Startup Marketing

One audience. One message. One channel. One CTA. Run it for 30 days. Most startup marketing problems aren't caused by too little effort. They're caused by too many simultaneous experiments. …more

Three things I got wrong about marketing across three startups: 1. I treated it as a phase. "We'll do marketing once the product is ready." Then the product was ready, the launch window closed, and we were starting from zero on awareness with a runway clock ticking. Marketing isn't a phase. It's a habit you build before you need it. 2. I hired it out too early. The first agency we paid wrote posts that sounded nothing like us, ran ads against the wrong audience, and I spent more time briefing them than I would have spent posting myself. Outsourcing only works after you know what good looks like for your business. 3. I confused volume with consistency. We did sprints — two weeks of daily posts, then silence for a month. The algorithm punishes that pattern. So does your audience. Three posts a week, every week, beats fifteen posts in a burst followed by nothing. What I do now is the opposite of all three. Marketing is the first habit, not the last. I run my own content with AI-assisted workflows so I know what good looks like before I delegate. And I optimize for showing up every week, not for output spikes. That's what I'm teaching at my workshop on May 28th in San Jose at the MLK Library, hosted by the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center. The exact workflows I use now, after three startups and one exit. If you can't make it, book a free 15 to 20 minute marketing audit and I'll help you skip the mistakes I made. https://www.radi8.com/free-audit?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=free_audit&utm_content=post_id DM me if you want the workshop link. …more

The objection I keep hearing about startup marketing, and why I still disagree Common pushback: “You cannot start marketing until the go-to-market is nailed.” That mindset keeps early-career professionals waiting instead of building skills that prove them. After 20 years working with startups, I use a simple alternative: treat early marketing as a learning engine. Three practical moves: 1) Run a 2–4 week micro-project tied to one customer hypothesis. 2) Run two low-cost channel tests and capture outcomes. 3) Document a one-page case study that shows insight and decisions. These deliver portfolio-ready work, mentorship opportunities, and clear next steps into product, operations, or startup roles. Send me a message if you want a one-page template or to talk through an idea. Ask me about Radi8 if you want help automating this into ongoing content. …more

The framework I use to help founders and early-stage startups make progress on marketing strategies. 1) Target outcome: pick one measurable user action and a 30 to 60 day deadline. 2) Customer evidence: run 10 targeted conversations to validate the offer and surface objections. 3) Channel tests: run three focused experiments with the same offer, track cost per acquisition and conversion steps. 4) Systemize: codify the winning sequence into a weekly playbook and handoff checklist. I use this with early-stage teams to turn uncertainty into repeatable demand. If you want a 20-minute review to map this to your launch, send me a message. #startups …more