Summary

In this conversation, Jothy Rosenberg interviews Leslie Barthel, a marketing professional with extensive experience in tech startups. They discuss Leslie's career journey, the challenges and rewards of working in startups, and the importance of marketing in early-stage companies. Leslie shares insights on marketing strategies for startups, including how to market a product that is still in the proof-of-concept stage and how to build brand awareness with limited resources. They also touch on the role of product management in marketing and the value of grit and a positive mindset in navigating the ups and downs of startup life.

Takeaways

• Working in tech startups often involves being in the right place at the right time and making connections.
• Marketing a product in the proof-of-concept stage requires selling the vision and potential of the product.
• Building brand awareness with limited resources involves focusing on high-impact strategies and partnering with others.
• As a startup grows, it becomes important to hire a marketing team that can handle both creative and strategic tasks.
• Product management plays a crucial role in marketing, as it involves understanding the product, the target market, and gathering feedback.
• Having a positive mindset and viewing setbacks as learning opportunities is key to navigating the challenges of startup life.

Sound Bites

"I really liked B2B tech"

"Selling the vision and making it easy for customers to understand"

"The thing I love about startups are the people"

Links

Leslie’s Health Startup: https://1up.health/

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit: https://www.manning.com/books/tech-startup-toolkit

Jothy’s website: https://jothyrosenberg.com

Who Says I Can’t Foundation: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Chapters

00:00 Leslie Barthel's Career Journey

03:01 Marketing Strategies for Startups

08:28 Building Brand Awareness

09:01 The Role of Product Management

24:27 Growing the Right Marketing Team

32:28 The Value of Grit and a Positive Mindset

And here's Leslie. It's great to see you again.

Great to see you Jothi, thanks for having me.

this is going to be fun. You know, I like to start off because everybody loves to know where people are from. If you'll tell me where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Yeah, so I'm originally from Vermont, grew up in Vermont, but I went to college in Boston and lived in the city for a long time until I moved out to the suburbs as many people do and now I live in Littleton, Mass.

Nice little town. And it's a good thing you don't have to drive much because it's a long way out.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to commute to Boston every single day. Not bad if I had to travel in the middle of the night. Traffic's not terrible then, but during rush hour traffic, it's not fun.

Yeah. Well, you've got a nice setup at your house. So that's good. Well, can you tell us a little bit about how you ended up with a career that's been consistently in tech startups?

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I would say that it was not really intentional at first, at least. I had a really lot to do with the connections that I had made in my career and then just being in the right place in the right time. So the first job that I had in tech was at a material science startup out of MIT.

And that was an introduction by someone, one of their investors that knew they were starting to talk about looking for somebody in marketing. And there I joined super early on. mean, didn't have health insurance. I was one of the first employees, beyond the founders and. know, we had no customers, but, and just a proof of concept product and just big, big dreams. Right.

And then from there, you know, I went to an IOT company and then a cybersecurity company, Dover Microsystems, where we work together, you know, and those are also factors of, you know, being in the right place in the right time and knowing, you know, people, mean, none of those had job descriptions. They never really existed. But it was just, you know, which is very common with early stage startups. But I think it was kind of at that point that I realized that I really liked B2B tech.

You know, when I had a strong knack for being able to translate those hard to understand, you know, cutting edge or even bleeding edge technologies and to kind of easy to understand messaging for both, you know, technical and non -technical audiences. So I would say it became intentional at that point. and from there, I went on to a federated machine learning startup until joining one up health where I'm at now, which is a health data management platform, where I'm leading product marketing for them. So.

You know, I, I ended up just falling in love with it and really enjoying tech. and, know, I've changed the sector. I've been in tech quite a few times, but, a lot of that has to do with just, really, you know, the opportunities that are presented themselves and just really being excited about learning new things, you know, as long as I can connect to the problem that the company is solving. And I think that they have a unique solution to that problem. Then I can get excited about it and I can market that.

So what would you say it is that you like best about startups? And what do you find most challenging about startups?

How much time do you have? I think, you know, the thing I love about startups are the people, right? I've made some amazing friendships and connections working at these startups. I think there's kind of this unique camaraderie that comes out of it. I also appreciate the passion that comes with it that everyone feels that you're working towards the same goal, the innovation that comes.

You know as well as the variety right like you're never doing the same thing There's a lot of breadth of things that you can learn and that you could do right like you're never gonna be bored It may be a roller coaster But you're never gonna be bored, right? I would say you know and I've also grown so much in all of those different roles as a marketer and I've I've built my skills and grown my experience so much which I think is beyond really what I

would have gotten if I had been at a larger organization that has kind of more focused roles. I think, know, so I'm really grateful for that experience. I'd say in terms of what is the most challenging, you know, think anybody that's worked at a startup before, especially an early stage startup, you know, you've probably gone through the near death experiences, wondering whether you're gonna make payroll this.

know, week or next month or, you know, what's going to happen. That is pretty typical. And I don't know, I guess I'm immune to it now. But that is obviously there's like some instability that comes with that. And there's a lack of job security, right, as a result. But, you know, I think like, ultimately, sometimes those startups, they turn out well. And sometimes they don't, you know, meet their potential in there. And they maybe fail, right, or they exit early.

And then you're also ended up as a negative, I guess you can sometimes end up in a position where you're looking for a job sooner than you wanted to, which is all part of the risk though that you're taking with joining a startup. And it's kind of the risk that comes with the reward of all of the great things about working for a startup.

Have the failures that you've had to live through, I know there's been a couple, ever made you think, I can't take this anymore and I'm going to get out of tech?

I mean, thought about it. Yes. you know, have I, maybe not out of tech, but maybe out of startups. you know, I thought about it, right. But I might be even explored, you know, opportunities at like bigger tech, you know, companies that are enterprise level with, you know, thousands of, of employees. And, you know, but the problem that I've had is just, I've always really kind of struggled to see myself in that world.

and kind of imagine what my day -to -day would be like there. I mean, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't ever do that, but I think it would have to be for the right product. And there is just something that's still so exciting and thrilling about joining a startup. But I will say that my requirements when it comes to joining a startup have changed over time. And with my experience, you know, I've done those really, really early stage companies that are pre -revenue and

know, pre -customers and pre -product, all of those things. I've kind of been there, done that. So I would say, you know, these days when that, you know, when I was looking for my most recent role, you know, I was looking for a later stage startup, one that already kind of had product market fit, you know, already had a real product, some established customers, recurring revenue, you know, simple things.

and you know, so that really isn't like a seed stage or even a series a stage company in a lot of cases. it's not to say that I would never do that really, really early stage again, but it really would have to be for the right product and with the right team. but you know, ultimately at this point in my career and my life, I'm looking for a little bit more stability, and predictability. and wanted to get kind of more of that experience with a growth company.

Well, you've got a later stage family than you used to have. so fits that you want a later stage company. okay. So, but you have, you have the experience of, of being, sometimes the only marketing person at a fairly early stage company. And, and these companies of course, want you to go ahead and start marketing their product, which is sometimes just a

this.

proof of concept. And how do you do that? And how do you think about what's the goal? Because you're trying to get the word out. You're trying to help build a brand. Obviously, they want to get customers. But all they have so far is a proof of concept. And so how do you

Mm

position that in your mind as to what's the goal, what's the approach.

Yeah. I mean, that is a, it's a big challenge for sure. I would say, you know, when it comes to marketing a product, that's really more proof of concept than it is product. It really has to do with kind of shifting your focus, right? You can't, there's no features and functionality to highlight, right? There's not specifics. You're not doing, you know, regular releases of that product, right? It's a different kind of beast.

But really what I think it involves is really kind of selling that vision, the potential of that product and really kind of selling that vision and making it easy for your customers to understand. Included in that is figuring out what are those ideal target markets? Like who has the strongest need and the strongest pain point that your product could potentially solve?

as well as what industries or target markets are most likely to be early adopters and be open to this new technology. And make sure you're going after that and then crafting kind of that compelling narrative to them that really speaks to them and showing, painting this picture of like what could be rather than what is, right? Cause there is no what is at that point. So you have to like sell what's possible and

You know, lot of the, I would say a lot of the tech products that I've worked on have been, you know, as I said, we're really cutting cutting edge or bleeding edge. And so they're really, they required also just a lot of education. So that involved kind of a lot of, a lot of content that educated them on this new field of tech or this new solution to a problem that they didn't know that they could solve. Right. So, you know,

and creating messaging that speaks to them and makes it easy for them to understand and relate to you to other things in the market, right? Like everybody has this frame of reference and you need to be able to relate to those other things. So like at Dover, for instance, you know, we really kind of honed in on this message of like, our solution was the bodyguard for your processor, right? Like it made it a little bit easier for people to grasp. And then we also, you know,

wrote this white paper together around the cybersecurity staff, which positioned us against the other typical solutions or cybersecurity solutions in the market and kind of highlighted, okay, there's this big gap and you're still vulnerable. And this is where our solution slides in and solves that problem and reinforces the rest of your stack. That was huge for us to be able to kind of make those relations and position ourselves to things that they already understood since we were kind of this new frontier, if you will.

So I think a lot of it has to do with that and like, you know, just really kind of understanding your market, making that simple messaging that they can grab onto and, you know, selling that vision of what is possible, right? So like also, you know, with other companies, it's been like pointing to other innovations that enabled similar things and what was the ROI that they were able to like get from that. And then, you know, and as a proof of what you could get with your solution.

If that makes sense.

I feel like when you are an experienced marketing person, like you are, of course, and you're getting in at that stage, you're in the middle of some extremely important things that every startup has to do, like find a lighthouse customer, figure out your minimum viable product.

Mm

go prove product market fit. And of course, and then ultimately, if that has all happened, then craft a go to markets, you know, a go to market strategy. And that's like, those are make or break things that every startup has to do. I mean, what I say a lot, including in my new book, which just came out on

Mm

July 15th, that no startup has ever succeeded that didn't successfully prove product market fit. And in fact, we thought we had product market fit at Dover. And I think lots of startups do. We had such a great Lighthouse customer. They were so enthusiastic. They were working with us continuously for two years. But one calculation

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

that I completely failed to make is that these big companies can do reorgs and they walked our champion to the door and there was no substitute champion. Wow, was that a painful lesson.

Yeah.

But I just, think a lot of startup founders, this is really my point, don't value marketing very much in the early days. And how are you going to figure out the right markets, find the right lighthouse customer -proof product market, I mean, minimum viable product?

and then iterate that to product market fit. How are you going to do that? If you're not already marketing savvy yourself and you don't have someone like you that loves startups, loves early stage, or used to love early stage, and knows how to do all that stuff, that's why people have to listen to you here today.

Yeah, I mean, I think that is the challenge, right? That is the nut that you're trying to crack. think, you know, a lot of that comes from, you know, one, understanding the product and the potential of the product really intimately, as well as the problems that it's solving. And, you know, that involves working really closely with the product team.

who's developing the product, as well as working really closely with sales to identify, well, evaluate and identify what are the right markets, right? Like so I mentioned before, figuring out who has the strongest pain points, who's the most likely to move, where's the biggest opportunity. And then a lot of it is testing, right? It's message testing, doing targeted campaigns, seeing, and being really adaptive.

you know, and, testing and seeing what happens, what sticks, right. And then you double down on that. But a lot of it has to do with really just kind of understanding, you know, the markets, the customers, what are their needs, making sure you're, you're communicating to their needs, and positioning effectively. And then, yeah, just testing and run testing, different messaging, testing different product features.

or different use cases, gathering that feedback and just iterating really quickly. And then making sure that aligns with product and sales. And you need to all be moving towards the same goal. And I think I've done those all different types of campaigns and testing and things like that. And when it comes to the channels or the partners or the markets that you're going after.

You know, you can't be afraid to try something. You know, you make your best guess, educate a guest, but there's no, you don't have a database of customers to say, okay, you know, like the majority of our customers come from this industry and have this title and like, this is their persona. Like there's no database. There's nobody to build all of that off of Azure go -to -market plans. You have to make your best guess and use all the resources that you have. And then you have to test and iterate really quickly. And once you find, you know,

If you got a bite on the line, then you double down and you test it and you keep pushing and you kind of expand from there.

I agree with when you said that you have to interface a lot with sales and a lot with engineering. I feel like, I might be wrong, but I feel like sales understands and values what you're trying to do. Have you had some challenges in working with engineering that might not understand that?

Mm

You know, I think it depends, right? I think like, you know, I think like you said earlier, sometimes people have preconceived notions of what marketing entails and what marketing does. I think especially when they're not as familiar with what marketing is, and sometimes they think, marketing is just the website or marketing is just social media, right? And that's marketing is so much more than that. And I think, you know,

So it's really just kind of changing their preconceived notion. So being a partner to them, working closely with them, showing that you're adding value. mean, to me, when I consider all of the different, I'm marketing to our customers, Marketing to the market, but then I'm also in service to other parties within the organization, right? Like I'm in service in support of products.

Right? Like they are my partner and I, you know, I'm, I'm supporting them. I'm also supporting, you know, the sales team and helping make sure that they're successful and giving them the tools and resources and messaging that they need and helping them, you know, a target and nurture their leads. similarly in large organizations, once you have like a customer success or account management team, like supporting those teams as well. and I think there it's all really about understanding.

It's almost like you do the same thing that you do with your customers. You understand what their pain points are, what their priorities are, and then you demonstrate your value there. And you can of overcome some of those maybe preconceived notions of a limited scope of what marketing is, I suppose.

Okay, let's talk about another big area that marketing has to get to work on in the early stages. And that is, you've got to get some brand awareness because without that, you've got this constant sort of barrier to finding any customers or partners. But of course, and you know this,

as a source of pain, there's very limited resources. And so you're trying to do this brand awareness about the company and maybe the product, but the company for sure with limited resources. And you've probably figured out along the way some very efficient ways to begin to do that. What does that look like?

Yeah, mean, I think so building a brand awareness with a shoestring or zero budget and sometimes being the only marketer, right? I've been the sole marketer many times in my life. It's really about, you really have to be focused on what's gonna be the highest impact and be focused on that, right? So.

And you have to be able to be willing to do things yourselves, right? Like you have to have the attitude that I can learn and I can figure out anything, you know, depending from it's like digital advertising to like graphic design, things like that. I mean, there's within reason, of course, but I think like you have to be able to kind of like try and learn new skills as a result, because you don't have a big giant team to lean on.

But really it's a lot about that focus, right? And it all depends on what your company is and who, like what's your, like what your marketing mix is really depends on what your company does and who you're targeting and what works for that market. So, you know, like I said before, try things.

see what resonates and then kind of double down. And depending on the company, that can be, there's no like perfect marketing mix, I'd say. You it really depends on the product. Sometimes that can be really leaning into content, right? A lot of content and inbound content or even PR, if that's really successful. The material science company that I worked for, like PR was a huge push for us. Cause the end consumers were just anybody and just like any consumer, right?

and they were consumer goods was the end end consumers. and so, and we were selling to consumer goods companies. So that PR and getting consumers excited about the potential of our solution and what that would offer them in terms of being able to get all their product out and things like that. That was, you know, that was hugely beneficial from PR standpoint. Now with other tech companies, PR maybe isn't the right avenue, right? So you have to figure out what that right mix is for your target audience and where you're going to get the most bang for your.

you

limited buck. You know, some others it's been events or, you webinars have been huge or doing targeted advertising and campaigns. It really, you know, depends, right? The other thing I would say is I've always had this viewpoint, and I think for especially early stage companies is your goal, you know, you want to try to appear bigger than you are. And so to me, that means a couple of different things. One, making sure that, you know, you have a

high quality brand image, and that you're getting yourself out there. You're speaking at events, you're getting featured in the right industry pubs or participating in industry groups, like making in the right areas. You can't do everything because you don't have enough budget or time or people, but making sure that you've identified your key markets, your key places where you want to be seen and known, and you focus there. And it also means partnering.

Right, so building out those partner channels and riding on their brand awareness and their coattails and getting your exposure to their customer base. It can be wildly helpful and also helps kind of, it allows you to get a little bit of third party validation. It helps you get more brand visibility and more brand awareness to a broader market that you wouldn't really be able to do, you know, with a one person sales and marketing team, right? So.

I think those are the things that I always consider. Like, figure out what the right mix is, focus on that, try to appear bigger than you are, and really partner with others that will help amplify your brand awareness.

Okay, so when it's time for you not to be the only marketing person and there's some budget, what's involved in your view in beginning to grow the right kind of startup marketing team?

and

Yeah, that's a good question. think, you know, at a startup, I think every hire in general is important, right? I mean, you especially if your company is sub 50, sub 20, right? You know, just one person adding to the team is a huge impact and a huge difference. You want to make sure you're finding the right person.

You also, you know, even if you're growing, you're probably still small. So you want to make sure obviously that person is willing and able to, you know, wear those multiple hats, right? And can easily adapt to change. Things are always changing. Your day to day is always going to be different. So testing for that, seeing how they handle ambiguity, seeing how they handle change, you know, making sure that they're comfortable with that. And I think similarly, you also need to make sure you're finding people that are both

Creative and strategic but also can execute right and that comes with the marketing leadership as well, right until you're a certain stage You're not gonna be you're you're gonna be determining strategy, but you're also gonna need to play You know apart right like you're also gonna be an individual contributor on the team So for me personally that is understanding what my skills and strengths are and so when I've built out a team underneath me It's like okay. I've always ended up

focusing on product marketing and messaging and things like that. And that's what I've retained for myself. And then as I've built out teams, depending on what the needs are for the company and what are the focus channels for us, building out where we need to, we need more kind of focus, we need more expertise, we need more dedicated eyes and dedicated time to that. So often that ends up being.

you know, a great content marketer, as well as, know, maybe a demand generation person to kind of really amplify your, your campaign strategies and build those out and make and build those into processes. you know, I think those are the big things that I've kind of focused on. I think the last thing I would say about hiring a team is you're probably because they have to wear so many hats and the roles are so broad and you know,

have to be strategy and be able to deliver there's it's, it's, and you have a specific product and a specific industry and a specific target market, like finding that perfect person that has done all of those things and been in your market and targeted, you know, understands your technology and targeted your market. Like that may be. A unicorn to find, right. To find them that that checks all those boxes. So I think, you know, in general is just being aware of like.

what are the key skills that you can't really teach and what can you teach, right? So like when it comes to a content marketer, you can't really teach someone to be a strong writer or a strong interviewer. So those are skills that I established, skills that I would look for and proof that they've been able to do that in the past. But they can learn about your industry and they can learn about your product, right? So if they don't have that experience, that's not necessarily.

Like that's something they can learn on the job. like being aware of what are the key skills and what are the like must have versus nice have, I guess, and what can be learned and what can't be.

We've been talking about outbound marketing. So where do you think product management fits, which is, in my view, inbound marketing, really interacting with the customers, understanding exactly what they need, what they like, what they don't like? Where would you put that when you're still small? It's a small company.

Yeah, I mean, think product marketing or product, you know, working with product in general is like very working with the product team, for instance, in my current role is so critical for me. So understanding, you know, deeply what our current product does and what the like who we built it for, who what the intention are, what's the value.

You know, as well as understanding what the roadmap is, right? To be able to sell that vision, especially in those early stage companies, you know, understanding where you're going that, that requires, you know, really strong partnership between marketing and product. so that marketing can kind of translate that into, into messaging and content. And I think also staying close to product as well as sales to really get that feedback. And again, you know,

taking that input, like you wanna take input from everywhere, from whether your campaign performance, from what you're hearing from customers, what you're hearing in the market, what industry reports are saying. There are so many different sources of information and you wanna make sure that you're letting that inform your marketing strategy as well as taking that input into your product strategy as well.

When do you think a startup needs a CMO?

that's a good question. mean, I think, I mean, it's funny with the CMO, the title CMO, I think is, you know, it varies, you know, could be VP of marketing, could be CMO, whatever, whatever it may be from company to company, right? In terms of like more of a strategic marketing leader. I would say once you have, I think when you're later stage,

And you have found that product market fit. You have those kind of existing customers. You have reoccurring revenue. You have product in the market that customer's using. Like once you've kind of found that stride and you're kind of in that growth stage and you need to start to scale, to me, that's when you would need to have that, like bring on kind of that more senior product, you know, or market, a marketing leadership.

And okay, I agree. One of the things that I found in this book, doing the research for this book, is that a very small percentage of startup CEOs understand what a CMO is and therefore,

doesn't value them very much. And I think that's really dangerous for the success of a startup, for the CEO not to value the role of a senior strategic marketing person.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Yeah, so it's just a statement.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar to not like what I was saying before of not valuing marketing in general, right? I think that that in itself is also maybe a preconceived notion that kind of fuels that a bit as well, right? Like it's just this, you don't really understand the role of marketing in general. If you don't value CMO, you probably don't value marketing as much, right?

Yeah, well, so I was so glad to have found you. I valued you and you taught me so much. I just want to... Okay, so here's my... This is actually going to be my last question. So this one will get a little bit personal because I'm asking about grit. I'm asking about, you know, for you to do what you've done, all these startups,

You get whacked because salaries have to be cut or the company fails or whatever. You're like that Energizer Bunny. just go to, okay, and you just keep on going to the next thing. That to me says there's a lot of grit there.

Mm

And I don't know if you've thought about this or if you've been asked this before, but where does it come from?

Yeah, I've never been asked that question before. would say, you know, I think, well, one, I think in general, as a person, I just, it's not productive to linger and obsess over.

the failures of the past, right? Like to me, the most important thing, like things, you're human, things are gonna fail, things are not always gonna go the way that you want them to or expect them to. And you you're gonna make mistakes, right? You're gonna make mistakes in your role, like companies are not gonna like work out. But to me, it's really about learning. Everything's a learning opportunity. Every setback is a learning opportunity. You know.

in and moving forward, right? I think there are, if I look back at all the different startups that I've worked at, wouldn't, know, they were not all failures, right? And from my personal growth, like none of them are failures. I've learned so much and grown my skills differently at every single role. And I've grown so much as a marketer. And I think with every role and every startup and every experience that I've had, including setbacks has made me a better marketer.

and made and allows me to bring so much more value to the next place. So to me, it's really kind of, you know, just making sure that you're learning and just always moving forward and thinking about that positive. Like, what did I gain from that experience? You know, or what did I learn from that experience? And then, you know, moving forward and bringing that value that you got out of that.

you know, sometimes it's just simply like that was a bad experience and I want to make sure that I, you know, this is how I want to filter these kinds of opportunities out in the future, right? You know, I think those are all things you want to consider, but for me, it's just always kind of make taking it as a learning opportunity and then moving forward and really focusing on the positive that came out of it rather than the negative.

Was that always true before even before you were actually in a career? Was that your attitude even before?

Yeah, I would say that I've always kind of had that attitude. I don't know if that came from my parents or what have you, but yeah, I think I've always kind of had that attitude throughout my life. think that that's, I think maybe it came from early on in my career. mean, I will say, I feel like it was my very first job out of college, like learning, like, you know.

the first campaign that I sent, email campaign that I sent out that, you know, had an error in it, right? That everybody had, anybody in marketing has done this, right? And it's so easy to beat yourself up about it, right? But the reality is, that like, we're all human, we make mistakes. And I remember someone saying that to me in as long, you know, this is not open heart surgery, no one died, right? Like it's all about just like learning and how can you try to prevent having a mistake like that happen again?

And I think that was really influential for me and that has, you know, kind of really affected me throughout my career. And that's kind of how I look at things as well as like, you know, this is, it is what it is, right? But like, what can I learn from this and how can I evolve and what value can I bring from it or how can I prevent that in the future?

Well, I think that this is the first episode I've done, which is just totally focused on marketing. I think it's going to be very valuable to people. And I really appreciate you doing this.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here.