The Transaction

TT - GTM Tailwinds - Carilu Dietrich & Maya Spivak - Full Session
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Carilu Dietrich: [00:00:00] The real problem that earlier stage companies have is they don't need advice. They need be able to do the [00:00:05] work. And you know, I'm seeing head nods 'cause that's how I was [00:00:10] too. and so a lot of times, like a lot of my advisory is just in introducing you to the [00:00:15] people that I would trust. And so I brought Maya because I can give a lot of really good [00:00:20] advice and I would go to Maya and be like, no, make this all happen. So what we're gonna talk about today [00:00:25] is how to get momentum.

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Craig Rosenberg: [00:00:30] [00:00:35] [00:00:40] [00:00:45] [00:00:50] We, uh, invited Carilu Dietrich, who's on the far end here, went into the crowd who is [00:00:55] a, uh, in our description on the video. Did you see? We said, I said CMO advisor to the [00:01:00] stars.

Carilu Dietrich: Oh, awesome.

Craig Rosenberg: That's the way you're often described. That is true. So, [00:01:05] yeah, she, um, took Atlassian public, it's her first thing on your LinkedIn, so I don't know if [00:01:10] Christina's still here when she was talking about stuff.

Craig Rosenberg: And then, um, but now has. Been [00:01:15] advising companies founders and Go-To-Market executives a [00:01:20] lot at a in a given year. And as especially sort of, you know, as her [00:01:25] clientele has gotten towards the newer times, has a lot of relevant [00:01:30] innovations that she's learned over the last year is where every time I talk to her, I learn new [00:01:35] things, which by the way is awesome for someone who's an og, like Carilu.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:01:40] So it's really great. So we said, Carilu, can you come? And she moved her flight around and she said. Hey, I've got this [00:01:45] idea. I apologize. I've just met her just now. Great handshake. [00:01:50] Um, so it's Maya Spiva, and so Carilu's like, I've got the perfect [00:01:55] person to bring on with us, and it's Maya, and we're like, yep, bring it on.

Craig Rosenberg: So that's. Our [00:02:00] next conversation we're gonna have is on marketing that works in, um, today's [00:02:05] environment. And that's why Matt is so excited. So welcome, Kalu and Maya.

Carilu Dietrich: Thank you. [00:02:10] Yeah, thank you.[00:02:15]

Carilu Dietrich: And a big double thank you for Craig for making crazy things happen all the [00:02:20] time, bringing all of us together and making ideas out of like out of the air. So big [00:02:25] round of applause.

Craig Rosenberg: So nice. See [00:02:30] why I stayed on stage. I'm like, James, you're gonna have to sit down. I'm gonna need another compliment. [00:02:35] Um, so, uh, yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: So do you guys, well first of all, it was really [00:02:40] interesting when we said welcome. You guys almost spoke at the same time. You don't have to do that. Yeah. You guys didn't [00:02:45] break

Carilu Dietrich: it. We're gonna sing in harmony at the end. This is our karaoke time.

Craig Rosenberg: Um, [00:02:50] but I do want to see, do you guys have a good. Uh, funny. [00:02:55] B2B, Go-To-Market story for us.

Craig Rosenberg: You ready? Is it combined?

Carilu Dietrich: We are ready. It's not [00:03:00] combined.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, good. Yeah. Well we like that. Yeah. Oh geez.

Carilu Dietrich: And hers might be funnier than mine. We did some [00:03:05] slides with each show. I guess I'll just say I was at Atlassian and I advise both [00:03:10] cool kids and not cool kids because cool kids don't really need you and not cool kids.[00:03:15]

Carilu Dietrich: Really need you and work really hard. So I totally agree with what Christina said about some of [00:03:20] the best marketers are in really challenging roles because it's when the, [00:03:25] um, the waves aren't lifting you forward. And I can really see that [00:03:30] right now across all these AI companies because, um, I advise the lovable, [00:03:35] um, earlier this year, and Maya, uh, we brought Mayan to help with a lot of the brand work that we did.[00:03:40]

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and lovable is on this wave that is very much like the Atlassian wave [00:03:45] and everyone's like, it's your next Atlassian, um, where, you know, the, the road is, [00:03:50] is being built before you. Um, and in some ways the marketing is [00:03:55] less difficult, um, than when you're really trying to like figure out [00:04:00] how to set up all the systems and be really efficient and really drive demand instead of just collect demand.[00:04:05]

Carilu Dietrich: Um, so I think the funny story I was gonna tell. Is that almost everything I've done that has [00:04:10] been viral. I had no idea it was gonna go viral. Um, and [00:04:15] I think it's just a testament, I'll share a couple of the examples, but it's just a testament to the fact that, [00:04:20] um, you know, you just keep trying and putting things out there and sometimes things are [00:04:25] magical and sometimes the things you thought weren't gonna be magical, um, [00:04:30] sorry, were gonna be magical, aren't, and it's really just the long game.

Carilu Dietrich: And then also I have a [00:04:35] substack@carrielou.com. And so I made all these friends with people who are, have [00:04:40] amazing substack, like Lenny and all these other folks. And basically we have this ongoing [00:04:45] conversation that going viral actually doesn't help you that much. Um, what you really see is that [00:04:50] consistency over a long period of time is what builds both pipeline and.

Carilu Dietrich: [00:04:55] Followers on Substack. So the funny one was, um, that we, [00:05:00] I, I don't know, I guess one of the funny ones is that, uh, lovable two most viral tweets in the [00:05:05] first year of life, um, were offhanded comments by the CEO when they [00:05:10] were really small. Um, offering to buy Figma, like just secured the funding to buy Figma [00:05:15] when they were like seed stage and they got like 4 million follower or 4 million likes on [00:05:20] Twitter.

Carilu Dietrich: And then another one where Figma had, um. Sent a letter [00:05:25] of a cease and desist for calling something developer mode, and they [00:05:30] posted the actual letter on Twitter to just like rant at an off time. Like, I [00:05:35] can't believe they're trying to protect dev mode. And like Twitter exploded. Of course to [00:05:40] say that that was a ridiculous, big company thing and it shouldn't own dev mode.

Carilu Dietrich: [00:05:45] So all these things, um, that you don't expect, um, that someday go viral, [00:05:50] um, mean just keep at it.

Matt Amundson: Those were bound to go viral.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, [00:05:55] uh, those seem sound like viral tweaks now that you say it, but they were just off.

Carilu Dietrich: I mean, [00:06:00] definitely what I learned working with lovable is that rage bait is the best form of social media [00:06:05] momentum, which is something that most companies, founders and certainly like late [00:06:10] stage public com, um, pre IPO or public companies can't really do the same way as early [00:06:15] stage startups.

Carilu Dietrich: But I mean, I think. All the time, you'll put something out and be like, this is gonna be [00:06:20] it. And, and it doesn't really work. So again, different, different story that's the same. [00:06:25] Um, I, I publish on my sub staff almost every week, so almost every week I'm publishing on [00:06:30] LinkedIn. And one time I, I wanted to run this course that's like a executive speaking [00:06:35] course to speak simply.

Carilu Dietrich: Uh, and so I posted on LinkedIn 'cause I needed eight [00:06:40] more people to join the course because, um, I had to upfront. [00:06:45] The money for 30 seats. And my clients were gonna take this course and I was like, Hey, I need eight more [00:06:50] seats. And I got 847 people that wanted to join the class, and it turned [00:06:55] out to be my most viral tweet ever.

Carilu Dietrich: So again, like you never know. Oh, if you ask people to [00:07:00] comment and then they all comment, like, download the book. And I'll tell you on [00:07:05] LinkedIn, I just like accidentally stumbled into it. So I think like we should buy [00:07:10] Figma as like something guys banter around the office, not. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Carilu Dietrich: Plan. [00:07:15] Oh, there it is.

Carilu Dietrich: Those are the famous tweets. Figma says, we can't use the word Deb mode in [00:07:20] lovable. Um, okay. Yes, yours. Oh, thank you.

Maya Spivak: Hello [00:07:25] everybody. My name's Maya Spiva. I have spent the last three years running a brand [00:07:30] marketing agency where I work primarily with small startups. And [00:07:35] sometimes very large startups like lovable, just wrapped up a nine month engagement.[00:07:40]

Maya Spivak: Right now I'm working with, um, Lang Chain Llama Index. [00:07:45] Uh, high touch and base 10. So a lot of the AI [00:07:50] ads that in San Francisco, people really love to comment on [00:07:55] if you're reading the news, they love to hate them. If you're talking to people in our [00:08:00] industry, they love to love them. So it's a little bit of both sides.

Maya Spivak: I work with, um, a a [00:08:05] lot of those teams. So I'm a brand marketer. That's what I [00:08:10] love and I think it really started for me at Segment. I joined [00:08:15] Segment when it was about 60 people and I stayed five and a half more years until there were 700 [00:08:20] of us and we got acquired by Twilio. One thing that was funny that happened to [00:08:25] us was our very first brand, um, spend on out of [00:08:30] home.

Maya Spivak: Went slightly viral. And the reason is because, see [00:08:35] now it's been 10 years since, since this particular post happened, but [00:08:40] 10 years ago or now, everyone's talking about, oh, the AI billboards, they don't make any [00:08:45] sense. The New York Times is writing about how people can't decipher them. The SF standards is [00:08:50] writing about it.

Maya Spivak: NPR last week was writing about it. I can't believe everybody still wants to talk about [00:08:55] the same thing, that nobody understands them or everybody understands them. But [00:09:00] 10 years ago, it was kind of funny that we wanted to make a point [00:09:05] about what good is. Bad data segment is a customer [00:09:10] data platform. It's no good if your data is bad, right?

Maya Spivak: Everybody's heard this [00:09:15] before. Garbage in, garbage out. You know the platitudes, you know the idioms. So [00:09:20] we were playing with the idioms. What good is bad data? It's not good at all. Wouldn't it [00:09:25] be a great demonstration of how bad, bad data is? If we put up [00:09:30] billboards inside of San Francisco that said, good morning la, and just like [00:09:35] shocked people on their commute, like, what?

Maya Spivak: Before their coffee, what is going [00:09:40] on? That's what we expected to happen, but we didn't expect that enough [00:09:45] people would just not get it. And one, and [00:09:50] what I mean by that is. People genuinely thought we made a real mistake, [00:09:55] and people were like, you know, the, the, the good friends who don't want to embarrass you, [00:10:00] they text you on the side.

Maya Spivak: They're like, you know, you have a typo in your big ass billboard on the side of the [00:10:05] 80 East. And then there are other ones who are like famous actors who I [00:10:10] definitely had a crush on when I watched the entire series called Greek. [00:10:15] Anybody. His name was Capy. He's big in Hallmark channel. [00:10:20] Now, I don't know if you watch Hallmark movies.

Maya Spivak: This definitely looks like a crowd of Hallmark movie [00:10:25] watchers. But he's kind of a big zeal on that stage. His name [00:10:30] is Scott Foster, which is why he was attracted to this billboard in LA where he [00:10:35] lives that says, good Morning sf. But he also didn't get it and he tweeted [00:10:40] like, Hey guys, like did you mean to put this in la?

Maya Spivak: I'm genuinely confused. And the [00:10:45] best part of that story was how many of his fans fan girls like [00:10:50] me got into the comments and were like. My bro, you just don't get it. If you [00:10:55] were a data person, you would get it and they were explaining to him and then there was this whole flood of commentary. And [00:11:00] that's probably the best thing that has happened to me on one of my brain campaigns.

Maya Spivak: Can't wait [00:11:05] for, for another instance like this, like 10 years later.

Carilu Dietrich: I mean, we gotta give her a round of applause 'cause [00:11:10] she plans.

Matt Amundson: I will say it wasn't a [00:11:15] great day for me that morning, um, because my boss was like, why can't you have marketing [00:11:20] like this? And I remember it very distinctly when this went viral.

Matt Amundson: I was working in a company called [00:11:25] EverString and JJ Cardwell, who was the CEO at the time was like. That's the type of marketing we [00:11:30] need.

Carilu Dietrich: Yeah. I, I, I, again, my, my virality has all been [00:11:35] all like unexpected things when you do everything and yours like paid off from the start. So high five on that. [00:11:40]

Craig Rosenberg: Also, Matt is a huge Hallmark channel, big time Don.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:11:45] He has Josh, God Foster, he follows him on Insta. That was great. Great story. Top line, [00:11:50]

Matt Amundson: top five, sorry.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, for sure. With the visuals too. Huge. So what do you [00:11:55] guys got for us? Give us, um, some things that you're seeing working in the market today and, [00:12:00] uh, clearly you guys are gonna have some fun doing it.

Carilu Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I brought Maya along because I think for [00:12:05] early stage companies, uh, you know, I do a lot of that advisory. Um, we're, I'll [00:12:10] go and work with the CMO and, and say how. Um, you know, how do we help scale [00:12:15] faster? What happens at the next rate, um, the next stage? And that's really useful when there's homegrown [00:12:20] talent or when there's, um, a VP that's been hired, um, who, who maybe is a [00:12:25] first time VP and hasn't, um, run all the functions before.

Carilu Dietrich: But the real problem that [00:12:30] earlier stage companies have is they don't need advice. They need be able to do the work. And you [00:12:35] know, I'm seeing head nods 'cause that's how I was too. Um, and [00:12:40] so a lot of times, like a lot of my advisory is just in introducing you to the people that I would [00:12:45] trust. And so I brought Maya because I can give a lot of really good advice and I would go [00:12:50] to Maya and be like, no, make this all happen.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, so what we're gonna talk about today is [00:12:55] how to get momentum. And the very first thing that gets go good momentum [00:13:00] is it's still the same. Great products that actually work and get word of mouth love. [00:13:05] And if we go through everything, you know, linear, um, the reason I know about [00:13:10] linear is because all the cool kids that I talk to are like, have you used this?

Carilu Dietrich: It works really well. Like the [00:13:15] whole, this is gonna replace Atlassian is a real thing that just people talking to me had. So it's [00:13:20] not how much money they're spending on marketing. So I just always wanna start here 'cause nothing has changed in [00:13:25] the world of ai. That is different from great products that serve [00:13:30] people's needs that people love, um, and talk about.

Carilu Dietrich: And that goes [00:13:35] to also to just having fantastic content, right? Like, you know, there's a lot of [00:13:40] great ways to use ai, but at the end of the day, making great content that's practical, [00:13:45] helpful and insightful. So. Next. What, what is everything [00:13:50] old is new again, but still new is edutainment. So like, what I would think [00:13:55] was worked about your billboards is that they were entertaining.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and when you look [00:14:00] around, you know, we're like still in the age of billboards. Every founder wants to have their billboards in [00:14:05] San Francisco, but what really stands out is sunny and entertaining. So do you wanna talk about some of the recent [00:14:10] campaigns? There's all sorts of campaigns for sure.

Maya Spivak: So I, I wanna give credit to post [00:14:15] hoc.

Maya Spivak: Um. Because two years ago in 2024, how many of you [00:14:20] saw this the first campaign, which was like, have you been harmed by a B2B? You [00:14:25] know, whatever. It took too long to get the pricing from the pricing page. You've seen them rolling around the [00:14:30] city. That campaign and the way that they executed it was so [00:14:35] like surprising that two years ago.

Maya Spivak: I remember people, [00:14:40] uh, because I'm a brand marketer and, and I talked to other marketers and VCs and whoever, the, [00:14:45] the only thing they wanted to talk to me about that month was, have you seen the post hog thing? Have you seen [00:14:50] the post hog campaign? What do you think of the post hog campaign because it's so quirky.

Maya Spivak: It was [00:14:55] so out there and it's so new that they put their CEO or their co [00:15:00] CEO co-founder on the board. He has a mustache. So they made him [00:15:05] look like, you know, one of the injury brothers. And, and, and you know, they [00:15:10] really went big with it. Yes. It's that guy. So here's the thing that [00:15:15] I, the reason I put those two back to back, if you just go back one post hog in [00:15:20] general is.

Maya Spivak: Leading the way in terms of [00:15:25] being bold and quirky and out there and, uh, and [00:15:30] big and loud. And founders see that and they're like, [00:15:35] wow, we should do the same thing. Like we, we wanna be like post hog. If I had [00:15:40] a dollar for every time somebody said that, it's the new, we should do our marketing like [00:15:45] stripe, or we wanna do design like Stripe.

Maya Spivak: Like that was the 10 years ago thing that you would hear all the time. [00:15:50] We wanna do our brand marketing campaigns like Post Hoc. The One Life Gives you lemons. Who's Your [00:15:55] Daddy? Like that is just crazy big and out there, but this was 20, 24. [00:16:00] Now if you go to the next slide. They brought it back. It's 2026.

Maya Spivak: This is [00:16:05] on the street right now. They updated it a little bit, I suspect, to make this [00:16:10] design very overlapping with the injury attorneys in the [00:16:15] area with Sweet James, with um, and Fong. [00:16:20] With the injury brothers, like literally people are nodding because we see these ads [00:16:25] all over the place. Why would they bring it back?

Maya Spivak: It must mean something is working. [00:16:30] And so if I can, I guess, skip to the part where you're like, what does that mean not to do? [00:16:35] If you go to the, the slide that, uh, shows like, don't do this. [00:16:40] Do not assume that because it [00:16:45] works like something about edutainment, something about accusing [00:16:50] people of being, um, injured by something.

Maya Spivak: It [00:16:55] just because it works for post hog that they brought it back. It's gonna work for you. There's an out on a [00:17:00] bus. I took it three days ago. I sincerely hope nobody from this particular company [00:17:05] is sitting in this room right now. It's um called. Sense data [00:17:10] or something like this. It says, have you been injured by a DB query?

Maya Spivak: You need better [00:17:15] something or other. And its colors are the same, its [00:17:20] format is the same. The structure of the prompt is the same, so they're just biting on [00:17:25] somebody else's creative. Don't do them. We were asked to, uh, [00:17:30] to, to say things that you should do, but also things that you shouldn't do. [00:17:35] Don't take away this like blanket of uh, just because this particular [00:17:40] message is landing in one way, it is definitely gonna land for us too.

Maya Spivak: And also [00:17:45] don't bite other people's campaigns 'cause it doesn't look good. It doesn't look right. Um, we'll [00:17:50] come back to the other stuff not to do.

Carilu Dietrich: That sounds great. So I would say, you know, one of the things that [00:17:55] always irritated me, I worked for a big company, so I ran awareness advertising for Oracle and it's would be like, [00:18:00] if it's less than a million dollars, don't come to my office, um, and do all these extensive [00:18:05] stuff out of home.

Carilu Dietrich: And then I've worked for tiny companies where I was like, okay, well we have [00:18:10] $0. So let me call every conference 17 times and see if I can get [00:18:15] my CEO to speak. 'cause that's our advertising campaign. And so one of the things I think is [00:18:20] interesting is we just shared billboards, but really creativity can come in in all sorts of different, [00:18:25] um, colors and sizes.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and I think social media's really democratize things there. Again, [00:18:30] because you can kind of go viral for something that is witty and entertaining. So these [00:18:35] aren't also, I'm gonna share some more ideas, but they're not, these aren't small spend either, but what I like about 'em [00:18:40] is the idea behind it could be, um, taken to other things.

Carilu Dietrich: So, um, have any of you guys been at [00:18:45] RSA this week? Oh my God. Did you guys think RSA was like the [00:18:50] Super Bowl of event activations? Like that show floor was hands down [00:18:55] the best show floor I've ever been on. Like, the booth were so crazy. There was a game everywhere. [00:19:00] There was this one game. I haven't ever played it before, but I wanna buy one from my house.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, from, from [00:19:05] whoever it was, from Sentinel One. Um, it had like all these, it was like the, um, [00:19:10] when you hit the. Whack-a-Mole Whackamole, Whack-a-Mole. But it was a two player [00:19:15] game with lighting things and these guys are playing it. So there's noise and there's colors and there's lights and like, [00:19:20] um, I don't know.

Carilu Dietrich: Uh, J Frog had this like wall that was all [00:19:25] little tiny, like stress ball frogs. And I was like, that's so cute. And then I came around the corner and they made a [00:19:30] custom frogger game with like a, a frog as the like mover. And it's this like [00:19:35] just immersive and fun and edutainment. Um, and then Commvault, a company [00:19:40] that I'm advising had, um, a wrestling ring and these wrestlers.

Carilu Dietrich: And then the best part [00:19:45] was, it was an actual demo of resilience operations, um, [00:19:50] technical things. He's like, are you ready to rumble? Let's talk about [00:19:55] resilience. And so like, you know, there's a lot to get your message across, but being [00:20:00] interesting and edutainment and I think, um, in this TikTok world, edutainment has never been more [00:20:05] important.

Carilu Dietrich: Like I think it's the basis of marketing. And then, then, then you get 'em in and, and do the white papers and the [00:20:10] demos. And so the democratizing factor [00:20:15] possibly is founder social and we could talk forever about lovable is founder social. I [00:20:20] think Sydnee shared all my tips already and used my slide. So, uh, if you took that picture, it's [00:20:25] still there.

Carilu Dietrich: Mm-hmm. This is a different picture of a deal. Founder. I zoomed in here [00:20:30] 'cause he has 10,000 likes on LinkedIn. Have you ever had 10,000 likes on LinkedIn? [00:20:35] The most I've ever seen are like 300 or 400. [00:20:40] Right. Okay. There's a secret behind the secret because when I was at [00:20:45] lovable, um, we ended up working with this guy who helps you with your social, [00:20:50] um, for big things like your fundraise, and then also is like an influencer [00:20:55] network.

Carilu Dietrich: So this is where influencers and social come together and what. After I worked with him at [00:21:00] Lovable, I started seeing all these posts and they all follow the same format. And then I'll text [00:21:05] him and be like, is this you too? And he'll be like, it is. [00:21:10] Um, so this is one of his posts and basically he works with founders and [00:21:15] helps them write their, his story.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and I used to have two in here. I'm sorry I took it out. [00:21:20] Um, but the story is kind of the same for every founder post. It's like. We [00:21:25] almost collapsed, or like I grew up in poverty or like we were [00:21:30] rejected 579 times, and then we walked barefoot [00:21:35] across the desert, and then 19 times we got blisters [00:21:40] and then.

Carilu Dietrich: Here's my founder story, which was Scott like, nailed the founder story, [00:21:45] right? Like my dad's, I sat at the dinner table with my dad every night and he couldn't [00:21:50] throw the football because he was doing his accounting. And so I built better accounting for plumbers and [00:21:55] electricians, right? And it's this story arc.

Carilu Dietrich: It's really using the story arc, and it's not short, it's not [00:22:00] educational, it's edutainment in social media. And then they follow the thing that was like my [00:22:05] random act of virality, um, which is there's some sort of offer, [00:22:10] but like comment here if you want the download of the thing that some [00:22:15] offer at the end of this long story.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and then this particular [00:22:20] person that. Founders can hire, has a whole influencer network that both comments on [00:22:25] it or like shares the story to juice the network and then also gets people to [00:22:30] comment on it as it's dying down. So like over the course of 24 or 48 hours, if your [00:22:35] social post that's this, like that special one that you're gonna really make [00:22:40] possible starts to slow down, he has an influencer network that helps.

Carilu Dietrich: Keep it going. [00:22:45] So you, you are gonna see, now that I've told you this watch, it's some of the fundraisers or like biggest [00:22:50] product launches. Um, and, and this like combination of [00:22:55] social media and, um, influencer

Maya Spivak: together. If I can add something to that. You don't even [00:23:00] have to have a consultant that gets you

Maya Spivak: [00:23:05] 10,000 additional engagements. Uh, it, it probably helps you know that you [00:23:10] had a big controversy and had to move to Abu Dhabi so as not to get [00:23:15] extradited for illegal activity, but there's a lot of eyeballs on your account. But [00:23:20] that being said, I've recently been talking to a lot of, um, [00:23:25] customers, the enterprise level customers, like Fortune 100 buyers.

Maya Spivak: They're [00:23:30] all in charge of innovative, um, like buying new innovations that are [00:23:35] AI innovations for the company. Because literally every company is like, this is a mandate from the top. There's [00:23:40] an entire department for it. And I ask the, and my job is to find out from these people, [00:23:45] because I've been hired by a small startup to like figure out how to help them write words that help [00:23:50] himself.

Maya Spivak: And I'm asking these people, how do you and the folks on your teams [00:23:55] learn about these new and emerging technologies that you [00:24:00] will then like, you know, sit for an actual demo for, and I'm praying, I'm [00:24:05] hoping that they say the words like websites and they just don't [00:24:10] do it. They don't say that anymore. And it hurts my little marketing heart because [00:24:15] that's where all the pretty content is.

Maya Spivak: And I ask them though, for real, like if I know, I understand that [00:24:20] you haven't one time looked at the website of this startup [00:24:25] with which you have a several million dollar contract. Like it's blowing my mind. How did [00:24:30] you find out about it at first, so as to establish a connection and [00:24:35] then every interaction and experience happens individually with people who work [00:24:40] there and they tell me LinkedIn.

Maya Spivak: It's crazy. They [00:24:45] follow everybody in the industry. So if you're a CEO, who's known in the industry or in the vertical, in the [00:24:50] category, whatever, my latest client, they're in industrial robotics. [00:24:55] This is like, you're like, whoa. Industrial robotics. It's not ai. It's not that sexy, but it's very [00:25:00] sexy for the people who work in industrial robotics.

Maya Spivak: They'll follow every single person in the world of [00:25:05] industrial robotics and the CEOs who post about stuff. Post about [00:25:10] what whatever it is they're posting about, it could be tens, hundreds of [00:25:15] responses, doesn't need to be thousands, and suddenly you have a demo booked [00:25:20] and nobody even went to your website.

Maya Spivak: So it's absolutely super important, [00:25:25] founder social media. You don't even have to get to these numbers and you don't have to have a mess of controversy. [00:25:30]

Carilu Dietrich: And, and again, I'll repeat my earlier note from my own very small [00:25:35] influencer experience, which is just that it's cool to go viral, but it's actually consistency that [00:25:40] builds followers over the long term.

Carilu Dietrich: And as a marketer, it's consistency that builds pipeline. So I think you want [00:25:45] both because you, you know, are always looking for new audiences and then coming in again, the reason [00:25:50] founder is on here instead of just social media is because no one cares about the brand. [00:25:55] S right. I'm gonna smile. I'm smiling in my, my marketing friends.

Carilu Dietrich: No one cares about the [00:26:00] brand handle. They really want a person and a personality. And some of, um, what [00:26:05] Nick at Gainsight did so well is there's this personal aspect and this prof professional aspect. So [00:26:10] you form this relationship and a lot of founders, um, that do this really [00:26:15] well. Uh, the founder of One Mind is this woman Amanda.

Carilu Dietrich: Um. [00:26:20] Who was the founder of Six Sense, and she is a stunning in the way [00:26:25] she plays. She's sharing about her family, she's sharing about being, um, a woman [00:26:30] founder and how few of them get invested in, she's sharing real, practical, helpful [00:26:35] AI innovations about agents. Um, but she's really weaving this thing where you get pulled [00:26:40] into this experience where you feel personally connected and then you buy and own some of [00:26:45] these companies.

Carilu Dietrich: The other one, I almost took a job for Alex at scale ai. [00:26:50] Um, the like, mega company, but it was 2020, so wrong choice by me [00:26:55] to not take it. But, um, their, their company was built almost all on founder [00:27:00] sales, like through their VCs. And so he's not an example of social media, [00:27:05] but the power of founders, um, really, um, the, the personality [00:27:10] and the relationships building the brand.

Carilu Dietrich: Do you wanna ask us questions? I feel like we're just ranting.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, I [00:27:15] mean, well, I won't seep from that, but I'm enjoying [00:27:20] everything you guys are talking about.

Maya Spivak: Okay, thank you.

Craig Rosenberg: Were [00:27:25] they clapping? Because I won't interrupt you. Yeah, they don't want to keep going.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, you know, we [00:27:30] didn't wanna make too many slides, but as marketers it's helpful to see things.

Carilu Dietrich: So I'll say the other [00:27:35] thing that's successful on social media is customer stories. Both the, the stories, [00:27:40] right? Social media, storytelling, like what doesn't work about a bunch of things is people being [00:27:45] like, my brand did this thing and congratulations to everyone who works at my [00:27:50] company and did, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're bored and you flip [00:27:55] on by it.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, Anton at, at Lovable, um, himself [00:28:00] has a really good sense. I, I put, um, LinkedIn here, but Ashley X, he's even better at. [00:28:05] And has this like brilliant social media guy that helps him write everything and, and has his [00:28:10] voice, but they just like take these funny pictures wherever they go and they have this [00:28:15] personality.

Carilu Dietrich: But so much of it is sharing customer stories and sharing ROI. And so again, back to [00:28:20] my first slide, the magic of magic is still the great product and customers who are [00:28:25] hotty and sharing that.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, now stop. Because I did look at Anton. You [00:28:30] know, I was doing something with LinkedIn and I was looking at different ways that people were approaching LinkedIn [00:28:35] and with Anton.

Craig Rosenberg: So he tells a lot of customer stories and they're [00:28:40] short. Um, but there is a difference with the product that makes [00:28:45] it better. It's like this person owned a pet poon store in, [00:28:50] you know, uh, Ohio for 22 years and thought they could never do [00:28:55] X and now they can, and now they're this, and it's like those. Those are different, I [00:29:00] think is where you're getting on the start.

Craig Rosenberg: Because I, I don't like, the two stories I don't like is, I was [00:29:05] talking to one of our customers today. I love that. It's like, who told them to do that anyway? [00:29:10] So, and then, uh, and they said you're the greatest. Um, and, but the other, you know, [00:29:15] the, the other one is just really dry, sort of extensions of our old school [00:29:20] case studies.

Craig Rosenberg: In this case though, these are like, these like really short hero [00:29:25] stories of unsung heroes that are using it. So it's, in many ways, it's the nature of the product and it [00:29:30] works. You know what I mean? Because a lot of customer stories on LinkedIn do not work.

Carilu Dietrich: B2C is so [00:29:35] much easier to market than B2B. I mean, I'm helping a security company and we're [00:29:40] like, oh, let's tell some customer stories.

Carilu Dietrich: Oh, they can't publicly disclose [00:29:45] which companies they work for. 'cause that's a security threat, like. Oh. Um, [00:29:50] so yes, I think Lovable has like a very, you know, people, people were like, you did worked at Lovable. Can you help [00:29:55] me do that? And I'm like, no. Mm-hmm. Actually it's a super unique situation when they were like first to [00:30:00] market.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, it's like you get instantaneous visual visceral [00:30:05] experience. I do think the one thing lovable Hass done exceptionally has, um, been [00:30:10] to to be very designed forward. So, um, lovable is if you, if you haven't [00:30:15] heard about Lovable, it's an AI product for creating websites or designs [00:30:20] or, um, mockups for product, you, you.

Carilu Dietrich: Talk to a prompt [00:30:25] box and it, it creates, um, within seconds a very nice [00:30:30] webpage, um, that's visually pleasing. And the whole brand has this like warm heart [00:30:35] approachableness. Um, one of the, um, core competitors is Rept, who [00:30:40] also has a great product, but is very engineering and design heavy. The experience is [00:30:45] massively different than this kind of like pretty consumer app, um, that, that that [00:30:50] looks like a rainbow heart.

Carilu Dietrich: And so, um, there's a lot of things that you can't replicate and I think [00:30:55] you've gotta be kind to yourself at B2B. Sometimes it's helpful to pull on [00:31:00] a thread of a persons career. Um, you know, I like some of the best marketers are [00:31:05] people who used to be journalists and are, are trying to look for the hook, like.[00:31:10]

Carilu Dietrich: A classic New York Times article starts with a specific person who lives in New [00:31:15] Jersey at this one street and it tells their story and then it zooms all the way out to this macro [00:31:20] issue, and then at the end kind of ties you back to that person and, and what's going on in their life. And that's true [00:31:25] for marketing and customer stories.

Maya Spivak: I would, I would also add to that, that one thing that you're [00:31:30] seeing that's common among these examples, despite how varied the [00:31:35] examples are, is if you zoom out a little bit. These are people who are [00:31:40] not people. These are brands that in the moment that they're doing it, they're zigging. [00:31:45] One other zag, like another super whatever idiom that everybody has heard before, [00:31:50] but you see it in action, right?

Maya Spivak: So like, okay, this is a founder [00:31:55] of, uh, 200 or even $300 million ARR company. But [00:32:00] he, when he posts on LinkedIn, he posts. You know, people sitting in the back of a cab, like with a [00:32:05] pizza size, and that's cool and different. It's unexpected. He's zigging where people [00:32:10] zag. When he chooses a customer story, he's gonna choose the one with the, with the pet food in [00:32:15] it and like with the children in it.

Maya Spivak: And when he chooses the [00:32:20] designs that he's okay with, like leading their brand in the world, he's gonna choose the. [00:32:25] Fuzzy heart because Repli doesn't have the fuzzy heart bolt. Doesn't have the [00:32:30] fuzzy heart. V zero doesn't have the fuzzy heart, and it's gonna work. Right now, if you go [00:32:35] home and you change all your stuff to a fuzzy heart, it's not gonna work.

Maya Spivak: Right? You're trying to zig what others zag [00:32:40] in the moment that you exist. Applying that to the edutainment and to the events that we were talking [00:32:45] about earlier, and to RSA. The events are amazing. Part of the [00:32:50] reason why Kara Lou's so surprised at how amazing they are is because it's a freaking security conference.

Maya Spivak: You [00:32:55] don't expect this, right? You don't expect them to be like super high production values. [00:33:00] Super clever jokes, comedians, WrestleMania. They're zigging when others [00:33:05] sag, and so if you don't have an RSA budget. [00:33:10] You can still zig when others zag. You are putting on a meetup. It's not just a regular meetup [00:33:15] anymore.

Maya Spivak: Maybe you're a VC and you're putting on actual dating. [00:33:20] Actual speed. Dating seems like a compliance risk to me in some format, but they [00:33:25] definitely did it. I don't remember which VC firm it was, but around Valentine's Day. [00:33:30] They hosted a meetup for founders who were interested in dating each [00:33:35] other. That is zigging when others zag.

Maya Spivak: And you can, you can do it too. [00:33:40]

Carilu Dietrich: Lock 'em in. We've got two investments. They're, and, [00:33:45] and now they're married. Oh, that's so funny. Yes. Yeah. And, and, [00:33:50] um. If you don't have customers, one way to make it look like you have customers is to have [00:33:55] influencers. So I mean, this influencer game online, this is like just some snapshots of [00:34:00] early influencers that lovable had, um, on YouTube.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, [00:34:05] but there's influencers on Instagram and, and some of the influencers are like [00:34:10] genuine. And, and you know, Clickup, any of you guys know Clickup? The Clickup has done a really great [00:34:15] job with this too. They, if you follow Clickup social media, Clickup has like one of the best social media [00:34:20] games. They've done a couple things.

Carilu Dietrich: They've hired comedian in-house who does their Instagram [00:34:25] and has like millions and millions of followers around like karaoke about [00:34:30] HR violations that could be project managed in Clickup. And it's [00:34:35] so cringe. Viral, but then also, you know, there's this [00:34:40] like, um, lovable, all these kind of consumer. Tech [00:34:45] AI products, like you can have all sorts of people use them in a real practical and [00:34:50] helpful ways and, and that creates its own momentum.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, talking about them. And I think [00:34:55] influencers are a big, a big game right now. This is totally changing marketing, and they don't have to be super famous. They [00:35:00] can be micro influencers, right? If you're in an area like I'm a micro influencer for [00:35:05] like women CMOs. Um, in B2B Tech. Now, I like when someone would be like, [00:35:10] you're an influencer.

Carilu Dietrich: I'll be like, this big of an influencer, but like, I really like those people and [00:35:15] I like know what's on their mind. And so I think that, um, influencers are great if you're smaller. But [00:35:20] back to, um, our points before, one of the things that's [00:35:25] funny about having worked for great brands is that other people think we knew what we were doing.[00:35:30]

Carilu Dietrich: And Atlassian lovable all these companies. A bunch of shit we put out, we [00:35:35] have no idea how it's gonna turn out. Some of it turns out well, and then everyone gives us credit for it. [00:35:40] So one of the ones that we did, we do a whole bunch of hackathons to get people together, but like [00:35:45] there was this girl in community who wanted to do a women's only hackathon 'cause women are using [00:35:50] ai, um, in much smaller numbers than men is a big deal for women in [00:35:55] ai.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and so we had this women's only hackathon and she'd like put it together over the weekend [00:36:00] and she ended up getting a bunch of, um, people that came. And then the people were so excited that [00:36:05] it was like viral on LinkedIn because the women were all so excited that they got the chance. Um, and then [00:36:10] they just, we just redid the hackathon for International Women's Day and like.[00:36:15]

Carilu Dietrich: 22 cities around the world or something. I mean, it really like went, went from empty on a Sunday. On a [00:36:20] Sunday.

Maya Spivak: On a Sunday. Hundreds of women showed up to [00:36:25] 22 cities around the United States to do a hackathon for lovable.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, and so again, it wasn't [00:36:30] really planned. It was like someone had a random idea and we like zigged and zagged and like [00:36:35] pulled it together.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, I think the thing's different right now, and I know you guys are seeing it, but [00:36:40] the speed is crazy, right? Like OpenAI released a new [00:36:45] LLM, um, and gave lovable like. 32 hours [00:36:50] notice and we like started to use it in engineering and 32 hours later we [00:36:55] had a launch video and a whole campaign that went live.

Carilu Dietrich: Um, it's the fastest campaign I've ever run [00:37:00] in my entire life. And I called this friend at OpenAI and was like, what the fuck can you like. Tell [00:37:05] me something a little bit earlier and she goes, dude, they're giving me eight hours notice. Like [00:37:10] they tell me they're gonna ship a product like eight hours before, and I have this one other CMO who's like, my [00:37:15] product team is moving so fast, the product doesn't even tell us what we're gonna launch.

Carilu Dietrich: I hired a [00:37:20] tech evangelist to backward architect what features they did so I can describe them to the market. [00:37:25] Like the speed is crazy, but I, I definitely think getting your [00:37:30] customers together for events is huge. Um, we've talked a ton about out of home. I think, [00:37:35] you know, again, everything old is new again.

Carilu Dietrich: My job at Oracle was out of home advertising. [00:37:40] It works if it's consistent, if it's provocative, um, and if you're [00:37:45] sending it to the right people, do we wanna end on other things you shouldn't do.

Maya Spivak: Yeah, so [00:37:50] everybody's talking about taste for a reason, right? It's the level of [00:37:55] discernment that when you look at something, you're like, wow, that's really good.

Maya Spivak: It comes from [00:38:00] within and you can, you should also be able to look at something and be like, wow, that's like [00:38:05] tremendously mid, or, or, that's probably an oxymoron. It can't be tremendously. [00:38:10] Tremendously, blah. It's just not very good. The example in [00:38:15] the middle, I took on a bark, so by the way, I'm like obsessed with this now.

Maya Spivak: Probably [00:38:20] 80% of my, my business, how I pay my mortgage, my kids go to school on [00:38:25] this is startups running out of home. So I feel like it's my job to, to [00:38:30] note every single thing that's going on, every possible place. This is a real BART [00:38:35] ad going up and down. Can you read it for us? I can't see it. I will read it for you.

Maya Spivak: Yes. It says stuck in off [00:38:40] hell. There's a better way. And on the left there's some hellish [00:38:45] flames and on the right there's like maybe a heavenly like. Sky. This is [00:38:50] not good advertising, right? This is like, you gotta ask ChatGPT, [00:38:55] draw me an ad and make it feel like an AI ad. [00:39:00] And this is not the outcome that you want to end up with when you're spending a [00:39:05] lot of money on out of home.

Maya Spivak: It's non-trivial investment. The fact that it's [00:39:10] everywhere. Don't let it fool you. It hasn't gotten any cheaper. In fact. It's [00:39:15] incredibly expensive because out of home, out of home is anything that's not on your screen in [00:39:20] front of you. It's physical, so it's constrained by the physical world. And [00:39:25] did you know that in San Francisco you can't just put up new.

Maya Spivak: Posters [00:39:30] anywhere that you want. You just can't. Because I tried to incubate a business where we would [00:39:35] put up new out of home on empty storefronts and immediately ran into this [00:39:40] roadblock where 20 years ago, the city passed an ordinance that said, [00:39:45] no new signs without permits. If you put up a new sign without a permit, it's a thousand dollars a [00:39:50] day fine.

Maya Spivak: And by the way, they don't grant these permits anymore. That's why [00:39:55] it's so expensive. That's why everybody wants it. That's why it's hard to get it [00:40:00] because it's physical real estate. And what you're doing is competing in an open market, just [00:40:05] like renters in New York City, just like renters in San Francisco, trying to get an in to a [00:40:10] physical object.

Maya Spivak: If you're gonna spend the money, because it does work. If you're gonna spend [00:40:15] the money, just do it right, do it right. Make sure you have some taste. And uh, if you don't, [00:40:20] you just find people in your orbit who have taste, there are pe, they're all around you.

Carilu Dietrich: I kind of hate that [00:40:25] 'cause I feel like I'm a person without taste.

Carilu Dietrich: I'd be like, keep trying shit. And someone will like criticize you and you'll do better next [00:40:30] time.

Matt Amundson: Well, thank you guys so much. That was amazing. I think [00:40:35] everyone agrees. The other thing that everyone agrees on is that the design, [00:40:40] all the design elements for this show we're top notch and I made them all in love.[00:40:45]

Maya Spivak: Yeah.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the [00:40:50] Transaction, Craig, and I really appreciate the fact that you've listened all the way to the end. What are you [00:40:55] actually doing here? For show notes and other episodes, please visit [00:41:00] us@thetransactionpod.com, like and subscribe on Spotify, apple Podcast or any other place you get your [00:41:05] podcast from.

Either you have [00:41:10] walked away from your podcast device. Or this is playing somewhere in the [00:41:15] background. Someone in your house would really like for you to shut this off [00:41:20] [00:41:25] now.