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We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and...venture capital? In 2023 the Chicago Cubs spun off a fund by the name of Marquee Ventures. Marquee invests at the intersection of sports, media, commerce, and their enabling infrastructure. Enjoy this special episode, a replay of my interview with Marquee's Cofounder & Managing Partner Erik Hammer live from the Startup Grind Chicago 2nd Annual Health & Sportstech Showcase in March 2024. Erik covers how Marquee assesses deals, what catches their eye, his outlook on the future of sports and media tech, and more. Original interview date: Mar 19, 2024. Find Erik online: LinkedIn Find Marquee online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! One of the biggest struggles of an early stage startup is creating content. Or, really I should say creating GOOD content. It's pretty easy to publish a whitepaper that no one cares about, make Linkedin posts that don't get traction, or start a podcast but quit after 5 episodes. Creating content isn't hard, creating content that actually drives leads is hard. Erin Balsa is a content strategy expert who has written for the likes of Hubspot, Monday.com, G2, and more. At Haus of Bold, she focuses on building content strategies for early stage startups so they aren't just writing random SEO-optimized blog posts that don't generate new business. The key, she says, is having a clear point-of-view. She steps to the mic in this week's episode to share what great startups do really well in their content strategy. Find Erin online: LinkedIn Find Haus of Bold online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! Have you ever worked really hard on a piece of content, only for it to get like 5 likes online? It could be a bad distribution strategy or bad timing, but more likely it's because the content doesn't resonate. What if instead of approaching your content like a tech or product company, you approached it like a media company? Tyler Lessard didn't just approach it like a media company, he in fact launched an entire media brand called Sales Feed. 150,000 followers and subscribers later, something's working right. If you've been with this show long enough, you might remember that for about 2 years I was one of SalesFeed's on-air talents, cohosting a youtube series and podcast with Tyler. We also created nearly a half-dozen parody music videos together. Our relationship runs deep, so I had to get him on this podcast. He steps to the mic this week to share how Sales Feed started, taking a different approach to content creation, how they use different channels for different purposes, and how you can think like a media company even if you don't have budget. Find Tyler online: LinkedIn Find Sales Feed online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! What if instead of rushing to social media, paid ads, or even a traditional outbound sales motion, you used live events as a customer acquisition strategy? You immediately provide value to your target customer, create a shared experience, and get valuable face time with them. Sales Assembly has bootstrapped to 7-figure annual revenue, growing 300% from 2020 - 2024. The secret to their success? EVENTS. Ahead of all other GTM channels, live events have been the backbone of their customer acquisition. Their CRO Matt Green steps to the mic in this week's episode to share exactly how they concept their events, curate the guest list, build intentional content, and follow up with purpose to flip an audience into a customer base. Matt also gives us the rundown on how he got into sales in the first place, plus shares the story behind his favorite tattoo. He steps to the mic in this week's episode to share how to invest wisely in your brand, position yourself for growth, and the difference between an influencer and influential strategy. Find Matt online: LinkedIn Find Sales Assembly online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! If you're a CPG or retail brand, you know by default the importance of brand. It's what people buy into as much as the product itself. There's a reason why you choose to pay more for a Nike shirt when you could reasonably buy the same shirt without the logo. Brand is a promise. It's a value system. It's a marker of trust for your community and customers that signals an understanding and expectation of the product experience. In the software world, brand tends to get pushed to the side. It doesn't matter as long as the product is good. But if you want to worry less about competition, have more control over pricing, and get customers to move with you when you make pivots, your best served making brand-led decisions. Sarah Sitz knows exactly what this looks like, having spent time as employee #14 at Foxtrot helping grow the company from Series A to C and launching their private-label brand, and now as Cofounder of brand GTM agency The Squeeze. She steps to the mic in this week's episode to share how to invest wisely in your brand, position yourself for growth, and the difference between an influencer and influential strategy. Find Sarah online: LinkedIn Find The Squeeze online Website Instagram This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! Everyone wants to have a community. Everyone says they have a community. But just having a Slack or WhatsApp group doesn't actually mean you have community. Community is more about the interactions than the medium. And investing in community means playing the long game. Which is why so many brands don't think it's worth the effort. My friend Pablo Gonzalez has cracked the community code with a playbook that accrues short-term high-impact wins while waiting for the long game to play out. Through a process he calls Experiential Content Marketing, his company, Be The Stage, generated a $40M revenue channel from scratch for one of their customers. I've wanted to interview him for a while, and the stars finally aligned. He steps to the mic in this week's episode to share how you should reframe your community approach, how anyone can create community regardless of brand size, the metrics to track, and how losing his brother unexpectedly 9 years ago turned into an epiphany moment. Find Pablo online: LinkedIn Find Be The Stage online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! What does it take to turn an idea for a boutique 7-11 into a tech-driven consumer market, into a national brand that merged with one of the biggest names in grocery? Enjoy this special episode, a replay of my interview with Foxtrot CEO & Cofounder Mike LaVitola live from the Startup Grind Chicago 4th Annual Great Chicago Food Bash in January 2024. Mike shares overcoming rejection for his crazy idea in the early days, to raising nearly $200M and scaling up nationally. He talks about the importance of optimizing for brand experience, identifying adjacencies in customer behavior, and why data actually isn't everything. Original interview date: January 18, 2024 Find Mike online: LinkedIn Find Foxtrot online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! I think we can all agree AI is seemingly everywhere. But what does that actually mean for a startup? Enjoy this special episode, a replay of my interview with Techstars Managing Director Tricia Martinez-Saab live from the Startup Grind Chicago AI Showcase in November 2023. Tricia leads the AI and deep-tech verticals at Techstars and shares her perspective on the good and bad of AI's permeation, how to approach integrating AI into your product, the ethics behind an AI-powered future, and how she makes investment decisions for AI startups at Techstars. Find Tricia online: LinkedIn Find Techstars online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! The 3-letter acronym every startup obsesses with is TAM. But what is your TAM comprised of, and specifically WHO makes up your TAM? When you go to market, you may think your target is one group, but then find it includes others you weren't previously considering. That was the case for Cardio Diagnostics, who built a solution with a clear end user but involved multiple ancillary decision makers and economic buyers, and alternative use cases. This forced them to expand their TAM in order to successfully penetrate the market and grow revenue. And with a team of just 10 they've managed to go public on the NASDAQ. Their Co-founder & CEO, Meesha Dogan, steps to the mic in this week's episode to share how they have strategically charted their market and TAM to win the big deals that take a long time to close, and the small deals that turn around quickly. Find Meesha online: LinkedIn Find Cardio Diagnostic online: Website This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

We’re gearing up for Season 5 but in the meantime, here’s the best of GTM season 3! In a down economy, runway is everything. But it should also be everything in a boom economy. Great companies figure out how to spend less, and make more. Jordan Tepper cofounded the cocktail brand Apologue in 2017, and in the 7 years since he's achieved over $1M annual revenue, while raising just $2.5M in that time, and as of this writing still carrying $1M of that raise in the bank. For a CPG brand with significant fixed expenses, Apologue's story is a clinic on meaningful growth and spend. Jordan steps to the mic in our season premiere to share the specific hacks his team has employed to make the most of every dollar since day one. Find Jordan online: LinkedIn Find HostesCocktails online: Instagram Find Apologue online: Instagram This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m

Part 2 of my conversation with Devin rolls on! After a 2-week break we regroup and picked up as if we never stopped. We found ourselves talking about how we handle managing time, playing the comparison game, not getting too caught up in outcomes while still pursuing them, and much more. Find Devin online: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereederco/ This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was supposed to be about content creation (because Devin is a master at it — 2x Head of Content at unicorn startups Gong and Clari, 95k+ Linkedin followers, best B2B podcast in the game). But what I've always liked about the way this show runs is we don't fight momentum. Since Devin and I are so close personally, it's easy to gain momentum in unexpected places. And shortly after we began, we started going deeper into our respective journeys, our mindset, and how we've changed and grown as individuals through our businesses. As we started going in that direction, I found myself not wanting to pull away from it because I was learning a lot, and I realized you will too. So, in an unexpected twist, Devin steps to the mic this week for a conversation about figuring out WHO you are, and how that shapes WHAT you build (despite me saying during his introduction that we're talking about the future of content creation). Devin opens up about how a significant personal loss became the catalyst for taking a big swing, we talk finding time to be present for both business and family, and detaching our personal identity from our business. Our time was cut short so enjoy part 1 this week, and we'll have part 2 of the conversation ready for you in our next episode. Find Devin online: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereederco/ This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most startups chase the next automation hack. Gabe Lullo built his by betting on people instead. As CEO of Alleyoop and host of the Do Hard Things podcast, he’s helped over 1,600 founders scale by focusing on one thing that never goes out of style—real human connection. From 11 million cold calls a year to rebuilding how companies hire, train, and lead SDRs, Gabe’s rethinking what growth actually looks like in the age of AI. He steps to the mic this week to talk founder-led selling, why most sales hires fail, and how to build a team that never stops doing the hard things. Find Gabe online: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lullo/ Gabe is also hopping into our member community, GOAT to Market Club, for an Ask Me Anything this week. Got Q's you want to ask Gabe personally? Join for free today! This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S4 BONUS! Creativity & Betting On Yourself - Reed Between The Lines We've got a special bonus for you this week! It's a re-airing of my appearance as a guest on the Reed Between The Lines podcast with my friend Devin Reed. I've done a lot of interviews in my life, and this is hands down my favorite one ever. We peel back the curtain on the transformation from Rajiv Nathan to 'RajNATION' and get into the REAL stuff — setbacks, insecurities, relationships, and more. The stuff that really comes into play when you decide to bet on yourself. This interview was originally recorded in March 2024 and aired on Devin's show in May 2024. This one's long, but worth every song. Want to WATCH the show instead? We filmed on a basketball court overlooking the Chicago skyline. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/vXAQ3bf7q0c?si=n9p7tHXWs3ex9v29 Subscribe to Devin's show: Apple Spotify Connect with Devin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thereederco/ This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if your startup’s biggest advantage isn’t your code, your speed, or even your traction but your ability to protect what’s yours? In a world where AI can replicate your idea in days, defensibility isn’t a luxury it’s survival. And few people understand that better than Bao Tran. Before founding Transformation VC, an IP-first venture capital firm, Bao built the patent strategy for Invasalign and Shutterfly before they became mega-brands. Now, he's rethinking what early-stage support should look like, using patents, AI, and a few surprising strategies to help founders build real moats. He steps to the mic in this week's episode to talk startup risk in the AI era, how his fund is making investments, and how to protect your ass(ets). Because sometimes, it’s not about being first — it’s about being uncopyable. Find Bao online: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bao-tran-752988209/ Bao is also hopping into our member community, GOAT to Market Club, for an Ask Me Anything this week. Got Q's you want to ask Bao personally? Join for free today! This episode is brought to you by our friends at CodeLaunch! CodeLaunch is the only equity-free AND fee-free accelerator + Venturetainment platform giving founders software development, a massive pitch stage, and an opportunity at investment all for FREE. Use our unique link to apply to CodeLaunch today and cut the line for fast-track application review! https://tinyurl.com/7k7rjt6m Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.