How to Thrive as a Solo Marketer in the Chaos of Early-Stage Startups with Sandy Mangat, Head of Marketing at Pocus | Ep. 338

Summary

Episode Summary: How to Thrive as a Solo Marketer in the Chaos of Early-Stage Startups with Sandy Manget

Podcast: The Marketing Millennials
Host: Tamara Gominski (Guest Host)
Guest: Sandy Manget, Head of Marketing at Pocus
Episode: Ep. 338
Release Date: August 8, 2025

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of The Marketing Millennials, guest host Tamara Gominski welcomes Sandy Manget, the Head of Marketing at Pocus, an AI sales intelligence platform. Sandy shares her journey and invaluable insights on navigating the challenges of being a solo marketer in an early-stage startup environment.

The Journey of a Solo Marketer at Pocus

Sandy recounts her initial days at Pocus, highlighting the unique challenges and excitement of joining a seed-stage company as the first go-to-market (GTM) hire. With the company in its infancy—employee four or five—Sandy was tasked with building the brand from the ground up, despite limited resources and direction.

Sandy Manget [02:02]: "Those early days of Pocus were chaotic, magical, and daunting. We had just an idea, early inklings of a product, and a strong perspective from the founders."

Balancing Strategy and Execution

One of the core struggles Sandy discusses is balancing high-level strategic planning with day-to-day tactical execution. As the sole marketer, she had to manage everything from defining the brand's unique perspective to handling minutiae like website development and logo design.

Sandy Manget [04:35]: "You have to balance big picture thinking with the smallest tactical details as the only person on the team."

The Ideal Profile: Generalist with a Specialty

Sandy advocates for hiring a generalist as the first marketer, someone versatile yet with a specialization—or "spike"—in a particular area of marketing that aligns with the company's needs. This approach ensures adaptability while bringing depth in a critical area.

Sandy Manget [05:12]: "You should be capable in a lot of things, but you need to spike in something that aligns with the product and the founders' vision."

Personality Traits for Solo Marketing Success

Success as a solo marketer also hinges on personality. Sandy emphasizes the importance of being a "delusional optimist" to sustain the grind of startup life. Confidence, independent thinking, and trust in one's instincts are crucial traits.

Sandy Manget [08:19]: "You must have that delulu optimism to grind it out every day against massive incumbents."

Knowing When to Scale: Bringing in Help

Determining when to expand the marketing team is another critical topic. Sandy reflects on her tendency to hold onto tasks longer than ideal due to her scrappy nature. She advises hiring help before reaching a breaking point, ensuring that key opportunities aren't missed due to capacity constraints.

Sandy Manget [26:58]: "Look out for early warning signals like feeling overwhelmed or losing track of what matters to the business."

Measuring Success in Early Marketing

Measuring success without clear KPIs can be challenging. Sandy shares how Pocus focused on developing a "cult following" as an overarching objective, using a mix of qualitative vibes and selective metrics like community growth and brand mentions to gauge progress.

Sandy Manget [18:26]: "In year one, we aimed for a cult following, using both qualitative vibes and some measurable indicators like Slack community growth."

Building a Compounding Marketing Flywheel: Category, Content, Community

Sandy outlines Pocus's strategic focus on three interlocking pillars: category creation, content development, and community building. This approach ensured that efforts in one area amplified the others, fostering a robust and sustainable marketing engine.

Sandy Manget [15:54]: "We created a flywheel where category, content, and community worked in lockstep to compound and propel the brand forward."

Product-Market Fit as an Evolving Goal

Contrary to the myth of a single moment of achieving product-market fit, Sandy describes it as a cyclical process. As markets evolve, so must the product and its positioning, requiring continuous refinement and adaptation.

Sandy Manget [22:35]: "Product-market fit is not a one-time event but a recurring process of adapting to market shifts and evolving customer needs."

Key Advice for Aspiring Solo Marketers

Sandy offers actionable advice for those embarking on their first solo marketing roles:

1. Drive Clarity: Don’t wait for clear direction; actively create it by stitching together strategies and aligning with founders.

   Sandy Manget [28:40]: "Your job is to drive clarity and be a doer. Execution trumps everything."

2. Ship and Iterate: Embrace imperfect execution and refine through continuous iteration.

   Sandy Manget [28:40]: "Ship or eight. Don’t wait for perfection. Start shipping and learn what matters."

3. Build a Community: Combat the loneliness of solo marketing by proactively building a supportive network of peers and mentors.

   Sandy Manget [28:40]: "Solo marketing is lonely. Build your community of people who can help and support you."

Marketing Hills Sandy Would Die On

Sandy emphasizes two critical marketing principles she staunchly advocates:

1. Effective Content Distribution: Prioritize distributing existing content effectively over creating more content.

   Sandy Manget [32:12]: "You don't need to create more content, just distribute what you have much better."

2. Brand as the Main Moat: In the SaaS and tech space, brand stands as the primary competitive advantage.

   Sandy Manget [32:12]: "Brand is the only moat that exists. Invest in both brand and demand generation."

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Conclusion

Sandy Manget's insights offer a comprehensive roadmap for solo marketers navigating the tumultuous waters of early-stage startups. Her emphasis on strategic clarity, effective execution, community building, and unwavering brand focus provides invaluable guidance for marketers aiming to make a significant impact with limited resources.

Connect with Sandy Manget:

• LinkedIn: Sandy Mengatt
• Company: Pocus
• Community: Join the Pocus Slack community via their website.

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Transcript

[Tamara Gominski]

Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials. I'm Tamara Gominski and I'm stepping in as your guest host while Daniel's out on pat leave. I'm a career product marketing leader and the former VP of PMM at high growth startups like Kajabi and Unbounds. Now I'm the founder of PMM Camp, a community and newsletter for product marketing leaders. And while Daniel's off doing dad things, I'll be here bringing you fun combos with some of the smartest marketers I know. Today's episode is all about life as a solo marketer. I'm joined by Sandy Mangett, the head of marketing at Pocus, an AI sales intelligence platform built for the next generation of go to market. Sandy is a powerhouse solo marketer who's been instrumental in building the Pocus brand and building a community focused on go to Market and AI. We talk about what it really takes to thrive as a team of one. From balancing strategy with strappy execution, to building a brand before product market fit, to knowing when it's time to ask for help, Sandy shares the mindset, hard skills and delulu optimism that helped her build a standout marketing engine from scratch. If you're the only marketer at your company or thinking about becoming one, this.

[Sandy Mangett]

Episode is for you.

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the off.

[Tamara Gominski]

Sandy, welcome to the show.

[Sandy Mangett]

Oh my gosh. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[Tamara Gominski]

I'm so excited to have you here because whenever anyone asks me for an example of a very cool brand or an awesome website, I always say Pocus. And this was before I knew you. And this was before I knew that this whole Pocus brand was created by a very small marketing team.

[Sandy Mangett]

That is so kind. I love hearing that. And it's honestly, we've talked about this, but I have been following you many years before we ever actually met. Just as like my, you know, product marketing North Star. So to hear it coming from you honestly is like, if I could go back and tell baby marketer Sandy 10 years ago, she'd be so thrilled.

[Tamara Gominski]

Love it. So, thinking of the past, why don't you take us back to like your first week at Pocus? What was going through your mind as a solo marketer walking into this new startup I imagine you had a lot of opportunity and probably very little direction.

[Sandy Mangett]

To go off of. Yes. Honestly, those, those early days of Pocus I, they were chaotic, they were magical. It was daunting. I'd never been at a company quite that early stage before, so every other startup I joined was closer to series A, but this was a seed stage company. I was the first go to market hire. I think it was employee four or five. You know, the product was in design partner phase. The brand like did not exist, the messaging didn't exist. We just had an idea, some like early inklings of a product and just a really strong perspective on the future of go to market from art, from the two founders, Alexa and Isaac. And a dream. It's like that's all that was there. And so those early days was just trying to figure out what is our unique perspective here, how do we want to build the brand around that unique perspective? And then kind of like what are the tactical first steps? Honestly, there was a lot of strategy work, but there was also just tactical things that we needed to do. The website was a webflow template. The logo was something that Isaac, our CTO bought on Fiverr. So there was a mix of really big picture thinking that we had to do to, to forge that direction. And then there was seriously the tiniest, smallest tactical details that you have to figure out as a solo marketer coming in. Then you have to figure out how to balance those as the only person on the team.

[Tamara Gominski]

Yeah, not a small task, that's for sure. I think that you've hit on something that we see as like a day to day struggle of a solo PMM or a solo marketer, which is balancing strategy and execution. And I've always been curious about like should the first marketer or solo marketer be a generalist or should you yourself have a point of view and maybe a core skill set coming into the role? Would love to hear just like your thoughts on that now, having lived through it. But also maybe like were you a generalist coming in or did you, were you hired with a very specific skill set but asked to take on that generalist hat?

[Sandy Mangett]

So I definitely think that generalist is the way to go, but with a caveat, which is you must spike in something. I don't think you can just be a complete all around generalist like Jack of all trades, Jane of all trades. It's really, you should be capable in a lot of things. And I would say you should have a strategic perspective even on areas of marketing that you are not an Expert in, but you should know enough to. What I say is like know enough to be dangerous and. But then you need to spike in something. And so what you spike in will, will depend on what the, the product is, what the kind of aspirations of that founding team are. And so that is what. So if I'm talking to other founders and advising them on their first marketing hire, it's always generalist with a bias towards action that spikes in something that you think you will care about. I think the challenge is it's usually pretty fuzzy to know what you might care about. And so that's kind of where there is some, I think, value in doing a little bit of strategic thinking as the founders on what are those areas of spiking? Is it gonna be product marketing? Because you believe that there's a lot of complexity in the product that you're building and you need to make it really easy to understand and have very clear go to market messaging around that maybe your product is pretty simple, there's an existing category and you're just making a play at offering something cheaper, faster, better. And so it's growth like it's a land grab. And so you might think find somebody who spikes in demand gen. So I think that spike is what varies. But I think the core generalist skill set, both hard skills, soft skills, those are important to screen for. There is a real difference between somebody who is cut out for scrappy, early stage generalist type work and somebody who is really deep on a specific part of the marketing funnel or function and is used to like really optimizing that versus being okay with more ambiguity across everything.

[Tamara Gominski]

Yeah, I think you talked about hard and soft skills, which is absolutely critical. But I also think personality is important in like how successful you will be. So like are you a builder or an optimizer? Or like how much structure do you like in your day? How much conflict are you willing to handle? Have you seen maybe just friends of yours that have been so solo marketers as well who've maybe tapped out and been like, my personality is not cut out for that or like what do you think about your personality makes you cut out to be a solo marketer?

[Sandy Mangett]

That's such a good point. I think it's personality and, and I don't know if you'd classify this as personality or disposition, but I think I'm delusional.

[Tamara Gominski]

Same girl, same like.

[Sandy Mangett]

I think you have to have that Delulu attitude and we actually make that, we made that a core value. At pocus, we are hiring delusional Optimists because working in startups is grind. You are often battling against like massive incumbents who have way more money than you. The odds are always stacked against you. So if you do not have, you know, that dulu optimism, it's going to be really hard to grind it out every day of the week. So yeah, I guess like that is a personality trait or a disposition, but I think that that honestly is the thing that separates somebody who thrives in an early stage solo work and I think, you know, other dispositions or personality traits like being kind of like an independent thinker and, and not necessarily somebody who seeks to always do things kind of like by committee consensus. I think you have to be like pretty confident in some of your tummy feelings as I call them as an early stage solo marketer because there's not going to be somebody that's an expert that's going to be battle testing your ideas. You're expected to make decisions with confidence, independently, with the information that you have. And if you don't have that confidence, you don't have strong like gut intuitions about things. I think being in that early stage solo marketer C is going to be really challenging.

[Tamara Gominski]

Yeah, I think experience level and maybe confidence, maybe it's less experience with confidence is important. One of the questions I get asked the most from companies who are wanting to hire their first product marketing hire is what's the level of seniority I should go after? I think so often they're like, well, it's our first hire, we're small, this needs to be affordable. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes they make, which is you need someone who can be strategic, who has seen this before and is confident in their decisions. Yes, they're delusionally optimistic, but they're also rational, if that makes sense. They're not reckless, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, exactly. I think and finding the right balance of seniority, it's like somebody that's on the rise. Right. You catch them at the right moment where they've, I think often for early stage it's like, have you seen it at least once before? Is probably going to be the right mental model to come in with, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in the exact same industry, the exact same go to market motion. All of my experience prior to Focus, I think was in a, in a very weird industries like IoT and smart hospitals and smart buildings. I talked to commercial real estate people all day in one of my roles and so it doesn't always have to be direct, directly domain experience, but having seen what good looks like is honestly a cheat code. And then two just. Yeah. Having the mental model of, of what it does look like, going 0 to 1 at least once before, I think that's fair.

[Tamara Gominski]

I want to turn a little bit more towards the work because you kind of painted that picture for us. And when you came in your first 90 days at Focus, there was so much to do. How did you decide where to focus as a solo marketer? Can you walk us through? Kind of like the criteria you use even now with a slightly larger go to market team, but it's still very small and scrappy. Go to market team. How do you decide where to spend your team when you don't have a massive marketing team behind you?

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, and this is like a constant struggle and continues to be a constant struggle and I don't think anyone ever gets away from it. And this is not just advice for marketers. I think generically advice for anyone in any role, but especially if you are one of the first 30 or 40 hires at a startup, the way that you get clarity on where to focus is always your North Star needs to be what's going to move the needle on the business, like the business as a whole. And I think that is a big difference between early stage versus more established company with a bigger team. I think when you're in that more established role, it could be like local maximums and local optimizations. But when you are in a small team, we all need to be thinking about the bigger picture at all times, not just about our own role, not just about our own department, not our own function, but the entire business. And so coming into focus so early, it really was just me sitting with the founders figuring out what is going to be the thing that moves the needle on the business in year one. And then obviously, you know, it changed more rapidly the earlier we were in year one. I think our, our like kind of North Star was pretty clear. It was fine product, market fit. But then the ways that we got to that and the way that I supported that probably changed more often compared to today. So months, weeks, cycles as opposed to now. I think we're mature enough where I can think in, in quarters, which is a luxury to think in quarters when it used to be like, you know, week over week where we're trying to figure stuff out and just like that rapid iteration phase. But there was always clarity in the early days and I credit Alexa for this on. We knew early on that it was Already a pretty like competitive market. I mean go to market tech is always very competitive. It's super noisy space. And so she early on and the reason why she hired a marketer as her first go to market hire and not sales was marketing and brand and category creation, community were all things that she was already thinking about as being important to the business. To break through the noise and be really that the tide that raises all boats. So Alexa had that hypothesis and then I really aligned to that perspective. So early on we decided the things that we were going to focus on and like it was, it was fun. We created a little alliteration. It was like category content, community. Those are three things we cared about. And then in year two we layered in a D for distribution. But actually in the first year we, we did not actually care about distribution at all, maybe to our detriment, but we were just like, we're going to put out the best content to educate the market. We're going to help establish this category. And the way that we're going to do that is through community. We're going to try and build the place where people come to learn about modern go to market tactics. At the time, product led sales, now it's all about AI and we just want it to be the number one place and built a slack community. And then that slack community fueled our content Flywheel because we would host AMAs and then those AMAs would turn into newsletters and blog posts and the founder brand that Alexa built on LinkedIn, sharing those insights. So that's another I think tip there. It's when you are a solo marketer, you have to find investment areas that are going to kind of compound and that you can get the most mileage out of. So us focusing on that content community category Flywheel, you know, could feel like three very disparate things that we're working on. But because I was resource strapped, I tried to think of it all as like these three things need to work in lockstep with each other and actually compound on each other to make my life easier and also propel pocus and the brand forward.

[Tamara Gominski]

I think that's such a smart way of thinking about it because so often in a company like I've been in those OKR meetings and marketing strategy meetings and we're almost placing different big bets and we're like, well if this doesn't work, we have this to fall back on. But what I'm hearing from you is it had to work. And so I needed to build a system that would almost ensure that even if one thing wasn't as effective, it would make the next thing more effective.

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, you'll eventually move to a phase where you can have like, you know, more of like a, we're going to try this bet first and if it doesn't work out, we'll go to the next bet and we'll go to the next bet. But I think in the early days we had to brute force some things and I think a mistake a lot of people make in early stage is abandoning things too soon. And I think if you have that sequential bet mental model too soon, then you probably are abandoning things too soon as well. You don't have a brand, nobody knows you, nobody cares about you. A lot of your growth experiments are going to fall flat for that reason. So there needs to be concerted effort to first build up some of that foundation in order to just start running experiments. I think there are folks who probably work with more impatient founders and they want to see quick results and so they jump to the growth experimentation phase of let's find those quick response channels and try and get feedback loops going as quickly as possible. But sometimes I feel like that's doing the brand and the company a disservice because you jump too quickly to that without first spending time on establishing the brand, establishing your perspective in the market. Like the reason people should even care about anything that you do.

[Tamara Gominski]

I think that's so important. And you actually hit on a topic that I was hoping we would get you in our convo today, which is how do you even measure the success of early marketing or an early marketer? Because I think when you work in an even an organization where you have maybe 50, 60 employees employees, you're hitting product market fit, you start to have more clear KPIs that everyone's aligning on. But to your point right now, it's like people are giving up early. Well, how should they be measuring their success then? And maybe you can share lessons learned of like, oh, I measured it wrong and I shouldn't have, or successes of like, how are you able to champion for those wins early on if there wasn't a clear KPI?

[Sandy Mangett]

I don't know if there's a perfect answer here, but I can share what some of our early OKRs look like for marketing. So in year one at Pocus, our OKR was actually as a team. This was helpful, by the way. Like when you're super small, have a team goal and find ways to have everyone roll up into instead of having separate goals for each team. So our company goal was cult following and our north Stars were like notion Figma these brands that people would revolt if you tried to take them away. And that's what we wanted for Pocus in year one was we want cult following for our product, cult following for our community and our content. And and you know you're like thinking how the hell do you measure cult following? And so there were actually some like qualitative things that we thought about that would indicate to us that we were in the go to market tech zeitgeist and driving what we what we needed to drive. One was you know, if we start to see product led sales as a term being thrown around by people, not us, by our customers, our community members like organic conversations around this topic that we were trying to like incept into the world and then organically hearing about Pocus like out in the wild. So like where is Pocus showing up? Do we feel like we're starting to become quote unquote famous in market tech? And there's tactical ways you can measure this of like looking at the mentions for your brand on different social channels. But honestly we did not do, we didn't measure that. We just kind of like were going off of vibes based marketing at that point. And I think honestly in year one oftentimes you should just do some vibes based on reporting on things. If you're pre product market fit some of those metrics aren't actually going to give you any directional like wisdom anyways. And so wasting time on it is is not something I would recommend. And so you know year one cult following doing some like vibe vibe space measurement of what we were actually achieving. Some like highlights from from that year we got Gartner to start covering product led sales and they started talking about it as a category. We started seeing customers proactively put out job postings for head of product led sales or product led sales director. And so that those were indicators to us that we were starting to really influence the zeitgeist in that and things like Pocus's brand swag was showing up in the wild and then we'd get a text message from somebody saying I saw a bucket hat on so and so on on the bar in San Francisco. So all of those like little moments compound and and helped us feel like we were really making the right strides when it came to cult following. And then more measurable things were our slack community was growing. We were increasing our newsletter subscribers, Alexa's LinkedIn profile was starting to. We were seeing that up into the right. So there, there were definitely some measurable stuff. But I don't want to paint this picture that I was in the dashboards and like, monitoring it super closely. It was, you know, I was getting directional kind of metrics driven insights. But truly, it was very much driven by just feeling what was happening on the ground and, like hearing the right things from the market.

[Tamara Gominski]

Yeah, it sounds like you felt like there was forward momentum and forward progress and that kind of kept you going. Was there ever an inflection point to the brand since you were there so early? Like, was there a moment where you're like, now we know we have product market fit, we must change our strategy, or was this just something that's been like, incrementally growing over time to get to you where you are today?

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, I think there's actually several moments that you experience of, we've reached product market fit, we reach product market fit. And I think that the mythology of there being just this one seminal moment of product market fit, and then it's whoosh. It's like 1% of companies experience that. I think most companies go through a cyclical feeling of reaching product market fit with a certain product with a specific use case in a specific market, and then you need to grow from there. And then you feel like, ooh, like the market cares less about what I do. And then you're back up and you're trying to find the product market fit again. And then you launch more features and you tweak the product's positioning and messaging, given what's changed in the market. And I actually think we've gone through that cycle, like with pocus, we initially focused on PLG companies and the use case of turning their product usage data into revenue. Built the product LED sales category, got product market fit there. And then as the market evolved, our customers started to use POCUS for more than just pls. We had to evolve with them and how the market was shifting to AI first tools. So we had to go and rethink about our product and rethink about our product market fit. And so there's been several moments along the journey to product market fit. And it's. I think most companies are not getting their ones and then just saying, all right, we're done. You have to keep on. You have to keep on getting to product market fit, but it's different each time and the goals are different.

[Tamara Gominski]

And I think you say that, but I think the sad part is a lot of companies do Say that they're like, well, the work here is done now. It's like, just put all the money into these programs and they, they stop the building mentality, they stop the experimenting mentality. So I love that you guys have stayed, you know, humble and close to the customer and obviously a product marketer at heart, where you're like, keep evolving, keep refining the messaging and positioning. As you were expanding, there obviously became a time where you were like, I can't keep doing everything alone. How did you know when that moment was to increase your capacity? Maybe it was bringing on contractors, maybe it was actually hiring, you know, your first marketing hire. But what were the signals apart from being exhausted and staying up all night?

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, great question, and not one I've always gotten right. To be honest, I don't think I have a perfect answer here. I don't think I've always done this the right way. I, I am naturally the kind of person who's going to try and do everything myself. I think scrappiness and being that early stage operator comes with its downsides. And the downside is you're always going to feel like you can do it yourself and try and maintain ownership. And I remember reading this great article on the first round review called about giving away your Legos. And so that's definitely something that was a learned skill for me of knowing when to bring in help. I would say when it comes to bringing in contractors and freelancers to help, there was some just really obvious places I did that early on. Webflow development, design, you know, content support if I needed it. But there was probably other areas that I could have brought in support. But I chose to hold onto it longer because of that scrappy mentality of always wanting to be as lean as possible and then eventually that becomes a bit of a liability. So I think my advice, do not do what I did and stay too lean for too long. I think as soon as you start to feel that there's areas that you figured out and that you need to scale, but you can't scale because it's just you hire somebody to help you scale. I think if there are opportunities that you feel like are slipping away, that could be those needle movers when it comes to the business, but they're slipping through the cracks because you're at capacity. I think that's another signal that you should bring in help. In general, though, I knew like, what I tell myself now is higher before you hit the breaking point. And so look out for those early warning signals of feeling like it's It. You're. You're starting to feel like you've. You're losing track of the things that actually matter to the business.

[Tamara Gominski]

Yeah, I think that's a going back to your tummy feeling again. I think we do get that tummy feeling of, like, this is becoming too much or maybe I'm not the best person for this anymore. I felt that even growing my own teams in product marketing, and you just say, yeah, I need someone else or I need a fresh perspective. Right. It depends on how long you've been chipping away at something, too.

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah. I think for me, it was about hiring. Sometime. I think there's, like, two ways to think about hiring. You're either hiring to complement what you already do well, so, like, double down into those marketing advantages you might already have as a team, or it's to fill gaps. And I think I've tried both. And I would say that for me, hiring for the gap was more effective. And finding that compliment, to me, I'm product marketing, brand content, community. That's how my brain works. If you're familiar with Emily Kramer's Fuel and Engine, I am a fuel person and I dabble in engine. I think I needed somebody who was that engine expert who is a. Is a complement to that fuel and is able to take everything from all of the great fuel that we've created and now build the system. And so just hired somebody on the team to do that in the last few months. And it's going great. Exciting.

[Tamara Gominski]

I can't wait to hear more about that. Well, we're coming up to the end of our conversation, but I want to make sure that I know there's a lot of solo marketers who are listening or even a lot of folks who are on bigger marketing teams and they look at the solo marketer and they're like, that sounds like an amazing role. I want to go do that. What's your piece of advice that you would give to someone who is just about to start their first role as.

[Sandy Mangett]

A solo marketer at a startup? Oh, my gosh. I have so much advice, honestly, that could just be like another whole hour that we spend talking about all the things you should and should not do. Because there is. There's a lot of learnings there. Maybe if I had to pick a few. One thing is do not wait for somebody else to give you clarity. I think startups are all about fuzziness and ambiguity. As a early marketer, your job is to get that clarity. You are the translator. You need to stitch together things. And honestly this is why I'm biased. But I think product marketers are great first marketers because that is what we do. We're the puzzle piece put together people. So defining the strategy, getting founder alignment, trying to parse through the ambiguity as best as possible. So don't wait for clarity. Your job is now to drive that clarity and then to be a doer. I think execution trumps everything. And we have a saying at focus. Another one of our core values is called ship or eight. Ship and then iterate Ship or eight. I think don't, you know, don't wait for perfection. Just when in doubt, if you're feeling stuck on something, you feel like you're in analysis paralysis, start shipping stuff and you will quickly figure out what matters, what doesn't. So I think those are, those are two of my go to pieces of advice for anyone who's, who's starting early stage. And then actually I have a third. The third one is solo marketing is lonely. So proactively, intentionally build your community of people around you that are going to be helpful. That's truly actually one of the things that I did very differently at POCUS compared to some of my other roles. And I think in part because Alexa had great advisors and I saw that and then she also proactively helped introduce me to new people. It kind of like put it in my head that I needed to create the same kind of advisor, advisory, informal advisory board that she had. And so I did that with other marketers, early stage marketers at other companies at similar size, some that were a few stages ahead. You know, I count you as one of the people that I like. You know, we made that connection finally. And I think it's truly such a cheat code and such a level up when you just have somebody a text away to bounce ideas off of, vent to get advice on, especially if it's something that you haven't done before but you know, somebody else has done that zero to one work. Like really just the best cheat code.

[Tamara Gominski]

I completely agree. It's the number one career advice I give to everyone. It's like you can learn all the frameworks, tools, systems that you want. But like the best marketers, the best leaders know that it's about having the right people in your corner.

[Sandy Mangett]

Right?

[Tamara Gominski]

It's about having the right people one message away when you need that help.

[Sandy Mangett]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Tamara Gominski]

Okay, well on the marketing millennials, we always ask one final question, which is, Sandy, tell us what's one marketing hill that you would die on?

[Sandy Mangett]

Okay, so you prep me for this and again, to like my solo marketer roots, I never want to say it's just one. I want to say like here's my three marketing hills that I want to die on. Because I'm.

[Tamara Gominski]

It's a very big hill.

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, here are the three really big hills. But actually I've restrained myself and I'm going to give you two. The first one is most often and this is something that I had to learn too, but now it's like the hill I will die on. You don't need to create more content, you just need to distribute the one that you have much better. And I think the hack here is more cohesive campaign strategies for your launches. Less like, you know, just trying to like win on volume and launching a bunch of things and creating a bunch of content. I think nine times out of ten you did not distribute the original piece of content well enough to warrant having to do another one. So just stick, stick to actually distributing what exists. And then my other marketing hill that I will die on. And this is not something I expected to be so passionate about, but I've become a brand person. You know, I started as a product marketer but I am now just brand is the only moat that exists. That's my opinion. SaaS especially. And tech, sorry, sales tech in particular. Brand is the main moat. And if you think about brand and demand gen as two separate things, you are mistaken. You need to invest in both. And like you will never regret investing in brand. It's a longer time horizon but I guarantee it pays off.

[Tamara Gominski]

I love that I'm a big brand gal as well as you know. Okay, this was amazing as always. So much incredible wisdom. If people want to hear more of your thoughts or follow along, where can they learn more about you about Pocus?

[Sandy Mangett]

Yeah, well hit me up on LinkedIn. That's usually one of the best places to find me. You can learn more about [e-mail] and join our community if you really want. Like the main line to my thoughts. I'm one slack away in that community so you can sign up on our website. Amazing.

[Tamara Gominski]

And I will just say Pocus is one of those brands that you are going to want to study because all of their marketing is amazing, particularly the website. So I will double click on that one. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Sandy.

[Sandy Mangett]

This was so much fun. I want to do 10 more episodes so thank you so much for having me.

[Tamara Gominski]

We'll have you back.

[Sandy Mangett]

Awesome.

[Tamara Gominski]

Bye.

[Daniel Murray]

Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star review rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.