Brave New Digital World

What if the biggest growth opportunities are the ones everyone else is ignoring?

In this episode, Andy meets Stas Rozenbaum, a growth leader with a career spanning Ada Health, Zalando, Mika Health, and Ovum Care, currently working as a Country Marketing Lead at Amazon, to talk about how to find the gaps others miss, why marketing attribution was always a bit of an illusion, and what AI is really changing for growth teams today.

The episode will walk you through the complexity of incrementality testing and why it's still out of reach for most smaller companies, the slow erosion of trust in influencer marketing, bold branding as a competitive edge, and the uncomfortable reality that management just wants deterministic answers in a world that isn't deterministic at all.

Find Stas on LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/stas-rosenbaum

Resources mentioned in this episode: Growth Levers and How to Find Them — Matt Lerner

What happens when the old growth playbook stops working?

In this episode, Andy and Luke Costley-White, Founding Growth Sensei at DOJO AI, talk about the shifts redefining modern marketing, like rising ad costs, the return of brand, the limits of performance marketing, and why AI is already changing how teams operate.

This episode is about expert-led influence, full-funnel thinking, outdated channels that need to go, and what marketers should be doing differently if they want to grow in a more complex landscape. It’s sharp, practical, and full of opinions that might make a few people in marketing slightly uncomfortable in the best way.

Find Luke on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukecostleywhite/

Resources mentioned in this episode:"Acquired" podcast

In this episode, we're joined by Noam Auerbach, a product leader with a background in neuroscience and experience across SoundCloud, Yay, Tourlane, Enhanced CV, and Spark Networks, where he was VP of Product Management.

Noam has spent his career at the intersection of human behavior, technology, and growth. His take is that product, growth, and marketing aren't separate disciplines; they're different angles on the same problem.

Andy and Noam cover a lot of ground: why B2B SaaS is consolidating toward super-app territory, how AI is set to flip the foundational assumptions of product development on their head, and why the next generation of social platforms will be built around proving that engagement is genuinely human. They also get into the uncomfortable question of how you develop junior talent when companies increasingly only need seniors, and what it means for the industry long-term.

Find Noam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noam-auerbach/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money — John Maynard Keynes
• Discipline and Punish — Michel Foucault
• Neuromancer — William Gibson

In this episode, our guest is Ekaterina Petrakova, Director of Market Expansion at YesStyle, to discuss what growth really looks like when the rules keep changing.

From Rocket Internet’s high-speed startup machine to brand-led retail at Ace & Tate and Mr. Spex, Ekaterina has seen both sides of the equation: performance obsession and long-term brand building. Now leading expansion across EMEA at YesStyle, she’s navigating a world where platforms are black boxes, attribution is messy, and “data-driven” doesn’t always mean future-ready.

Andy and Ekaterina talk about the tension between dashboards and gut instinct, why over-structuring marketing can backfire, and what happens when influencer marketing shifts from authenticity to fully commercialized ecosystems. There’s also a sharp take on ad fatigue, stakeholder conversations about measurement (without pretending you have perfect answers), and why cohesion across teams might be the most underrated growth lever.

Find Ekaterina on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-petrakova/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Your colleagues and their work - talk to the people around you

In this episode of Brave New Digital World, Andy Carvell sits down with Alexander Beresford, Chief Growth Officer at Taxfix, to talk about what happens when traditional marketing fundamentals collide with generative AI.

Alex shares lessons learned moving from PayPal to early-stage startups, focusing on brand momentum, building infrastructure, and the shift from scale to zero-to-one. The discussion highlights the growing gap between teams using contextual bandits and generative AI and those still relying on legacy systems.

They explore what growth teams might be overlooking today. Positioning and messaging remain crucial, even as performance metrics take center stage. Marketing will soon need to influence not just people, but also software agents making decisions for them. It’s important to move quickly with AI experimentation, but not to treat AI as a cure-all.

The discussion covers curiosity, speed of experimentation, machine-readable data, and why core marketing principles still matter in an AI-driven world.

Find Alex on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderberesford/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger

In this episode of Brave New Digital World, Andy Carvell sits down with Michael Grierson, Senior Global ASO Lead at Canva, to explore how app marketing is evolving from static store listings to dynamic, content-driven discovery.

Michael shares lessons from his journey through Skyscanner and Canva — from embracing failure as a growth engine to scaling creative production through AI. The conversation dives into the seismic shift towards a more holistic approach to “App Store Marketing,” where promotional content, in-app events, and high-velocity creative testing define success. Expect sharp insights on experimentation cadence, creative fatigue, trend-jacking, and why maintaining craft mastery matters in the age of AI.

Find Michael on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgrierson/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Mindset by Carol Dweck

In this mini episode, Andy sits down with Ekaterina Gamsriegler, the Head of Marketing and Growth at MyGroove, to discuss her journey from SEO to mobile app marketing. They explore the evolving challenges that growth and marketing teams face, particularly for apps in an increasingly crowded app market.

What happens when you combine a Stanford math brain, TikTok addiction, and an obsession with creative performance? You get Hamza Alsamraee, CEO of Newform, and this week’s guest on Brave New Digital World.

Hamza and Andy talk about:

• How he bootstrapped a paid social agency while still in college
• Why most AI-generated ads aren’t worth testing
• What “dropshipping for software” means (and why it’s very real)
• The future of media buying, UGC fatigue, and fake podcasts

Plus: why tracking actually matters, and how most marketers are still winging it.

Whether you’re scaling spend, building creative workflows, or just trying to keep up with the algorithm, this one’s worth your time.

Find Hamza online:

• @hamzaalsamraee on X
• Hamza on LinkedIn

Resources Hamza recommended:

• The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus

In this episode of Brave New Digital World, Sharon Romang — VP of Creative at Front Row and former Smartly.io lead — joins Andy Carvell to explore how today’s most effective marketers blend storytelling, performance, and tech. From building agency-owned tools to navigating AI rollouts (and Duolingo’s recent misstep), Sharon shares battle-tested insights on where creative work is headed — and why the future belongs to the data-fluent.

Find and connect with Sharon on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonromang/

Resources Sharon recommends:

• Christine Göös on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinegoos/

• House of Content podcast: Spotify
• Emily Sundberg: https://www.emilyemilyemilyemily.com/hello
• Feed Me on Substack: https://www.readfeedme.com/
• Julian Cole, Strategy Finishing School: https://strategyfinishingschool.com/
• Ashwinn (@shwinnabego) on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shwinnabego

Chapters

(00:00) Intro

(00:51) Introducing Sharon Romang: Creative Strategist with a Performance Edge

(01:53) The Future Is Already Here—Just Not Evenly Distributed

(05:09) Scalable Creative: From Smartly’s Image Templates to Figma Buzz

(09:19) Should Agencies Be Building Their Own Tech?

(13:03) Sharon’s Shift to Data-Driven Design

(17:27) Why Creatives Must Learn to Speak Performance

(19:44) AI Integration: How to Do It Without Losing the Human Touch

(22:59) The Duolingo Case: When “AI-First” Backfires

(24:05) Figma’s AI Rollout: A Masterclass in User-Centric Innovation

(26:22) Why Agencies Must Stay Ahead of Their Clients in AI

(27:22) What’s Expired: One-Channel Thinking and Creative Overproduction

(30:55) What’s Wired: Commerce, Creators & the Future of Shopping

(32:44) Behavioral Convergence Across Generations and Markets

(35:28) Sharon’s Dream: A Unified Creative Intelligence Stack

(38:33) Sharon’s Recommendations for Resources

In this episode of Brave New Digital World, Andy sits down with Roi Nam, CEO and founder of Airbridge and AB180, to unpack seismic shifts in mobile marketing, measurement, and AI-powered growth. Roi shares how leading teams are flipping the script — launching products after testing UA performance, scaling AI-generated creatives by the millions, and navigating the post-ATT iOS landscape with modeled conversions and web-to-app strategies. It’s a fast-paced, insight-rich conversation for marketers ready to embrace the brave new world of growth.

Resouces recommended:

• Book: The Challenger Sale, by Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson
• Roi Nam on LinkedIn

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction and Roi's Background

(02:15) The Future Is Already Here: Roi on William Gibson’s Quote

(04:11) What a Dating App Taught Roi About Performance Marketing

(06:03) Why Subscription Apps Lead in UA

(07:49) Post-ATT Landscape: Complexity as the New Normal

(09:28) iOS Marketing: No More Silver Bullets

(10:53) UA-Driven Product Development

(13:02) Beyond Soft Launch: Building Multiple MVPs Concurrently

(15:57) ASO First, App Second

(16:32) AI Coding and the Rise of "Vibe Coding"

(18:25) The Future of iOS Measurement: Web-to-App and Modeled Conversions

(23:24) Advice for CMOs Entering Mobile: Start with ASO and Web-to-App

(26:06) AI-Generated Creatives at Scale

(29:49) By 2025: Live Ops and Monetization Fully AI-Driven in Gaming

(31:49) Hyper-Personalization vs. Shared Experience

(33:17) If Budget Were No Limit: Becoming an AI-Native Organization

(35:30) Getting Comfortable with AI: Talk to It Like a Human

(37:26) Roi’s Favorite Book

(38:33) One Thing to Stop Doing: Manual Note Taking

(39:27) Closing Thoughts