Standout Startup Brands

On today’s episode we are interviewing Jess Iandiorio, a repeat startup CMO currently at StarTree, and previously at unicorns including Starburst, Mirakl and Acquia. She covers how to budget for brand, why brand design matters, and how brand fuels demand.

You can learn more by following us on LinkedIn using the links below:

Jess Iandiorio
StarTree.ai
Amrita Gurney
Janessa Lantz

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Welcome to Season 2! Today I mix things up with a solo episode, sharing my experience launching my first out of home (OOH) campaign.

I cover:

• When and why to consider running a brand campaign
• How we launched our first OOH campaign for Float
• What I learned, and what I would do differently in future

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Moly leads the Brand Marketing and Communications team at Jobber, one of Canada’s fastest growing companies. She manages a team of 12 people dedicated to growing awareness of Jobber and building a global community of passionate and supportive home service entrepreneurs. 

In today's episode Moly shares how she built the brand team to include community, social media, events and communications specialists. She also shares the practical adjustments required as teams and companies grow. And finally, she shares advice for marketers who have social media in their portfolio.

Follow Moly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/molymilosovic/

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What is like to lead marketing at a public company? Kathy Bryan, EVP and Head of Marketing at Electives joins me today. She shares her experience joining a company as the first marketing leader and through their acquisition and IPO.  In this episode Kathy shares her path to CMO, how she thinks about marketing stakeholders, and how she thinks about brand investments.

Learn more about Kathy at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathyhbryan/ 

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Marissa Homère, VP Marketing at Irwin is a true revenue-focused marketer.  She shares lessons learned along her career journey covering everything from marketing leadership titles, where brand building fits in the life of a newer brand, and how to build trust and respect with your finance counterparts.

You can find Marissa at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissahomere/

Learn more about Irwin at: https://www.getirwin.com/ 

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Mitch Solway was one of Canada's first marketing leaders to achieve repeat success building startup brands like Freshbooks, Lavalife and Vidyard. Today he is a respected fractional CMO and coach to other marketing leaders.

In this episode we talk about:

• Whether you should work for a CEO who doesn't "get" marketing
• Common mistakes startup marketing leaders struggle with
• How to grow from being a Director of Marketing to a VP Marketing

Show notes:

Find Mitch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchsolway/

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Marketing today is a broad function. Most marketing leaders start their career in one area of marketing - like demand gen, and then as they progress into leadership roles, they are responsible for brand, demand, product marketing, and sometimes in-house creative. My guest today, Nadia Milani, VP Marketing at Proposify, has done it all, and shares how she transitioned from the brand side of marketing to demand gen to leadership roles at multiple startups.

Show Notes:

Connect with Nadia Milani on LinkedIn
Learn more about Proposify at www.proposify.com 

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What can startups learn from their bigger brand counterparts? That’s one of the questions I posed to Sean Mathews, who left agency life to join RBC Ventures and work with their portfolio of startups. We cover everything from defining brand strategy to putting together your first brand budget. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Show Notes:

Sean Mathews on LinkedIn

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Being marketer #1 at a startup is not for the faint of heart. I describe it as trying to plant the roots of a new tree while standing in the middle of a tornado.

Manuela Bárcenas knows exactly what I mean, as someone who joined Fellow as not just the first marketer, but also the first non-technical employee outside of its founders.

In this episode Manuela shares:

• What she did in Year One
• Which investments Fellow made to build their brand
• How brand and growth intersected

Show Notes:

Follow Manuela Bárcenas on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Learn more about collaborative meeting app Fellow.

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In our first episode of Standout Startup Brands, I interview Jared Henriques, the founder and CEO of Renga, a brand strategy and design agency in Toronto.

Jared shares valuable insights on what it’s like to build a brand from scratch, how has an investment in brand pays off for early stage teams and some common pitfalls that marketers and founders can fall into when establishing their brand strategy.

Show Notes:

Follow Jared Henriques on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Learn more about Renga, Jared's brand strategy and design studio.

Learn more about Float, the much-loved spend management platform for Canadian SMBs.

 

Thanks for listening!