#549 Why Small Teams Win: Mark Donnigan on GTM, Marketing, and Founder-Led Growth

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to an episode of the CTO Show with Mead today. I'm very pleased joining me from the us and thank you, mark, for staying late, you know, in your time. Very welcome, mark Donnigan. He's a virtual CMO. Uh, have a lot of [00:01:00] experience about marketing, especially with tech startups. And Mark also has a podcast like myself.

We're gonna talk about many topics today, but of course, everything marketing for startups, tech startups in specific, and of course, ai. We're gonna touch about the ai. We're gonna touch about like a couple of other topics also as well. Without further ado, this is what I do with all my guests. Mark, you know.

Tell us more about you, your background, your journey, and what brought you to what you're currently doing. 

Mark: Great. Well, first of all, ette, thank you for the invitation. It's great to be here. Uh, really excited to talk to your audience. So, um, real quick introduction. Um, I am actually a technologist at heart.

Um, although I have never worked professionally as an engineer. Um, my first two years of university were computer science. I taught myself to program when I was 12, and some of your listeners will pick [00:02:00] up on the fact that I said program not develop, which gives away my age. I, I found my, I found my school's Apple two.

And, uh, actually, it, it's kind of a cool story. An uncle of mine who I actually rarely saw, um, you know, he lived a, a long distance, but, um, you know, like once a summer we'd go back and visit kind of our relatives. And so I'd see my uncle, and when I turned 12, um, he said, I wanna buy you some books. He loved books.

And, um, so, you know, he, I don't even remember, uh, I think I got like three books, but one of them, he said, I want you to pick out any book you want. And so we went to the bookstore and there was a book on basic, but it was. It, it today, we would call it kind of the Dummies guide, you know, because I remember it was really kind of illustrated and it was something like a 12-year-old could kind of look at and go, this looks cool.

And I said, I want that [00:03:00] book. And I went home and I just immersed myself, you know, and learning the language. Found my school's, apple two, I think I actually knew that they had one, but you know, so, you know, asked the teacher, Hey, can I stay after school? And so the point is, is that, you know, those are my roots.

Now, interestingly enough, I also was an artist. Um, nice. And in fact, um, it, it, uh, let's see, when I was 11, um, so the year before, so I guess I was sixth, sixth grade in the US it would be like sixth grade. Um, if I remember right, I entered an art competition at the state fair, and I got like a third place ribbon.

Uh, against the adults, you know, so I guess I was drawing pretty well. Um, but I, you know, looking back, of course, you can say, wow, I had this, this clearly this left brain logical side because I was very drawn to the structure, you know, a programming and of [00:04:00] language, and, and at the same time I was creative, you know, so the connection to all that is that years later as, um, I ended up not finishing my computer science degree and going to music school.

So see, it shows left brain, right brain, um, right. I, I woke up one day and I went, okay, I'm actually a. A, a, a fairly decent musician. Um, you know, I was, you know, I could play pretty well. Um, but I realized looking at my peers around me, my friends and fellow students, that it's really hard to make a living.

And it's really hard to make a good living as a musician. So, so I, you know, I was rational enough to say, okay, I love music. It'll always be a love of my life, but you know, I need to find a way to, you know, it's like, make a, make a nice living, you know, be able to support a family one day. That sort of thing.

Went into sales, that got me into marketing. Um, always worked in [00:05:00] technology companies and. You know, as the saying goes, you wake up one day and you look back and say, wow, how did I get here? You know, so, but that's the connection and that's also why I love technical founders. Mm-hmm. Um, I love technical founders, um, because I, I can relate.

Um, I, I speak the language, although again, you know, I've never actually been an engineer. I don't code today, although I'm loving all the no code, low code tools that are out there. Um, doing a lot in the AI space with those, um, just personally, you know, building tools. Um, but yeah, it, it's, um, a really good fit because the challenge is, you know, there is that creative side of how are you gonna take a deep technology and drive that into the market?

Um, as we well know, the best technology doesn't actually build a business, which is really sad that that's true, but. It is true, [00:06:00] you know, how many great technologies have absolutely failed and how many companies have been wildly successful, you know, on the backs of technology. That though good, you know, maybe wasn't actually the best, but guess what they got right?

Was sales and marketing, you know? And so that's what connected to me. And so I love working with founders and helping them, you know, build, um, you know, exciting businesses around their inventions and their innovations. 

Mehmet: Great, and thank you again, mark, for, for making it, uh, today. Now I want to start with, you know, your experience working with, with founders, right?

Mm-hmm. So, and startups, usually tech startups, um, they start with very, very small teams, like probably maybe, you know, couple of founders. 2, 1, 2, 3. Right. And probably they have like maybe someone doing the coding, an engineer or [00:07:00] something like that. Uh, and then they start to figure out, and probably at the beginning they would be.

Trying to take the product to the market. Now, I know you say small teams beat big teams. Yeah. Like, can you break this down to us? Like what are like some of the principle that make it so true in practice? 

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it's, it's a great question because, um, a, a trap that I actually see, um, founders fall into, especially if, if they have gone down the vc, you know, the venture funded, um, route.

Um, you know, or if they're just fortunate enough to be able to generate a lot of cash early and so they find themselves with money, um, and which is a good thing. So, so that's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Um, but, but, but it's, you know, somebody usually gives them the advice, maybe through an advisor, through a vc, through some investor, through some friend, you [00:08:00] know, who's also founding a company.

Hey, you need to build a marketing team, you know, you need to hire salespeople. And so again, depending, you know, the phase of the company and how much money they have, that may mean hiring one person, you know, in marketing and one person for sales. Or it might be, you know, oh, you know, let's go build a team.

Let's hire five people in marketing and, you know, let's get seven or eight people in sales. And next thing you know, over a very short period of time, they have a very expensive function across sales and, and. And marketing and. At some point my phone often rings, and this is, and I know this story because I've seen it played out over and over and over again.

And the story goes like this. You know, the story goes, you know, mark, you know, we need you to help. You know, can you, can you come talk to us or can we have a conversation? So, you know, I do normal discovery. Okay. You know, tell me about your [00:09:00] market. What's your go to market? Do you have a marketing team? How big is it?

And I get the whole lay of the land, right? And invariably I hear, oh, but you know, we're so excited because we raised our series A, or we raised, you know, a series B, or we raised a really large seed round. And you know, the investors said, we need to build marketing. So we landed somebody from, you know, I won't name a company, but.

Some major, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, com tech company. You know, we got somebody who had been there for five years during their growth curve. You know, they ran demand gen or they ran social media marketing, or they ran, you know, some function, you know, probably not the head of marketing, but you know, some significant team member, they've been here a year.

We're just not seeing any results. You know, like, like we, like we, we think we need to replace 'em, but we are so excited and they were there for five years, like, what's happening? You know? And, and the same thing can happen in sales, by [00:10:00] the way, although, we'll, you know, we'll put a pin in that 'cause we're here to talk about marketing, but I've seen it play out in sales almost the exact same story.

And what happens, and, and the whole thing about small teams, you know, beat big teams, is that when you are still trying to identify your product market fit, when you're still really defining your ICP, when you're still e even if you have some traction, you know, um, and, and you see visibility to, you know, maybe $10 million a RR $20 million, a RR, you know, which again, if you've done that in a short period of time, is really.

Successful. You know, like that's a good thing. But even if you have traction, there still is so much to figure out that when you take a bigger team, which is really only four or five people, you know, so I don't mean 15 or 20, but four or five people, you're gonna end up [00:11:00] saying, okay, this person's responsible for this particular, um, channel of marketing, this person's res, you know, owns, you know, design.

This person owns this function. And by the nature of you've given them that responsibility, now they're making decisions that are for the best of their function, but not for the impact to the organization. And, and I almost wanna repeat that again because that, that it's easy to miss what I just said.

Right? What I said is, is that you could hire. Somebody who truly, you know, let's just say social media marketing, you know, so LinkedIn for example, and you can look at their resume, you can look at their background, you can check their references, and everybody can say, this person at the previous company took us from, you know, we only had 3000 people following our page to, you know, 18 months later [00:12:00] we had 30,000.

You know, we could verify that, you know, 10, 20, 30% of our pipeline was coming in through that channel. In other words, they can, they can really legitimately say that this person did a phenomenal job. The problem is, is that odds are very, very good that that previous company already had an established base, already had a defined ICP already had a brand position in the market, and that's not to say it was easy.

It's a different set of challenges, right? But for a startup, you just can't transpose, you know, the same activities. And so what startup founders fall into, and the reason why I get the phone call, and a lot of times it is a little bit of, you know, as I like to say, head scratching because the founders like, I, I really like the person.

Like I know they're. I, I fundamentally can feel that they're good at their job. But if I'm objective, like the impact to the [00:13:00] business isn't there. So like, what, what's wrong? You know, what, you know, are they faking it? You know, do we, you know, or what's wrong? And what it is, is that early stage marketing is about rapid iteration.

It's about problem solving. It's about being incredibly creative and adaptive. And so many marketers are trained, not that they're trained not to be those things. They would all say, yes, I am those things. But if you followed them around day to day, um, in a medium, even just a medium sized company, you'd say, wow, this person, basically their job is to repeat a dozen activities day in and day out, you know, um, you know, adjusting here and there, but basically.

Doing kinda the same thing day in and day out. And in a startup it just doesn't work, you know? So you need a small team where you can rapidly [00:14:00] together move, um, you know, flex, you can go to different channels, you can experiment, you can do different things. And it's why an early startup hire looks very, very different than when you're hiring into a, you know, kind of a mid phase, you know, company that's seven, you know, 6, 7, 8 years into the market, you know, is just more established.

Mehmet: This is very informative, mark. And yeah, I've seen, as you said, I've seen this movie many times. I, I think everyone has or, or has known somebody who has, you know. Yeah, 

Mark: yeah. 

Mehmet: Especially, especially the part, and actually it applies not only to marketing, to be fair, like it applies to sales, to, to other functions as well.

Yeah. And my theory is, you know. Uh, you know, like when, when, when someone, uh, goes to any investment, uh, related website and they tell you, tell you like previous results doesn't [00:15:00] guarantee, uh, you know, the future. Future. Yeah. So, so, so I always tell them like, like, think about it when you want to invest in a, in, in a stock, in the stock market, right?

Yeah. So maybe it did fantastically well, but you never know because when, now at this time, things might be different. Like, that's right. And you know, the other thing I say, mark is, you know, each startup, each founder, each person, in my opinion, like we live, I call it my, the three dimension. So it's time, location, and personality.

Yeah. And if someone does something right. There doesn't mean he gonna, or she gonna do very well Yeah. In this location because everything is different. So this is, that's right. You know, it's a great point. Now Mark, like, you get this phone calls, right? Like, do you have any kind of diagnostics, um, framework or like, maybe what are the things that tells you like, yeah, you know what, these [00:16:00] guys are up to something.

Yeah. I would be able to support them or Yeah. You know, like, I, I don't like to ask about red flags. I would like to ask about, you know, the things that excites you 

Mark: Sure. 

Mehmet: And push and, you know, push you to say, yeah, like this team is a good team. Let's, let's help them in their go to markets. 

Mark: Yeah. Um, it's a great question and, uh, you know, look, I love framework.

I'm a marketer, right? Yeah. So I love framework, so, so I would actually very much like to be able to pull out my five step framework with a, with, with a, with a cool acronym that goes with it. You know, I could say, okay, follow this. The reality of the matter is, I think of it more like signposts, you know, or mm-hmm.

Um, almost like traffic lights, you know, green, yellow, red. Um, and, and I, and I think in general in business, that's actually just a more healthy way because I just think that we live in such a dynamic [00:17:00] world, you know, um, on every dimension, right? You know, not just business, but you know, the world is just too dynamic.

And, um, so let me tell you the, you know, the signposts or the, or the. The traffic lights that I look for. Sure. You know, um, I, and, and it starts with, you know, one of the first things would be, um, this'll sound easy, but let me unpack, or this will sound like obvious, but let me unpack what I mean. Is it, does the market actually need what you're building?

You know, now you're, you know, everybody's gonna say, well, of, of course. But I mean, if they even have a little bit of business, the market needs it. It's like, ah, not so quick. You know, like there's a whole lot of reasons why companies can actually buy products and actually not need them. You know, um, or, you know, they buy them thinking that they need them and then find out they don't.

And so just because a company has gotten to 1, 2, 3, 5, maybe even six or $7 million, [00:18:00] doesn't mean that they have a product that the market actually needs. And so what's difficult about this is that obviously the founder has a well honed. Pitch that is just gonna make you want to, you know, um, there's a, you know, there's a saying, you know, for those that live in Alaska, you know, being in the us uh, you know, and, and, and live around a lot of ice and snow, you know, it's like, it's like selling, you know, uh, you know, it's selling ice to, you know, Eskimos or to the, you know, to, to the Alaskan people.

You know, like, like, you know, like they could, they could sell to anybody, you know, the founder. But you really have to then dig a step below and say, okay, but you know, what is the problem you're solving and. If they can articulate back to, to me in a reasonable way that is not difficult to understand. Um, here is the problem we solve and you know, [00:19:00] here's, here's what our current customers and here's what our early, you know, clients, customers are telling us and here's why they bought us.

If they can articulate that, then that's the first green light that tells me, alright, then I wanna keep talking. You know, so that's the first gate. Now interestingly enough, this is related to marketing. Because, because so many marketers and, and I found this too, of marketing leaders, uh, you know, or just marketers who have joined companies, and then maybe they haven't lasted very long.

You know, maybe they were sort of pushed out, maybe they were fired. Maybe they just got so frustrated they left, you know, over a short period of time. And almost always, it's like, well, yeah. I mean, it wasn't a marketing problem. They had, like, you could be the. Best marketer in the world, whatever that looks like.

And you wouldn't have solved their problem, you know? Mm-hmm. Like, ah, you know, maybe you would've slightly been able to find a few more people and made a [00:20:00] few more sales, but you wouldn't have saved the company. So the first thing is, is this a product or solution technology that the market actually needs?

And then more, and then correlated with that is can the founder tell that story? Now, occasionally I get into a situation where my personal analysis is that yes, they have something, but the founder still can't tell the story, you know? So then my first job is, is to help that founder tell the story.

Because if we don't do that, and we just sort of amplify what isn't working again. I'm gonna fail, and whatever we do in marketing will fail. So that's like the first step. Now, the next, the ne the, the next traffic light that we have to get through is, is does the founder or the founding team understand who the buyer is?

Now, this is a, again, some of these [00:21:00] things I, and I'm even, you know, I'm probably reading someone's mind, you know, who's listening to, to the show right now, listening to this episode going, okay, come on, this guy's, uh, this obvious stuff, you know, like, of course. Who's the buyer? If you don't know the buyer, but listen carefully to what I'm saying, because in a B2B, and, and I am only talking B2B here of, so if any listeners, of course, are in B2C, you know, that's, that's a different paradigm, whole different framework.

But in B2B, the buying committees are so diverse today, and at least in my experience selling, especially technology products, there really is not the notion anymore. And I'm just finding it to be universally true. It doesn't matter the industry, it almost doesn't matter the deal size. The notion of finding the budget holder and then convincing that person to buy your product is over like the, like the budget holder's now a [00:22:00] committee.

It's multiple people. Now that doesn't mean there isn't a single person who is responsible for putting a signature on an agreement. You know, obviously that's still the case. You know, there's still the CFO that ultimately has to sign course, there's the EVP or there's the, or there's the CEO or whatever.

But, but you know, so there's still that person. But I have seen case after case after case where I've been involved in, in, in sales processes that have not closed where it. It was not because, oh, we failed to convince the budget holder. It's because some stakeholder on the buying committee had an objection that was reasonable enough that it was able to override, and then maybe there were enough other people had similar objections and overrode.

And in every case where I've experienced this and we've lost a deal, the budget holder, who always is the most senior person on the team, never has [00:23:00] overridden them, not even one time. And this includes a sales engagement where we were selling to the CTO of at and t, and I don't mean a group, CTO, I mean the CTO of at t.

And he did not override an individual contributor, a subject matter expert, who was probably six levels, but maybe even eight levels below him. I mean, at and t is a huge organization, right? But this person. Had a very specific remit and responsibility in an area of technology. And unfortunately for us at the time, they had a different view on what our technology could do.

And, and, and basically we couldn't get the deal done. And so you have to understand really who your buyer is, who the buying committee is, and who the decision makers are. So I see many, many, many founders get hung [00:24:00] up over and it's really natural, right? You go to a tech conference and you meet someone from Meta and you meet someone who has a fancy title on their business card.

Well, they don't hand out business cards anymore, but you know, you look 'em up on LinkedIn and you know, and they've been there 10 years and, and, and they come back so excited, convinced that in three months they're gonna close a deal with meta. Only to find out later that, yeah, that person is very important, but they're part of a committee of a group.

Mm-hmm. That they are just one member. And by the way, the other people have a totally different view. And that poor startup beats his head against the wall, beats his head, beats his head, go to meeting after meeting after meeting, thinking, why can't we get this done? This person's so excited. Look at, and it's like, well, because they're not actually a buyer.

They're actually not the buyer. They're not really, now they're an influencer maybe, you know, that's not to say that they, they aren't a [00:25:00] piece of the buying, you know, but they're not. And so startup founders struggle with this. And the goal of marketing, the job of marketing is to, um, is to, the reason why it's important that a marketer understands this, and then that a founder understands it to direct marketing efforts is that, you know, if, if the view is, oh, we sell to vice presidents of, I'm just being generic here, but vice presidents of engineering, of companies from, you know, 500 to 5,000, you know, which again, very common, right?

Like, oh, let's get a persona. You know, the persona well, okay, it is true that your buyer may often have that title, so there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but what function does that person have in the organization? Are they actually. Responsible for, you know, for, um, you know, overseeing the primary engineering function.

Are they operating a little more as a CTO? [00:26:00] Are they, you, you, you know, what is, what is, what's their real function or, you know, for your audience, CTOs, like, is, are they, are they really a technical CTO that's leading engineering? Are they kind of more of a technically minded business person who's, you know, look, you know, like if you don't understand that, you could get stuck thinking, but we, but we've got a meeting with the CTO, we're gonna lock this thing in.

And it's like, no, because actually the person who really makes a decision is over here and has a totally different job title and responsibility, you know? 

Mehmet: Yeah. 

Mark: Can you relate to this 

Mehmet: a lot? A lot. I can, a lot I can mark like, uh. And, you know, like part of this, this is where I tell people usually is that you need to think clean, right?

So, uh, [00:27:00] yeah, I can understand sometimes. And you know, you said, you know, the joke about people who can sell ice to the Eskimos, right? Yeah. Uh, actually I've, I've seen someone on LinkedIn who, who put this as his, uh, yeah. You know? 

Mark: Yeah. So I'm not sure, I'm not sure. You know, on one hand there's in certain, um, environments that would be really cheered and praised, and then another, it's like, well, the, the problem is, is that those sales usually don't stick, you know?

Yeah. So you, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one thing to get the initial po, but then if you don't get the fall on orders or if they wanna return what they bought, you know, like, well, that's not, that's actually not, not so good. Absolutely. So, so. Um, you know, so that's, so, you know, so that's a green light. And then, you know, we can, we, you know, we can keep going.

Uh, you, you can imagine that what happens as you progress on this journey. You know, like I used the streetlight analogy, you know, so, [00:28:00] um, you know, so first of all, y you know, like, can you even really understand? Do you really know? Like what's your technology? Um. Is is whether it's needed, you know, and then can you articulate that?

So that's kinda the very first gate that you have to get through, you know, then you have to do, do you know actually who your buyer is? You know, and, and then you get into some of the more de depending on how technical your product is, you know, then you might get into, you're, you're pretty much then in the realm of almost product marketing, you know, and now you're really like, okay, you know, now, um, we have to make sure that, you know, we, um, have the types of materials available that the customer's gonna need to even make a decision.

You know? Um, this is where I like to call it mapping the buyer's journey. Uh, and the buyer's journey is not just, uh, you know, [00:29:00] looking at, okay, who in the organization are the influencers or the decision makers, you know, that we need to make sure that we convince, um, you know, to buy our product, our solution, our technology.

But it's really like, what's the process like, when does A POC happen? Does A POC even happen? What does A POC look like? What kind of support, you know, do they need from us as the vendor or as the, you know, the company's selling the product? Um, you know, are there multiple POCs? You know, are there different, are there different phases that the POC needs to happen?

Like, that's super important because again, marketing can support the sales process. You know, it can support the sales process by saying, Hey, we know that, that at this certain stage, um. The CFO or someone, you know, with kind of a, a a a financial lens is gonna get involved and say, Hey, I really wanna validate that the claims [00:30:00] that we're gonna save, you know, $10 million a year are true.

You know, um, uh, again, I'm hypothetical making true, but, you know, okay, well then marketing needs to have prepared case studies and support materials and maybe calculators and all of this, and have it be readily accessible, not sort of hidden, you know, and not where a sales rep has to, you know, say, Hey, let me send you the calculator.

Like it should be available on the website. It should be clearly articulated so that when that CFO on a Thursday night is preparing for the Friday meeting and is thinking, gee, you know, I haven't ac like, I wonder if these people's claims are even true and they go to your website. You know, well, all that should be available, but if the marketer doesn't know.

You know, that that's a step that almost every sales engagement's gonna pass through. Maybe they're not creating those materials, you know, and that may not cause you to lose the [00:31:00] deal, but it's certainly gonna make the deal take longer to close, because now the CFO shows up to that Friday morning meeting and says, Hey, you know, we're really excited about this.

We really hope your claims are true. But can you send me, like, I wanna see some case studies. Could you send me some references? Do you have any calculators? You know, and, and it's, you know, it's kind of ridiculous to think that you say, oh yeah, we have all those things. Well, why wasn't that easily available?

So that on Thursday night when the CFO went to the website. They can find it, you know? So 

Mehmet: a lot of things to, um, you know, uncover with you, mark, but I want to start with this one, you know, the, the latest point. Yeah. About how much information is available, which is mainly content, right? Um, is it underrated in your opinion by some, uh, startups, uh, and founders?

And I mean, in a sense, having these use cases is ready. I can [00:32:00] understand when they are new, they don't have this, but we are talking about now, you know, probably they have acquired couple of customers. Exactly. Right? Yeah. So how, how much this you think is underrated? Because honestly, I've seen it, I want to hear your opinion.

Mark: Yeah. 

Mehmet: From, from general content perspective, whether it's the website itself, like use cases on the website, maybe, probably also the tools, like as you mentioned, ROI is a good example also as well, more. You know, and this is something I I would love to hear your opinion on is this thing which started recently, not recently.

It's been there for a while, but I mean, it accelerated, which is like the founder content led, uh, approach also as well. Oh, I, 

Mark: I love to talk about that. Yeah. 

Mehmet: Yeah. So, so, so why all this? I see it underrated. Do you first, do you agree with me and what's the importance also? Yeah. Of all what 

Mark: we, we mentioned, I, I think mome, [00:33:00] I have a little bit of a different, I, I, I don't necessarily, at least I've not met, um, any founders who like, don't get the value of the content.

So maybe you're not exactly saying underrated, like they don't believe it's important. Um, but I guess you can make the case like, well, if they believed it's important, wouldn't they have addressed it? You know, wouldn't they be putting, you know, the resources behind creating the materials? Um, I, I, what I run into is, is to, I run into, um, a little bit of polar opposites, which is kind of interesting, um, interesting that most companies that I engage with now, this is just, you know, this may just be that I'm sort of lucky.

Um, they actually have all of the information and even sometimes. Too much. Although you could say, well, is it really too much? But I mean, they've got it all, but it's so poorly organized or, or it's, um, you know, or it's all like [00:34:00] engineering docs that needs to then be turned into more readable, you know, articles and white papers and you know, application notes and you know, so like the content is there.

I mean, the source is there, sources are there, but it just needs to be turned into something. Now that's a wonderful problem. And like I said, maybe I'm just super lucky because almost every company that I've worked with has been in that category where I've come in, I've said, wow, we really don't. Have a content problem, as in nothing exists.

But what does exist is either just not simply made available, you know, it's hidden so nobody can see it, or it's engineering docs or it's just not written in a way that it's understood. You know? So that's a different, um, where I find the reason I said polar opposites, where I find a startup doesn't have any real material is I've never had somebody sort of say, well, mark is, is this really a good ROI?

[00:35:00] They always sort of sigh and say, we've been dying for the last three years to get to this. We just we're stretched so thin, you know, again, limited resources right. Of a startup. And so, um. I guess I would say this. I would say that if you're a startup founder, you know, or you're working in a startup now and, and you realize you have one of these two problems, like, yeah, you know, we actually have a lot of content, but for some reason our users can never find it.

Or our sales team always complains that, you know, they don't know where things are. Okay. There's some very practical steps that we can take to, you know, to fix that, to remedy that. If it's on the other side where it's like, Ugh, we've been dying to create the content. We know we need to, we know it's really a problem, but we just don't have the time.

Well. You gotta make the time, you know, you have to make the time. And the way to get started is to simply look at the buyer's [00:36:00] journey and pick the most significant, um, area where every one of your deals trips up. You know, so I work, for example, almost exclusively in an area of video technology. It's called Video Encoding.

Um, and so you think like a Netflix is an example, which I'm sure, um, you know, all of your listeners, uh, sure. You know, probably have a subscription or, or you know, or aware of Netflix, any streaming service. There's a very important function that takes, you know, a, a very large video file and compresses it into a much smaller video file so that it can be streamed more smoothly over the internet.

You know, very easy to understand what the process is. Highly technical. Um, but there always is a process when you're selling this type of technology called an encoder, um, that it goes through [00:37:00] an evaluation, which makes sense, right? You would think, okay, somebody wants to both, um, objectively, um, and subjectively measure the performance.

You know, subjective is, you know, I take a file, I use your encoder. I look at it on a TV or on a mobile phone or on some, you know, on a laptop or whatever, and I say. Does that look good to me? You know, obviously it's, it's more complicated than that, but you know, it's like, does that look good? You know, and then there's other, well, it, in the world that I live in, like anybody who's selling this solution needs to have a set of documents around how to set up their product, how to optimize their product, even suggested ways to evaluate their product.

Because if you just turn it over to somebody, they might use the wrong modes. They might use the wrong, you know, there's, there's some parameters that they enter incorrectly and they get a bad result. [00:38:00] You know, and so this is the job of marketing is to make it as easy as possible, because there is nobody who's gonna buy a solution like that, who doesn't wanna see it, you know?

Right. What does it do, you know, even if it's nearly free, you know, because nothing in life is free. So, you know, even if it's like open source, you know, there's a whole evaluation process. So that's an example. So founders need to think about, you know, can just go back if you're, if you're struggling with the fact you have nothing today, or very limited, just think like, okay, there.

And I guarantee for every sales process, there's at least one, there's at least something that, if not 10 out of 10, nine out of 10 buyers are going to wanna validate, you know? So then build a tool, build some content around that, and then that right there is where you get started, and then you just expand out from there.

Mehmet: Cool. Now, mark, because also you mentioned about how the [00:39:00] market is so dynamic nowadays, and we know I can't skip this topic in any of my episodes, which is ai, ai, um, right. So how, you know, in your opinion, um, I can, as a found founder, or we as founding team 

Mark: mm-hmm. 

Mehmet: Utilize what you call it, AI first marketing, right?

Yeah. So we can have, you know, good performance, right? Yeah. And how far. If you want the ai, I can help in all the things that you just mentioned, right? Yeah. So because, you know, um, if you ask people, especially in in tech founders, we don't have time. Like we have bunch of things to do. Of course. Yeah. Right, right.

Which, which is, again, I'm not here to blame anyone fully understand, you know, I've seen that before also. But tell me more about, you know, the, uh, [00:40:00] AI. Powered, uh, marketing and how it can outperform even again with the theme of small teams. 

Mark: Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's interesting. Um, I have always believed in smaller teams beat bigger teams.

So even before, um, the chat GPT moment, yeah. Um, you know, I've just generally found, um, you know, it's just like, um, you know, in in, in the Army there's the army, the, the, the large, you know, what do they call 'em? Platoons or something with a lot of soldiers. And then there's the special forces, you know, which is six or eight.

You know, people who, you know, can go in and do these really difficult missions. And so I've always believed in that whole, you know, I've just found it to be true. You know, when you've got a group of incredibly talented specialists who are very focused together, they can, they can be really, really effective.

Um, but AI is the accelerator to this, you know, [00:41:00] and so here's some things that I found to be true in marketing. When you look at the tools and, you know, it's a whole episode by itself, mom. So, you know, um, we, we, we could, um, uh, you know, have a, have a whole episode just talk about AI and marketing. But what I have found is that, uh, for design, you still need designers.

You know, um, the, the image generation tools are very cool. They're very powerful. They make for wonderful demos. And I'm not saying that there isn't a place for them and they can't be useful. Um, but generally speaking, you still need designers. You know, they're not there yet. Now. Um, AI is wonderful for taking unstructured data and turning it into white papers.

Blog posts, um, articles, you know, um, uh, all all kinds of things. Social media posts, you know, all kinds of things. And [00:42:00] that in combination with a human, you know, I call it human in the loop, um, is, is just like rocket fuel, you know? And so for founders, actually, I think founders are in a perfect position to use these tools because a founder, a again.

Your audience and the founders I work with are technical, which means that, you know, they're very drawn to these tools. You know, there's probably, they're, they're probably already somewhat experts, you know? Mm-hmm. In using a lot of the LLMs. Um, so you don't need to teach 'em prompting. You don't, you know, like, like, like they, you know, they already know that, um, they may not be experts in marketing, but guess what?

These tools with the right prompts and with, you know, the kind of a little bit of guidance can produce an amazing result that certainly maybe a true expert marketer could have produced a little bit of a better ol result. But I'll bet you what a [00:43:00] founder who doesn't really know too much about marketing, but does understand the tools can get, is better than a lot of marketers that, that, that are out in the market today.

You know? Um, so. We, you know, we can, we can talk more about maybe some of the specifics about how you do that, but I really just suggest don't be shy. And don't be shy to get started with something as simple as you have a PRD. You know, and as long as that PRD is sufficiently detailed about the product, um.

Feed the PRD into your model of choice. I'll tell you, I love Gemini 2.5 Pro. Um, it is, it, it's my, uh, really my go-to. Mm-hmm. Um, chat, GPT, um, five five oh pro and now 5.1 was just released and. I think yesterday or maybe today even. Um, so, you know, so, uh, chat [00:44:00] GPT is, is very, very effective, um, for writing.

Clot has its place. I use it a, I use it a little bit less. Um, I'm using perplexity to do research, um, perplexity Pro, uh, to do research. But if we go back to Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude 5.0 Pro or 5.1, um, um, you know, feed at the PRD and write a prompt. That is obviously a little more detailed than what I'm gonna speak here, but, you know, that is, you know, um, uh, I am a, um, you know, product marketer for, um, you know, name of your company, um, you know, for this product.

And give just a one sentence description of the product. Um, hopefully it's on your website, you know, hopefully there's a little bit of, you know, of information, you know, that can be found online. I'm giving you the PRD, I would like to write a blog post that introduces, you know, this [00:45:00] solution with the core audience being, you know, and then fill in one of your ICPs, you know, so again, you have to give it enough detail and context, but it doesn't have to be an 18 page prompt, you know, and you will be absolutely shocked at what you'll get back.

You know, and then this is the human in the loop. You have to read it. Don't just copy and paste and post it on LinkedIn, you know, or on the website. But read it, you know, there'll be some things where you're like, oh, you know, yeah, that actually makes sense. But, you know, we're not in that market yet. Or, you know, and you modify it.

But, um, I'll, I'll tell you, it's my secret, um, you know, secret weapon, which is not so secret because everybody I work with knows that I am AI first and AI powered, you know, but it's, it's how I can be as effective as I am. 

Mehmet: Right Mark, in your opinion, um, other than content and, you know, generating [00:46:00] probably, you know, as you said, of course, no copy and paste, uh, any other part of the GTM, do you think that they can kind of, let's say, rely on AI for it?

Like we, we started to see, you know, AI SDRs for example. Mm-hmm. And like from marketing perspective and the GTM, you know what, what it, let me ask this way, which make it maybe easier. Yeah. Which part should always stay human? 

Mark: Um, well, I think. You know, I was, I it's a very good que That's actually a great question.

I, I don't think I've actually been asked the question that way. You know, I've been asked this question from a different angle, but which, which parts of marketing should stay human and, and all the tasks. I was thinking about this the other day and, um, I was thinking about in the context of what is the, what is [00:47:00] my role today?

Mm-hmm. You know, um, I'm even, uh, investing in building AI tools now. Um, at the moment I've decided not to, you know, like build a software company around it. So I'm not building some sort of a marketing, uh, you know, tools, software company who knows, maybe one day it'll turn into that. Um, but I'm building them for my own use and the use of the companies I work, work with and for and, and, um, so I was thinking about this and I.

The conclusion I came to is that I'm a, I'm, I'm acting more like a curator today. I'm acting like a curator. And if you think about it, um, you know, I happen to, you know, like DJ music, um, being a musician, which might be a little counterintuitive. I still very, you know, I still play and, and all, but, you know, I actually really enjoy, you know, listening to a good dj.

And if you think about what a DJ does, whether it's in a, just a traditional [00:48:00] nightclub or if it's in some other setting, but they're a curator of music, like, like a good one. You know? Now there's plenty that are, you know, they're just kind of playing the same stuff over and over, right? But the really good ones, when you go and you leave the club or you know, you leave the, the lounge or whatever, and you're like, wow, that was just so good.

It's because they were masterfully. Choosing and curating the styles and then blending 'em together and mixing it together. So there was this whole new experience that was created from what was otherwise just a whole string of single songs, which you could have obviously just hit play on, and then that one ended and hit play on the next one and play on the next one.

And you might have still enjoyed on some level the music, you know, but it would not have been the full experience of the way it was mixed together and blended and you know, all of that. And I think that that is the human part with ai [00:49:00] and the analogy that I would say the curation is there isn't today almost anything significant that I write with the models that hasn't gone through multiple models.

And interestingly enough, it's not like I have a workflow that says, okay, I have a prompt, you know, for a blog post, right? That starts in Gemini 2.5 Pro, and then I take it into chat, GPT, and then I take it back, and then I let gr do something. And then, you know, it's not a, it's that, it's, it's in real time in the moment as I'm read, as I'm reading, you know, and as I'm analyzing, I'm looking at the output.

I know what I'm looking for and I am, and I'm constantly adjusting. And then at some point it's fingers on the keyboard, right? And so that's the curation process. And so I think where you're just not gonna be [00:50:00] able to replace the human that is for the highest level. Um, in other words, the content where people say, wow, that was brilliant.

Um, you know, I think we're gonna quickly, we're, I think we're already at a place where the LLMs can produce. Wow. That was good. Yeah. But not brilliant, you know? No. Like, I routinely find myself saying, wow, that is good. You know, when I, when I get an output, um, in fact, now I almost always do, so I don't tell myself that.

'cause it's like, okay, I expect that. Right. You know? But I still do not say, wow, that's brilliant. You know? Mm-hmm. Um, I'm still then, you know, either putting fingers on the keyboard and you, you know, and editing it, or I'm saying, huh, I wonder if I added more context here and if I brought, you know, if I asked it to do some research in this direction, you know?

And then we're continuing to refine it. And so that's what I find is that's the [00:51:00] human in the loop, you know? And I just don't see, we are a long ways away, uh, from where we're gonna get to that, where it's just push button and it's gonna be That's brilliant. And like the human could, can literally cannot improve any further.

I think we're, I think we're, we're a long ways away from 

Mehmet: that. Yeah. And I think to your point Mark also as well, because here, where the feedback loop would play a role, because even if, yeah, I say, wow, this is brilliant. Maybe this is for me. I would go and put it out there and. I don't see the interaction or the results that I'm waiting for.

Right. Yeah. So in my opinion, this is where the human aspect would, would come and, you know, feed this feedback loop back there. Maybe this is my own thought on this. I, I think you wanted to say something there. 

Mark: Well, I, I was gonna, I, I was gonna tell you about a conversation I had, um, sure. Just last week, which [00:52:00] is, which, which dovetails into what you just said.

And also one of the very interesting, um, pitfalls of AI content. So, um, a couple of years ago, um, you know, AI loved to talk about landscapes and, you know, everything, you know, there were, there were just these words that, that it would use, it would write that you're kind of like. Okay. I know consultants write that way, but like the rest of us don't, you know, and so it ime and then next thing you know, everything on LinkedIn was written in, in the same way.

And you're just like, okay, this is chat GPT and then came the M dashes, you know, the little dash between words and M dash were all over the place. Now, interestingly enough, the M dash, you know, there's sort of this little, uh, you know, funny little, um, uh, you know, war, um, between marketers and writers because m dashes are completely legitimate, you know, in English.

Um, [00:53:00] completely legitimate, um, grammatical. Um, mark, you know, I mean, completely legitimate. They have a very defined space. There are some authors that use them quite effectively. It's a major part of the writing. And so these people really upset, like, now I can't use M dashes 'cause people think it's like Chad Tvt wrote it.

You know, the, the interesting thing is, is the models have now progressed so far that they no longer use all these AI words. They no longer use M dashes. Only very occasionally do I have to remove them, and I still do just because people just, it's just sort of ingrained in them. Like they c and m Dash, I go, oh, this must have been chat GPT, you know?

So, um, so, um. So what, what what happens is, um, is it, um, you've got this, um, you, you've, you, you've got the machine writing this perfect output. And the conversation I had last week [00:54:00] was, um, I was talking to one of the LinkedIn influencers. Um, I think, uh, LinkedIn has a special program. There's only like, I don't know, 300 people in it.

And like the whole world. And these are the, you know, top voices across, you know, different things. I don't know how they choose 'em, but, um, I actually, um, co-host a podcast with this person. And, um, so he was telling me about some conversations that he, he was having with the LinkedIn marketing team and, or excuse me, the product team, not the marketing team.

And so I was sort of lamenting that, you know, some of my impressions were down and, you know, like, oh yeah, I, I'm like, you know what's, like, what's going on? So he was looking at my profile and he made this really interesting observation, which at first I'm like, what are you like, like what are you talking about?

That's not a bad thing. He said, mark, he said, he said, your, your writing's too nice. 

Mehmet: Said, oh yeah, 

Mark: he said, like, he said, like, [00:55:00] like I look at it and it's, it's incredibly well written. You're, you're making very clear points, but it's just too nice. And LinkedIn and the social networks, but especially LinkedIn wants it be provocative.

Like, like say that you think somebody, or not somebody, but something is crazy, you know, say that you can't believe and here's how you would've done it different or like, like be provocative, you know. And then I started thinking back about, um, you know, and this isn't because I am only using LLMs to write on LinkedIn, although a lot of posts, you know, get.

Initially sparked there, you know, or started, but I started thinking about, wow, that's human. Like the machines naturally want to kind of be kind and friendly and you know, like they wanna, you know, but you know, like humans, you know, sometimes, you know, maybe I'm just not in the best mood and, you know, and I see something, it kind of [00:56:00] strikes me wrong and I wanna right with a little more, I don't know, you know, angst, you know, and, uh, and yeah.

And so I would do that as a human right. But an LLM, you know, it's gonna right in this very precise, very, and there's something about humans that can just pick up on that, you know, like can just, you know, we just, there's just something that causes us to read that post. That's nice. And. Maybe nearly perfect.

And then that post that maybe the grammar's a little off. Maybe there's even a misspelling, but yet it's like, but that's human. Right. You know? And so it just, again, it got me thinking based on this conversation, you know, like, wow. Um, now of course it got me also thinking like. I wonder if, you know, I need to change my prompts, you know?

So, because, you know, LLMs can be provocative and you can even ask them to punch up, you know, and Yeah. Yeah. And they will, and, [00:57:00] and I've written some posts, you know, where I use the punch up in, in the prompt and, and you know, it makes a difference, you know? 

Mehmet: Absolutely. I hope that someone, uh, I'm not sure, you know, hope, uh, only someone from LinkedIn, uh, product team is listening, or if someone knows someone there, I think they need.

But Mark, honestly, this is my personal view again, like I respect. You know, each company has the right to do what they think is right to them. You know, I, I can't, uh, I can't criticize for the sake of criticizing, but you know, my biggest, uh, concern here is because of this approach you just mentioned. It's like the old style newspaper, right?

So to sell the newspaper they used to put, you know, or these magazines, they put these provocative, um, sens. Yeah. And still they do it on their websites. Oh. Like, this is what happened, you know, next And question. Yeah. Come on. Like, you know, like the click, I call it the clickbait, uh, 

Mark: click clickbait. [00:58:00] Yeah.

Yeah. 

Mehmet: You know, like, you can you, let's remember altogether and you know, maybe from a marketer perspective, you'd agree with me, mark. Uh, like, you know, every time these things became over, they were, you know, outperformed by someone who disrupt this. And yeah, I'm expecting and a lot of voices in, in, in, you know, at least in the tech industry.

And, you know, in, in, you know, anything around the tech industry like VCs, uh, investors, you know, operators, they're complaining sometimes in silence sometime publicly. And I'm expecting, you know, if LinkedIn doesn't do something about it, they don't remove the guy probably who they have hired from Instagram.

You know, this might just out, you know, like someone, some, someone gonna do something about it. Yeah. But anyway, this is, this is, this is. 

Mark: Well, you know, um, so I, I heard also something else from, uh, from a, a pretty [00:59:00] major, uh, actually very major platform company in the video space. I was talking to one of their marketers a couple weeks ago.

And, um, and it's sort of re and it's sort of related to this, uh, in a way, um, you know how, uh, we've always heard, um, don't sell the features, sell the benefits. Mm-hmm. Well, this guy said, and this guy runs, um, he's, he's on the primarily paid acquisition side of the marketing team, so he's running ads. He's, um, you know, um, he didn't tell me what his budget is, but you know, this is a, this is a public company, you know, very significant company, and so I'm sure he is spending, you know, hundreds of thousands, thousands of dollars, probably millions a year, you know, on paid advertising.

And he said, you know what we found, we found that nobody cares anymore about the benefits. Mm-hmm. [01:00:00] They want the features. And whenever we run a benefit like AD or something that's really around, you know, like, save, you know, 25%, you know, or, or, you know, or get this benefit, they don't perform as well as when we say, here's what this product does, 1, 2, 3.

Hmm. You know, and when he first said it, you know, my just, you know, the knee jerk, you know, it's like the doctor with a little hammer on your knee, you know, and the knee kind of, you know, my first is like, well that's, you know, that can't be right. You know, it was like my, I found my, my brain kind of going there.

And then I very quickly corrected myself and I commented back to him. I said, you know, you are so right, because we are so inundated with messages today. Buyers are just, I, I mean, you know, LinkedIn, uh, um, you know, through ai, et cetera, all the AI generation, there's so much [01:01:00] out there they're saying. Tell me what this can do so that I can make a decision about a very specific problem that I need to solve.

Don't gimme some high level fluffy. Now, what I'm not saying, and it's not like I've gone and adjusted all my strategies to not talk about benefits. Of course you still need to educate the market, you know, why, you know, what are the benefits, which translates to ROI, but getting back to making it easy for someone to make a decision, and I just thought that was really profound.

And it was interesting to hear from a guy who's tasked was spending large sums of money on advertising. And guess what He knows because he has the data to show it. You know, when he says the fluffy stuff, they don't get the ROI and the response when he just gives the, the data, the facts. To get the ROI, you know, and I went, wow.

Okay. 

Mehmet: Very, very interesting. Yeah. [01:02:00] Isn't that interesting? It's, it's very, very interesting. It's very, very interesting. Yeah. Mark, really, you know, like the conversation can, can stay, we can keep going and I 

Mark: know we're already over time, I think so that's okay. Bearing with me. 

Mehmet: No, no problem. Just final a thing, you know, where people can get in touch if they want to learn more about you, the services you offer, so where they can find out more.

Mark: Yeah, sure. So I am@growthstage.marketing. Um, that's my website. Uh, so it's growth stage.marketing. It's a.marketing domain. Um, also if you just search for Mark Donogan on LinkedIn, you'll, you'll, you'll find me. I'm very easy to find. So very active on 

Mehmet: LinkedIn. Great. I'll make the life easy for the audience.

So, as usual, the links to the website at Mark's profile on LinkedIn will be available in the show notes. If you're listening on your favorite podcasting app, you'll find them there. If you lis, if you're watching [01:03:00] this on YouTube, you will see them in description. Mark. Again, I can't thank you enough. Like this is very, very, uh, I would say, uh, provocative in a way.

That's great. Yeah, in a positive sense, of course. Because, you know, I think everyone, and you know, I remember I worked with a company before where, you know, their motto was like, everyone, uh, sells, right? Yeah. And I'm, I'm a big believer in this, and everyone can be, uh, you know, can, should market also as well, because Right.

I, I'm. I, I, I'm an engineer, right? Like, uh, and I was in, in, in tech roles, and then I shifted to sales roles. But, uh, what I figured out there is nothing without marketing. Like, if you don't have marketing, to your point that you made during the episode, like even if you really can sell ice to the Eskimos at some stage to scale, you need marketing.

You need 

Mark: marketing. That's right. 

Mehmet: Yeah. You, yeah. You, you need to amplify, you know, [01:04:00] your voice. And only, and only marketing can do this. So, that's right. Again, mark, I really enjoyed, uh, as I said, the links will be in the show notes, and this is to my audience. This is how I end my episodes. Uh, if you just discovered us, thank you for passing by.

I hope you enjoyed it. Uh, if you did, give me a favor, subscribe, share with your friends and colleagues, and if you are one of the loyal fans, the people who keeps coming again and again, thank you very much for the support for, you know, keeping the podcast this year, 2025. Raising in the top 200 Apple Podcast charts in the entrepreneurship category in different countries.

So I see, you know, the charts always keep moving, uh, flag colors, so I'm happy for that. Thank you for the support wherever you are in the world. And as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.