From Lumberyards to Head of Demand Generation with Adam Holmgren

00:03 Welcome to another episode of Revenue Career Ladder, where we dive deep into the career journeys of revenue focused professionals to give you real insights, actionable tips, and hopefully a little reassurance that the journey is yours to define. In this episode, I'm joined by Adam Holmgren, and we're going to be chatting about his journey from the lumberyard to head of demand generation, which again, as people who have already listened will understand that some of these journeys from the first ever job to the

00:33 uh, current title seem quite wild, which is the whole point of us diving deep to understand how it came to be. So without further ado, how are you, Adam? I'm very well. It's a, it's busy times. have one full-time job, one side job and two kids. And yeah, that's, that's where we are. So basically four jobs. Exactly. But it's also fun. Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Well, we're going to be talking, um, in depth about the.

01:03 full-time job the side job and probably Some some features of the kids in there as well, but we usually start these episodes In the same way as the title is structured, which is your first ever job so I'm slightly This is not one I've come across before but you you see it on the you see on TV's you see it in films It's not what not one that I've come across. So talk to me about your first ever job. No, and I mean

01:30 To take you back, from a small island in Sweden called Gotland. I think we are about, I think it's about 50,000 people maybe in total in the entire island. My father is a carpenter, obviously built a lot of houses, et cetera. Myself on the other hand is very non-talented in all of those areas. But at some point...

01:56 I think I started when I was maybe 13 or something. He then fixed a job for me, not as a carpenter, but in a lumberyard. So basically, you know, carrying a lot of wood, helping customers pick out their wood without me honestly knowing anything about it. So it was a lot of times where I actually, called my father at the lumberyard, handed over the phone to the customer.

02:24 and they just got to chat about it. So I spent seven summers in that place, learning a lot of things about wood, primarily, I would say. But to this day, I'm still incredibly bad at everything, everything around building stuff, putting together wardrobes, you name it. Typically, my father to this day still comes and helps out, and he absolutely loves it.

02:54 I think he has created this version of myself to not be able to do things so he could do it for the rest of his life. I think that's where we are. think most fathers would probably want to be needed, right? That's a fatherly thing. Yeah, exactly. And now I don't know, like I have two kids as well. What shall I do? Shall I teach them marketing at some point? What are my skills? I don't know.

03:21 little influences in the making, perhaps. Exactly. And maybe that's what's needed in the future more than the carpeting job. don't know. Well, don't know. Carpenters, hard to find in the UK. A good carpenter is very hard to find. Yeah, it is true. I mean, there's not so many people educating themselves towards that anymore. It's more into the digital space, right? So it's going to be, yeah, it's crazy, crazy. But that's where I started. So tell...

03:50 Tell me something about woods that you learned. What? I don't know. Like I'm trying to think of a, if I was coming to the lumber yard and I asked you for your best recommendation for woods to clad a house, what would you say? No, but I think my, I think the initial thing that I learned was that every, you know, carpenter coming into the lumber yard are only talking in inches. Right. And I, right. Okay.

04:16 And to be honest, I barely knew what an inch was before that. So I was like, no, we don't have that. You know, we don't have, I've never heard of that. I was like, I'm in the centimeters still. So I have learned most of the centimeter stuff in inches. So that was my biggest learn, maybe the only learning that I've actually carried on from the lumber jar work. So if anyone asks you about words,

04:42 Unless it's to do with measurements, you're pretty much useless. that what we're saying? A hundred percent. I'm very useless. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a lovely place to start the episode being useless. And then I think over the rest of the episode, we'll show the opposite of that. At least I hope anyway. So we will jump into your first highlight role. So this is either like typically it's either the first sort of career choice people make their first

05:09 proper job I do the inverted commas because like what do call a proper job nowadays because there are jobs in pretty much everything. But what was your first conscious career sort of decision in terms of that role? Yeah, I think before going into that, like some background, I don't have the typical marketing theoretical study in that way. I studied economics and statistics.

05:36 So my first ever job after uni was basically as an analyst. I worked for a bus company here in the southern part of Sweden, analyzing the best possible bus routes that we could create. And that was also a terrible job since the government didn't have any money to fund those bus routes eventually. So it was basically just me analyzing and no funds to do it. But that's kind of where...

06:05 where it started and from that I actually got my first analyst job at the marketing department. So that was kind of the way into the marketing side for me. I think there's a lot of value coming from the statistics, the data side going into marketing. For sure, I think I had a lot with me there.

06:32 But I started at this company called Lime Technologies, which is basically one of the biggest CRMs in Sweden and now the Nordics, I believe. And so I started as an analyst in their marketing department and got tasked with trying to tie a lot of their marketing numbers to the business outcomes. And we all know that that is incredibly tricky. So I got to learn a lot.

07:02 in a short amount of time. I've never worked with marketing before. So yeah, that was really my first touch in the marketing world. And I think where my strong suit is today, I would argue that it is creativity, although I'm coming from this data background. And I think that's kind of where it started, is why I got so interested in marketing and the creative side of it.

07:31 Yeah, no, it's interesting because when you touched on the fact that your background or your studied in economics and statistics, it spoke to me because I, my, probably my strongest subjects, subjects at school were design, but maths and statistics. So I did maths, statistics and advanced maths. And it was, I've come to learn it's the perfect pairing.

08:00 Uh, in marketing, especially in terms of, uh, progressing in marketing roles, because it gets even more important, um, to tie revenue back to your efforts. So you can continue doing what you want to do and be more creative. So yeah, that was, that was really, really interesting. We haven't had that many marketers on. So it's interesting to have a conversation with another marketer, uh, with a similar head, I guess. So, um, what sort of age were you when you, um, moved to growth analysts?

08:29 I think it was at that point about what can I have been 22 maybe. So yeah, UK wise that would be your first year out of university. Yeah, exactly. Cool. And then how long were you in that role? Because I only asked that because I know what your next highlight role is. So I'm trying to understand how long were you there in terms of the development period? No, but I think I was in that specific role for about two years, maybe.

08:59 And then of course, like the role gradually shifted into more marketing pieces without the role like officially shifting. I would say that I started continuously over that two year period working a lot more with the marketing side than necessarily only the analytical part. And from that, I spent another two years in more of a marketing leadership role at the company.

09:28 which was also more of a chance really, because a lot of the senior marketing leaders and so on at the department left. And I kind of ended up being the most senior marketing person at that point without being senior to be honest. So yeah, that was also great learning, I think. Yeah, do you know what? was going to ask...

09:56 Without it coming across in a negative way, was going to ask how does someone 22, 20, well, you would have been what roughly 24 at this point, age 24 going to senior marketing position, having only been in operations. But I think that's very, very interesting. Like you said, was the climate people had left. It was an opportunity. Isn't this the startup world also, right? was two years in a startup scale up environment.

10:26 kind of, it feels like it brings you almost the double in experience, right? Or that's at least what I feel at this point. million percent. So maybe I would never have gotten a role like that applying for it, But in, and I think this is true for many people. Like if you're working for a company, you will most likely be more, you know, working your way up.

10:54 than actually applying your way up, which is much harder. So I think it's, yeah, it's a good balance there. think. Do you know what? It's, um, we've had, we've touched on this conversation topic a couple of times, but at 100 % agree startup is, I would always, always, always recommend to anyone who hasn't worked in a startup to give it a go, do it for two years. Um, because the acceleration it can give you in your career and your development, your skills.

11:23 Um, because you have to wear so many hats is, uh, it's unbeatable. You, just can't match it in a, what I would call a legacy historic, you know, a legacy brand. So the example usually give is banking, finance, that sort of stuff, a bank in the UK. don't know. Lloyd's bank, for example, in the UK, it's a legacy brand, admiral car insurance. If you go into one of those, uh, marketing departments, it might take you five to 10 years to go from junior up because.

11:53 Realistically, promotions are only coming about when someone leaves or there's expansion. There's very often not expansion in those legacy companies because they're not fast growth. And people tend not to leave because they're very secure, safe jobs with a good name attached to it. So you end up doing 10 years to get from, I don't know, marketing exec up to potentially head of marketing. With the startups, that's at least a half, if not a third of the time.

12:21 No, I think it's crazy, right? I think we are on, and it's kind of the hyper growth to your career, right? And I think that's also the reason why I have been doing things on the side of my job, as we will probably touch upon, is also to kind of try to skyrocket your own career, like to take charge of your own career, I think, and the learning from it, because I think you can only learn so much at the company. there are, say you have a couple of people.

12:51 right next to you, it will probably be the same people for a long time. Eventually, you will probably not learn more, I would guess, or at least at a slower rate. So you need to put yourself in situations where you can continue to learn, either by doing other things or by like you are doing, like interviewing people, hearing about their experiences. So I think a lot of people can do a lot to learn faster, which I think is critical.

13:20 Yeah, and as you said, we're going to touch on it because it features pretty heavily. There's a constant vein, if you like, of this startup sort of vibe throughout your career journey. Okay, so you were 24. What was the title that you were, the chance you had, what was the title for that leadership role? I think I ended at like a growth marketing manager or some sort. And we didn't have a CMO or something at that point. So it was me.

13:50 And then another person, kind of split the leadership of the marketing team, me more on the growth side and that person more on the brand side and content side. how big was the team? I think we were about 10 at that point. So good size. Okay. So you were 24 and in that two year period where you were thrown in at the deep end, what were some of the things that you learned in that?

14:16 Like you said, accelerates right when you're given the opportunity and a startup like that. What were the key learnings in that two year period in your first leadership position age 24? Know what I mean? I think in terms of marketing, I knew zero at that point, right? So I did a lot of mistakes early on. I'm a person that gets very attached to things. Like it can be everything from, from strategies to tactics. Like, and at that point growth hacking was a term that was quite

14:45 it quite big. I remember it. And I got so deep into that, like trying to find this golden marketing tactic that would take us to the next level. Obviously, I never found it because I didn't really have a strategy to back it up, which is my learning now afterwards. Like maybe we should have a strategy first and then we can kind of search for the tactics. But I think it was, I had a lot of great colleagues, of course, in the beginning that were

15:15 a lot more senior than me, that had done a lot of this work before at other startups and other scale-ups. I got a lot from them. But eventually what really helped me learn was to get that knowledge. Then a few of them left, which meant I had to step in and do kind of work I'd never done before, but only heard about. I think that was the key, that I had to do it on my own. And I think at some point, that's the learning. You need to step into the...

15:44 the shoes of a person where you haven't really done it before, but you're forced to because someone has to do it. Like paid was such an example, right? I had to do our paid advertising. So that meant, you know, they are LinkedIn ads, the Google ads. I had never been in those platforms before. But eventually you find a way. There are information where you can learn. You can connect with people on LinkedIn to find, to get help. Like people are very generous. Yeah.

16:14 Yeah, it's, there's a couple of things I want to touch on. again, it reminds me. I went the last company I was at, I joined and six weeks after I joined the head of marketing, my boss was let go. Uh, and then it was me left basically. And it was, okay, well, you know, we still want all these things and, you look at the pipeline. This is all the backlog of things you've got to do. So give it a go and we'll see how it goes. And then I did that for basically 18 months, two years.

16:44 Um, and I was essentially thrown in at the deep end in the same way that you were. Um, but my God, when you sit at your desk in the morning and you're faced with a lot of tasks, you don't know how to complete it. It's, it's, it's a certain type of fuel, uh, for you, for learning you either, you either sink or swim and I hate quitting. hate failing. So it was, it was the perfect, uh, accelerant fuel, whatever you want to call it.

17:12 Um, and then the second one is actually a, a phrase from Graze Anatomy is a series, um, that's been probably going on far too long now. I think they're on like series 25 or something. It should have ended at season 12. Um, but they, there's a phrase in it, which is see one, do one, teach one. So it's, see an operation being done. Uh, you do one yourself and then you teach one. And I, it's that sort of mentality of, uh, yeah.

17:41 like that sort of stuck with me of you see someone else do it, someone talking about it online, you know, LinkedIn ads, Justin Rowe, I think his name is on LinkedIn, like he's loads of great stuff. You see it, you try it yourself. And then when you find a some degree of success or something that's, that's working in scalable, then you can talk about it. You can teach it. And I think that's always stuck with me as a, as a, um, which sort of that reminded me of, so.

18:06 Okay, you were there four years at I think just for reference, I actually realized that I went to uni for a couple of years and then I obviously, I think I was 28 when I left Lyme. So think I started a bit later than what I said initially, but I think I started at about 24 and then ended at 28 or something like that. But still, yeah, still young. I remember I was like at 25, 26 and yeah, was very young.

18:36 A good time maybe you were. Yeah, I know I'm very, very good, my god, I had a lot of growing up to do. Okay, so you were there roughly four years. Given that you were thrown in the deep end, sounds like you learned a lot, you had some success and you did well at that sort of growth marketing manager, managerial role. Why did you choose to leave then? I think at some point you want to...

19:03 because this was kind of my first marketing ever gig. I wanted to try and see if the things I've learned would also work somewhere else. I think that was the basis. Like eventually you also stagnate a little bit so you want the next thing. But I think that was it was mostly that. I wanted to see if I can do the same thing as we have been, you know, succeeding with here in another place.

19:26 So see if you were a one hit wonder or there were multiple albums that would do well. And the reason, I think in the southern part of Sweden where I kind of work and I also want to work in this tech SaaS space, I kind of realized that after the Lime journey, there's also just so many cool SaaS companies out there.

19:54 So I had kind of been eyeing this company called Get Accept Right for a while. They were quite hyped at the moment. At that point, they were scaling up their marketing team. They were looking for head of demand and I felt like I cannot not apply for this. So yeah, I kind of took the chance on that. was a no brainer. This is where I actually came across

20:21 you on LinkedIn. it was your time at GetAccept that I came across you at LinkedIn. you were, it might have been driving demands that you were running and that's how I came across. I mean, you were doing something right. Cause I was watching and listening and I was learning a lot from yourself and implementing that in my previous role. So that's a... I actually did my first ever webinar for with Leadfeeder.

20:51 And with Andy Colligan at that point, think, that was my first ever webinar. Just before starting at GetAccept, I was invited to talk about something. Well, there you go. It's a nice circle then. Circling back. Right. Okay. So talk to me about Headed Demand, Genet GetAccept thing. Cause I know GetAccept, it's a digital sales room. So for those in the UK.

21:17 might be familiar with Trumpet, which is probably the other more familiar one in the UK at least. then get except was more, um, stay central Western Europe. Um, Nordic. So talk to me about getting except then. Um, yeah. And I would say at that point, it wasn't really a digital sales room at that point that came, came, you know, it started out as more of an, an e-sign tool competing against, you know, the docu-signs and the, and the world.

21:44 And then it kind of gradually shifted over the years into more of the digital sales room where 50 other companies also jumped on the train, right? So became incredibly competitive. But I think I came in, I don't remember exactly how many we were, but say that we were 10 or maybe 12 when I came into the company, I got into this head of the Mandian role for Europe. I think we, had a team of maybe we were 15 in total. I had a team of five at least.

22:12 tasked with like growing Europe, um, forget, except, then we had a, like a separate growth team in the U S so I started out just focusing on the, on the, on the European side. Um, and this was obviously a much larger operation than I had ever been, been part of before, you know, it was 15 in the marketing team out of, I don't know, what were we maybe 115 total in the company. So it's a quite, quite big, marketing team. Yeah.

22:41 And that was just the start. think we ended at like 25, 28 people in the marketing team. And then we were maybe about 200, but it's still a huge chunk of there. Which was really cool. But I also, from that, I've learned to like what happens when you become a lot of people in a marketing team is typically that people become specialists, right? You have to, people own the different things, which of course increases

23:09 quality, but it sometimes also increases the time it takes. You don't become as agile. You first have to send this task to this person and then this person. So I've come to learn that more people is not always better in that sense. To keep this startup hustle culture, wanting to drive on, it's much easier if you're 10 people compared to 25, I think.

23:37 So that's like learning. Yeah, I completely agree. I think where, um, uh, it was in my previous company, one, just, just me. And then I managed to have a dotted line to two other people's whose titles weren't marketing, but were writers by background by trade. So it was like one and a half maybe in my previous and what, yeah, it's surprising what you're able to do when the only efficiencies are your own workload. Like you don't have to think about how you work with.

24:06 20 other people. Um, and then I'm thinking like deal from right now we're, less than 20 marketers. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head. I want to say around the 17 ish Mark, uh, head count roughly 300. So we still, it's still a fairly lean, um, lean team. And I'm, I'm very fortunate that my team is 50 % of that. So then I am responsible for branding content, which is a beast of a thing.

24:34 But no, it's very, very interesting. think we've done a lot in the last few months with respect to efficiencies. And it's as you grow, as you get more specialist people in, like who owns what? This person used to own that, but now there's a specialist of like, they're protective over it. It's very, very interesting. And I think it's also tricky, right? Because in a startup and at least in a role like I have been having, like often head of demandians, right?

25:02 I'm a big generalist, I would say. I'm quite okay with a lot of things. I'm not necessarily the best at anything. So then if we have specialists that are best in their specific thing, what should I do then? Like I'm just, I'm just, yeah, I don't know. I'm not needed. I'm just- So would you, you class yourself as a, you know the phrase T-shaped marketer? Yeah. Yeah. I would.

25:29 Exactly. I think honestly, I think that's the that should almost be the ambition for all marketeers. Or at least I think so. I think it's great. Like you obviously need to have some sort of angle and some sort of niche, but you need to understand all of it. think I agree. It's it might rub some people up the wrong way who have specialized their entire career. And look, there's definitely still a need for people who specialize for 10, 15 years and something.

25:57 Uh, can earn a hell of a lot of money being a consultant for one, you know, it works out well, but I'm a, I'm a huge advocate for T-shaped marketers. So for anyone who doesn't know T, uh, the top of the T is your understanding of a wide range of functions within the marketing team. And then the bottom of the T is where you have a, uh, increased area of knowledge. a more deep knowledge. So for me, uh, my sort of

26:23 deep areas of knowledge would be more on content and web, maybe content and brands. Now I've stepped back a bit from, from, from web. Um, what, what would your, what would your bottom of the T be? Why are you other than demand Jen, obviously? No, but, but now it has probably became ABM, LinkedIn ads. Those are probably where I spent most of my time. Um,

26:48 And then, know, demand and growth are so broad. So it's hard to say that that's a specialty really, but it's more. Yeah. I think that's where I, where I'm strong, but also creativity. And if that's, if that's something, and I think this is so interesting, like take a, take a designer as an example, if you, if you can find a designer that also has an understanding of like the, the business outcomes. And I mean, why we're doing things that's such a, that person will go far.

27:17 Um, versus a designer that is just the best designer. So I think that's a, and I think that's good. That's the same for a lot of roles. Same in content, right? If you have content writers that also understands the business outcomes, why we're doing things, how, how, how, how the business is working. think that's incredibly strong. Um, and often quite hard to find. Yeah. Well, you call them unicorn.

27:47 Um, I think unicorn marketers, I would, um, there's been some points of my career that I took side steps, even pay decreases. Um, and the phrase that I used at the time was that I wanted to add another string to my bow. Um, but all of it meant is my salary might've stayed the same if not decreased for quite a few years in a row, maybe the first 10 years of my career. But then it really accelerated when I moved into a position where I was like, yeah, I've done that. I've done that.

28:16 I've done that. Yeah. I know what that is. Um, so I would definitely agree with you. If you are a marketer who has been in role for two, three, four years and you've only done one thing, go and try something new unless you absolutely adore what you do. Yeah. It's your calling in life. I'm not saying, yeah, I don't want to ruin that for someone, but, um, go and try something new, like something that scares you, something that you have absolutely no idea about because you will become a better.

28:45 Mark to afford. Yeah, a hundred percent. I it was, I started at, at get accepted. This is head of demand. Yeah. And I focused on Europe growing that team for about two years, maybe. And at that time, I also started my own company, as you mentioned before, this driving demand. partly I wanted to start a podcast because I wanted to interview people to, learn stuff. And then it kind of grew into a community because it was easy to.

29:15 to make it into that. So I kind of started doing that. This was also on the SaaS top, I would say, when SaaS companies had a lot of money. So it's incredibly easy to find sponsors that were willing to pay a lot of money to be seen on this small freaking podcast I had, which was really thankful at that point. And then that kind of just died at one point. And then I obviously lost passion for it. So I...

29:43 I sold this driving demand company to a friend after a few years, but it kind of started at get accept. Yeah. So, so get accepted. And so, um, you were there roughly two years driving, driving demand and talk driving demand. As I said previously, that's how I came across you. So I, um, saw one of your clips videos on, um, on LinkedIn. And then I thought, I think I tuned into the podcast. So in terms of, us a bit more about that side hustle. So was it the

30:13 you needed a bit of a creative outlet on top of the day to day full time. Yeah, I think that was it. And actually I was at GetXF for four years in total. It was just two years in this European role. I think, I think at that point, you know, I didn't have kids, didn't have commitment. I just wanted to go. I wanted to learn things. I wanted to be, I started also to get a lot of traction on LinkedIn. You know, it was the...

30:40 I started posting there what I learned on my day to day. started gaining a lot of followers, a lot, I don't know, but a lot of followers for me at least. And I started feeling like I should be able to do something with this, both in terms of learning, but also in terms of monetizing to see if I could make something happen on the side. Because obviously you read from a lot of people on LinkedIn and you get inspired by what other people are doing. And I think the freelance kind of hype started at that point also. People started...

31:10 Leaving their corporate jobs and doing their full time on this. wasn't really ready to do that because I still enjoyed my corporate job so much. So it was more, can I do something that will benefit both a little bit? Um, which I mean, marketeers was kind of a persona to get accept as well. So it's, it's worked to get the name out there. No, when you say you described it as a little podcast talk, talk to me about the, um, some of the numbers then like during the

31:38 You lost the passion towards the end, during the sort of the peak when you had the most creative passion for it, what were we talking? No, but I think we ended up at like 16,000 listens in total. So think we were at like, maybe I had a thousand a month at or 1500 at most. So it started growing, especially in my niche at that point was kind of taking this demand thing as I...

32:05 talking a lot about and make it more European in a way. was a lot of US centric stuff. So the entire idea was that maybe we can talk to European marketers for once because they don't get so much spotlight. And that was really, I think. Yeah, because it reminds me, weirdly, I haven't thought about this recently, but there was a real

32:26 peak when demand Jen as a search phrase in a search phrase in Google must've been popping off in the spike. Chris, it was Chris Walker of refined labs who kind of spearheaded it. And then there were loads and loads and loads of different opinions. And that's when I was super, super interested in this generating demand, creating demand. Again, that's how I came across you, but for anyone who's running, thinking about running or has run a podcast.

32:53 1,000, 1,500 listeners a month are still good. They're still good for a niche topic. That's still good numbers. Like I think Stephen Bartler said for diary of a CEO, took nearly two years for him for the hockey stick growth. Before then it was just really flat, like the same few thousand before that. So it takes time, doesn't it? No. And I mean, at that point, I mean, I was really happy. I got companies that wanted to sponsor this podcast for, I don't even remember.

33:23 say 20K a year or at least for, and for me that was like, I was going to ask anyway, so I'm glad you said. Yeah, but I think that was, that was about my, that became my sponsor package since the first sponsor wanted to pay that. and yeah, obviously it didn't, didn't go on for, for a lot of years, but at that point I was really happy with that. You know, I did, I did these podcast episodes. released once maybe bi-weekly.

33:53 Um, so I learned a lot from it also recording, uh, everything, editing, um, paying your bills. mean, advertising a little bit. So, I mean, the learnings you get from doing something like that. And I think I've written about this in the past also like spending your own money on things. That's the, that's the freaking biggest learning. think because when it's, when it's your bank account, you're not, you're not exactly like, cause sometimes it work. I'll say, oh yeah, I just, I just want this thing. It's.

34:21 it's only like 5k a month. And I'm like, if I actually asked myself, I'd be like, yeah, get out. know, mean, 5k a month, you cheeky. So, So that's 20k a year. That's interesting. outside of driving demand, which I'm sure it's still available, right? If people want to go and tune into it, watch it, definitely go and if you want to learn about demand generation, we've got a guy internally called Patrick Schuller who's working focused on demand at the minute. And I know he's, he's

34:51 He loves your content. Um, so did it, when you said it kind of died off, was that when the demand gen hype started to drop a bit in that there were a lot of people saying, Oh, demand Jen's been around for ages. You've just given it a brand name. Yeah, no, yeah, I think so. I think I'm also, I'm also, I'm one of these people that love to start things, right? But when it becomes, you just need to continue it. I'm, I'm, I have a ease. It's easy for me to, die a little bit inside.

35:19 I that that happened. The demand and hype slowed down. I started realizing that maybe demand and isn't the answer to everything. So it's a yeah, it's a mix of things for sure. Outside of driving demand and talk to us a little bit more about get accepted for years. What was some of the key learnings as a head of demand? Jen, which was your first proper as in you applied for it. You got it. Your first proper ticket.

35:49 senior role. Talk to us about that. No, but I think the biggest learnings from that period really comes from the sales and marketing alignment. I think we worked so extremely close with the sales team. sat next to each other. The deals where the ACB in the beginning were quite low, so we could... It was a lot of hustle just to get MQLs in right, then they close it by the way. So mean, that was hell of a lot of fun, I have to say.

36:18 And I did that for Europe then, especially for the first two years. And then I stepped into more of a global head of demand for the coming two years after that. And then the challenge, of course, that was mainly the US market where we wanted to grow. So I would say then the biggest markets became UK with Trumpet as a competitor, right? US with Aligned as a competitor. And I've started to learn like Digital Sales Room, which was a category

36:47 Get Accept kind of created there a couple of years ago together with G2 and a couple of others, quickly got like 50 different competitors. I think Gartner came out with something like this, like 70 % of all companies will have a digital sales room by 2027 and companies last flooded there. And I realized that some of these SaaS companies are so darn good.

37:15 creative way. So it's so hard to stand out. Trump is an example. did it extremely well, aligned in the US, crushed it. So it was really hard to, how do we take what we have here and try to stand out with it, which is incredibly hard in B2B SaaS, I think, when companies are doing it well. So I think my learning became that we took it back to authenticity more than

37:44 the height that we had had before. So trying to like have more deep conversations, we started a similar podcast as well, but with more deep conversation with sales leaders instead of trying to grow the number so much. Same thing with, we did this one-to-one ABM tactics where I had this idea that I wanted to take the face of people we wanted to sell to put them into the Superman costume.

38:13 and put them on various objects and then put it out on LinkedIn. So we did that for like, put them on a painting and show it on LinkedIn and tag them. I did, we did a lot of those crazy fun things, which in general worked well and a few people that didn't like it, of course, but that's, that's bound to happen. Um, but yeah, I, I, started learning that there's so many good companies in this category and that's tricky. Yeah, it is, know, I, I, I remember the period.

38:42 Uh, very, very well in that we were playing around with Trumpet. came across get except through yourself. So I knew about get except how to look at the tool. And then when you actually dive deeper into in that period of like 12 months to 24 months, whatever the companies, the new companies, mean, everyone knows nowadays, like with AI and stuff, there's thousands of new companies every single day, but yeah. So what was the period of growth where, so when you joined rough ARR and when you left, what was the rough ARR?

39:12 company size wise? Yeah, it's a good question. I think when I joined, say that we were at like 10 million in ARR or something and when I left, what can I, I don't know, 15, 16 something something along those lines, I think. So we grew a fair chunk, I would say. Partly due to, in the first bit, I would say we grew more from the e-signing proposal, that kind of category.

39:40 And then we course shifted more into the digital sales room space, which were trickier for sure due to the amount of competitors. The category weren't really defined yet. So people had various interpretations of what a digital sales room was, right? Everyone knows what an eSign solution is supposed to do, which makes it easier to differentiate in a little bit.

40:06 But if you don't know, if the categories are wide and people don't really know what it is, it's still uncertain. Yeah. as any marketer will know, it costs a lot of money to try and educate people on a new, they talk about it on Dragon's Den or Shark Tank, wherever you live in the world of like, they always say to these entrepreneurs, these founders, these creators, these engineers that are like, we've created a new category, a new thing that people need.

40:35 And they're all like, do you know how many millions it's going to take to educate people on why they need this category? it can be very, very expensive. All right. So for four years, why did you start thinking about leaving then? No, but I think in the end, you know, I grew very close with our CMO, Frida at that point. And she left and it kind of created this, I would say, a void a little bit when you have find your...

41:05 find a great manager, a boss you can trust, that person leaves, obviously you will feel something. And I'm not, you know, I've had both good bosses and bad bosses, I would say. And when I find a good one, I really, you know, want to hold on because I think it's so, important. So that was kind of the first thing I would say that affected me. And then obviously you want to, I've been there for four years. What's the next step for me?

41:33 I have marketed towards this sales and marketing persona now for a while. And I wanted to challenge that a little bit. Can I, okay, I can obviously do this at different companies towards the same persona. Can I actually do it towards another persona that I don't understand? And it was actually in this period, I also founded my second side job, the Fibbler journey with the software, which was also very much due to my...

42:01 my CMO, Frida, who demanded so many ROI things from me to prove that LinkedIn ads worked. you thought, oh, I'll just build a tool. Exactly. I said to my dear friend here that lives very close to me that I have this idea, please build it. And then it took 12 months, but he still built it. So I'm very happy that he did that. So that's kind of how that started. Yeah, very, very interesting. the...

42:30 I can relate to the good manager, bad manager thing. I've had my fair share of awful managers in my past and I've had my fair share of amazing managers. One of which is Sam. Hopefully he's not listening to this because it would be a bit awkward if he is, but Sam is an amazing manager because he is extremely relaxed and gives you...

42:54 gives you space to operate. So he trusts, um, what you've been brought into the business to do. And he takes a step back. And as long as you keep him vaguely in the loop, sort of once a week, he's, he's good. He's all good. And I think, it's, would agree wholeheartedly. If you find a good manager, if that changes, it can completely throw you off in terms of, uh, imposter syndrome, like everything. Um, so if you've got a good manager,

43:23 I can see why you would want to leave. then what would you say is your point that you start getting itchy feet then? Because for me it's between years two and three, but it sounds like for you, were there four and four years of these two roles. So is it roughly three to four years for you? Yeah, I think it would have been similar to you. But I also have both... No, but I also...

43:50 I did decide things as well, right, which kind of kept my passion going for a bit longer, I think. So I think that also made me stick around for maybe longer or feel satisfied. But yeah, and then after four years, think, and I think this is going to be my career. Like I think after four years, either you need to find, if you're a person like myself, at least you need to find a new challenge somehow.

44:20 And that can be within the company, of course. But quite often it doesn't turn out like that. Like it depends if you can finally, like I did at GetAccept, I got to focus globally instead of Europe. That was super exciting, of course, because I wanted to go towards the US. But how many times can you do those type of changes, right? It doesn't happen too often. Yeah. do you feel...

44:48 I, the phrase that I've used is, um, I hate, I'm not content with mediocrity. So, but mediocrity to me is once I've learned a job and I've done it to two years for me is the minimum number of cycles of a job that you need to do to be able to do that job. One, that's the first time you've ever done it. So can you repeat it a second year in a row? Once you've done two years of it, you know, the job. So that's when I'm like, right, if I know the job and I can do the job, I'm like,

45:14 Am I bored? Am I challenged? Am I learning? Am I doing that progressive overload gym mentality of adding a little bit of weight each week or whatever? And I feel stagnant. If I get into that period, I feel stagnant. Yeah, and it's a good point. mean, and then it can be so that if you can buy into the vision of the company, maybe that can excite you apart from just the role. mean, but yeah.

45:41 I mean, where are we going? I want to know then at that point, okay, where are we going to be in two years time? Do I buy into that journey or do I not? I think that's also critical. Yeah, life is short, right? Unless you align perfectly with the vision and you feel as if you're not just a cog in a machine, you're part of that vision. Yeah. Then you're signing away two years of your life. Think of it as signing the lease on a building or a flat.

46:10 When you sign for a year, you are a little bit like, Oh God, a year. Do I really want a year? So it's the same mentality. Okay. So I can see one of the reasons why you decided on your next role, but talk to me about your, I believe your current role, Yeah. Yeah. So talk to me about your next and the current role that followed ahead of the Margenic Get-Accept. Yeah. No, but so I obviously continued down the head of the Margenic path because I think that's where I am at my best.

46:40 I joined a company called Rillian working in the financial SaaS sector. So I'm targeting CFOs, finance manager, finance controllers, right? Completely different to what I've ever done before. I've actually had so many learnings this past, I don't know, I've been there four months or something now. I think more learnings now than I've had. I have to challenge my ego so many times.

47:09 which has been awesome. And obviously my previous CMO at Gerrard Sepp Frida worked here, so it was definitely part of the decision as well. That together with working towards this more traditional field was definitely something I wanted to challenge myself with. So yeah, now I'm here. I've been there for about four, five months now maybe in the head of the Mandian role. Yeah.

47:35 So still in that, yeah, still in that onboarding stage, still figuring out a couple of little things. What is, what's Frieda's role then? Is she CMO at Brilliant? Exactly. Exactly. She kind of started at the company. I think she's been here almost one year now, but she started when they, without the marketing team basically and got tasked with building this marketing team up. And I think I was number 10 now in, and I think we're pretty.

48:05 done for a while now, maybe a couple of more people, but not like pretty lean team in that sense, which I like. I think that's where I can prosper as well. So yeah, that's where we are. Yeah, Janoua, there's a note that you've made here about when you find a great boss, should hold onto them. it reminded me of the fact that if I look back over my career, I've actually only applied...

48:34 uh, for one job, uh, ever in my, ever in my career. Now, the reason I want to bring this up is because as much as like when you find a great boss, you should hold onto them. Like the relationships that you make, um, in companies are so, so valuable. you know, never burn bridges. That's an obvious one. But when you build a relationship and you find someone that

48:58 inspires you because they're that good or you can work really, really well with because they operate in a similar way or they're on the same level as you hold on to those relationships and nurture them. Because what you'll find is when someone leaves, aka Frieda, that there is always a potential opportunity for you to follow and get a pretty solid referral that almost all of the time means you can skip a few.

49:23 of the interview stages and you basically go straight to interviewing with another senior leader just to validate that you're not absolutely crazy and that the person who's referred to you is speaking the truth. it sounds like that was the case, right? So did you apply for it or is it Frieda reached out and said that I want you for this role, do you want to come? No, I did apply for sure, like a regular, but

49:52 I obviously hope that she put an extra eye on my application. Yeah. Yeah. I did that, but I, you know, we had been very close before. So I felt like we worked extremely well together. She's obviously CMO, strategic. And I think I'm quite good at taking that strategic perspective and make it tactical and make it more and on the operational side. And I think a person like that needs a person that can do that.

50:21 I think that's extremely important in an efficient marketing team, And for a CMO that can be tricky when they come into a new role like an imagine, like they haven't really done the work themselves for a while. And now they have to try and find people that can help them do that in a way. And if they can then find someone that have done that for them before, obviously that's easier. So yeah, so ultimately,

50:50 You need to find someone where you can become a package deal at some point. It's almost like I've always had this thing of like, it'd be really nice to... So the team I'm in now, I brought in our copywriter from the previous company and I was like, honestly guys, you just trust me on this. She's such a good writer, 15 odd years background, was a journalist, blah, blah, blah. The perfect writer. Honestly, zero interview.

51:19 straight in, we knew we needed the role. And I quite like to call it whatever you want, but like a black book of the best people you've ever worked with in each respective field. So, Igor, my design manager, best designer I've worked with in SaaS, SaaS at least, because that's a very, very different industry. So if I were to move on, if and when I do, I would 100 % want to take...

51:48 Becky, my copywriter and Eagle, the designer. Absolutely. Why not? Right. No, and I mean, and they would probably be happy to do that as well. Right. Because I mean, I hope so. be awkward. Exactly. No, but I think, I, yeah, it's called the understated that like, as you said, the don't burn bridges because these relationships are quite key for the, for your career as well. And I think partly, partly those kind of working relationships, of course, are important.

52:16 But I'm also starting to realize that as you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, you write, you comment, you talk to people in DMs. Those relationships are also fantastic when you're out looking for a job, People that hasn't really worked with you, but they think the content you spread are valuable and that you're knowledgeable is also something that can really help to bring you into a company.

52:43 Yeah. People you buy from as well. They're that kind of, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, chili Piper, everyone knows chili Piper. I'd imagine most people listening or watching this know who chili Piper are. So I bought, um, chili Piper in my previous company with, um, from Heather, uh, and a chili Piper. She's now gone to HubSpot. Um, and then my, our customer success manager was Tristan. Um, and both of them absolutely brilliant. And the number of people that I've managed to, um,

53:12 sort of be connected to through them. just this week I messaged Tristan and I said, I'd love to get Alina, the founder of Chili Piper on revenue career ladder because strong female founder. Yeah. Straight away. He was like, yeah, I'll do it right now. And I just think like, if you can maintain those relationships with people that you have a level of respect for, it's so valuable. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, it's the same in your private life, right? But this has an impact in your career.

53:42 in a way. So it sounds like you've touched on this a couple of times, but you said that you wanted to challenge yourself to see if what you successfully did at one company you could do again at another company. So does that mean you have an element of imposter syndrome where you're kind of like, it luck? Can I do it again? Yeah, 100%. Don't we all have that? Yeah.

54:07 Yeah, yeah, but I definitely I think so and some sort of ego as well, right? I want to prove that I can do it again. I hope that that should go away eventually. But now at a brilliant as an example, as I talked about, like I had to challenge so many of my, know, what I've seen as facts before, because it's a completely different persona that I don't know by heart because they are not like me.

54:35 Like if I, if I market to a marketeer when I sell Fibler as an example, like it's basically marketing to myself. I, if I find it funny, maybe they will find it funny. This is not working here. I've tried that towards this audience as well. Not working, not working. that finance people not having a sense of humor. Or something else. Yeah. But, and I think I've, one thing I've had to learn as an example, like I have really.

55:02 talked bad about webinars in the past, right? We had COVID, there were so many webinars, I got so fed up with webinars. And now I'm learning that this freaking audience that we're targeting, they love webinars. So, okay, let's just do good webinars then. Why is that? That doesn't have to be a bad thing, right? But I was so fixed about not doing certain things that could still work. So I think that is the...

55:31 the learning that I've had to deal with a bit. Yeah, that's very, very interesting. think on the topic of sort of imposter syndrome and thinking if it's luck, there's a, I can't remember where I heard it might have been Chris Williamson. hosts a modern wisdom podcast, a big, big podcast. And he said something on there, which is that confidence is a series of successful results stacked. And that's how you build confidence.

56:00 Arrogance is confidence without the successful things to back it up. it's without the data to support it. I've suffered massively with imposter syndrome. I think it's a weird battle in my mind of every job you take should scare you slightly. Otherwise, it's not a big enough role. Jimmy Carr said, if you're not scared every 18 months or you don't feel like an imposter every 18 months, you're doing something wrong. Completely agree with that.

56:30 And then there's always this element of the imposter syndrome kind of takes over. And I do remind myself of the thing of like, I've, obviously done something right in the last 10 to 12, 13 years, otherwise it wouldn't be where I am. So there are clearly some successful results that I've stacked. Yeah. And I've got that data to support, to talk myself out the imposter syndrome, but it's the way in which you said that you wanted to see if it, uh, if you could apply what you would learn and the success to another.

56:59 industry or persona. Yeah, that's a, I've certainly felt that before. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think this is the sole reason why I've done things on the side as well. Right. Let's say now when we started this side company, Fibbler, I'm on my own creating this apart from my technical co-founder. It's on me to make it successful. And if I can do that, like I should be very happy with myself. I've done the sales, I've done the marketing, I've done the

57:29 I think those are also things I do to try to prove to myself that I can do it more or less. that's I would ask the question, what have you learned at Rillian so far? You've already touched on the fact that the audiences have surprised you, but I'd like to talk a little bit about Fibla. So talk to us about the company that you've co-founded, like you've just touched on Fibla. What is it? Tell us the who, what, when, where, why.

57:56 No, but as I said, I started it based on my CMO being frustrated with me, right, about proving the ROI efficiency of LinkedIn ads. Because we all know in B2B, like most people don't see an ad, click an ad, buy. That's not how it works. So we created a simple product in the beginning that just took impressions from LinkedIn ads. So people seeing an ad and then we tied it to the CRM data. So we could see if someone had seen your ads multiple times before they became a deal in your CRM.

58:25 It should have had an impact. So we called it the influence pipeline and influence revenue. Which was really, that was the only thing we did at that point. And then after that, it has of course developed a lot. You know, we got in a lot of users that gave feedback on what they wanted. And now it's more, I would say an intermediary between LinkedIn ads and the CRM. So we kind of take the data from LinkedIn ads, send it into the CRM or any other tool people want to use. And then they can do it because LinkedIn.

58:54 don't really do that on their own. So yeah, it started out as a, it's still a very niche tool, I would say, but with a few more. And I would say that I also started it with the, I was so tired of these insanely expensive ABM attribution platforms. So we started taking like $69 a month, you can cancel. Since it's a side thing, we...

59:19 We don't really have to earn a lot of money from it. And then obviously over time we have found levers to do that better. Like $69 only is obviously not such a great plan. So yeah, that's what was definitely how it started. And from then I think we've been live since April 24 and now we have 130 paying customers, I think, and about 130 K in ARR also, I think.

59:49 So, it's very, we have done it very scalable in a way, like we don't have to, people can try it for 30 days, then they can upgrade or choose to not upgrade. We don't do sales demos or sales meetings, purely self-serving that. We've had to do that since we both have full-time jobs, right? But I also realized that it could go even better if someone, you know, took

01:00:18 took a bit bigger role with that. But yeah, I think it's super fun. Yeah, essentially, because when you first started speaking about it and sort of announced it, launched it, I remember thinking that it was perfect because you had built a profile and audience of people that trusted you and you had built rapport around this generating demand. And you had spoke about attribution naturally as anyone in your role would do. And then you launched

01:00:48 this tool, kind of plug a whole solve a problem related directly to your thing that you had positioned yourself as a subject matter expert. So it was like the perfect, it was the perfect campaign to generate and create demand for a tool. And I remember thinking that that was very, very, very good. okay. So it's been nearly a year. What are some of the

01:01:15 big learnings then like we have already discussed the fact that when you found your own company, it's a startup. You have these side hustles that you learn a ridiculous amount. So I know there's going be a long list and it might be difficult to pick your top learnings, but what would be some of your top learnings in the past or 10 months? No, but I have really, you obviously I've seen the effect that LinkedIn and your network can have in the past, but this has been something else. I think as you said,

01:01:43 Like before even launching, think I had about 20,000 people in my network, but they are within my ICP, so to say. Like without having that, I don't think we would even get off the ground. like that has, I wouldn't say that all of our customers now are coming from that, but a substantial amount, like from only me putting out organic content. kind of told myself in the...

01:02:10 beginning there of that period that I need to post five days a week. I have this structure, like I need to post value a bunch of different times and then I can do something promotional. Then I kind of stick to that. So we didn't really spend anything on marketing for a long time because I had that network. kind of like the, yeah, it's insanely powerful, the organic side of, you know, content on LinkedIn.

01:02:38 having your face on it and not necessarily the brand. mean, and then eventually when we wanted to scale even more, when we actually had some money coming through the door, we added, you know, thought leadership ads that were, it's a format, quite new format on LinkedIn as an amplifier. So to get my face in front of more people that I don't have in my network, obviously, especially in the US. So that, you know.

01:03:05 Yeah, I've truly learned the power of having a following on and not necessarily just having a following, but people that actually think you are knowledgeable in a very specific area. And I think that's what we are seeing now with all of these founders that are starting things quite often within their specific expertise, right? And I don't see, I think it's very hard for founders now to start something if they are not experts in it.

01:03:35 I don't know. think, I think that would be incredible. I think before, like before we had so many companies out there, you could kind of do it and then kind of get an understanding over time. I mean, it's not all of the founders that have a deep understanding of what, what they did in the, beginning. Um, well, yeah, I think that's critical now. Yeah. I mean, it makes me think of, um, hockey stack probably is probably the one of the most recognizable sort of.

01:04:04 brands that since the beginning or at least the last two years I've been following them that they have spoken about everything that they've done why they've done it the hiring decisions everything of how it's built and blah blah blah and that's yeah I think that's the most relevant example of what we've just spoken about in terms of they were experts they built it there were two of them that started in a bedroom and and they've scaled from there

01:04:32 to now having a, I saw a couple of weeks ago, a new office in San Francisco, which must be costing an absolute fortune. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not building anything to have something, an office in San Francisco. We're more doing it on the site or some money. But yeah. So it's, you're still building and growing it. What are the, what are the sort of goals with Fibola? Is it going to be another one that...

01:04:58 you do for a few years until you've lost the passion or is it something that you see maybe you want to get it to the point where it is almost fully self-sustaining and you kind of don't have to do too much with it? I think so. mean, my end goal, of course, is to make me and my family to come into some sort of financial in dependency, right? That's the... And if that happens, I don't know, but we can at least that's what that's what I'm working towards all the time, I would say.

01:05:27 So if Fibler at some point becomes so big that someone wants to buy it, eventually it could be a possibility, right? Or at some point we might want to go full-time. I don't know. We don't really have a plan, which is also the nice part. We just want to build it as scalable as possible so we don't have to do too much. Probably my co-founder, the technical one, he's going to go full-time this year for sure. Often the...

01:05:56 technical part, building features, that's the bottleneck, right? The marketing side that I have kind of comes for free a little bit since I will continue to post on LinkedIn because that's what I do and it's more of a... Fibler becomes more natural a part of that than me promoting it necessarily. So yeah, we'll see what happens. Hopefully it will be as scalable as possible that we don't have to, but I mean, we realize that...

01:06:25 I think at this point we have about 15, 16 % or so of everyone that tries a product that buys. I mean, I realized it, if someone would call everyone and like, do you have any questions? It would be higher. Of course I do realize that there are ways we could do this better, but I mean, I'm fine with it. Do know what I really like actually is you said that you kind of,

01:06:50 It's kind of that, you know, whatever happens happens. You're not putting too much pressure on yourself to make it something that it isn't. And I think that's quite nice because I think quite often one of the whole whole points of this series in general is that there's an immense amount of pressure on more junior sort of graduates, people coming out of school to make a million dollars to be a YouTuber or an influencer.

01:07:16 Or to go and found a company. There's all this pressure of like that's what success is nowadays So it's quite nice to hear that you're like, look, don't really have a Def defined goal. I'm just doing something that's a creative outlet that's challenging me. learning it's fun I enjoy it and if it goes well, it goes well and you know, who knows and I quite like that that lack of pressure You're putting on yourself. Yeah, and I think I have to because I you know, I have a full-time job I have a family with two kids like last week

01:07:45 I think I wrote, spent eight, eight hours on Fibler, like in total, some weeks I spend less, some weeks I spend more. Like I have to accept that I can only do what I have time to do. And I think that's, that's the key also. Um, it's a very stoic, it's a very stoic mentality that yeah. Yeah. I, know, obviously sometimes I feel pressured by, you know, we could do so much more, but if I wanted to do that, then I would quit my full-time job and run into that.

01:08:14 At this point, we could do that, but I don't. I love my full time job as well. So I think for me, this is the perfect, perfect balance right now. I got one question before we jump into the quick fire one to the answer. When do you, how do you filter out the noise from like the grass is greener, the roast into goggles, roast into glasses of seeing other people build and scale and

01:08:43 the apparent success to you. How do you filter out and just have that? Because you spoke about the fact that you're very realistic. You know you've got kids and a wife and a job and you've got all these things, all these plates to spin. How do you filter out the noise from external pressures that you like other like the likes of hockey stack sharing all of this? How do you filter that out? No, but it's it's hard, right? Sometimes you just feel damn, I could also do that.

01:09:12 That's like the... I mean, I have to also realize that I'm, you you are at different points in your life. Take me, take them as an example. They are much younger than I am. They don't have kids as I have. I can't do that. And I'm also quite allergic to the hustle culture that exists in America in that way as well. I don't know if I would want to do that.

01:09:39 And I'm proud as long as people are coming to us using our tool, liking it, and they don't have to pay 20K for a large tool like HockeyStack as an example or similar, where we only do one very niche part, but they are fine with that. that's where I kind of, we're not building this massive platform. We're building something that I think marketeers at SMB companies that don't have a lot of budget.

01:10:08 could be fine with because that's also one reason why we built it also because all of these bigger platforms, attribution, ABM, everyone went up market, right? Everyone wanted to sell to larger clients. They kind of forgot about these smaller SMB startups. They still want some tools and people don't, you know, in general, they have much lower ACV, of course. So it's hard to have a big company with only doing that. But these types of tools,

01:10:38 Same thing as you said about AI agents and stuff like that, that's booming now. It's going to be massive in that space. Interesting. Very, very interesting. Okay. Let's do the quick fire round that question. So top three tips for career progression. Yeah, no, but I think partly do things on the side. doesn't have to be companies, but I think learning on the side is going to be,

01:11:06 a growth lever for you in your career. It can be listening to podcasts. That's a way to learn on the side. You don't have to start anything, but you have to put in time to invest in your career. think stuff doesn't just happen to you. think that's important. And then I think secondly, think value your relationships as we talked about before. If you find good people you work with, if you find good bosses, hold on to them, keep those relationships live. That will definitely in the future help you.

01:11:36 And make sure you have a good relationship with people. It's very important, I think. And then last, I think also, as we talked a little bit about before, I think put yourself in the shoes of others. We talked about T-shape before, right? Make sure you at some point try everything that you're doing in your marketing department. Like try to make a design. It doesn't have to be perfect.

01:12:06 but you can get a feeling for what it is. the same thing with content, right? Everyone can write, maybe not well, but at least you can try and see where it takes you. So I think that's my three tips. It's interesting. I don't know why it's only just come back to me now, the starting things on the side. So during COVID, my ex-partner at the time, we noticed that there was a gap in the market in the UK for houseplants. So houseplants boomed in COVID.

01:12:35 So we, as a marketer, I was like, Oh, don't, I don't like the way these current brands, these more historic legacy brands have done it. So I, set up a house plant e-commerce store and we did that for just over a year. And I think we did, uh, built up a subscriber's list of like 15,000. did 150,000 and it worked out to something like we sold 40, 40 plants a day. Um, over the course of the year. my God, I was doing 80 hours a week and I was.

01:13:04 I was getting migraines and the stress was not good, but wow, did I learn a lot? Definitely, definitely go and do it, but I would not suggest doing a houseplant business because they're an absolute nightmare to box and ship to people funnily enough. So, So you haven't, uh, this is interesting. Actually during the conversation, no regrets have come up yet in terms of like, wish you didn't do that or you regret doing that.

01:13:34 Do you have any regrets? Career regrets? Yeah, yeah, I do. Of course. I mean, when you're young in the beginning of your career, I think you tend to put, I see this all the time now as well. tend to, you put a lot of, you know, success on the salary you earn, right? That's the success metric. And I, yeah, I did that in the beginning as well. And I obviously didn't mention that before. It wasn't a highlight.

01:14:02 But I joined the company purely for the salary and the title and it ended up being a terrible fit. Because I didn't really, you know, at this point when I'm looking for a new job or anything, I have these things, these prerequisites that I want to have at the company. Non-negotiables. Exactly. At that point, I was just blinded by the salary. It was much higher than I had. It was a terrible decision and I don't think I will do that again.

01:14:32 I I really get that salaries and increasing in salary is important, of course, but it's not everything. I'm starting to, you as you talked about before, the grass is not always greener. You have to find a balance, I think, where you enjoy yourself, you're earning well enough for what you're doing, right? And how many hours you're putting in. And I think I'm at a point where I'm starting to do that more.

01:15:00 Very, very interesting. Have you heard of or read a book called Psychology and Money by the guy called Morgan Hounsell? No. So he's a guy who spent 20, 25 years trying to understand the psychology of money and how people's relationships with money differed. So were they brought up in poverty? Were they brought up with a silver spoon where they had very rich family? And it was how different people approach money, looked at money, used money, spent money, debt, non-debt.

01:15:30 would save too much, spent too much. And he came to the conclusion after spending 20 plus years speaking to lots of people and doing lots of research that his financial goal could be summarized in he wanted to earn enough that he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, with who he wanted for as long as he wanted without fear, without fear of not being able to do that. So without fear, I guess I could have finished the sentence.

01:15:59 And that since reading that book, that's exactly what I've I sort of reset the barometer, if you like, in terms of like, how much money do I think I need in order to do those things, to do what I want, when I want with who I want for as long as I want. How much do I need? It's not as much as you think. So this is episode we've recorded. I think this is the 13th episode we've recorded for revenue career ladder. And it feels like at least 50 percent of the episodes we've done, people tell people have told me.

01:16:29 Money isn't everything. And it's so true. It's so true. I guess people, that's what people learn over time in a career, right? Hindsight, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't know that money isn't everything until you make the decision to go for the money and realize that your blood pressure goes up and actually you've not got any time to spend with friends and do the stuff you enjoy. So

01:16:52 No, I think it's important. You shouldn't be foolish, right? In your career, you should really make sure you ask for what you're worth, right? You should accept I you're worth it, course. Yeah. Very, very good piece of advice. Okay, so what we've touched on Fibla and what's next on the ladder, if you like? where do you see your next step being? No, but I think it's interesting, right? I mean, one...

01:17:18 I've learned that the CMO and that type of direction could be a next step for a person like myself, but it's really not me. That is something I've found out over the years. I need to be operational in... You like getting your hands dirty. Yeah, but I do. And I like to find a combination between being strategic and that. So think I want to continue in roles such as...

01:17:47 had like growth, the demand, I love that. Possibly more in the startup scene than I am now. Now we are more in the scale up. I do think I'm even more enjoy the startup scene when you are like say 50 people, because then you get so, you're so into making the company grow, right? In a completely different way. So I think eventually doing that again, but at this point, I just want to help Brilliant grow like in the coming years.

01:18:17 on my side jobs, I don't know what will happen. I will probably end this at some point and then come up with something. Yeah, I look forward to it because I know it's going to happen based on your the last 10 to 15 years. We know it's going to happen. So I look forward to. mean, it has to be something with AI, right? Because that's where we're going now. Okay, so that was your that's your next step. Final question. Where do you see the end point of your career?

01:18:45 Where would you like to get to? No, but I said this before, like financial independence for my family, but you phrased it so well. So I almost have to change my answer now to, you know, independence is maybe not the right word, but I want us to be able to do those things. Like we, to us to be able to pick and choose a little bit what we want to do. You know, my spouse is a nurse. So it's a bit different in terms of...

01:19:14 how flexible she is and what she can earn and all of those things, right? So I want to be part of doing that for us. But not so much, I don't have any, you know, having a lot of things that cost a lot of money. That's not necessarily it. I just want to have freedom, I think. Do you know, I've, on that point, I found myself in the last year or two shedding things. I'm like, why did I buy that? don't need that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:19:44 change my car to something with less electronics because I'm like, I don't need all that. And it's weird. It's another age related thing that any of the young and listening will soon they'll hit that point. They'll hit that point and they'll think back to this episode and go, ah, I know where it was. Well, it's been a very, very interesting episode for me. I think it's been a great conversation chatting with a fellow marketer and someone that I looked up to.

01:20:09 and still do in terms of coming across you on LinkedIn. So it's been really interesting to actually have a more in-depth chat with you and find out a bit more about your career. So I hope those that are listening and watching have found some actionable tips and advice or have related to some of the stories that Adam has gone through in the last 90 minutes. If you have done, please follow, subscribe, et cetera. And we look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thank you.