So you're looking to sell your company in 12–18 months? Congrats! 🥂

How can Marketing help your business achieve exit-ready status?

This week on the pod, we’re joined once again by Shiv Narayanan, Founder of How To SaaS and author of Post-Acquisition Marketing and Exit-Ready Marketing. 

Shiv’s the expert private equity firms, founders, and CEOs call when it's time to maximize valuation fast.

We asked him: 👉 How can Marketing drive exit value and not just pipeline?

Shiv breaks down:

• How to position your company to appeal to investors and buyers

• The 9-step framework for making Marketing a growth engine for valuation

• What marketing metrics really matter during due diligence

• How to avoid the classic mistakes startups make in the final year before a sale

If you're a marketer in a startup planning for an exit, this episode’s for you.

If you’re a founder dreaming about an exit but stuck chasing vanity metrics, this one’s definitely for you.

For more insights from Shiv Narayanan, check out:⁠How to SaaS⁠Private Equity Value Creation Podcast

And take a peek at the first chapter of his book:Exit-Ready Marketing

You just raised a round. Congrats 🥂 Now what?

This week on the pod, we’re joined by Shiv Narayanan, Founder of How To SaaS, bestselling author of Post-Acquisition Marketing and Exit-Ready Marketing, and the person PE firms, founders, CEOs, and revenue leaders call when they need to grow enterprise value fast.

We asked him: 👉 How do you evolve from scrappy growth to structured, scalable marketing?

Shiv breaks down:

• ​How to make data-based decisions when there is no data
• ​Why you should secure political capital first before making any bold moves
• ​The 4 initiatives marketing teams should prioritise in the first 100 days after funding
• ​What really moves the needle for revenue growth

If you’re a marketer in a newly funded company, this episode's for you.

If you're a founder of a newly funded company dreaming of branded frisbees, this one’s definitely for you.

For more insights from Shiv Narayanan, check out:

How to SaaS

Private Equity Value Creation Podcast

And check out the first chapter of his book:

Post-Acquisition Marketing

What happens when startup competition crosses the line into corporate espionage?

This week we're diving into one of the wildest stories B2B SaaS has recently seen: Rippling’s lawsuit against Deel for allegedly running a covert spying operation inside their walls.

We will unpack:

• A timeline of alleged espionage by a Rippling employee turned Deel informant
• The (not so) sneaky Slack searches, pipeline theft, and employee poaching
• The smoking gun that brought it all down
• A bathroom showdown that would be funny if it wasn’t real

And what does Russia have to do with all this?

We also zoom out to ask:

• Is this an isolated case, or just the tip of the SaaSpionage iceberg?
• What can scaleups actually do to protect themselves from internal threats?
• When does hypergrowth pressure push startups to bend - or break- ethical lines?

If you’ve ever thought, “That would never happen to us”, you need this episode.

Available wherever you get your podcasts 🎧

🔥 Notorious ELG! 🔥

Events-Led Growth (ELG) is one of those strategies that when it works, it *really* works.

And when it doesn’t… well, you’ll certainly feel it.

In this episode, Casper and Jen are stepping out of their comfort zone to talk about events as the primary revenue engine. Love them or hate them, events can be a real game-changer - or a budget-crunching money pit.

Whether you're dabbling in events, or it's your biggest revenue driver, this episode is for you. We cover:

• When is it best to go all-in on an ELG motion?
• The pros vs. cons of ELG 
• The tracking nightmare that is attributing events to revenue
• Attending vs. hosting your own (side events for the win!)
• Managing stakeholders who want to be on stage, even if it means no ROI
• The power of saying “no, because…”

The key takeaway? Go big or go home. Half-committed event strategies rarely deliver.

Special thanks to Katrine Rasmussen and the team at Pixelz for the inspiration behind this episode!

As you regular listeners may be aware, LinkedIn is ramping up enforcement against scraping tools, including banning accounts and in some cases, taking legal action.

Most recently, Apollo and Seamless AI have been banned from LinkedIn.

In this episode of Marketing Corner, Casper and Jen cover:

- Who this is most likely to impact the most

- What the implications are for people using data that has been scraped (spoiler alert, it ain't good)

- Why is this actually happening?

- What Can You Do Instead?

And we throw a little shade at Meta for good measure.

All this and more in this episode, just for your earholes.

It’s a conversation no one wants to have, but it’s one we need to normalize. So let's talk about it.

Layoffs happen. A lot. To pretty much everyone. And while it stings, it’s not the end of the world.

In this episode, Jen and Casper get real about their own experiences with layoffs: what helped, what they wish they had done differently, and how they turned frustration into momentum, including:

- The very, very real 7 stages of grief

- Focussing on what you can control when everything feels lost 

- Keep your network warm before you need it Not burning bridges (even if it would feel amaaaaaazing)

We'll also do some myth-busting around how protected you *really* are when you're on parental leave.

All this and more is broken down in the episode.

In this episode, Jen and Casper break down something every marketer thinks they have nailed - but often haven't: Marketing Strategy Fundamentals.

They cover:
- The building blocks of a strong strategy (hint: one starts with IC and ends with P).
- Different strategy models and how to apply them
- Turning strategy into action, so it’s not just a slide deck
- How strategy helps you say no (goodbye to taking orders, hello to driving revenue!)
- Connecting marketing strategy to the wider business strategy
- Why marketing your own team internally is just as important as marketing to customers

Oh, and Casper spills the tea on Jen’s high school nickname… 👀 (IYKYK).

Casper's strategy fundamentals can be accessed here.

Roger Martin's 5-step Strategy Model can be accessed here.

🎉 100 episodes of Marketing Corner! And to celebrate… we’re not talking about marketing!

In this special episode, Casper and I take our collective 70+ years of life experience and share some of the biggest lessons we've learned along the way. From embracing who you are and the power of saying no, to the compounding nature of kindness and the secret to contentment. This one feels like a big warm hug in your ears.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Here’s to the last four years and the next 100 episodes! 🫶

Are we still starting with Why?

In this episode of Marketing Corner, Casper and Jen channel their inner Simon Sinek to ask: are people still starting with their why? And if not, why not? We cover:

• Leaning into your purpose (aka Why)
• Helping decision-making by activating different parts of the brain.
• Establishing an emotional connection
• How toilet repair services can align with your own personal values.

And so much more!

What about you? Do you start with why?

In the second instalment of our chat with Michael Aagaard, we dive deep into conversion rate optimization, including
⚠️ The pitfalls of experimentation (it's more than just a fancy word to impress C-level)

And 👏 so 👏 much 👏 more! 😮‍💨