Don't just grow to grow: Real talk from a serial founder There are some lessons you only learn when life hits you hard. This week’s master stared down the loss of his business — “All of Q4 was the biggest punch in the face for me that year. It was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life.” — and came out the other side with a six-figure agency. Today, he shares the kind of vulnerability and real talk you rarely get from entrepreneurs. And his advice just might help you duck a punch. Ryan Atkinson Founder and CEO at Spacebar Visuals; Host of The UpFlip Podcast Fun fact: In business school, Ryan got the lowest grade in a class called Founders Club. He went on to grow his own six-figure business. Claim to fame: Named to Austin’s 25 Under 25 and the Tippie Young Alumni Board. His podcast about entrepreneurship has hit over 2 million downloads. Lesson 1: Don’t just grow to grow. If you believe the hustle-culture hype that thrives on LinkedIn, the only way to get ahead is to eat and breathe the grind, right? I’d say “eat, sleep, and breathe,” but the grind never sleeps. “I thought when I Spacebar, I wanted to grow as much as possible, hire as much as possible,” Ryan Atkinson says. And his business did grow — second only to his stress levels. “This is...

Voice is the new logo: Why your brand’s tone matters more than ever A few years ago, I was in charge of presenting a big marketing strategy deck to a senior executive. My team and I prepared a script that went something like this: “In Q3, we’ll deliver a unified editorial calendar. Subject matter will reinforce key audience pain points. We will increase paid media investments to leverage this series in integrated campaigns.” It sounded so impressive in my head, but the executive just wanted clarity. She asked, “So, what is it exactly? A blog series we promote in paid?” Oops. In that moment, I realized the words I was using were all wrong. I wasn’t just doing this in meetings. I was adopting this voice in all the brand’s content I was creating, too. I call that jargon-filled approach “content voice.” And since that meeting, I’ve been on a mission to stop its spread — both in my work and at other brands. Let’s break down exactly what content voice means and how to avoid it, along with some real examples of brands that get it right. Table of Contents What is content voice? Your voice should feel like a distinct logo. 5 Tips for Developing a Strong & Cohesive Brand Voice Examples of a Strong Brand Voice What is content voice? Content voice is when brands use fancy-sounding jargon in the content they create for their audience instead of communicating...

Tasting marketing: What a viral YouTube star wishes marketers knew I’m not saying I exploited my position as managing editor to meet one of my favorite YouTubers… … but I will say that I’m unreasonably excited to share today’s interview. And, my selfishness aside, this former Disney marketer has a lot to learn from. Today’s master turned his covid furlough hobby into a highly successful YouTube channel with nearly 4 million subscribers and a cookbook on the New York Times Best Seller list. Meet the Master Max Miller Host and creator, Tasting History with Max Miller Fun fact: Max’s house is filled to the brim with Lego. When I’m not working, I’m probably putting together Lego.” Claim to fame: Built a YouTube channel with almost 4 million subscribers and wrote an NYT bestselling cookbook.Before launching his channel, Max worked as a movie marketer for Walt Disney Studios.“I was there during the golden days when they started putting out the new Star Wars and the original Marvel movies.” Lesson 1: Good content beats best practice. Max Miller doesn’t act like a good YouTuber should: He doesn’t test his thumbnails. He has a theme song. And he never, ever makes the shocked YouTube face. (You know the one.) “I break all of the rules. And not on purpose; it’s just that I didn’t know the rules,” he confesses with an unassuming smile. So, how did he earn 3.7 million followers without ticking every...

Rare Beauty’s “anonymous insider” spills the tea on their new Substack I’ve recently been using Substack to find new music to listen to. That’s probably not quite what its founders had in mind, but it has a ton of newsletters written by people who just really love music. It’s less professional music criticism and more “hey, this album was great, give it a listen.” That’s not the only off-label use for Substack. Today’s master of marketing is also a Substack fan — and she took a big risk with it. Meet the Master MacKenzie Kassab Director of Creative Strategy, Rare Beauty Claim to fame: Launched Rare Beauty’s “semi-authorized” Substack newsletter Lesson 1: Get curious about your own product. Novelty wears off fast when you’re in the trenches. “Working in the office, is something” — a new blush, say — “that we‘re around all the time. We go to meetings about how products are made every week,” Kassab tells me. “It doesn’t feel necessarily thrilling from the inside when you're in it for a year and a half.” But your audience’s first peek at a new product? That’s magical. When you’re brainstorming new content, think about it from your consumers’ perspective. What do you know that they don’t? If you’re marketing a new product or service, what got you excited about it in the first place? Even though Kassab might attend weekly meetings about a new product, she’s not necessarily there every step of the...

Memorable marketing, visible mistakes, and a faster horse Today’s master bucks more trends than probably anyone I’ve interviewed. She ignores the competition. She refuses to put ✨AI sparkles✨ on everything. She runs on intuition as much as data. Yet her small, scrappy marketing team regularly punches above its weight — and wins. When Todoist first launched, it was the original personal task manager. Today, its parent company, Doist, is still seen as the go-to in productivity software, despite competing with Fortune 500 tech brands. And y’know what? You don’t argue with success. Brenna Loury Chief Marketing Officer, Doist Fun fact: Early in her career, Brenna moved to Chile — without knowing any Spanish — to work with Habitat for Humanity. After a chance encounter in an Irish pub, she ended up employed at the Chilean Ministry of Economy. Claim to fame: When Todoist hit 1 billion completed tasks, it celebrated by asking users to share something important the app helped them achieve. Over 600 users shared their heartwarming stories. Lesson 1: Make it half measurable, half memorable. “Half your marketing should be *measurable*, half should be *memorable*,” Brenna Loury posted on LinkedIn a few months back. And because giving people a slightly hard time is part of my job, I asked if, as CMO, she still held her team accountable to ROI for the memorable half. Image Source “You pulled all of my hot takes, haven’t you?” Loury laughs. “I don’t...

HubSpot’s Operations Hub pricing guide — streamlined, scalable, and built for growth HubSpot’s Operations Hub is designed for teams who want to streamline operations and unlock new growth opportunities for their business. Whether you’re syncing apps, building efficient workflows, or governing complex datasets, Operations Hub helps you transform operations into a growth engine. 83% of businesses saw an increase in revenue in the first 12 months using HubSpot. From startups seeking automation without chaos to enterprises managing high-scale systems, this guide breaks down everything you need to know about Operations Hub’s pricing and features in 2025 — so you can find the right fit, fast. Operations Hub Pricing Overview Operations Hub has everything you need to connect your apps, sync and clean customer data, and automate business processes. Operations Hub is available in multiple pricing tiers to support teams of all sizes and complexities: Plan Monthly Price Key Features Support Free Operations Tools Free for up to 2 users. Basic data sync, default field mappings Community Support Operations Hub Starter $9/seat (annual) or $15/seat (monthly) Custom...

Make space for customers to see their business as part of yours I love talking to creative people because they always notice details that I don’t. Like today’s master in marketing, who saw a boost in impressions from one tiny, seemingly insignificant detail: when their photo model bent their knee. Today’s master in marketing isn’t proposing — but she does have some proposals to consider. Meet the Master Grace Wells Grace Wells works with brands like Huckberry, Soleil Toujours, and Fur as a creative strategist and director Lesson 1: Share data between your paid and organic channels. Oil and water. Hatfields and McCoys. Paid and organic. They rarely mix, and in at least one of those cases, it’s to everybody’s detriment. Wells tells me, “The crossover what’s performing at those two ends of the spectrum, paid and organic — that’s where you get the clearest and most interesting behavioral insights from your customer.” When she works with brands, Wells says she’s always looking for ways to build collaboration between those two teams. At one brand, sharing data between teams revealed that “lifestyle photos that feature a bent knee perform better than a straight-leg, standing pose.” And it’s those “little fine details that can really make a difference in how you’re presenting your brand.” Lesson 2: Make space for your customer to envision their business as part of yours. When she partnered with the beauty startup Fur, Wells worked closely with Ulta and other...

Content strategy red flags: What B2B marketing teams get wrong and how to course-correct I see a lot of marketing teams stuck in the same cycle: They believe in content. They’re creating constantly. But, they’re just not seeing the results they want. Add that the CEO is asking why the competitor is “suddenly everywhere.” Oh, and internally, there’s no real alignment on who you’re talking to, what you’re trying to say, or how you’re measuring success. That’s usually when I get the call. I’m Devin Reed — former head of content at Gong and Clari, now working with B2B marketing teams through my company, The Reeder. I’ve helped scale brands from $20M to $ 200M+ ARR, and I’ve worked with companies like Notion, Wiz, and FloQast to build content engines that drive tangible pipeline. When I run a content audit, I’m not just skimming through performance dashboards. I’m digging into what’s broken, what’s missing, and what it’s going to take to turn content into a real growth lever. In this piece, I’ll walk you through how these projects usually start, the most common mistakes I see, and what teams can do to course-correct. Why Companies Reach Out for a Content Audit Before I begin working with clients, a CMO or VP of marketing already has had a long-time conviction that content is important. But, they’ve had a recent realization that it’s no longer something they can take lightly. Put another way, they know they can’t afford not to...

Trash AI Content, Experimental Budgets, and TikTok for B2B: Ross Simmonds Unfiltered If you’ve ever stared down a sea of bland AI content and whispered, “Is this my job now?”, you’ll enjoy this master's take: "The amount of blog posts that are written with AI is at an all-time high… And all of it is trash." Ross Simmonds joins us with some spicy takes on experimentation, distribution, and AI. And I promise: It's not trash. Ross Simmonds  Founder, Foundation Marketing; Digital marketing strategist, entrepreneur Fun fact: He once rappelled down a 20-story building in slacks and dress shoes. Claim to fame: Simmonds has done something most marketers would be afraid to even attempt — he's made the front page of Reddit six times over the last few years, and has helped clients do the same. Lesson 1: Dedicate 20% of your budget and time to experimentation. Here’s the thing about marketing teams: We love a good spreadsheet, a strong quarterly plan, and the warm, fuzzy feeling of “proven tactics.” But Ross Simmonds wants you to spice things up.  Don't worry, we're not talking about going completely unhinged. "Eighty percent of your work should be low- to mid-risk, but carve out 20% for the stuff your competitors are too scared to try," Simmonds tells me.  In other words, treat experimentation like guac at Chipotle: It costs a little extra, but it's worth it.  Simmonds suggests allocating time on your team's calendar for experimentation...

The unconventional, scrappy tactics I used to grow a newsletter to 40K subscribers You know that moment when you stumble on a brilliant growth tactic hidden in a Reddit thread or buried deep in a comment section? That's the kind of stuff I live for. I'm Tom Orbach, a growth marketer and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree who created a viral post generator that attracted 2 million users. Scrappy, under-the-radar tactics have been the backbone of Marketing Ideas, my weekly newsletter for startup marketers. No paid ads. No polished design team. No brand halo to ride on. Just a willingness to test fast, double down on what worked, and ignore what didn't. In this post, I'm breaking down the unconventional, effective tactics that helped me grow from 0 to 40,000 subscribers in 1.5 years. Let’s dive in. Why I Started Marketing Ideas Source For most of my 12-year marketing career, people have asked me for creative growth ideas, especially the kind that don't rely on paid ads or big budgets. It became a pattern. Whether I was working with startups, consulting with clients, or just chatting with friends in the industry, someone would always say, “That's a great idea. Do you have more like that?” Over time, that demand snowballed. I got invited to speak at conferences, give guest lectures at companies and universities, and hop on calls with marketers looking for scrappy tactics that actually worked. It was clear there was a real appetite for...