What a Brick-and-Mortar Business Taught Me That Dashboards Never Could
Running marketing for a fast-growing tech company taught me a lot. Running a small brick-and-mortar business with my wife taught me things the dashboards never could.
Writing
Attribution, affiliate economics, AI and discovery, and operating lessons. Everything here is dated, sourced, and written to be quoted accurately, by people and by machines.
Build vs. Buy Is Finally Bending
For years the right answer was usually buy, and teams built anyway. AI is collapsing the cost of building, and the old line between build and buy is moving fast. Where I would redraw it.
What Selling to Small Business Owners Taught Me
Eight years of marketing to small business owners at Nav taught me things no B2B playbook ever did. They do not care about your funnel. They care about making payroll on Friday.
AI in Marketing: The Three Buckets
"How should we use AI in marketing?" is the wrong question, because there are three completely different answers. Internal tools, customer-facing AI, and the platform AI you are already paying for.
The Lowest-CAC Channel Is Built, Not Bought
I have built affiliate programs from zero twice. At Nav the channel drove roughly 10% of new signups at the lowest CAC in the mix. At Linqto it delivered 15% of new customers in six months. Why the economics work, and what nobody budgets for.
Will the Answer Engines Cite You?
Everyone is chasing AI search visibility. Almost nobody is solving the harder problem: getting the click. The data on the GEO click gap, and five things that actually earn the visit.