๐๐ A book is always a great gift and ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฃ๐น๐ฎ๐ป ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ง๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐๐ฝ๐ is a perfect one for all entrepreneurs and marketers.
โ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ฟ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ณ๐ผ๐๐ป๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ โA must read for all founders.โ Jeanine Banks, Investor and VP of Google Developer X
Clarity when marketing feels overwhelming. Focus on what actually turns innovation into revenue.
โ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ โA timely kick in the pants.โ Scott Buchanan, CMO, Stacklok
A practical guide to align teams across product, marketing, and sales, and accelerate growth.
โ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ฎ๐๐ฝ๐ถ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ โI wish I had it in 2014 when I stepped into marketing.โ Ian Andrews, CRO, Groq and former CMO, Chainalysis
A clear overview of modern marketing from positioning to demand generation.
๐ Digital or physical ๐ Gift it or keep it for yourself
๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐น๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ ๐ด๐ถ๐ณ๐ ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ ๐บ๐ฒ ($๐ฑ๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐๐ฒ) until January 9th 2026 Buy the book and DM me, and Iโll send you my ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฃ๐น๐ฎ๐ป ๐ง๐ฒ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ฎ๐๐ฒ in Google Slides or PowerPoint so you can immediately apply the learnings from the book and build your own marketing roadmap to hit the ground running in 2026.
Last week I had the opportunity to lead a Go To Market workshop for 18 robotics and hardware startups. It was a hands on and highly interactive 90 minute session with an exceptional audience at INNOVIT – Italian Innovation and Culture Hub.
As the structure for the session, I used the same three step framework that has guided me while bootstrapping new revenue streams at Fortune 100 companies and at early stage startups. It is the shortened version of the eighteen element foundation I teach in Marketing Plan for Tech Startups, and it works across every go to market motion from product led to sales led to hybrid.
First, describe your Ideal Customer Profile
We opened with the most important question.
Who exactly is your ideal customer?
In my experience, the more complex the product is, the more founders talk about features. To turn innovation into adoption and revenue, you need an outside in view.
Who feels the most pain?
Is the pain severe enough to demand action?
Is the buyer also the user?
These answers determine your motion and your entire GTM strategy.
Our first exercise was the creation of personas. These are semi fictional representations of your ideal customer, grounded in market research and real user data when available. Personas help teams focus on the people who are most likely to try, buy, and champion the product.
Anchoring your GTM strategy in the needs and pains of ideal customers is essential for growth because “no company in its right mind tries to sell to everyone” – Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing.
Startups win when they direct their energy toward the customers who value them most and can move quickly from awareness to decision.
Second, write your product Positioning Statement
With our ideal customer defined, we clarified the value of our products.
What outcome do you deliver?
Why is this outcome better than the alternatives?
Can a customer understand the value instantly?
A common misstep in early stage companies is the desire to be a Swiss army knife. Broad promises lead to vague narratives that resonate with no one. Traction comes from simplicity, precision, and a tightly focused promise.
Brian Chesky nailed it: โBuild something one hundred people love, not something one million people kind of like.โ
Great positioning does not narrow your market. It accelerates your path to it. Iconic companies begin by winning the trust and enthusiasm of a narrow set of early adopters. That early concentration of love is what unlocks broader adoption later.
When founders commit to focused positioning, everything becomes easier. Messaging sharpens. Experiments run faster. Customers see the transformation you make possible and can picture their own success.
Finally, map your Customer Journey
With target segments and positioning in place, we mapped the customer journey. This means understanding each step people take as they discover your product, engage with it, and remain loyal over time. A clear journey reveals the questions customers ask at every stage and the confidence they need before moving forward.
This is also where demand generation begins. Demand generation is the discipline of finding and engaging customers whose problems align with your solution. It turns your strategy into motion and builds the path to consistent revenue.
Since launching Marketing Plan for Tech Startups, I have spoken with many founders, investors, and startup accelerator. Some founders still feel cautious about the word marketing. They associate it with tactical activity rather than revenue. In reality, effective marketing creates the conditions for predictable growth by aligning product value with customer urgency.
In the workshop, we mapped that path with precision:
Awareness: โIs there a better way?โ
Consideration: โWhat are my best options?โ
Decision: โWhy you?ย Why now?โ
Retention: โIs this still worth it?โ
Advocacy: โWill I recommend this to my peers?โ
The marketer’s job does not end at conversion. In 2025, Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the metric that shows whether your go to market engine truly works, as demand generation experts and key contributors to Marketing Plan for Tech StartupsHeidi Ramich and Kristi Berg McCutchen remind us.
We also discussed the emotional dimension of decision making. Baba Shiv from Stanford University Graduate School of Business notes that nearly 95% of decisions are rooted in emotion rather than logic. Emotion influences perceived risk and readiness to act.
When you understand those emotional triggers, your messaging gains clarity and your growth accelerates.
High performing GTM teams optimize the customer experience at every stage of the journey. They remove friction. They build trust. They create momentum from first impression to long term advocacy.
On the heels of my Marketing Plan for Tech Startups launch during TECH WEEK by a16z, I had the joy of hand-delivering copies to some of the people who shaped my marketing journey: teachers, mentors, and icons whose ideas live inside these pages.
At Stanford University Graduate School of Business, I sat down with Professor Baba Shiv, whose groundbreaking research on the neuroscience of decision-making forever changed how I think about marketing. He taught me that 95% of our decisions are driven by emotion, not logic โ a truth that still holds in B2B, even when the stakes involve multi-year contracts and enterprise deals.
Stanford GSB: With Prof. Baba Shiv this week (2025) and the cohort of the Innovative Technology Leader program (2023)
AtGoogle , I met with Jeanine Banks whose leadership at Google Developer X taught me what it truly means to innovate inside a large organization. Working for Jeanine was a career highlight for me and her ability to bootstrap new initiatives and help teams โexecute and win like a startupโ inspired many of the ideas I share in the book.
Google: With Jeanine Banks this week (2025) and during my Noogler orientation (2018)
And at Y Combinator, I caught up with Pete Koomen, Partner at YC and Co-founder of Optimizely, one of Silicon Valleyโs great success stories. His Startup School talk on enterprise sales remains one of my favorites, and key lessons from that lecture made their way into this book.
Wth Pete Koomen at Y CombinatorPete’s quote for the Marketing Plan for Tech Startups
Every stop on this tour felt like a full-circle moment: celebrating the people and ideas that helped build the foundations this book stands on.
Where shall I make the next stop on the book tour?
Iโm still on cloud nine after three incredible book launch events during TECH WEEK by a16z. Seeing Marketing Plan for Tech Startups in the hands of its first readers felt surreal.
Across the week, I met founders, marketers, and innovators who share a belief that marketing must be part of product creation from day one.
Each conversation reminded me why I wrote this book: to help builders turn innovation into adoption, and adoption into revenue.
Book by the Numbers
The Marketing Plan for Tech Startups is your trusted companion for moving from product idea to adoption and revenue with confidence.
Startup founders will gain clarity on priorities and next steps when it matters most.
Marketing executives will get a timely gut check to align teams and accelerate growth.
#1 New Releases in Direct Marketing on Amazon
โ #1 New Releases in Direct Marketing
โ 3 timeless marketing axioms
โ 3 book launch events at SF TechWeek
โ 18 elements of a complete marketing plan
โ 30+ expert contributors from global tech leaders
โ 60+ brands and products featured
โ 300+ startup founders and marketing leaders RSVPโd for the launch
3rd Event ๐๐๐: The Official Book Launch
๐ Friday, Oct 10 | Official Book Launch at Contentfulโs SoMA office
300+ Startup Founders and Marketing Leaders RSVP’ed to the Official Book Launch Party
As a marketer, I believe in drinking my own champagne: staying hands-on with the product, engaging directly with customers, and implementing what I advocate for in the book. Thatโs why I chose to launch Marketing Plan for Tech Startups during the Tech Week conference, attended by my ideal readers: founders and marketing leaders passionate about innovation.
In the bookโs chapter on positioning, I quote Brian Chesky:
โBuild something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.โ
That principle guided my launch: starting small and creating genuine connections with early adopters before scaling. And what better place to engage directly with readers than the largest distributed conference in Tech?
Still, I didnโt expect such an overwhelming response. Over 300 Tech Week attendees signed up for the launch. ๐ซข
Even after years of designing and hosting events for major tech companies, this one felt different.
1000+ Women Leaders RSVP’ed to “Women in AI” Event at Chief
AI is lowering the barriers to innovation, and women are leading the charge. At Chief, I had the honor of joining Joyce Chen, Monisha Somji, Elaine Wah, and Susan Chu to discuss how women are shaping the next wave of AI.
As someone who studied computer science and began her career as a software engineer, I was often the only woman in the room. Seeing AI open the door for more voices โ especially womenโs voices โ feels deeply personal. The event at Chief made that shift visible: a packed room and 900+ people on the waitlist.
The AI era does not shrink marketingโs role. It expands it.
For too long, marketing has been narrowed to campaigns and promotion. But with AI, we now have the tools to reclaim the full scope across product, price, place, and promotion.
Thereโs never been a better time to be a marketer than in the era of AI.
1st Event ๐: Funded Female Founders
๐ Monday, Oct 6 | Startup Grind: Female Founders backed by YC
The Book Debut: Funded Female Founders Event with Startup Grind
On the first day of SF TechWeek, at a female-founders event, a VC said sheโs no longer investing based on technical depth alone. Sheโs investing in founders with a clear go-to-market plan.
That insight resonated deeply, and itโs exactly why I launched ๐๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐๐๐ก ๐๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ฌ during Tech Week. When the barriers to building lower, your go-to-market plan is what turns great tech into a great business.
With Gratitude
Thank you to everyone who showed up, shared ideas, and helped this book lift off.
I could not have wished for a better inaugural launch event for my ๐๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐๐๐ก ๐๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ฌ book than Funded Female Founders at TECH WEEK by a16z. Amazing insights, incredible community.
If youโre writing a book about tech startups, are you in Author mode or Founder mode?
I chose Founder mode:
Founder mode is a term used and popularized by Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham. It describes a specific kind of leadership in which a founder has a direct, hands-on approach to their company rather than breaking up and delegating responsibility through a top-down structure. Often cited examples of leaders embodying founder mode include Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang. (Source: Wikipedia)
For me, Founder mode as an author meant doing everything myself: managing edits, building a custom e-reader for the book, and figuring out the intricacies of Amazon publishing โ all while collaborating with 30+ expert contributors, designers, editors, beta readers, and reviewers. At every step, I was the one ultimately accountable.
In tech, โ996โ describes the rhythm of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week โ a schedule many AI startups in San Francisco embrace today (it even made The New York Times last weekend). That was my mode tooโฆ though if Iโm honest, the last six weeks looked a lot more like 997… As soon as I publish this post, Iโm stepping away from the keyboard and going for a long walk. ๐
996 = AI startups work 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week
Q&A with the Writer/Founder
Last night, I pushed the book to production (aka submitted it for Amazon Kindle Review). It feels like the right moment to pause and reflect on the past three months. Here’s an FAQ.
Marketing Plan For Tech Startups
Was it worth it?
Totally. But the last 6 weeks were rough.
Would I do it again?
Ask me once Iโve had a chance to come up for air. ๐
Why did I do it?
To create a bold, practical, and proven guide for every AI startup founder and marketing leader โ a resource to move from idea to adoption to revenue with an 18-element framework divided into vision, strategy, and execution.
The 18 Elements of a Marketing Plan
Building a product is hard. Getting people to notice is harder.
This book is your trusted companion. Through real-world examples, case studies, and insights from 30+ top operators, it shows how effective marketing can unlock growth.
Who is it for?
Itโs a hands-on guide for:
Startup founders: shortcut to clarity under pressure.
Marketing executives: gut check to align teams and accelerate growth.
Why should I read it?
Youโll learn how to apply three timeless axioms of marketing to:
Position with scientific precision so value is unmistakable.
Use storytelling to connect emotionally before the rational pitch.
Build consistency, so every touchpoint compounds trust.
Turn AI companions into marketing superpowers.
The Three Axioms of Marketing
What Readers Are Saying
โToo many startups try to be all things to all people. The Marketing Plan for Tech Startups shows why that fails and offers practical advice to acquire customers and scale growth. Iโm calling all founders: this is a must-read.โ
โ Jeanine Banks, Investor and VP of Developer X, Google
โAs a startup CMO, this framework was a timely gut check. It helped me tie up loose ends and drive alignment, so the team could focus on what really matters.โ
โJustyna Bak reframes milestones as moments to validate assumptions and recalibrate risks. That perspective alone can save startups months of wasted effort.โ
Inspired by Priyanka Vergadiaโs demo showing how she built a full-stack app in minutes with GitHub Spark, I gave it a try. Spark is GitHubโs new AI-powered app builder that runs entirely in your browser. No setup. No config. No need to remember Java classpath from my mobile and web app developer days. ๐
Just describe what you want, and Spark builds it end-to-end: front-end, database, authentication, etc. As always, Priyanka did an awesome job walking her YouTube channel viewers through all the steps of using GitHub Spark to go from zero-to-app, so I thought: why not?
The PRD aka my wish list for a book reader
I mostly wanted three things:
A two-page view so if you read on a big screen it feels like an actual book in front of you.
A search function so you can instantly jump to โpositioning,โ โpricing,โ or โAnthropic case study.โ
Bookmarks and notes, so readers can mark sections and write down thoughts as they read (my paperback margins are always full of notes and post-its ๐)
Three features I dreamed up, letโs see what I got.
GitHub Spark
How GitHub Spark turned my PRD into a working e-reader
I typed my requirements in natural language, hit submit, and Spark went into โthink mode.โ
A few minutes later, I had a working prototype: two-page display.
A couple of hours later (and with a few vibe-coding-hacks I’ll detail below) I added keyword search and a bookmark system. Here’s the finished product:
My e-reader vibe-coded in an afternoon
My e-reader vibe-coded in an afternoon looks very promising but is not quote ready to ship just yet. Here’s why:
Lessons learned from vibe-coding an e-reader in GitHub Spark
First, while Spark gave me the basic app scaffolding quickly, it struggled to render a PDF heavy with graphics. Sometimes it showed only text, other times it spit out binary data.
Sparkโs default PDF handling just wasnโt built for a manuscript like mine. My book isnโt a typical wall of text. I wrote it in Google WorkspaceSlides to make it as much a tool as a book, packed with frameworks, diagrams, and visuals that startup founders and marketers can apply right away. The format was deliberate: keep the text lean, rely on visuals, and use slides as a constraint so every word carries weight.
I knew from a previous vibe-coding session that v0 by Vercel could handle a heavyweight manuscript like mine, so I thought: why not ask Vercel how it did it? The answer was pdfjs-dist, the distributable version of Mozillaโs PDF.js, which renders PDFs natively in the browser without plugins. I plugged it into Spark andโyayโI was unblocked!
Second, as I layered on more prompts and features, I learned that Spark projects can hit limits and stop accepting prompts.
The first prototype was quick and easy, refining it took patience… and some help from ChatGPT. When Spark stopped accepting prompts, I pulled down the GitHub ZIP, then used ChatGPT to reverse-engineer Sparkโs app architecture and rebuild the project with more detailed instructions.
This experience pretty much sums up todayโs vibe-coding scene: vibe-hackers are out of the box thinkers who juggle multiple tools; when one doesnโt do what you need, you pick up another.
My final lesson: vibe-coding is a lightning-fast way to prototype and experiment but it still takes time to create a production-grade app ready to be shared with others. Thatโs why for now, Iโm only sharing screenshots.
Just like with my โSlide Toolsโ hackathon two weeks ago, I was reminded of the real promise of AI-driven coding:
The future of software with AI: everyone can be a creator.
The next generation of apps โ whether e-readers or enterprise apps โ will be powered by AI, built faster than ever, and customizable to fit customer needs with precision.
And some of those apps will be built by marketers.
Marketers as vibe-coders
โVibe Marketersโ are already starting to appear on job boards:
“Weโre looking for a Vibe Growth Marketing Manager who is a builder who prototypes and ships faster than most teams can spec a brief. Youโll use AI tools, LLMs, no-code/low-code platforms, and smart automation to rapidly unlock new growth channels, improve operational efficiency, and experiment with new marketing ideas end-to-end.”
Itโs clear that vibe-coding is becoming essential for speed and efficiency in marketing workflows.
But why stop at workflows? What if marketers could also be the first prototypers of new product ideas?
Marketers as product prototypers
Marketers are already customer advocates and trend spotters. Vibe-coding tools now give them the ability to turn insights directly into working prototypes, bridging the gap between customer voice and product innovation.
With vibe-coding, marketers can also extend existing products with new features requested by their customers, as I demonstrated in my โSlide Toolsโ hackathon.
My custom slide tools I added to Google Slides
A sneak peek into my bookโs vision
Elevating marketers into co-creators of product is central to my bookโs vision. My goal is to restore marketing to Kotlerโs full โ4 Psโ (product, price, place, promotion), rather than the narrow โ1 Pโ of promotion itโs often reduced to. Vibe-coding tools may be the superpower that helps marketers reclaim all four.
If you’re a startup founder or marketing leader, my upcoming book Marketing Plan for Tech Startups project distills lessons from Fortune 500 companies and startups into practical frameworks to break through the noise and turn innovation into revenue.
Iโm also thrilled to share that the one and only Priyanka Vergadia is among its distinguished contributors! ๐
This weekend, I pulled off my own hackathon. The challenge? Cleaning up 200+ Google Slides of my upcoming book: Marketing Plan for Tech Startups.
Why so many edits?
After a year of experiments and contributions from several collaborators, each with their own style, the deck had turned into a Frankenstein: fonts all over the place, inconsistent sizes, text boxes scattered. Original thinkers are not known to stick to templates. ๐คช
Why did I write a book in Google Slides?
Because I wanted to create a tool as much as a book, a resource startup founders and marketers can apply right away. My rationale: keep text lean, rely on visuals, and use slides as a constraint so every word carries weight.
As the book launch at TECH WEEK by a16z in San Francisco this October approaches, the thought of unifying it all was daunting. Manually cleaning 200+ slides would take days, and still never be perfectly consistent.
So I turned to AI. It thrives on repetitive and grueling work, the kind humans struggle to do well. I just needed to get it inside Google Slides.
How to vibe-code away the pain of manual slide edits
First, I accessed App Script under “Extensions” in Google Workspace Slides:
Accessing Google Slides API via Apps Script
Second, I used Windsurf to vibe-code the features I wanted:
From a single prompt…
… I got ready to use code and a deployment guide in seconds.
Third, I pasted the code into Apps Script…
Apps Script in Google Slides
… and just like that, I got the first tool. Quick test… It works, yay!
I continued with more prompts to build functions like updating colors to a specific shade of black or changing fonts to Lato.
Soon enough, I had my own full set of โSlide Toolsโ to tame 200+ slides. โฌ๏ธ
My custom set of “Slide Tools”
Maybe in addition to publishing a book, I should start a side hustle selling Google Slides automations. After all, I have already got one very polished deck to prove it works. ๐
One more thing
Like every good hackathon, this one came with a โone more thing.โ It reminded me of the real power of vibe coding: when products open APIs, anyone can go beyond the defaults, shape tools their own way, and turn a generic product into something personal.
The future of software with AI: everyone can be a co-creator.
And with vibe coding democratizing access to computer programming, that future is close and attainable.
Everyone can make a popular tool even more useful.
As a marketer, I’m excited about the future of software. Iโve spent my career helping emerging technologies find their market and convert innovation into sales. That same spirit is what I poured into my upcoming book. Marketing Plan for Tech Startups is meant to be a practical guide that helps founders and innovators do the same.
And just like a product with open APIs, this book is built to be extended. If youโd like to add your perspective or contribute to future editions, Iโd love to hear from you.
Please comment below or send me a DM, and I’ll be in touch!
In mathematics, axioms are self-evident principles. Theyโre the foundation on which more complex theorems are built. Take calculus, my favorite branch of math. It starts with a handful of assumptions: space and time are continuous, limits exist, and change can be quantified. If you know how fast something is changing, you can figure out how much itโs changed โ and vice versa. From there, you unlock entire worlds: rates of growth, accumulation of value, and optimization. Sounds a lot like marketing, doesnโt it? ๐
In marketing, axioms serve the same role. They help you recalibrate when markets shift, competitors surprise you, or new technologies (like gen AI) change the game.
The Three Axioms of Marketing
Over the years, Iโve returned to these three core axioms again and again, applying them through every tech wave from mobile to AI while working across startups and Fortune 100 companies in both Europe and Silicon Valley.
Axiom 1 โ Scientific precision
For every product there exists exactly one clear positioning statement that links its unique capability to a concrete customer need.
The most effective marketers approach their product’s positioning statement as a discovery process, not guesswork. Positioning requires rigorous market analysis, a deep understanding of buyer personas, and an honest comparison to alternatives. When done correctly, positioning defines the North Star for the business and keeps Marketing, Sales and Product in sync and united.
To see scientific precision in action, letโs look at a fresh positioning example from the autonomous ride-hailing market. Waymo โs trajectory shows how clear market definition and targeted messaging can carve out a profitable niche even in a highly competitive space.
Example of a positioning statement inspired by Waymo (San Francisco, August 2025)
In 2025, Business Insider and Reddit discussions revealed that Waymo rides cost about $5โ6 more than Uber or Lyft, yet many riders valued the extra comfort, reliability, and privacy enough to pay the premium.
Without precision here, marketing risks scattering its efforts, diluting the message, and missing the target entirely.
Axiom 2 โ Emotional storytelling
In every purchasing decision, emotion precedes reason. Marketing must first evoke feeling so that logic can later validate the choice.
Baba Shiv, a revered Marketing Professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, once stated, “Nearly 95% of our decisions in life are rooted in emotionโnot logic.” You might wonder if this applies to business-to-business transactions, like enterprise software sales. The answer is a definite “Yes!
In the mid-2000s, Cisco ran its โSelf-Defending Networkโ campaign to position its IT security solutions as proactive, intelligent defenders of an organizationโs assets. Rather than focusing solely on firewalls, intrusion prevention, or encryption standards, Cisco told stories of real people whose work and reputations were safeguarded because the network stopped threats before they could cause harm.
Cisco’s The Power of The Network Campaign
If you’re an enterprise sales executive, you probably realize that customers often decide in favor or against your product early in the sales cycle. What follows is essentially an opportunity for the customer to validate their initial decision. This phase involves testing your product, examining ROI calculators, or seeking peer reviews to gain confidence in the choice they’ve already made.
In summary, customers make decisions emotionally and then rationalize them.
Axiom 3 โ Relentless consistency
Repeated delivery of a coherent message compounds its impact over time, while inconsistency diminishes effectiveness toward zero.
Consistency turns your positioning into a memory imprint. Each content interaction, ad view, and social media conversation must reinforce the same promise.
This is about disciplined alignment: sales decks matching web copy, product announcements echoing the same value proposition, and customer success stories reinforcing the same themes.
Over months and years, consistency builds trust and recognition in ways no single campaign can match. Break the thread too often, and you start again from zero.
Vanta โs years-long commitment to podcast advertising shows how repetition in the right channels compounds over time. Starting in niche security shows like This Week in Startups and CISO-focused podcasts, and expanding to mainstream business podcasts such as Acquired, The Daily, (my personal favorite: The AI Daily Brief by Nathaniel Whittemore), and The Diary of a CEO, theyโve kept the core message intact. The result: thousands of sales conversations where prospects bring up hearing about Vanta โall the time.โ Thatโs consistency turning positioning into muscle memory.
In their CMO Scott Holden‘s own words: “Vanta gets a lot of attention for our billboards, but podcasts are a massive lever for us too. We’ve been advertising in them since 2018. (…) All those demo requests that sales loves begin higher up the funnel.”
Vanta advertised for years on podcasts for their target audience: CISOs who’s spend 100s of thousands of dollars on their security software
From Calculus to Product Launches
These axioms have guided me across decades of tech shifts:
2000s โ Mobile Internet. At Nokia, I built software tapping directly into telecom APIs, turning raw network data into useful services I then helped take to market for clients like Vodafone, Telenor and TIM.
2010s โ Cloud Computing. At Cisco and Riverbed Technology I distilled the value of cloud computing before it became the backbone of digital transformations at Fortune 500 enterprises.
2020s โ Data Analytics and Gen AI. At Google, I crafted portfolio-wide narratives for data and AI products and enabled 13,000 sellers to tell those stories effectively.
2025 โ Edge and Agentic AI. At Synadia a cloud-native startup, I repositioned middleware into a full-stack edge AI platform: a key enabler for agentic AI at the edge in retail, automotive and manufacturing.
The Marketing Axioms in the AI Era
Marketing a category-defining product (gen AI, self-driving cars, or the next leap in biotech) is like solving a math problem no one has worked out before.
Thereโs no answer key. But the path forward still starts with fundamentals.
In AI-powered marketing today, that might mean taking a single high-performing message and using AI to instantly create dozens of localized, role-specific, or vertical-tailored variations. The goal is to preserve the original emotional heartbeat and positioning clarity.
Final thought: In both math and marketing, axioms donโt give you the full solution. They give you the foundation that makes finding it possible.
Turning Innovation Into Revenue
If you enjoyed this post and would like to continue the journey into the three axioms of marketing, I have exciting news: 10 years after publishing my Marketing Plan for Tech Startups template (which reached more than 100k readers) Iโm turning it into a full book:
Tech marketers donโt usually talk about body wash. But maybe we should.
Last week I traded Silicon Valley for West Hollywood and joined “Recession, Risk & Relevancy โ Marketing Through the Uncertain Now” event at Chief LA clubhouse. Four incredible panelists: Felicitas Olschewski, Abby Ho, Charlotte Mostaed and Kalpana Sehwani spanning consumer goods, entertainment and advertising shared how they keep brands relevant when attention is scarce and trust is fragile.
The swap gave me unexpected insights (apparently Gen Z treats showers like sacred rituals, using 12+ products) but also reinforced timeless marketing fundamentals that transcend industries, whether B2B or B2C:
โ Value clarity: Be clear about what you offer and why it matters. Todayโs consumers are sharp, skeptical and drowning in options.
โ Trust: Every interaction is a test. Trust grows over time with every positive touchpoint, from content engagement to customer service call.
โ Connection: Emotion still moves people. If your marketing doesnโt connect on a human level, it wonโt convert. Community, relevance, and storytelling matter more than ever.
Whether you’re selling enterprise software or luxury skincare, the fundamentals remain: clarity cuts through noise, trust creates loyalty, and genuine connection drives action.
Iโm a Marketing Executive, an astute influencer, panelist, and public speaker with recent appearances on Harvard Business Review (HBR). I live and work in San Francisco.
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