastly, a successful B2B marketing strategy involves building and maintaining relationships. 

B2B transactions often involve longer sales cycles and higher-value contracts, so establishing trust and credibility is essential. Relationship-building efforts could include personalized follow-ups, exceptional customer support, and nurturing leads through the sales funnel. 

Regular engagement through networking events, webinars, roundtables (virtual and/or real), and workshops can reinforce the company's position as a reliable partner, encouraging repeat business and fostering long-term collaborations.

And let's remember the Sales Team: In B2B marketing, typically, sales are made by the sales team, not directly on the website. So good sales and marketing alignment is critical. 

What 'Dr Bob' taught me about Marketing for startups

One of my closest friends is a Doctor, someone I often visit for advice. He also has a medical PhD from one of the world's pre-eminent medical schools.

I've learned much from 'Dr Bob' (let's call my friend 'Bob') about being ethical, patient, rational, objective, and compassionate. 

Bob and I have a dark sense of humour which serves us well in dealing with life's difficulties. The more I've gotten to know Bob, the more I've learned to respect his outlook on life. 

What is his life philosophy? He is a stoic. He once told me that he didn't like the word 'happiness' and preferred the Greek term eudaimonia.

In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in the older Greek tradition. It is a central concept in Aristotelian ethics.

I've worked for many tech startups in my marketing career, spanning 15 years. My role often feels like being a doctor. Of course, the stakes are lower; money may be lost, but no one will die if I fail. 

But I have been lucky to have worked at companies where the patients have thrived and become world-record-beating athletes! – when you've seen those 'patients' struggling, on their knees at times, it's wonderful to be part of that transformation!

Despite my education and training, I've made mistakes earlier in my career; Once, I was involved in a mismanaged website rebrand.

Our leadership had not realised that changing the website would crash all our search and SEO traffic. 

Another time, I made some errors with our database and email campaigns that got our Marketing automation software shut down. I was forced into negotiations to get it back up and running (luckily, it only went down for two days).

No talent, intelligence or education will help you entirely avoid mistakes – only experience will. Fortunately, it's been many years since I made such professional blunders. Over time you build up the wisdom to make the right judgment calls.

Co-workers at Startups, like patients, can be rude, disrespectful, and dismissive of your experience and training at times. But when this happens to me now, I act like a doctor.

– Why is this or that person at that company so rude? Is it because they are bad people? No, of course not - In my experience, at least not in nine times out of ten cases. Often they are stressed out and not thinking straight. 

I'm human, and using my valuable skills to help when they are not appreciated sometimes feels bad. But I've become much more empathetic over the years. 

The VC-backed startup world can be tough. Your targets - from lead numbers to sales revenue - can vary from aggressively ambitious to almost impossible. So that even if you have growth rates that would be considered stellar in the regular business world, more is often needed!

Sometimes it feels like no amount of effort or results will satisfy your PE investors. But they risk their money, so fair enough!

I'm lucky to love my work, which helps me to stay calm and reasonable in most tough situations. I know how lucky I am to do what I enjoy  - many people don't have that luxury!

One part of the job I absolutely adore is working with data. I enjoy discussing data science and analytics with Dr 'Bob'; Our outlooks are rational, ethical and scientific.

If your business-to-business technology startup is struggling with its Sales and Marketing, why not take a look at some of my work and see what you think?

Reproductive healthcare for productive employees

 

Why your company must implement fertility and menopause policies now.

Or how to get your 40-65-year-old male CEO to care about menopause and fertility in the workplace.      

There’s plenty of research to show that happy employees are more productive and that objectively ranked happy companies (via Glassdoor and other review sites) outperform other publicly listed companies on the stock exchange.

As a senior executive & well-known venture capitalist told me recently: 

'Happiness is not a KPI' 

- and I get it; businesses care about revenue, profits, and productivity, not employee happiness! 

But listening to your employees and responding to their needs is crucial if you want your company to succeed. Only more so today than ever, where employees are in short supply and where there’s an even greater scarcity of top talent in areas as diverse as Sales, engineering, software programming, data science, and more.

What should you do to attract and retain talent and ensure that your employees are not quiet quitting (or even rage quitting)?

One key step is to start implementing reproductive healthcare policies at your company. For example, menopause support is a hot topic and will only grow in importance in the workplace. 

Menopausal women are not only some of your best-performing and most productive employees but also tired of being ignored. According to the latest research, 42% of women consider leaving their jobs because of menopause.

If you don’t have a policy, why not check out a typical menopause policy template? Many companies, such as the BBC, Astra Zeneca, Diageo, and Santander, already have these policies.

Ultimately, these productivity losses can cost more than $150 billion a year, according to research company Frost & Sullivan. They show that other healthcare costs could rise to $810 billion.

Research by Bupa and CIPD in 2019 also found that almost a million women in the UK left their jobs in the last year because of menopausal symptoms.

To avoid losing significant numbers of some of your most valuable employees, the female workforce aged 35-65 (which could be up to 100 million employees in Europe & 50 million in the US.), you must offer rigorous menopause support.

Your employee brand is also likely to be labelled sexist and ageist if you don’t start responding to this critical demographic of your workforce. Here are some of the best menopause websites if you want to explore more about this issue:

European Menopause and Andropause Society

International Menopause Society

Menopause and me

Then there’s the rising problem of infertility. One in Six of your employees will struggle with fertility problems. According to the latest research, more than half of those employees with fertility problems are not getting support at work.

Did you know that 77% of Gen Z’s and millennials said they would stay at a company if it offered fertility benefits, and a large majority said they would even consider changing jobs for better benefits?

Fertility is no longer solely a women’s issue. All family-forming benefits policies must be developed to meet the needs of LGBTQ employees and men because up to 50 per cent of fertility issues sit with them.

We know that IVF is still a luxury service for most people. This financial burden is an additional tax for women of colour, LGBTQ+, and single people. That is why employers create health policies for people regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, or marital status; it promotes economic equity in the workplace.

Some of your company’s most productive and valuable employees could be struggling with a range of issues, such as:

• Finding the best egg-freezing clinic
• Finding the best IVF clinic
• What are the best ovulation apps?
• Fertility Support

And the outcomes can be brutal for an employee, from having to take time out of their busy schedules to arrange doctors’ appointments, to experiencing depression if their latest round of IFV has failed. The impact on your business, too, could be severe.

How can you better support your employees going through fertility struggles at work? Read the Manager’s guide to fertility challenges for more details on how you can help.

Encourage your employees to be open about their problems. This sounds easy but it can be one of the hardest challenges. HR is often seen as ‘the enemy’ in this environment, with little company or employee loyalty. 

Research shows that in many organisations, employees would rather talk to anyone about their problems than to Human Resources. Indeed, the same goes for sharing the most personal and vulnerable information about your fertility journey.

1. Will HR use this information against me at any time?

2. Will my colleagues be supportive? Or will they be judgemental and even unkind?

When we inquired about employees’ reluctance to turn to HR, a recent survey found that 37% of respondents believe HR is more interested in advocating for their company than they are in them.

Don't you want to be an organisation where your employees do not feel such negative emotions and feel they can open up and be vulnerable about challenges such as menopause or fertility?

But if your company is a healthy place to share, supports its employees, and enables them to share their challenges and problems, you can breed many success stories, and increase happiness, loyalty, retention, and productivity at your company.

The goal has been to turn yesteryear's reactive and compliance-focused HR model into one where leaders are seen as trusted executive partners and employee advocates. In this approach, HR leaders sit at the leadership table to advise executives on culture and speak up for employees and their needs.

So far, many employees’ fertility needs have been ignored by their employers. However, companies like Centrica, NatWest, Clifford Chance, and Twilio offer fertility support, ranging from help finding egg-freezing providers to IVF. To find out more about menopause support and fertility support at work, go here.

How to be happy - countries, companies, employees & people

One in six employees is suffering from mental health problems.

 

I have been interested in health and wellbeing, both at an academic & personal level, for quite a few years now. This event was centered around Professor Lord Richard Layard of the LSE and Jan-Emmanuel de neve of Oxford University's new book 'Wellbeing: Science & Policy'.

Professor Layard (who taught me Economics back in the day) began with Thomas Jefferson's quote that 'The care of human life and happiness is the only legitimate object of good government' 

- Professor Layard also said that the UK's opposition (Labour) leader has committed to making wellbeing, not GDP alone, one of his key drivers of policy. 

How do Professors De Neve and Layard measure happiness? It's simple yet brilliant. The survey-takers just ask this:

It's a powerful question - more predictive of your longevity than running a battery of medical tests with your doctor (the famous 'medical'). I urge you to ask that about your own life, your work, your relationships, and your home. 

Professor Layard said he could think of no more important question for the government. I can think of no more important question to ask yourself. 

Professor De Neve has researched tracking companies' share price performance that rated happiest versus a range of other key indices. 

As you can see from the chart above, happier companies outperformed all other indices and were exceptionally resilient during downturns. 

                                                    

His research at Oxford's Said School of Business also shows that happy employees are 13% more productive. This holds obvious implications for CEOs, CFO's and heads of Human resources.

What causes happiness? Is it income? Education? Physical health? No, actually, the most significant correlation is with Mental health, as you can see below. 

The only correlation that the speakers did not cover was that of friendship. I'd like to explore how friendship affects happiness since I believe it has a strong correlation with it.

At the end of the talk, we had the opportunity to ask questions. So I asked;

'bearing in mind that Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would pursue policies of wellbeing in his next government; assuming that his government wins the next election, and that you have a 'one shot' chance to implement the most impactful 'wellbeing policy', what would it be?'

Unsurprisingly the speakers said they would tackle mental health, which they have already been working on - helping over 700,000 people with their initiatives. However, they said they would focus specifically on addiction (substance abuse, alongside other addictions like eating disorders and gambling).

Later that evening, having dinner with a friend, we discussed that response. My friend told me he was surprised since he thought this would affect a small number of people in society. 

Yet around 8 percent of the population are addicts; 6 percent are addicted to alcohol. Less than 10 percent of them have received any help. 

Even the well-educated Oxford graduate who joined me for the event, did not realise the extent of this mental health crisis and the misery it's causing.