Assumption Audit: The Step Most Marketers Skip

Most marketing failures don’t stem from bad creative, poor media buys, or weak strategy. They start earlier, at the assumption level. In this episode of ExperiMENTAL, Sundar sits down with Oliver Raskin, Head of Research at Miro and former insights lead at Meta and Uber, to break down why assumptions kill great ideas and how marketers can audit them before launching campaigns. They explore the difference between optimism and magical thinking, why misalignment festers in kickoff meetings, and how to rewire processes to avoid costly mistakes. If you’ve ever wondered why “obvious” campaigns flop, this episode is a must-listen.

Key Takeaways
• Research is part inspo, part reality check, part insurance policy
• Most marketing starts by solutioning instead of defining the real problem
• Assumptions around audience, channels, and timing go unchecked
• Kickoffs are the hidden leverage point in campaign success
• "Pay now or pay later" is the cost of skipping alignment
• Research isn’t slow, bad process is
• Clarity of goal always surfaces hidden disagreements
• Synthetic audiences and qualitative at scale are changing research
• Surveys are dying, and that’s a good thing
• Messaging must map clearly from assertion to belief

Best Moments
00:02:20. “This role is part inspo, part reality check, and part like insurance policy.”
00:04:52. “Each piece that you’ve made a wrong assumption on chips away at your likelihood of being successful.”
00:07:18. “These are people problems, not data problems.”
00:09:10. “You relitigate these decisions over and over again because they probably needed to have been litigated properly once.”
00:11:12. “We’re already solutioning at this point.”
00:17:05. “Be explicit about all the things that need to be true in order for that outcome to be reached.”
00:28:47. “I’ll put you on the right trail. You’ll have to do a lot of iteration to get up the mountain, but at least you’re climbing the right mountain.”
00:41:20. “It’s the why, what, and how of your pyramid.”
00:54:55. “Take the time to make your assumptions explicit. It might feel uncomfortable, but it’s worth it.”

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

Gen Z Marketing Strategy That Actually Converts

In this episode of ExperiMENTAL, Sundar sits down with Claudia from Howbout, the fast-growing social calendar app that's cracked the Gen Z code. With a mix of irreverent humor and sharp strategy, Claudia reveals how Howbout builds product and marketing with Gen Z in mind, why authenticity trumps polish, and why TikTok is more than just a channel. It’s a feedback loop. They unpack how Gen Z thinks, what makes them convert, and why influencer marketing might not be the golden ticket people think it is.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Gen Z users are digital natives who expect authenticity, not polish
• Traditional ad tactics like logos and slogans don’t resonate
• Message testing on TikTok helped validate product features before launch
• Shares and comment tags are leading indicators of campaign success
• Gen Z can detect ads instantly and tune them out
• Brands must act like peers, not authorities
• Being transparent about the team behind a product builds trust
• Feature adoption improves when messaging reflects user language
• Gen Z leaves apps fast if the product doesn’t fit their social behavior
• Virality comes from resonance, not production value

BEST MOMENTS

00:00:02. “Friends can be themselves, but they're choosing not to. They're choosing to be something different.”
00:00:16. “From what we've seen of Gen Z, they will leave your app as quickly as they join.”
00:01:25. “You know, one of the biggest reasons of your success is your ability to build product and and build marketing to generation Z.”
00:03:11. “They kind of just want to figure out the story themselves, and they want to believe it.”
00:05:05. “We're a social calendar app that makes it easier for you to keep up with your friends.”
00:07:14. “It got like 14 million views, like hundreds of thousands of comments of people tagging their friends.”
00:08:48. “We posted kind of a few videos with different features and trying to kind of see if anything resonated.”
00:14:33. “The most interesting one is kind of on our organic socials.”
00:26:11. “If I feel that way, Gen Z feels like that times a million.”
00:30:25. “I would have a whole pre campaign set up where we're kind of teeing up something really ridiculous for our followers.”

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

Building Marketplaces with Data: What We Learned at Uber and Faire

On this episode of ExperiMENTAL, Sundar is joined by Gopal Nath, Director of Strategy and Analytics at Faire and former Marketing Analytics Lead at Uber. Together, they explore the data-backed decisions that shaped two of the world’s most dynamic marketplaces. From measuring efficiency to testing branded search strategy, this episode breaks down how growth actually happens behind the scenes. Expect tactical takeaways, sharp insight, and a few laughs as Sundar and Gopal reconnect and reflect on lessons from Uber, Faire, and life in between.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Efficiency means balancing ROI with payback periods, not chasing perfection
• Uber’s marketplace matured by shifting from growth-first to ROI-first models
• Strategic finance teams need embedded marketing context to partner effectively
• Paid marketing is a two-way door, you can turn it off, learn, and turn it back on
• Pre-post tests still work when applied with high intent and channel focus
• Branded search efficiency varies by region and even by language nuance
• B2C and B2B marketplaces share similar dynamics on both sides of the platform
• Culture impacts data science effectiveness, ego-free collaboration drives scale
• Faire prioritizes truth-seeking and kindness as core hiring and cultural values
• Family life and high performance can co-exist with flexibility and trust

BEST MOMENTS
00:00:03. “Brand to me is how you become top of mind.”
00:01:33. “I switched over to Faire, leading our marketing analytics team here for both sides of our marketplace.”
00:03:02. “We had a six-line-long definition of efficiency at Uber.”
00:04:49. “Your return might take two and a half or three years to make that money back.”
00:07:28. “Because there’s a dedicated individual, they’re able to learn quickly about marketing.”
00:12:06. “Let’s double click on that, because I imagine a lot of people are going to be in the situation of...I don’t have the resources.”
00:14:20. “We were able to recoup 99% of the signups.”
00:17:08. “Paid is a two-way door. You can turn it back on and get back to prior efficiencies.”
00:21:25. “You don’t get the zero moment of truth only through having a great product.”
00:28:22. “Focus on that one team, one dream mentality.”

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

In this episode of ExperiMENTAL, Sundar Swaminathan sits down with Nikhil Kant (Uber, FlixBus, Even Health) to break down why modern marketing has lost its magic and how over-relying on performance marketing is silently killing long-term brand value.

You’ll learn:
✔ Why performance marketing is losing its creative edge
✔ How brand creates the only sustainable moat in saturated markets
✔ Tactical frameworks: Get-To-By, Think-Feel-Do, and Hero-Hub-Hygiene
✔ Why startups confuse product-market fit with growth loops
✔ Lessons from political marketing and hyper-local segmentation
✔ How brands like Liquid Death, MoCabara, and Adidas play the long game

Nikhil shares real-world stories from startups, unicorns, and political campaigns to show how the best marketers blend emotional connection with business outcomes. If you’re building a consumer startup or running growth at a scaling company, this episode will change how you think about brand.

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

The Future of Growth Marketing Is Cross-Disciplinary | Sunil Subhedar (Uber, Canva, Anthropic)

Welcome to the very first episode of ExperiMENTAL, the podcast for marketers and data scientists who are done with fluff and ready to go deep.

In this debut episode, host Sundar Swaminathan sits down with Sunil Subhedar, Growth Marketing Lead at Anthropic, and former head of growth at Canva and Uber, to unpack what modern growth marketing actually looks like when you’re building at scale.

You’ll learn:
✔ How to build a growth team that works like a product team
✔ Why the best marketers today think in systems, not channels
✔ The power of cross-functional collaboration with product, data, and engineering
✔ How to align with finance and data science before you run experiments
✔ Real use cases of AI for content, SEO, testing, and ops
✔ Why dashboards are broken and how to fix your reporting mindset

Sunil shares practical frameworks, team design insights, and real lessons from scaling at some of the world’s top tech companies. This is where B2C marketers go to learn what actually works.

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

Discovery vs. Optimization Marketing: Why Most Startups Get It Wrong | Libby Weissman (Caviar, DoorDash)

In this episode of ExperiMENTAL, Sundar Swaminathan sits down with Libby Weissman (Caviar, Square, DoorDash) to unpack why so many startups fail to tell the difference between discovery and optimization marketing, and what it costs them.

You’ll learn:
✔ How to tell if you're in discovery or optimization
✔ Why unrealistic CAC targets derail your growth
✔ How to use experiments to build marketing conviction
✔ What “price is too high” usually means
✔ How to hire the right marketer for your stage
✔ Real examples from healthtech, food, and services

Libby brings structured thinking and sharp insight for early-stage B2C founders navigating growth. If you’re building in a noisy space, this is your blueprint.

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com

Welcome to ExperiMENTAL, the podcast for B2C marketers, founders, and analysts who are done with surface-level advice and ready to make smarter, data-informed decisions.

Hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, former Head of Brand Data Science at Uber and creator of the ExperiMENTAL newsletter, this show is your go-to space for cutting through noise and building high-impact marketing strategies that actually work.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your best marketing move is to stop spending, or how to prove ROI beyond the usual metrics, you’re not alone. Sundar brings clarity, curiosity, and real experience to every episode, with honest conversations and practical frameworks from leaders at companies like Uber, Faire, and Google.

Expect sharp insights, thought-provoking questions, and strategies you can actually use.

🎙️ Ready to stop guessing and start experimenting?
Subscribe to ExperiMENTAL and get bi-weekly episodes that help you think critically, test boldly, and lead with confidence.

 📩 Join the newsletter: https://experimental.beehiiv.com

New episodes every second Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

🎧 ExperiMENTAL is hosted by Sundar Swaminathan, Head of Data Science at Bounce and former Uber leader. This show is your behind-the-scenes look at how top marketers and data scientists make smarter decisions.

🧠 Expect unfiltered conversations, mental models, and case studies that help you cut waste, build conviction, and grow your B2C business.

📬 Subscribe to the ExperiMENTAL newsletter for deep dives and frameworks: https://experimental.beehiiv.com/

This podcast has been brought to you by APodcastGeek. https://www.apodcastgeek.com