Strategy & Sourdough

In this episode, we discuss the three big lessons we learned over the past year of running the podcast: the strategy and timing behind of building brands, the importance of aligning strategy with data driven execution and how creativity can be the ultimate differentiation.

The gaming ecosystem is a US$160 billion market, and an opportunity for brands to capture an engaged audience. In this episode we speak with Indy Khabra, co-founder of Sydney based Gaming Marketing Consultancy, Livewire. Indy talks about the characteristics of the gaming audience, and how startups can get started in capitalising on this huge marketing opportunity.

The power of internal communications in creating company culture and communicating a compelling vision is often overlooked in startups. In this episode we speak with Kata Juvonen, Global Internal Communications Manager at Smart.io about the importance of internal communications strategy and execution. Tune in to find out the three roles internal communications plays in companies of any size and scale.

If you couldn't fail, what would you do? Deborah Goldingham, Regional Head of Marketing at PageGroup, and one of APAC's TOP50 CMOs, shares this mental models on risk taking, explains why bureaucracy and ticking boxes kills brands and her approach to bringing brands to life. She explains how startups can exercise their creative muscles by focusing on customer needs and learning to become aware of blind spots. Don't miss this insights-packed episode!

Cutting through the clutter to reach the right audiences has become harder than ever. With most startups already engaged in the usual paid marketing activity, how can you garner earned attention? In this episode, we speak with Ben Hartman from Octagon, a global creative agency focused on sports and entertainment, on how startups can get started with influencers, talent and sponsorships. Tune in!

Growing through key strategic partnerships can be critical in the startup growth journey. But how do you make decisions on which partnerships to pursue? Do you go after a few big ones or align yourself to many partners? How do you get started, and what do you need to consider to successfully strike win-win partnership agreements? In this episode we speak with Pankaj Sharma, who has over two decades of strategic partnership experience, to uncover what it takes to win through partnerships.

In this episode, David shares the importance of aligning your go to market strategy with the unit economics of your business, and introduces the “Spears, Nets, Seeds” framework for customer acquisition. We discuss both the lessons learned from growth strategies of successful companies such as HubSpot, Salesforce and Xero, and the problem with following best practices.

Will the world become a better place with my product? In this episode we explore this question, and other key factors of B2B marketing for startups. Our guest, Lars Bjorge, speaks about his mental model around building B2B Enterprise relationships, and outlines examples from companies on how they overcame scepticism and his go to market framework of cold, warm and x factor. With B2B marketing, relationships are everything. But how do you build them? Tune in and find out!

In the second part of our two part brand building episodes, we focus on brand building tactical execution: how to translate concepts into campaigns, the importance of prioritising channels over budgets, balancing media with production and the problem with following best practices.

Startups are generally great at short term sales activation, but not as good when it comes to long term brand building. In this two part episode, we explore the components of a good brand building strategy: setting goals, defining audience and messaging and exploring creative territories.