Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• Remote Work Is Eating The World. The pros, cons and pros of building out a global team.

• Unfiltered: How Do Chiefs Of Staff Measure Success? Chiefs of Staff give us the juicy inside scoop on their success criteria.

• How Companies Are Owning Emojis. How to transform your brand by claiming your own emoji.

PARTNERS 🎯

“We need a front-end developer for Tuesday, but it will take months to find someone in the US.” If you are looking for your next remote hire, Athyna has you covered. From finance and ops, to creative and engineering.

The secret weapon for ambitious startups. No search fees. No activation fees. Just incredible talent, matched with AI precision—at lightning speed. All up up to 70% less than hiring locally.

TL;DR ME 🙄

• Negative CAC through media and tech. Smart companies are reducing their customer acquisition costs by integrating with creator brands, effectively turning lead generation into a profit centre.

• Understand CAC and why it matters. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a critical metric for business health, impacting profitability, growth potential, and if a VC will fund you in 2024.

• The rise of the creator economy. Influencers and creators are reshaping marketing strategies. They are leveraging authentic engagement and vast reach into products to serve their audiences.

• Case studies of success. Companies like HubSpot and Robinhood are leveraging media acquisitions and creator partnerships to achieve negative CAC.

• Future of media and tech integrations. The intersection of media and tech is evolving, with new tools and strategies emerging to further reduce CAC and enhance customer engagement.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

Media + Tech = Negative CAC

The marketing and communications landscape is changing. It happened with B2C a decade ago with the nauseating rise of the influencer. Now it’s happening in tech. This time with the creator economy movement.

Traditional media has been in structural decline for years, while new media—podcasts, communities, blogs and newsletters—is here, and it is thriving.

Breaking news.

This matters because we, as leaders, need to know where to spend our budgets in the best way possible. We need to know where we have the greatest chance at turning $1 into $5. It used to be Facebook Ads, before that it was grey hatting your SEO. Cold outbound at scale worked wonders for years.

Brett Adcock, founder of red hot robotics company, Figure, had his first acquisition (~$100M) on the back of outbound email. He has teams in the Philippines scraping data 24/7 and smashing send until their fingers bled.

Figure.ai v1.2.

There have always been channels for a smart founder to go and exploit. In other words, you always knew how to grow. But now those dollars that get pumped into the Meta machine don’t come out as $5, they come out as $1 dollar and 10 cents.

In today’s piece we aim to demystify the creator channel, and show you how it may be possible for you to aim for negative CAC in the not too distant future.

Understand CAC and why it matters

CAC, or customer acquisition costs, isn’t rocket science. It’s the art dividing the expenses to acquire customers, mainly the cost of sales and marketing, by the total number of customers acquired over a given period. Having said that, CAC is more important than ever today.

In the last decade, as we went through the ZIRP period, the rhetoric was growth at all costs wins. Blitzscaling was being fetishised from San Francisco to Saint Petersburg. Companies like Fast were out there burning $120M to get to $600k of revenue. Those days are dead.

CAC then.

CAC now.

Today, money is not cheap, but expensive. Growth is not given, it is earned. And how much money you spend to land Acme Corp really does matter. This is where creators come into our story, and the idea of owning your audience.

Case studies: companies building through creators and vice versa

Let’s take a look at a few differing examples of companies that are building through creators, and conversely, some creators that are leveraging their own audiences to build big companies of their own.

Hubspot

In early 2021, in peak mania, Hubspot announced an acquisition that may have seemed odd to some. One of the leaders in CRM and marketing automations was buying The Hustle—a daily newsletter?

Although it’s not your typical tech acquisition, it made great financial sense. If you’re selling software, you are working with customers who more than likely have an incredibly high lifetime value.

Twitter tweet

Not only had they purchased one of the largest newsletters in the world, they also snared the My First Million podcast, which happens to be one of the most popular podcasts in the world, hosted by Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.

My First Million is kinda like the Joe Rogan Experience of business. Very loose, lots of banter, and with a broad listenership. Perfect for Hubspot, whose customer skew SMB.

Twitter tweet

Following this acquisition, in an incredibly crowded space where the cost to acquire customers is intensely competitive, Hubspot now have two owned media assets. And these assets will continue to drive revenue and brand value to Hubspot over the short to medium term.

This is not really out of character for Hubspot who have always chosen to not have to fight for every dollar on Google and Meta. Hubspot has executed as well as anyone in the world when it comes to content marketing.

Holy smokes.

Take a look at Ahrefs and you’ll see that HubSpot gets 12.3M monthly organic users into their website every month from their content strategy. This is just an extension of that.

Following the success of My First Million, Hubspot built out the Hubspot Podcast Network, which now boasts a total of 34 podcast. Incredible.

The many agencies of Sahil Bloom

Sahil Bloom, the ultimate threadboi cum business mastermind, has single-handedly turned has massive Twitter following into a portfolio of cash flowing businesses generating more than $10M in annual revenue.

Dr Octoagency.

Sahil, up until quite recently, was working in private equity. So rather than partner with large brands, or be acquired into big tech, he decided the better option was to take his influence and plow it into his own ventures. Some of which you can see below.

He built creator themed agencies. Most of which are selling done-for-you packages, using offshore talent to power it in the backend. The incredible thing about Sahil is he only wrote his first Twitter thread in May of 2020.

Twitter tweet

His growth has compounded incredibly in a very small window of time. You can only imaging what his audience will be in 3-5 more years. All of that funnelling top of funnel impressions for his many brands.

Sahil owns every one of the agencies mentioned, and runs ads for partners inside of his newsletter. This is the first instance of negative CAC we will hear today. It’s feasible that with every newsletter send Sahil could sell tens of thousands in ad inventory and drive tens of thousands of value to his companies at the same time. Negative CAC.

Robinhood eats up MarketSnacks

When Robinhood snapped up MarketSnacks in 2019, it wasn’t just a casual foray into content; it was a calculated move to turn passive users into engaged, informed investors. MarketSnacks, known for its witty, accessible takes on financial news, seamlessly morphed into Robinhood Snacks.

This integration meant that every Robinhood user now had a financial guru in their pocket, translating Wall Street jargon into everyday language for 10’s of millions of subscribers. Imagine getting your daily market updates with the same ease and humour as scrolling through your social feed—that’s the Robinhood Snacks effect.

Since then Robinhood has launched an independent media arm, Sherwood Media, led by co-founder and former editor-in-chief of The Verge, Joshua Topolsky. Sherwood, which not only houses Snacks, also just acquired Chartr, a company specializing in data visualizations and it plans to integrate into, you guessed it, Snacks.

In June of 2023, the company said it planned to expand to events, podcasts and build out a print magazine.

Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast

MrBeast first uploaded a video at 13 years old. It was a nonsensical, un-engaging two-minute Minecraft play through. You would never have assumed that video would be the spark that catalysed the transition of little Jimmy Donaldson, into the 266M subscriber, MrBeast, as we know him today.

Leveraging the power of his audience, MrBeast recently launched Feastables, a line of high-quality, ethically produced snack products, starting with the humble chocolate bar. Feastables aligns well with MrBeast's brand by focusing on fun, engaging marketing and superior product quality.

Source; New York Times.

Launched in January 2022, Feastables purportedly generated $10 million in revenue within just a few months. By the end of 2023, the brand was on track to deliver $200 million in revenue​. Not bad for a 26 year old YouTuber.

Feastables at Walmart.

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Other movements in the space

But that’s not it. Companies all over the map are scooping up media. Take the Pendo purchase of Mind the Product for example, the premier brand for 300,000 product managers, designers, and developers.

They own conferences, content, newsletters, communities, and more. Now Pendo, a company whose tagline on Crunchbase reads; ‘Pendo, the all-in-one product experience platform,’ owns this asset.

Pendo’s product suite.

Take a look at this list of other recent acquisitions. Tech acquisitions of value add media and community brands.

Admittedly, more than one of these acquisitions has been spun back out or re-purchased—most famously by Dave Portnoy buying Barstool back for $1—but the point remains. More and more companies are acquiring media brands.

The future of CAC and creators

All-In podcast co-host David Friedberg said recently that; “In 30 years time all traditional brands will be dead.” And I tend to believe him. As more techno-first, social-native youngsters grow up into the next generation of decision makers, more and more old media will recede into memory.

Relevance = 2/10.

In the not too distant future; media will be led by humans, not brands. Creators will spawn businesses as fast as the algorithm refreshes, and who knows, maybe the first TikTok star will run for office. The future is coming fast, be ready.

How you can apply this

• Set your strategy. Decide whether you want to build, partner or buy. Build is slow, partnering has lower upside and buying is expensive. All can work, the first step is to identify which fits for you.

Source; Kyle Poyar.

• Then go and execute. The key here is to get start on a creator strategy. Ideally it’s owned media. Buying or building. Then you are in control of your own destiny. The new age SEO.

Further study

• Stripe, HubSpot, And JP Morgan Are Buying Audiences, CB Insights - October, 2021

• Should you buy a media company? Kyle Poyar - October, 2022

• The Rationale Behind a $27M Acquisition, Failory - May, 2024

• Mastering Customer Acquisition Cost, Equals - Unknown

And that’s it! Now get out their and start building, buying or partnering with your own media brands.

TWEET WRAP 🐣

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Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• Unfiltered: How Do Chiefs Of Staff Measure Success? Chiefs of Staff give us the juicy inside scoop on their success criteria.

• How Companies Are Owning Emojis. How to transform your brand by claiming your own emoji.

• A Guide To Crafting Your Brand Voice. A step-by-step guide on creating a tone & identity your audience will love.

PARTNERS 🎯

“We need a front-end developer for Tuesday, but it will take months to find someone in the US.” If you are looking for your next remote hire, Athyna has you covered. From finance and ops, to creative and engineering.

The secret weapon for ambitious startups. No search fees. No activation fees. Just incredible talent, matched with AI precision—at lightning speed. All up up to 70% less than hiring locally.

TL;DR ME 🙄

• Global shift. Remote work transcends borders, becoming a crucial strategy for businesses ranging from startups to major corporations.

• History of remote. A brief dive into the first companies that went global. From ‘telecommuting’ to “you’re on mute.”

• Pros of going global. Access to elite, difficult-to-acquire talent, broader talent pools, and significant cost efficiencies.

• Success stories. Companies like GitLab thrive with fully remote workforces, demonstrating the potential without physical boundaries.

• Your opportunity. Master global remote hiring to transform your business, using strategies that align with your brand’s values and goals.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

Going Global: How & Why To Hire Remotely

There is a movement happening. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Remote work is eating the world. From New York to New Delhi, Hamburg to Hyderabad, the people have spoken—they want remote. But what of companies? Is it good business or bad business to be build global, remote, nearshore, offshore?

If you get it, you get it.

The answer is nuanced. And in some cases very much philosophical. Today my aim is to provide you with a very bias, one-eyed view of remote work and why it’s awesome, with a tiny smattering of steelmanning the argument for the other side. So borrow my rose-tinted glasses for a moment, and come with me for a wonderful stroll into a fantasy world we like to call the world of remote.

_{*Note: My company, Athyna, helps companies hire remote talent, mainly in Latam, so a lot of this will have a South American angle. Same rules apply mostly in other regions too though.}

A short history of ‘remote’

If you had have asked me in 1990, 2000, even as recently as 2010 ‘what I thought of remote?’ I would have looked at you funny. Today I’d have a very well defined answer. But as far as back as the 80’s companies were going global. IBM famously allowed five—yep, that’s right five—employees to work from home as a test case in 1979. Here is the TL;DR:

90s remote.

• 1970s: Early adoption of telecommuting by some companies as a response to the oil crisis.

The term ‘telecommuting’ was coined by NASA engineer Jack Nilles in 1973. He was the first NASA employee to work remotely.

• 1980s: Introduction of personal computers enabled more flexible work arrangements.

Companies like JCPenney began allowed call center employees to work remotely. ‘Flexplace’ started trending. The ide allowed employees to work from different locations.

Remote work from ‘different locations.’

• 1990s: Rise of the internet made remote collaboration more feasible.

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) begins to take off throughout South East Asia. Enter call centers. Enter terms like outsourcing, offshoring.

• 2000s: Improved broadband and communication tools led to more widespread remote work options.

High-speed internet became more widely available, facilitating better remote connections. Skype (2003) and Google Docs (2006) land. Collaboration improves wildly.

• 2010s: Tech companies like Automattic and Buffer pioneered fully remote workforces.

GitLab, founded in 2011, scaled to over 1,000 employees across 65 countries with no physical offices. They still have the best remote handbook you can find on the internet today.

• 2020: COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive shift to remote work across industries globally.

The full timeline is simple: Man eats bat, bat makes man sick, man makes many other humans sick, world shits the bed, remote work takes off. 

💡 Note: If you want to view the full GitLab remote handbook you can find it on theor website here.

The pros of going global

High quality talent

Winning in business is about surrounding yourself with superstars, and then going out and executing. Let’s take a look at Latin America, for example, as tech ecosystem. When we are placing talent with our clients at Athyna, we will often place people from Mercado Libre, Nubank, Uala etc. Mercado Libre and Uala have market caps of $86B and $62B, respectively. Imagine bringing someone into your company with that experience for 25% of what you would pay locally.

The ability to bring talent into your org with that level of experience is not something most companies can do locally due to a number of factors.

Less competitive pressure

By 2030 there is projected to be 85 million less tech workers than the industry needs to be able to thrive. To fulfill its potential. This puts incredible pressure on most organisations because of the war for talent fought against the Magnificent Seven, every well funded AI startup and whoever else can out muscle you for San Francisco, Sydney or London’s best talent.

Super recently some salary data was released that claimed the average engineer for OpenAI was earning above $900k. This puts incredible pressure on even the most successful young companies out there trying to win market share.

Cost efficiency

Since time immemorial business owners have been trying to save a buck. Not because they are jerks, because business is damn hard. This is why people are more and more heading to hiring hubs like Latin America to find exceptional talent at a fraction of the cost.

Hire with Athyna.

And it makes sense. I always view things through a very clear frame. If I look at a new hire, I ask myself, will this person add four times the amount of value by being in San Francisco, New York, Sydney or London. Because that’s how much salary you will pay in comparison to hiring the best talent in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Bangalore or Cape Town. The answer is always, almost certainly no.

Acting as a fiduciary to all our shareholders, I can’t justify hiring in places like the United States. It would be acting recklessly and stunting the companies growth.

_{*Caveat: This does not mean you should try to have your cake and eat it too. We pay well at Athyna but we also make sure that we employ local salaries so everybody wins. We give equity in the company to everyone from executive to intern. RSUs too, not options (they don’t have to pay a cent). This way we are all in it together and if I win, if Athyna wins, then we all win.}

Cultural fit

The cultural fit in South America for companies in the US and across the globe is very strong. The Latin culture permeates all through large parts of the US as it is. I believe (no citation here) that there are more Spanish speakers in the US than there are in Spain.

Twitter tweet

Add to the fact that the time zone overlaps nearly perfectly when the US and you have people earning incredible wages comparatively for working locally, it really does foster a great work environment.

The cons of going global

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*Jokes, here are some cons

Harder to build culture

I don’t think culture and in-office and linked. I never have. At Athyna we have 93% engagement, fully remote. But it’s possible that we are the exception, not the rule. What I will say, is that if you struggle building culture as a general rule, it will likely be harder to do so remote. But if you struggle to build culture your whole organisation is on borrowed time anyway.

Turnover, productivity, buy in issues

Studies have shown that people are happier working from home, and some say more productive. But to our last point, if you struggle with culture, you will start to see issues with buy-in from your team, which will lead to lower productivity and eventually high employee turnover. Lose, lose.

What my boss thinks remote work is.

Athyna’s talent — internal and external

I am going to take a moment here to sell to you. In an educational way. I want to tell you why we will outcompete companies due to the talent we have at Athyna. Both internally, and externally, aka, working with our clients.

Our team internally

Take a look at the talent that is working or has worked at Athyna in our very short history.

• Head of Talent that was a Director at PedidosYa.

• Sales Lead from AWS.

• Customer Success Manager from Nubank.

• Head of Culture that went through the IPO of both Uber and Darktrace.

• Product Marketer from Meta.

• Creative Director from Media Monks.

• Sales Manager who was crushing deals at Rappi.

Anyway, you get the point. People have often thought because of the carryover that the BPO industry left—think Philippines and India call centres—that global talent is lesser quality, it’s not.

The Latam ecosystem for example is as strong as any tech ecosystem in the world that is not the US. And even there most of big tech are in Latam. Salesforce, Carta, Uber, Oracle. You name it.

Our talent with our clients

I won’t bludgeon you over the head with the talent we have placed with our clients but it’s the same. We have placed Content Assistants like we have with friend of the newsletter, Tom Alder, here. To teams of cloud engineers from Series B to enterprise.

There are really two ways in which you can get out and start building a global team today. Internally, or through partners like Athyna. I’ll give you the full rundown of how it works.

How you can apply this

Option #1 - Go it on your own

The first, and most obvious option is to get out and hunt the best global talent internally, with your existing team. This is a good option, and can work well if you have: a) the recruitment talent and b) the boots on the ground. You don’t need to have boots on the ground, but you probably would be the exception not the rule to be successful without said boots.

The obvious win here is that you don’t need to pay a partner. Sure you will need to pay your in-house recruiter, but if you’re recruitment team can stay busy this is your cheapest option.

Option #2 - Employ a partner

The second option is much safer, but you will also pay for it. Typically recruitment partners will charge between 20-40% margins, sometimes more, for managing your talent. This is because they wear the risk of the talent leaving on week one and getting paid nothing for what a headhunter would charge $15k for.

The general rule here is if the margins are less than 30% run for the hills. The company is likely shit. And then again, if the margins are over 50% it’s like to be a bit rich. For context: Athyna has blended margins are 37%. That’s what I’d consider the top of end of the bottom of the low end of the top. Somewhere a bit higher than average.

You know you want to.

Athyna also does a recruitment fee model where will charge ~$8-10k, depending on the role. If it’s a really bespoke engineer sometimes a bit more. This is pretty standard now for remote, global hires.

Option #💩 - Upwork, Fiverr, freelancer marketplaces

You’ll notice I haven’t really made much mention here of the freelancer marketplaces of the world. And for good reason. This is a terrible way to hire and you will get poor results. If you need to get a 5 page PDF made, one time, then sure. Otherwise steer clear.

The call-to-action

It’s rare that I use this newsletter of mine for evil, or for selling. Today, I blended some edu-tainment in with some good old fashion shilling of my own company. And you know what? It felt good. It felt so good that I am offering a $1,000 discount if you do want to hire from Athyna.

And if you do get into a call with the team, tell them “Doc sent you” … I have always wanted to say that.

Further study

• Remote, Global, Digital Jobs Whitepaper - January 2024

• Founders Who Hire Globally Will Win - January 2024

• Why Hiring in Latam Beats the U.S. - June 2024

• Statistics on Remote Workers - June 2024

• The Future of Work is Changing: One Work-From-Home at a Time - February 25, 2025

TWEET WRAP 🐣

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• How Companies Are Owning Emojis. How to transform your brand by claiming your own emoji.

• A Guide To Crafting Your Brand Voice. A step-by-step guide on creating a tone & identity your audience will love.

• The Four Types Of Managers & How To Manage Them. A leadership performance matrix to assess your team.

PARTNERS 🎯

CRM, the world’s largest B2B software category, is about to get disrupted by AI in a massive way.

Imagine a world where your CRM is constantly working in the background, ingesting both structured and unstructured data.

All interactions - including your emails, calls, and meetings - are presented to you in a way that makes sense for your business.

This could be your new CRM, and it’s what Attio is building towards.

Read more of Attio’s vision for the future of CRM.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

How Do You Measure Success In Your Role As Chief Of Staff?

After the bunch of comments and praise we received on last week’s edition: So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do, we decided to do a unfiltered version of one of questions in the interview. We're keeping it real this round, going straight to the Chiefs of Staff for the uncut version of how they measure success in their roles. Here’s what they told us.

When you say ‘everything’…?

Max Kausman - COS at Chronicle

For me, success hinges on three main factors. The amount of 'founders' time' saved, enabling them to concentrate on their 'Zone of Genius'—for example, designing the product vision—instead of spending time on other topics.

Maximus Decimus Kausmanius.

And finally, achieving operational excellence, where various operational topics on finance, legal, people & culture etc. are set to 'on autopilot' and do not require the founders' attention.

Next is the number of critical mistakes avoided by remaining focused and preemptive. During our product build, a lot of unquantifiable impact comes from staying focused, foreseeing potential issues, and avoiding critical mistakes that may arise in our approach.

The ‘Zone of Genius’.

And finally, achieving operational excellence, where various operational topics on finance, legal, people & culture etc. are set to 'on autopilot' and do not require the founders' attention.

Albert Patajo - COS at Nexl

My measure of success is broadly the same measures that the company is measured on—value creation across growth and profitability. When I joined Nexl, I had the ultimate baptism by fire and was tasked to lead and manage our Series A fundraise. In one of the hardest fundraising environments too! We managed to close a Series A with two great Australian investors—Shearwater and EVP—who have just incredible conviction in the problem space we’re playing in and the platform we’ve built.

As soon as I joined, I was building performance dashboards, looking through all our contract data to build MRR schedules, working closely with the CEO and Board to create the right narrative and pulling together all the relevant data, building models and collating our data room. We managed to pull of a great fundraise with supportive investors which I’m incredibly proud to have helped achieve.

Mt Patajo.

Katie Noonan - COS at Forage

Measuring success in the Chief of Staff role can be difficult and ultimately is often down to perception of the principal that you work with. It can be measured through the successful and seamless delivery of projects, the incisive advice or direct feedback you provide to your principal and executive team and your ability to navigate challenging and ambiguous situations with limited supervision.

Katie Noonan.

One of the achievements I'm proud of is that in challenging macro-economic conditions we have maintained a strong internal culture. Our annual engagement survey results showed significant improvement in our focus areas of collaboration and innovation which I focused on throughout the year.

🧠 Get Smarter About SaaS

Every week discover the best growth, marketing and product development strategies for your SaaS.

Join 3,300+ SaaS founders, indie hackers and tech entrepreneurs.

TWEET WRAP 🐣

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• A Guide To Crafting Your Brand Voice. A step-by-step guide on creating a tone & identity your audience will love.

• The Four Types Of Managers & How To Manage Them. A leadership performance matrix to assess your team.

• So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do. The Pandora's Box of startup roles. We deep dive into the Chief of Staff.

PARTNERS 🎯

CRM, the world’s largest B2B software category, is about to get disrupted by AI in a massive way.

Imagine a world where your CRM is constantly working in the background, ingesting both structured and unstructured data.

All interactions - including your emails, calls, and meetings - are presented to you in a way that makes sense for your business.

This could be your new CRM, and it’s what Attio is building towards.

Read more of Attio’s vision for the future of CRM.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

How To Own Your Own Emoji

Creating a brand isn't just about having a killer product, and telling the story well—it's about owning a piece of your audience's mind. Claiming a large chunk of cerebral real estate, smack bang in the middle of the prefrontal cortex. And one of the best ways to do this is owning an emoji.

In today’s piece we will dive deep into how smart companies like Morning Brew, are mastering this strategy, and how you can too. So grab your cup morning joe and let's roll.

Morning Brew.

The short history of the emoji 🫠

In 1999, Japanese engineer Shigetaka Kurita created the first set of 176 emojis for NTT DoCoMo's mobile internet platform. This was the genie being released from the bottle, a butterfly effect moment, that would shift digital communication forever. Before emojis, we relied on emoticons like :) and kaomoji like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ to express emotions in text.

The global emoji revolution began in 2010 when they were integrated into Unicode, the international standard for encoding and representing text across devices. The unification of emojis was beginning and would set the stage for their worldwide adoption.

Source; NTT Docomo, Inc..

The real explosion happened in 2011 when Apple launched its emoji keyboard globally on iOS. Android followed suit in 2013, making emojis available to millions of smartphone users. From that moment on, emojis infiltrated digital language and cultures everywhere, becoming an unstoppable force. Eggplants and peaches would never be viewed the same again.

Today, emojis continue to evolve, shaping how we communicate in the digital age and transcending language barriers with their universal visual language.

The psychology of owning mindshare

Picture this: every time someone sees a certain emoji, they think of your brand. It's a subtle, yet powerful move. Imagine scrolling through your social media feed and spotting a coffee emoji. Instantly, you think of Morning Brew—a media brand that recently sold for $75 million dollars—that's not by accident.

Morning Brew, the business newsletter powerhouse, nailed this by owning the coffee emoji ☕️. beehiiv, an innovative, fast-moving, email service provider, followed suit with the bee emoji 🐝. Both have turned these simple symbols into powerful branding tools.

The magic lies in the repetition and association. Every time a follower sees that little coffee cup or the buzzing bee, it triggers a mental link to these brands. This repeated exposure doesn't just keep the brand top of mind; it clubs you over the head with the brand in everyday digital interactions.

And using emojis isn't just a gimmick—it's a power move backed by solid data. When it comes to email subject lines for example, brands that include emojis see a thrice as likely (never said that before) to choose attention grabbing emoji packed copy.

The bottom line here: use emojis in a fun, smart way, and they'll make your brand unforgettable.

The founding fathers of emoji marketing

Morning Brew, a daily business and tech newsletter with millions of readers—co-founded by Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman— adopted the coffee emoji to keep their brand top of mind. This little cup of joe is everywhere: their social media handles, their email subject lines, you name it. And for good reason.

The emoji-father.

• Visual differentiation: Emojis stand out, making posts instantly identifiable.

• Employees act as brand ambassadors: Employees using the emoji multiply brand touchpoints.

• Default association: Repeated exposure means even casual mentions trigger brand recall.

Source; my inbox.

When you see the Morning Brew mug ☕️ a few times, it starts to pop up everywhere in your mind. Whether it's a friend mentioning a coffee run or a tweet about a coffee shop, the association is instant. That's the power of owning an emoji. Morning Brew even catalise their tribe by referring to them as the #BrewCrew. Powerful stuff.

Buzz-worthy branding by beehiiv

beehiiv, the tool I am writing this email on—of which I am also an investor—was founded by a former early Morning Brew employee, Tyler Denk. It’s no surprise then that they follow the same playbook, choosing the bee emoji 🐝 to act as the visual mascot behind the brand. beehiiv in a very short time have capitalized on their momentum and created a real community. And the emoji has definitely played a part in that.

• Founder-led content: CEO, Tyler, is a social media dynamo, and acts as the face of the brand on Twitter.

• Employee-led content: And employees are encouraged to use the bee emoji, making the brand omnipresent. Bella Rose Mortel, who works in social media agreed; “Employee advocacy is the one that really sets us apart.”

_{*Notice all the happy little bees attached to every one of the teams profiles.}

Welcome to the hive.

• Company-led content: Their brand account uses humor, memes, and educational posts really well and has great engagement.

But it’s not just great for growth, it works for employer branding as well. “Our team has deep personal relationships with hundreds of our users online. We receive tons of qualified candidates for each new role we promote. None of those things would be possible if I chose to build beehiiv in stealth,” says Tyler.

For beehiiv, just like Morning Brew before then, owning an emoji has paid off very well.

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More brands nailing the emoji game

Chili Piper cooking with emoji heat

Another player, this time in more traditional B2B SaaS, who has upped their emoji game is Chili Piper, whose team proudly brandish the 🌶️ emoji on their social profiles. Take a look at some of these little chilis.

Deadpool: emoji marketing on steroids

They mad scientists behind Deadpool’s marketing leaned into the idea of emoji branding. In the lead up to the release date billboards and social feeds were plastered with 💀💩L.

Twitter tweet

That's ‘Deadpool’ in emoji-speak. It nailed the movie's irreverent vibe, got people talking, and was simple enough for anyone to get the joke. This stunt could've crashed and burned, but not for Deadpool, it proves that with the right brand and audience, even the simplest emojis can make a massive splash.

Detailed and their little purple alien

Take a look at Glen Allsopp's Twitter profile. He's the founder of Detailed, and he chose the alien emoji 👾 to represent his brand. It's distinctive, memorable, and true to his brand's identity.

The other incredible thing Glen and the team did was he turned the emoji into a 3D character, that he uses across multiple brand touchpoints.

They also use the colour purple across their brand, giving even more chances to associate the emoji to the brand. A masterclass in emojifying your company.

And one day soon, Athyna

For the last 12 months, I have been putting off our branding session to choose our Athyna emoji. We help coming hire remote talent, and are named after a Greek goddess. You can few of the options I think could be considered. The genie 🧞‍♂️ is kinda cool, god like. I have some strange affinity for the crystal ball 🔮 and you could always go the global 🌎 team approach.

1 year ago in Slack.

I guess I can use the 35,000 of you as our own sort of focus group. You know far too little to make a reasonable response. But with the little information you do have—which do you prefer?

Summary

So now you know. Owning an emoji might seem like a small, whimsical tactic, but as Morning Brew and beehiiv have shown, it can have a monumental impact on brand recognition. By choosing a unique emoji and integrating it consistently across all channels, you too can make your brand a constant presence in your audience’s digital life.

In the game of brand dominance, it’s the little things that make a big difference. So pick your emoji, own it, and watch your brand become legendary.

How you can apply this

• Choose your emoji. Find some that clicks with your brand's identity, product, or service. Make sure it's unique and memorable.

• Ensure consistency. Use your emoji across all digital platforms; social profiles, email signatures, marketing collateral, and even in your product if you can.

• Encourage team adoption. Have your employees add the emoji to their professional social media profiles to amplify your brand's reach.

• Create a brand story. Develop a narrative around why you chose that particular emoji to make the connection more meaningful to your audience.

• Consider custom designs. Build something custom, 3D for example, based on your chosen emoji for even more brand distinctiveness.

• Use in campaigns. Incorporate your emoji into marketing campaigns, hashtags, or challenges to boost engagement and brand recall.

• Measure impact. Track metrics like brand mentions, engagement rates, and recall to see the effectiveness of your emoji strategy.

Further study

• The WIRED Guide to Emoji, Wired - February, 2018

• Owning an emoji, Workweek - April, 2023

• Inside Beehiiv’s $50M social content playbook, Social Files - April, 2024

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this one, now get out there and find your own emoji spirit animal.

TWEET WRAP 🐣

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

🧠 ly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• The Four Types Of Managers & How To Manage Them. A leadership performance matrix to assess your team.

• So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do. The Pandora's Box of startup roles. We deep dive into the Chief of Staff.

• The Job Description Of A CEO. Five roles to rule them all. The most detailed CEO job description to date.

PARTNERS 🎯

AI is here, and it’s going to revolutionize CRM.

Attio has spoken with 50+ GTM leaders who believe that CRMs in the AI era will:

• Turn ideas into action

• Understand the context of businesses

• And be the driver for your GTM strategy

Attio is committed to building all of the above, leading the way in the CRM revolution.

Read more of Attio’s vision for the future of CRM.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

A Guide To Crafting Your Brand Voice

What is a voice of brand? That is today’s question. And what does it really matter? Well, it seems that brand does matter—a lot. The average person is estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 advertisements each day. This includes ads across all media, such as digital platforms, TV, radio, print and more.

Think about that. We are advertised to ~8,000 times on average per day. How the hell are we supposed to stand out? Well, one way is through a well-defined, nicely fitting brand voice.

Your brand voice, as much or more so than logos, fonts and colours, is how you want to talk to the world. How you want to be seen. A consistent voice can make a brand feel more relatable, distinctive and most importantly—trustworthy.

So today, let’s dive deep into what it takes to craft the ultimate brand voice for you and your organisation that will have your customers dashing for the Kool-Aid.

Brand voice through a historic lens

The ‘brand voice’, is somewhat of a novel idea. Rewind 150 years and advertising was really about features and not much else. Take John Smedley of Matlock, Derbyshire, and his famous Chillie Paste as an example.

‘The King of Cures’.

We really only now what it is, supposedly, good for. We know it is for rheumatism, lumbago, gouty paints—whatever the hell they are—bronchitis and so on. We are even told what the ‘outer package’ and ‘inner package’ look like. Everything was quite literal.

During the mid-20th Century though, as the advertising industry grew, companies began to recognise the importance of differentiating their brands beyond just products.

But possibly the most famous example of beautiful ad copy from the last century was Volkswagen’s famous Think Small campaign. Written by Julian Koenig at the Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) agency in 1959, the campaign was ranked as the best advertising campaign of the twentieth century by Ad Age.

*_{Don’t worry if you can’t read the text—I share the full copy below.}

See readable copy below.

The copy for the famous ad was light-hearted, playful, free-flowing. And it pushed against the competition. It was the perfect ad.

And it really was one of the catalysts in a new beginning of advertising. Mad Men style ad-pusher all across the globe were trying to emulate Volkswagen’s hit and in doing so, moved the idea of a brand voice forward.

Brand archetypes

One of my favourite examples of brand archetypes was from a pitch I was forwarded more than a decade ago. It lays out ten different personas your brand can take on. *Some places will often cite 12 archetypes.

With a quick glance you get it right? Selling stocks: speak as The Wise. Selling porn, The Seductress is probably a better fit.

Credit; Millward Brown Index.

When building out a brand identity though, you don’t need to speak in the same voice all day every day. Like humans with real world personalties, you need different strokes for different folks. With this in mind—usually—you would choose a primary persona, followed by a couple of secondaries. My startup Athyna, for example, used The Joker as our primary tone, followed by The Rebel and The Dreamer as our secondaries.

You might be a design agency that works with a range of clients, from tech startups to fashion brands. When working with startups, you may adopt a casual, energetic tone that resonates with their fast-paced, innovative culture—kinda like The Joker or The Rebel. But when engaging with an old-money, luxury fashion label, you may shift to a more refined, sophisticated voice that reflects their premium brand image, using an elegant, discerning tone. More towards The Friend, The Maiden or The Wise.

A real world example

At Athyna, we spent some time working on our brand voice. It’s been refined over the journey but the original exercise went something like the following. First, my co-founder and I (yes, for a few months I had a co-founder) modelled out the business itself on a quick Lean Canvas Exercise. Then we worked on our mission, vision and value in a few very short exercises.

This gave us what we wanted to do in the world, who we were building for and what we aligned with from a cultural perspective. Next was the fun part.

We took exactly what you saw in the previous section—the Millward Brown archetypes, and we voted them from 1-10 in terms of how they aligned with us personally and the brand we wanted to create. Then we came together, tallied the votes and discussed them. Both of us had The Joker first, and the next highest votes for The Rebel and The Dreamer. It was as simple as that.

October 10th, 2018.

No, no, no, not that Joker.

As we grew, we also began to be more mature with how we used our tone of voice. We began to apply rules, guidelines, do’s and don’ts and more. And hey, we don’t always get it right. No matter how much we try to polish it, we always skew off track from time to time. Below you will see examples over the years of us discussing this very thing—our brand tone of voice going off track.

Source; Athyna Notion.

March 20th, 2024.

July 3rd, 2023.

October 7th, 2021.

Our Creative Director, Josefina, has worked with Google, RedBull, AT&T, Paramount, Estée Lauder and more, so I asked her for a quote on how she thinks about brand voice.

I am somebody who probably over-indexes on brand as a strategic advantage. And overall, although it’s not perfect, I think we are in a nice spot with our tone of voice.

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Other examples from lesser known companies (lol)

Now that we have heard how the greatest company on the planet does brand voice, let’s take a look at how some of the also-rans—Nike, Google, Rolex and M&Ms—communicate their brand voice.

Example #1 - Nike and The Hero

Nike are the perfect example of a company that leans heavily in the archetype of The Hero. And an example of this in action was the support Nike showed to NFL star, Colin Kaepernick, when he took a knee during the national anthem.

This was a controversial stance for Nike to take—especially if you on the conservative side of the aisle. And although Nike strives to inspire people with their advertising this certainly would have created some haters.

That being said, at the same time, I imagine this would have deeply entrenched the love they have from their main target market. Which would be the more affluent, liberal folk living in big city America.

Example #2 - Google and The Wise

Google on the other hand is an excellent example of a company embodying The Wise brand archetype. Their mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" positions them as a knowledgeable guide helping people navigate through the ‘information superhighway’ (or German: infobahn).

This mission reflects Google's commitment to providing access to information for everyone, everywhere, whether they are looking for search results, maps, books, tools, or even just email.

Google's minimalist design and focus on delivering the most relevant search results positions them as a trusted source of information and insight. By constantly innovating and expanding their offerings, from search to maps to AI assistants, Google establishes itself as a wise leader ushering us into a more connected, technologically empowered future.

Example #3 - Rolex and The King

Another example is Rolex, who comfortably wear The King as their brand archetype. Known for their luxury watches, Rolex positions itself as a symbol of success, prestige, and exclusivity.

Take a look at this ad on the right hand side FFS. This basically says; “Going into battle with other world leaders for your job—you better be wearing a Rolex”. But I guess they have earned it in a way. Like Mercedes Benz, Louis Vuitton and the long list of other brands I wouldn’t be seen dead supporting, they have become synonymous with timeless designs and meticulous craftsmanship. The kind of thing you buy once and hold forever.

By owning a Rolex, customers feel they are part of an elite group that has achieved a level of mastery and success that the average human peasant could only dream of. James Bond type.

*_{Not sure why I went to hard on Rolex just now. Something took over my fingers. I simply could not control it.}

Example #4 - M&Ms and The Joker

And finally we have M&Ms, the ultimate gagster of a brand. If you don’t love the famous M&Ms commercials that have run for decades on our screens, you have either been living under a rock or simply have a cold, cold heart. And you cannot be my friend. Seriously though—the value M&Ms have accrued over the years but these friendly little chocolatey friends should not be underestimated.

To this day I still remember these commercials running all through my childhood. And hell, I’m not going to lie, it’s making me feel pretty nostalgic. I might just pop out for a bag of peanut M&Ms right now.

Some of my favourite brand voices today

Here are a few of my personal favourite brand voices that I see around the internet today. First, we’ll start with beehiiv, the tool this very newsletter is built upon. It’s lighthearted, silly, irreverent. Lower case is en vogue thanks to Chipotle.

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

I don’t know about you but either the same 13 year old is running Hubspot’s account as well, or this is one of the biggest coincidences (coincidi?) since The Great Dennis The Menace Coincidence of 1951.

Twitter tweet

I am also really vibing the tonality of The Adventurists at the moment. It’s firmly steeped in The Joker but in the most absurd way. This matched their wild adventures they facilitate all across the globe.

Hot dayum.

And I also love Airbnb at the moment. It’s very warm and welcoming and I think Brian Chesky does a fantastic job as the frontman for their bi-annual (the twice yearly version) product releases. Phenomenal stuff.

BnB’me.

When good brand goes wrong

As with all things people hold dear, pivoting away from a brand people know and love can result in massive backlash. Clothing brand GAP, have seen this happen on multiple times in the last decade. In 2012, as Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast of the United States, The Gap tweeted, what could in fact be the most insensitive tweet to ever hit the twitterverse.

Oh nooo.

The tweet was seen as highly insensitive and out of touch with the severity of the situation, a clear lack of awareness of an appropriate voice during a crisis. The archetype they must have used here was The Idiot.

Fun fact: this faux pas came on a couple of years after an attempt to fancy up their brand, following the 2008 recession which was a huge disappointment. This 72 hour blunder cost $100M of design work and a 3% drop in stock price.

A gap in their brand strategy.

Another rather shocking example is the ‘White is Purity’ campaign that Nivea ran in 2017. I am not sure I need to dive too much into this one. Considering there is still significant hatred in the world, you need to be more culturally sensitive than to allow ads to run with this slogan. The ad was appropriately met with backlash and was removed.

The point here is not to poke fun at GAP and Nivea. And it’s also not to say that you should never take risks or move outside your tone of voice. But the fact is your audience listen. They care. They have an emotional attachment to the colours you use, the fonts you chose, and the jingle your advertisements made in between their Saturday morning cartoons. And they sure as hell have an attachment to your brand voice—the thing most likely to make them feel something. Advertising great David Ogilvy said it best.

In sum

In summary, I think of brand on the same scale as you would think of an NPS score. If your brand is a 1-6, it’s working against you. A 7 or an 8 and you are ‘meh’ but build a brand to a 9 or god forbid, a 10/10 and the world is truly your oyster.

So build wisely my friends. Take the appropriate care to set the foundation of your brand because in business—just as it is with culture—brand is the gift that keeps on giving.

How you can apply this

1. Start with the important stuff. First step towards crafting any brand archetype is making sure you have the mission, vision and values. What your brand stands for, its unique selling proposition, and the values it embodies. This will give you the foundation for developing your brand voice and selecting your archetype.

2. Define your ICP. Your audience will be next. You wouldn’t speak to an mature audience with The Joker tone of voice in most cases. So understand your ICP, where they hang out and then you can start to think of how you want to communicate to them.

3. Choose your archetype. Get your leadership, brand and creative stakeholders together and define your primary and secondary archetypes.

4. Develop your guidelines. Knowing you speak as The Maiden is fine, but you will quickly get off track if you do not have guardrails for your creative teams. ‘This is what The Maiden does do, and this is what she does not.’

5. Ensure consistency. Once you have your guidelines now you need to go and reverse engineer your brand across every externally, and internally facing touch-points. Start external but don’t forget internally as well over time.

6. Double down but monitor. Once you have your brand, double down in every place you can. But monitor it over time. As new information—or a new ICP—emerges, be ready to tweak and refine as you go.

Further study

• Brand Archetypes: The Definitive Guide, Icon Fox - Unknown

• The Ultimate Guide to Brand Archetypes, Iterators - August, 2022

• Creating Your Brand Voice: A Complete Guide, Hubspot - December, 2022

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed it!

TWEET WRAP 🐣

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do. The Pandora's Box of startup roles. We deep dive into the Chief of Staff.

• The Job Description Of A CEO. Five roles to rule them all. The most detailed CEO job description to date.

• Innovation Via Customer Obsession. Jeff Bezos, Founder & Ex-CEO at Amazon.

PARTNERS 🎯

AI is here, and it’s going to revolutionize CRM.

Attio has spoken with 50+ GTM leaders who believe that CRMs in the AI era will:

• Turn ideas into action

• Understand the context of businesses

• And be the driver for your GTM strategy

Attio is committed to building all of the above, leading the way in the CRM revolution.

Read more of Attio’s vision for the future of CRM.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

The Four Type Of Managers & How To Manage Them

Managing people is not for everyone. And managing managers is certainly not for the faint of heart. How your managers behave, the way in which they lead and whether or not they hit their goals reverberates through the entire company. If I was to sum it up very simply, it would be that if your managers suck, your company probably does too.

Today we are going to take a deep dive into the manager. We will look at managers ranging from the Kendall Roy, to everyone’s favourite in Ted Lasso. The goal is to find out who they are, what archetype they identify with and how, or in some cases, if, we can help them. Let’s dive in.

Welch’s Performance x Values Matrix

The infamous Jack Welch was one of the most successful CEOs in history. One of the first true rockstar leaders. It’s not surprising as he was able to raise GE’s market cap from $14 billion to $410 billion dollars by the time he left.

Gotham City District Attorney, Harvey Dent, once uttered the words; “You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.”  And this has become the case for Jack Welch. Philosophy aside, we are going to be using one of Welch’s management tools today.

Looks evil AF.

Twitter tweet

It’s a very simple framework. Managers are marked as either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ on two elements: do they hit their goals, and do they add to the culture. The four possible combinations span the breadth of managerial excellence, or lack-thereof.

Let’s take a look at each one individually now, and try to figure out what to do with each of them.

The Star Manager

The Star Manager is one who excels in both performance and culture. They crush their goals while building a positive, engaging, and supportive work environment for their teams. These managers are priceless.

Star Managers are those you go out of your way to support. You crawl over hot coals to keep in your organisation. Leaders like Satya Nadella of Microsoft exemplify Star Managers. Nadella’s focus on empathy and innovation has transformed Microsoft’s culture and overall success.

Lord Satya.

Source; Predictive Index.

Benefits of a Star Manager

If you want high employee morale, low turnover, and strong business results overall, you want to recruit, develop and nurture Star Managers. They create a beautiful work environment where employees feel valued and motivated.

How to work with a Star Manager

• Provide opportunities for growth. Advanced training, industry conferences, executive education. Support their development. This will help them stay ahead of trends and continue to excel in their role.

• Autonomy and empowerment. Give the autonomy to make decisions and lead their teams without too much oversight. Trust their judgment, and give them the freedom to innovate.

• Recognition and rewards. This can be through formal awards, public acknowledgments, bonuses, or promotions. Consistent recognition helps maintain their motivation and engagement.

• Give challenging assignments. Assign them to high-impact projects or strategic initiatives. This will put their skills to the test and provide opportunities for growth.

• Mentorship and coaching roles. Encourage them to take on mentorship or coaching roles within the company. Put their expertise to work developing other leaders. This will also reinforce their own leadership skills and satisfaction.

Once you know you have one of these managers on your hands you need to keep them happy. Give them raises before they ask for it, offer them extra equity and create buy in whichever way you can.

Hell, give them a kidney if they ask for it. You will kick yourself if you lose a true star.

The Nice Manager

This next manager is tough. Nice Managers are those who create a positive culture but struggle with hitting business targets. You know the type—everybody loves them but they add very little strategic value. Their teams may be happy and loyal. But they lack results.

And worst of all. Getting rid of them means the culture will take a hit. Having a Nice Manager on your team can be a real ball-ache.

Nice managers.

Ms. Nice Girl.

Challenges of a Nice Manager

Despite high employee satisfaction, the big challenge is the potential for long-term performance issues. Lots of smiling faces and plummeting market cap. Over time, unless you can fix it, this will ultimately lead to strategic failures across your company.

How to work with a Nice Manager

• Performance coaching. Give targeted feedback to improve their understanding and execution of your performance metrics.

• Goal setting. Help them set clear, achievable goals and create action plans to meet those targets.

• Coaching on critical conversations. Provide training and role-playing exercises to build their confidence in delivering constructive feedback and having difficult discussions when needed. Help them find a style that's authentic and comfortable.

• Performance management systems. Use systems that track progress and provide real-time feedback. This will provide visibility and help ensure they stay on track.

• Skill development. Offer training programs focused on developing their strategic thinking and decision-making abilities.

• Accountability partnerships. Pair them with a mentor or a more results-driven manager to provide guidance. Hold them accountable for meeting performance objectives.

This type of manager will challenge you as a leader, especially if you are high on empathy. You will forever see the bright side. ‘If only they can figure it out’ you’ll tell yourself. And maybe they will. With the right amount of support you can move this person from a nice manager to star, but not always.

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The Taskmaster

A lot of pundits would say that the most famous example of this management style is Elon Musk. And after reading Walter Isaacson’s recently biography, I find it hard to disagree.

Elon’s approach to management is characterised by relentless drive for innovation and excellence, often pushing his teams to their limits to achieve extraordinary results. Elon’s famous ‘Hardcore’ mode is a great example of this. Known for his high expectations and demanding nature, his leadership style can be both inspiring and overwhelming.

Hardcore.

Source; Gergely Orosz.

Tech startups with a ‘growth at all costs’ mentality have managers who fit this profile. They deliver results but create a stressful work environment. In a simpler framing; a shit place to work.

Yes, Elon is an example of someone who has conquered the business world with this management style. But for every Elon, there are a thousand managers working on less innovative, world-changing products that simply just lose the team and tank their company operating in this way.

Source; Predictive Index.

Impact of a Taskmaster

Having a demanding manager can lead to high turnover, employee burnout, and potential long-term brand damage. Having said that, if you can get them aligned to the company’s values, they become an asset. They can move straight from a problem to the ultimate solution for you and your team.

How to work with a Taskmaster

• Model good leadership. Lead by example. Demonstrate empathy, effective communication, and a commitment to work-life balance in your own leadership style. This sets the tone for the entire organisation.

• Provide coaching and training. Offer the manager guidance, coaching, and training to develop their leadership and interpersonal skills. Focus on empathy, communication, and giving constructive feedback.

• Address issues promptly. If the manager's behaviour is impacting the team or not aligning with your values, address it promptly. Give specific feedback and outline the changes needed in their approach.

• Celebrate good leadership. When the manager shows good leadership behaviours and their team is performing well, acknowledge and celebrate those successes. Positive reinforcement.

• Align incentives. Build performance metrics and incentives that include team performance, employee satisfaction, and retention. This encourages a more balanced approach to leadership.

Remember, as a leader, fostering a positive culture and retaining top talent is your job. By actively managing and developing all leaders, including demanding ones, you make sure the entire organisation is aligned and set up for success.

1761, London Stock Exchange

There was a term that rose to prominence in the 18th century at the London Stock Exchange, to refer to a stockbroker who defaulted on his debts. First heard in writing in 1761, it bemoaned someone who had fallen behind. The laggard. He who was failing. A person of ill-repute. 

_{*The following image actually has nothing to do with the London Stock Exchange. Looks like it does though right?}

The term was ‘The Lame Duck’. In the literal sense, the term refers to a duck which is unable to keep up with its flock, making it a target for predators. This will be the unfortunate moniker of our final manager archetype.

The Lame Duck

When working with a Lame Duck, there will have been a time when you thought they were going to work out. A hot recruit you have bought in from outside, with all the potential in the world. But then it all started to move in the wrong direction.

Bob from Finance.

And then one day you wake up and you realise; ‘Holy shit Bob is a Lame Duck.’ If and when that day comes, you know what has to be done. Speak with HR, follow the processes, but for God’s sake get that person out of our organisation as fast as possible.

Consequences of a Lame Duck

The presence of this manager type can lead to low employee engagement, high turnover, a decline in overall business health, not to mention a lowering of the organisation’s standards as a whole.

How to work with a Lame Duck

• Intensive coaching: Give focused coaching sessions addressing specific deficiencies. Set clear, achievable milestones with frequent feedback loops and hope for improvement.

• Performance Improvement Plan: Put them on a performance improvement plan (PIP) with defined goals, timelines, and metrics for success. Oversee their progress and provide support along the way.

• Reassignment or termination: If there’s no significant improvement, consider reassigning them to roles that are better suited to their skills. If reassignment isn’t an option you need to let them go.

Our final management archetype, is in many ways, the easiest to manage. If you have a lame duck on your hands, and you’ve done what you can but you cannot help them, there is only one thing left to do. It’s time to send them waddling off into the sunset.

Good vs bad managers, the data

As we move towards the end of today’s piece, I would be silly to not add some data to the conversation. The Predictive Index conducted a 2018 people management study in which 5,103 employee took part. The research highlighted a number of things. First and foremost, that great bosses give just the right amount of feedback.

Source; Predictive Index.

It also showed that people’s energy towards their job was hugely affected/effected (I can never tell) by how they viewed their manager. It was also really important that their managers were not only respected, but liked.

Source; Predictive Index.

Source; Predictive Index.

Another key finding was that bad managers, typically, are self-centred and also lack any self-awareness. But other studies have shown that although bad management can have a real impact on retention—it’s leadership that matters more. Take a look at these stats from Culture Amp.

So it’s clear, managers are important, but leadership even more so. Interestingly, the most important thing that trumped all was development opportunities. Culture Amp's research shows that employees without access to consistent development opportunities are 2x more likely to leave within a year.

Summary

Managing people is hard. Whether it’s your new VP of Engineering, a decade-long rusted on CFO, or the reluctant but true Heir to the Kingdom of Gondor, you need experience stewarding people through different stages of their careers.

VP of Orc Slayin.’

Some leaders might start out looking like deadbeats, but go on to do great things. Others will take time to understand and fit your culture. And then there are those whom you love but simply refuse to hit their goals.

No matter what it is, it’s your job to fix it. Your job to enable people, and to help them get the best out of themselves. For your sake, for the company and most importantly, for them.

Hopefully our edition today gave you some things to think about when assessing your team and building for the future.

How you can apply this

• Categorise your managers: Objectively rate your managers based on their goal attainment and cultural impact and decide on which archetype they fit.

• Tailor your approach: Build plans for your managers all the way from how you will empower and reward your best, to how you will work with your lame ducks.

• Model the right behaviours: Consistently demonstrate the leadership behaviours you want to see in your managers. Align incentives to encourage balanced management approaches that value both results and people.

• Prioritise growth: Make developing your employees a top priority. Providing exciting growth opportunities for the team has an outsized impact on retention and engagement. Invest heavily here.

• Embrace the journey: Remember that a manager's growth is not always a straight line. Someone may start slow but become a star with the right guidance and support. Your job is to enable your managers' success and help them reach their full potential

Extra reading

• How to Make Employee Development Part of Your Culture, Lattice - April, 2022

• 20 management books to read, monday blog - January, 2023

• How to give effective feedback, Culture Amp - March, 2024

TWEET WRAP 🐣

Twitter tweet

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• The Job Description Of A CEO. Five roles to rule them all. The most detailed CEO job description to date.

• Innovation Via Customer Obsession. Jeff Bezos, Founder & Ex-CEO at Amazon.

• WE'VE BEEN ACQUIRED! Yep, you heard right, IdeaHub has been acquired. 🎉

PARTNERS 🎯

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The secret weapon for ambitious startups. No search fees. No activation fees. Just incredible talent, matched with AI precision—at lightning speed. All up up to 70% less than hiring locally.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do

I have a wonderful Chief of Staff at my startup Athyna. You will hear from her as you read on. We do great work together. But I’ll be honest, even I don’t know what a Chief of Staff really does, or rather—what they should do?

So today we sit down with a handful of Chiefs of Staff (or is it Chief of Staffs) to understand what exactly they do do. And we are brining some data to add some layers to this salty but sweet, operational spongecake.

Before we dive in though, let’s take a quick quiz to see who in today’s tech landscape operates with—or has operated with in the past—a Chief of Staff.

Surprised by the results? … Didn’t think so. Anyway, let’s dive in and talk about the most mysterious role in technology.

Historical backdrop & evolution

Today the Chief of Staff may seems like the hottest new trend. A spicy title to hand to someone coming up through the ranks. But it is not in fact a new trend at all. The Chief of Staff has a long, illustrious history militarily.

This image below depicts Napoleon and his Chief of Staff at the time, Marshal Berthier. While Napolean and the Grande Armée were out fucking shit up—excuse the French—all across Europe, Berthier was working away on very little sleep, setting things up, so Napoleon could come in and knock them down. It was a match made in imperialist heaven.

“They look like a nice of group of people to go and conquer?”

The role was next adopted by two recent military powerhouses—Germany and Britain—but to much different effect. Germany, following the Prussian system from the early 1800s, used the role to employ strategic leaders, who would act as close counsel to the general, with the potential to command on their own when necessary.

The Brits on the other hand introduced the role in 1905, but the role was more of an organisation figure, acting as a go-between for officers and the frontline. We will explore the different levels of today’s Chiefs shortly. 

First chiefs in business

Following its military rise, the title ‘Chief of Staff’ began to float through corporate settings in the last few decades as businesses recognised the value of having a senior leader responsible for aligning strategy and operations. Very similar to its original function in government and military.

Surely this subject line didn’t work?

Terrence Holt is one of the first examples, serving as the Chief of Staff to the CEO of PepsiCo in the early 1990s (remember when soda was cool). This was one of the first high-profile Chief of Staff roles in a large corporation. Jeanne Holm is another, serving as the Chief of Staff for the President and COO of Dell in the late 1990s, playing a massive role in the company's success.

There are others that you could say played roles like a Chief of Staff like John Doerr—of Kleiner Perkins fame—to Intel’s Andy Grove in the 80’s and Jony Ive to Steve Jobs in the 90’s and Sheryl Sandberg to the The Zuck. But the best example of all is Ann Hiatt.

Not a bad resume.

Ann Hiatt went from Executive Business Partner (let’s call it CoS) to Bezos straight into Chief of Staff for Google founder Eric Schmidt—for a lazy 12 years.

Key functions of a Chief of Staff

Before moving ahead I’d like to take a moment to introduce those who were kind enough to donate some of their time to flesh out the experience of a Chief of Staff today.

The group above come from a pretty varied set of companies with the largest sample size being ~Series A. So they should give us a wide ranging view of what a Chief of Staff actually does on a day-to-day basis. The crazy thing is, there is no real alignment in what these Chiefs of Staff do do. It’s situationally dependant.

Launching partnerships, managing product integrations, people, culture, hiring and more. Katie Noonan quoted planning meetings, investor relations, partnerships, culture and special projects in her day to day.

I also loved reading about the typical day or Albert Patajo. Incredibly varied, random but also important.

My Chief of Staff at Athyna, Bea, handles a lot of our goals, OKRs and accountability, alongside documentation and organisational design.

“I tend to work in themes”, said Maddi Ingham of Verve Super. “For a few weeks it might be a big focus on recruiting, hiring, and onboarding, other weeks may be a special project, other times may be deep diving into finance, budgeting, and R&D grants.” Maddi just helped quarterback the acquisition of Verve by Future Super. *I am investor in Future Super—am I rich now?

Maddi from Verve.

The overall theme I saw in researching this piece is that the Chief of Staff is somewhat of a Chief Problemo Solver. Aside from some organisational rituals, the day-to-day was incredibly varied across the board. One thing was certain though, they were always working on the biggest projects and initiatives.

Next up we will look a how each of our Chiefs think about freeing up the cerebral horsepower of the leaders they work with.

How to find leverage

The idea of finding more leverage as a CEO is simple. You want to make sure you are always able to work on the most important things. Let’s look closely again at how our CoS’ think here. Starting with one answer in our anonymised section.

Jo Robyn, our only VC respondent said the following: “I see it as my number one goal to create leverage for our partners' time - that is measured by taking things off their plate and owning respective parts of the business that they were previously owning.”

And Max Kausman when asked his priorities followed up similarly; “Founders' time saved: the ability of the founders to work in their 'Zone of Genius' rather than time they're required to spend on other topics.” A definite thread here.

_{*Note: The following tweet does not really fit this section but it’s too good to push too far down this piece. Sorry, not sorry.}

Twitter tweet

When thinking of leverage though—I think the best summary of all was this one below from Belen Wagaw, who spent two years as a CoS as SAP to a head of a 19,000 person division.

If you are a leader reading this—but are not sure what you would do with additional time—think of what your personal Zone of Genius is. What handful of things are you: a) really good at, b) really enjoy and/or c) will make the most impact for the organisation.

For me it’s communications. I believe strategy, financing, hiring, communications and accountability are the five keys to my role as CEO. Thanks to my ‘Office of the CEO’, namely my Chief of Staff and Content Assistant (EA but for content) I am able to put out 3-4x the communications in ½ the time.

I believe I am building a leader brand that will be a huge driver of our organisation over the long run. So what is it for you? What is your Zone of Genius?

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Levels to the game

One of the most helpful frameworks I found came in fact from Harvard Business Review, which broke the Chief of Staff role into three different levels. Let me go ahead and summarise them for you.

Level 1 - Apprentice Padawan

At the first level of the role would be somebody who is coming through the EA path and is now ready to take on more responsibility within the organisation and with the leader. Typical tasks may be preparing pre-work, handling follow-up, and sitting in on most board meetings.

This level of CoS would be the entry level, with the real goal of being able to take mid level tasks from the leaders plate but also just work to free up the time in any other way. Think of it like somebody who comes in and sharpens your sword while you ponder over old weathered maps.

OKRs?

Level 2 - Mentat

The next level of CoS would be one of the Mentat—someone who when called upon can add true strategic value while also being able to go and implement on the CEOs behalf. This role might be suited to someone coming through an MBA path, possibly management consulting.

At this level, there would be direct and frequent communications between CoS and CEO and with the former being one of the leaders trusted confidants. A Level 2 CoS should be able to go and work alongside department heads to create outsized results for the company.

Pupils, not required.

Level 3 - Hand of the King

Third and final level is graduation to the King’s (or Queen’s) Hand. In this situation—if you can avoid getting your head lopped off—you are expected to sit directly aside the CEO. Here you may have come from a decade as a an exec or department head inside of big tech or another big enterprise org.

You are potentially second in charge in this situation, depending on a COO or General Manager, and are expected to be able to manage and execute on near to every and all important agendas inside of the organisation. You have the may or may not have the ability to burn cities to the ground with your decisions.

Impish.

Source; Harvard Business Review.

For what it’s worth, my Chief of Staff Bea, is probably somewhere in between a Mentat and the King’s Hand. She helps me execute on major projects inside of Athyna, coordinates all of our goals setting and OKRs and is the #1 person to often push-back on me related to cultural, operational and legal areas inside of the business.

She has no reports, spends one hour with me every Monday to set our goals, and came up through the ranks with us first as our Legal Advisor. Her background is employment law.

Is a Chief of Staff an executive?

One of the things that is commonly asked when thinking of a Chief of Staff is where do they sit—hierarchically—inside of an organisation? Are they a department head level, a true exec, a glorified assistant?

Well, I don’t think there really is a right or wrong answer here, as a lot depends on which level your CoS is, how mature your organisation is, and you overall philosophy.

You could imagine that a Padawan (L1) CoS might sit somewhere in the senior level of an organisation. But then if you have an L3—a Queen’s Hand then it’s quite likely they are 2nd or 3rd in charge of the org. Alongside maybe a COO or General Manager. I take no real position here. But I did find where GitLab rank there CoS’ for a real world example. And that is a ‘grade 12’ by their scale. Which effectively sits at VP level.

Courtesy; GitLab.

I don’t know how much credence to put on GitLab’s scale however, because they think the numerical system we live by starts at a 4 and they also do not believe in number 13 it seems. So do your own research here.

One final thought on where the role sits is where our batch of 10 CoS’ from our research believe they will land in the next role.

It’s obviously a very small sample size but 50% of our respondents believe they will be CEO, C-Suite or General Manager in their next role. With a further 20% expecting VP or department head.

A handy resource

When prepping for this piece, I also spoke with Cedar CEO, Mackenzie Lee about how he views the Chief of Staff role. Mackenzie and Cedar know a thing or two about the role. As they actually find Chiefs of Staff for large enterprises like Barclays, Citi, Stanford and more.

One of the better resources I found in my research Was Cedar’s 44-page Chief of Staff Playbook. I hope you find it useful too.

When and how to hire a Chief of Staff

So you want to hire a Chief of Staff but don’t know where to start. This is how I’d go about it from idea to onboarding.

1. Step one - Identify need. First you’ll need to identify the need. Is your calendar constantly overflowing. Do you need someone to share the operational load. Are you feeling like you are not able to spend the time executing on what you need to execute on—great, you need a CoS.

2. Step two - Decide on experience level. Not every company is going to need a Hand of the King. Sometimes, if you are a small scrappy startup you might be looking for your Anakin—an L1 entry level talent. not all CoS are made equal.

3. Step three - Create ideal candidate profile. Create the ideal candidate profile. Just like the ICP for revenue driven activities. Who are they, what is their background, what skills should they have and what can they take off your plate. Detail matters.

ICP = Ideal Canine Profile.

1. Step four - Build job description. Leverage your ICP into building your perfect job description.

2. Step five - Decide on hiring strategy. This part is important. Not every candidate is going to come externally. You may have an EA, product hire, sales rep etc. that wants to do the job. Someone with consulting or operations experience is going to be well-suited but someone who is polished and works hard inside of your org may want to take on the challenge.

3. Step six - Recruit and vet. The fun stuff happens here. Recruit, recruit, recruit until you have found the right fit—or at least thing you have. And then put them through some level of on the job testing. Try to see how they execute and how they think.

4. Step seven - Document, onboard and handoff. And finally, get all the things you want taken care of documented so as soon as your new CoS is onboarded you can hand them off. Voila—you have a Chief of Staff.

💡 Note: If you are looking to hire an EA, Chief of Staff, or any other remote role for that matter, my startup Athyna can help.

Future

In today’s tech landscape the Chief of Staff is going from strength to strength. A study in February of 2023 showed that there were 4,700 CoS roles in US organisations. I personally am seeing more and more often that not only does a CEO have a CoS but now we are seeing Chief of Staff to the Chief Product Officer, CRO and more.

Not only that, we are also beginning to see more and more of a trend towards having an Office of the CEO. Chief of Staff, Deputy CoS and an Executive Assistant (or two). The whole premise being that we want the executive to be able to spend as much time as possible using their head not their hands—and I for one am all for it.

TWEET WRAP 🐣

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Firstly, welcome to the crew who joined this week! 🎉 You are now part of a cult of folks helping to ideate and grow their tech startups together.

ICYMI 📚

If you are new here or just plain missed some of our previous sends, here is your quick catch up section.

• Innovation Via Customer Obsession. Jeff Bezos, Founder & Ex-CEO at Amazon.

• WE'VE BEEN ACQUIRED! Yep, you heard right, IdeaHub has been acquired. 🎉

• The Startup CEO Building Media Brand On The Side. How this successful founder is building two companies at once.

PARTNERS 🎯

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TL;DR 🍒

If you’ve only got a few minutes, here are key takeaways to helping founders, investors and leaders in tech outperform the competition.

• The role of a CEO has changed over time. From the first leaders of industry in the United States, to the rise of the celebrity entrepreneurs. Your role will too. And that’s totally ok.

• There are five key aspects to the job of a CEO. From setting the strategy and raising the money. To building a team of all-stars, communicating at a high level and holding their people accountable.

• Creating a vision when hiring is key. The great job ad in history called for “small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful” - and it had 5000 applicants.

• Micro-management may be a little too oft-maligned. Steve Jobs, Brian Chesky, Seinfeld and more were chronic micro-managers. And brilliant at what they do.

THE DEEP DIVE 👀

The Job Description Of A CEO

The job title of Chief Executive Officer carries weight. The CEO is the head honcho, the boss, the leader of the organisation. But what is a CEO and what do they do - and why does no one teach you how to be one?

Today, we will attempt to unravel the mystery of the chief executive. It’s more art than science and it evolves over time for every individual. But as you progress it should take a little more shape. Let’s dive into it.

Chimp Executive Officer

The history of the chief executive

The concept of a CEO dates back to the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. This period in history saw rapid industrial growth and a movement from small, family-run businesses to the larger, more structured organisations we know today.

One of the first uses of the title ‘Chief Executive Officer’ was in the United States in the 1850s, with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Samuel Vaughan Merrick was the first President and CEO of the railroad and therefore the first to don the title. Although this was the oldest dated use of the term, the use of CEO didn’t take off until the 1900s.

S-dot-Merrick.

CEOs for most of the last century were behind the scenes. Not acclaimed figureheads of industry like today. The first real cases of a celebrity CEO happened in the late 20th century with the likes of Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca and the controversial Jack Welch from General Electric. CEOs began to be seen as celebrities in their own right on the strength of not only their acumen, but their personalities and leadership styles.

That brings us to today. Today a CEO needs to be truly multi-faceted to succeed. From navigating international markets, managing global teams, fostering DEI and more. The CEOs role is every increasingly demanding. And for startup founders, it can be challenging to know where to start.

The role of a CEO today

I found a tweet, embedded in the blog a buddy of mine, Startmate CEO Michael Batko, that really struck me. The tweet, penned by Bilal Zuberu, outlined the five core jobs of a CEO. It wasn’t until this moment that I understood my role. Or what my role should be.

Twitter tweet

Since seeing this tweet, the CEO job description has been burned into my retinas. It’s now something I actively work towards as CEO of Athyna and it sits daily on my laptops background. Let’s take a look at Bilal’s definition and break them down one by one.

1/ Set the strategic direction

Ok, so we start with strategy. Mission, vision, values. Short term tactics, OKRs, longer term efforts … big hairy audacious goals. The best way to start to flex your strategy muscle is simple: read. Read everything, from everyone, that has come before you. Books, investor letters, timeless blogs.

You don’t just found a company and understand how to set a strategy. You learn by trying - and failing. You learn by learning. The difference between good strategy and great strategy and is difference between a good business and an IPO and the difference between good strategy and poor strategy is life and death.

Strategy in Ancient Greece.

Read, learn, network. Ask questions. Study those around you. If you are constantly building your cerebral horsepower, you are setting yourself up for success.

2/ Have enough money to execute

Next, is delivering capital to pursue that strategy. Or more commonly know as — not dying. Seems simple, but depending on the game you are playing, it can be incredibly challenging.

Bootstrapping an agency, cool, you probably don’t need that much money. Building a deep-tech startup, not as cool. You are going to need a lot of money to survive and execute. Step one here is knowing which game you want to play and reverse engineering how much capital you are going to need to get there.

Source; Trevor Blackwell.

Remember, staying alive doesn’t always mean being profitable. It can mean just being default alive. As long as you know your positon, and you have a plan to stay alive, you are doing your job here.

3/ Hire all-star team

Now that we know we are alive, we need to figure out how we can execute on the company goals. Before founding a startup, most would think hiring would be easy … it’s not. And not only is it difficult, it’s highly competitive and the early hires you make will also shape the culture, or lack-thereof, inside your organisation.

How do we address hiring well. There are a few ways, actually. First you need to build a brand, and then foster and incredible culture. Build a great brand, and you will have All-Star talent kicking your door down to work with you. Have a great culture and that All-Star talent will be motivated to do their best work. Of course you won’t be great at hiring right away so try headhunting, lean on your network, build external partnerships, all while polishing that employer brand and maintaining your culture.

Put simply … build out a team of motivated All-Stars and you can overcome most challenges put in front of you.

“The greatest job ad ever written”

The award for histories greatest job ad has been held by Sir Ernest Shackleton since sometimes ~1907. The ad, which has since been partially debunked, was said to have read the following:

“MEN WANTED - for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.”

Whether or not this ad did ever exist is irrelevant. The ad was first cites in The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852-1958, written by Julian Watkins in 1959 and in 1999, Campaign ranked it 86th in its selection of the 100 best ads of the century.

The infamous ad was said to have had 5000 applications from Londoners scrambling to join Shackleton’s expedition. Why? Because Sir Ernest filled them with ambition. Which leads us right into our next point.

4/ Scream it from the rooftops

Another key role for a modern leader is how you communicate - internal and externally. Internal comms range from company All-Hands events, pitching investor and keeping them updated, board communications and more. Whereas external communications means taking your companies mission, vision and values and screaming them from the rooftops.

Wernam Hogg’s best boss.

It’s also becoming more and more important to have a strong personal — or in this case let’s call it — founder brand. You need to be the chief storyteller, evangelist and impression pusher for your entire organisation. Today with some hard work, a little elbow grease and a bit of copywriting skill, you can do it.

Words matter you see. They have the ability to move mountains, or more tangibly, change the world for better or worse. Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler will never be forgotten, again, for better or worse, because they were able to sway people with their words. Learn how to wield yours wisely.

5/ Maintain culture & accountability

And finally, you need to hold people accountable. Set high standards for etiquette, lead from the front and don’t allow those standards to slip. The fastest way to turn a team filled with A-players is to surround them with C-players. This is the unglamorous part of the role. This part hurts.

But it’s incredible powerful for a leader to set the standard, hold their team to that standard and also to, on occasion, make tough but decisions to maintain those standards.

🧠 Get Smarter About SaaS

Every week discover the best growth, marketing and product development strategies for your SaaS.

Join 3,300+ SaaS founders, indie hackers and tech entrepreneurs.

TWEET WRAP 🐣

Twitter tweet

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

PostHog: We use PostHog product analytics, A/B testing and more. Apollo: We use Apollo to automate a large part of our 1.2M weekly outbound emails. Taplio: We use Taplio to grow and manage my online presence.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏

2. Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰

3. Reach an audience of tech leaders:Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀

That’s it from me. See you next week, Doc 🫡 P.P.S. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Athyna: Hire high-quality, remote talent

“We need a front-end developer for Tuesday, but it will take months to find someone in the US”

If you are looking for your next remote hire, Athyna has you covered. From business and finance, ops to engineering.

The secret weapon for ambitious startups. No search fees. No activation fees. Just incredible talent, matched with AI precision, at lightning speed.

Can PLG Beat Salesforce - How Attio is taking on the big dogs in CRM, and kinda winning.

Arc’s build-in-public playbook - One nugget from the internet’s favourite content strategy.

Deel, EOR & The Future Of Global Teams - A deep dive on one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

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Athyna: Hire high-quality, remote talent

“We need a front-end developer for Tuesday, but it will take months to find someone in the US”

If you are looking for your next remote hire, Athyna has you covered. From business and finance, ops to engineering.

The secret weapon for ambitious startups. No search fees. No activation fees. Just incredible talent, matched with AI precision, at lightning speed.

Can PLG Beat Salesforce - Kyle Poyar does a fantastic deep dive on one of the upstarts in the CRM space, Attio.

“An AI-for-talent” strategy - A look inside how one company is building the future of recruitment via AI.

Negative CAC Is Here - Smart founders are looking at CAC in a new way. Getting paid to land clients.

🧠 Get Smarter About SaaS

Every week discover the best growth, marketing and product development strategies for your SaaS.

Join 3,300+ SaaS founders, indie hackers and tech entrepreneurs.

Hey IdeaHub Crew! 🎉

Turning a million-dollar idea into a real-life business is a dream we all have.

It seems there’s so many ways to make money these days. Let me rephrase that, there’s so many ways to help people these days.

New technology advancement = more problems for founders like us to build products for.

There’s a fantastic book by Noah Kagan called Million Dollar Weekend about how to launch your startup idea in 48 hours.

It’s inspired me to break down the simple process that goes into creating a startup in a short space of time.

Read more… 👇

🔗 The Best Links

Create a $70k SaaS in 6 days - Read this founder’s blog about how he built a startup fast.

Quickly launch your startup - How this founder finds problems and acts fast to create a solution.

One-Person Content Team - Founders spin so many plates. Here are some tips for staying consistent and relevant online as a solo founder.

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Presented by Artisan 👋

🧠 Get Smarter About Startups

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“So the idea was to build a platform to help creators to essentially do all of the back office work.

So at the top, it's helping you keep track of the deals that you sourced, the negotiation process, the contracts that you've sent, chasing people down for payments, and finally getting payments into a bank account.

So Cloutdesk was essentially built to manage that entire cycle.”

“When I joined, Cloutdesk was a thin slice of a web application built on top of Airtable.

They had a real need for a CTO to join at a pivotal moment when they needed to hit startup scale.

And at the same time, I was winding down my previous startup. So it was good timing.

“We realized that selling Cloutdesk B2C, it's just hard.

It's it's a lot of education, a lot of creators actually don't want to use platforms because they're kind of not that technically savvy.

Our core audience was women between the ages of let’s say 20 and 35 years and they are relatively unfamiliar with using management software.

We had to spend a lot of effort educating our customers. So we pivoted towards a B2B strategy and we focused on selling to marketers.

So yeah, that was kind of like the major pivot.”

“We spent a few months just with this MVP in Retool which we built in literally just a couple weeks.

We really just needed to understand their flow and sequence of events before we actually built a custom platform.

Once we felt like we understood the requirements we then took that and built a custom platform which is today’s CloutDesk and is much more scalable.

But because we built that MVP so quickly it gave us a lot of validation early on. Super important.”

“So we sell Cloutdesk to small- and mid-sized marketing agencies as well as enterprises.

Enterprises take a lot of effort to get to the point of signing contracts but once you’re there they’ll easily sign another and expand because there’s 90% buy-in from most of the organisation.

But for even the mid-level marketing agencies even after the contract is signed, your internal champion is still trying to prove the use case. So every single month or week, you're still trying to prove the use case even if they’re actively using it.

So a lot of our CEO Trevor’s time is just locked up into nudging customers chasing them down for meetings and keeping the relationship warm.”

Hey IdeaHub Crew! 🎉

Launching a startup is never easy.

It’s harder when you end up wasting money on marketing a product that hasn’t hit product-market fit…

But, what if there was a low-risk way of trialling a product, getting customers AND not spending any money?

Today, we will be breaking down a startup growth hack called “micro-influencer referral strategy”, where you partner up with dozens of micro-influencers on a revenue share basis.

And thanks to Remote and Artisan for sponsoring today’s newsletter ✉️

Let’s start… 👇

🔗 Speak to 2,700 founders

Sponsor IdeaHub - Book now for May (next two weeks full 📤)

• LinkedIn: B2B Products or Services

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• Meta: General but leaning towards consumer products

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“Eventually he found out I only had an idea. He thought the product was made but it worked out in the end as he made some intros. It showed me there was demand for the idea”

🧠 Get Smarter About Startups

Weekly growth strategies, deep dives and case studies to help ideate and grow your tech startup.

Join 2,600+ startup founders, indie hackers and tech entrepreneurs.

“So as it turns out, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong when hosting a 24/7 livestream.

Most people are just running it on their home computers and rely on their internet not dying, and their battery lasting.

There’s also a lot that can go wrong when streaming to Twitch or YouTube in terms of sound and video quality if you have bad internet.

If any of these things fail, you lose your stream and your audience and have to start all over again which obviously impacts your engagement.”

“A lot of customers come to us from competitors because their customer support is just terrible.

It’s still a relatively new space and there are a lot of details about YouTube, TikTok etc to know if you want to start streaming that aren’t really that obvious.

Plus when you're dealing with 24/7 live streams, it’s 100% uptime without failure. That’s a tough bar to hit, and it seemed like everyone else was falling short.”

“We spent a lot of time on Reddit, answering questions and trying to help people.

We used GummySearch to track specific keywords and as soon as we saw a new post we would make sure we were the first ones to comment.

One day I remember just putting my kids to bed and I got a message from my co-founder saying that we’d just made our first $30 sale!”

“There are no off-the-shelf solutions for live streaming so we had to build everything from scratch.

We wanted a seamless self-service experience where people could sign up and start streaming on their own server without any help from us.

That meant we had a lot of work to do to just get a working MVP. So anything like bookkeeping and invoices we automated straight away.

That gave us the time to really focus on the details of everything about Upstream from the UX right down to how we manage the servers.”

“If I were to give one piece of advice to any founder - don’t take the last 10% for granted. It’s what makes all the difference.

Make that extra push to differentiate yourself from your competitors. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just make sure to provide an awesome experience.”

Xembly – AI executive assistant for every worker

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Meet Xena, your company’s new AI executive assistant that gives every employee 400 hours extra per year. 

What will you accomplish with the newfound time?

Happy Thursday! 🎉

Welcome back to IdeaHub where over 2,500 founders get smarter about startups every week.

Yes, you read that right - we just crossed 2,500 subscribers! Woohoo!

Thank you for reading every week and thanks to our sponsors for helping keep IdeaHub free.

We know not everyone likes sponsors, but we genuinely try to curate partnerships that are of real value to you as a founder.

Like this week’s sponsor, BrightData who are trusted by founders and organisations globally to deliver trusted public data on trends and insights.

If you're looking for data to validate your next startup, definitely check them out 👇

Reply to this email, tell me a bit about your startup, and I can help you figure out what channels might work for you!

- Charlie

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