My Journey from Marketer to Becoming the CEO

I didn’t really think my career path would include “CEO & Co-Founder of a high-growth SaaS company” My passion has always been — and still is — marketing. I love engaging with audiences and I thrive when I get to create things that never existed before. I quickly realized, though, that by founding Casted, I was able to combine the two.

At my previous company, I spearheaded our brand podcast and found that it was a gold mine of content. The conversations from our episodes generated great content for our social media channels, blog posts, email and even sales enablement. While those were a huge asset to our marketing efforts, we realized our podcast also helped us establish a genuine connection between our brand and our audience in a way those traditional channels hadn’t been able to do.

I knew that if we were able to see such success with our brand podcast, other B2B marketing teams would do the same. The only problem was, there was no software available to support a podcast-first approach. In fact, I was shocked that nothing existed to serve me as a marketing leader or my marketing team. And so, Casted was born.

Revamping the Outdated Marketing Playbook with Podcasts

At Casted, our mission is to make podcasting the engine behind a B2B team’s entire content marketing strategy. Today’s marketing teams are still using a playbook written in the early 2000s — my work and my strategies have changed a lot since then. Chances are, your audiences have too.

Consumers’ expectations are higher than ever, they don’t want to read SEO-tailored blog posts or be subjected to generic email spam. They want to have a unique, personalized experience with a brand. In order to create the experience they’re looking for, you have to lead with conversations.

Podcasting is a great tool to fuel your content marketing strategy because it allows you to share your message seamlessly across all channels. By recording a conversation with an industry expert on your brand podcast, you have a mountain of really valuable, relevant content that can be pushed across your social media channels, company blog and even in your sales enablement.

Not only is your message cohesive, but your show is unlike any other, which means you’re able to provide your audience with a unique experience they can only get from engaging with your brand. With your podcast as the engine to your efforts, the result is a more effective content marketing strategy that produces a unified, engaging experience.

Leadership Lesson:

Hands down, one of the best things about being a founder is creating something that truly helps your audience. I wouldn’t be touting brand podcasts if we didn’t see an ROI ourselves. Marketing is hard; and providing an engaging experience for your audience is a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity.

Podcasting has been a lifesaver for our small-but-mighty marketing team. Instead of spinning their wheels on the next piece of killer content, and eating up a lot of precious time in the process, they can rely on our show to drive content efforts across all channels.

I’d say I’m not a typical SaaS founder, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this journey, it’s that you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Being a founder means you wake up every morning and do something that has never been done before. Sure, you can pick up a book or tap a mentor for help, but the only way to truly push the boundaries is to trust your instinct and follow your passion.

This is actually one of the reasons why I love podcasting. Whether you’re the host, the listener or sitting in the guest seat, we get to dive deep into new perspectives and fuel our passions. In a way, being a founder is like a brand podcast, to succeed, you have to show your truest, most authentic self.

Aside from creating a solution to the problem I myself experienced as a marketer, one of my proudest moments has been watching Casted grow as a company filled with incredible, smart, hard-working people, who truly love being a part of the Casted team. It’s by far the most rewarding part of being a founder.