Brand matters - fix the story series
The 5-step approach to fix your startup story
So, how do you fix the story?
🔹 Start with the real problem. Not the market-sized one. The emotional, personal one your buyer feels in their day-to-day.
🔹 Clarify the stakes. If they don’t solve this now, what’s the cost? What’s the risk? Create tension.
🔹 Paint the shift, not just the solution. Don’t sell what your product does. Sell what your buyer becomes.
🔹 Make your customer the hero. You’re the guide. Not the main character.
🔹 Say it simply — so they can say it too. If they can’t repeat it, they won’t remember it. And if they don’t remember it, they won’t buy.
🧠 Because people don’t fall out of funnels. They fall out of stories that don’t make them feel seen.
Leading from the front to build a product
The three leadership muscles that come handy while building the product.
🛑 The power to say no — even when there’s money on the table
🔁 The discipline to let go — especially when your favorite feature flops
🚢 The courage to ship — before it’s perfect (because it never is) Lead with clarity. Build with purpose. And remember: the problem is your soulmate, not the roadmap.
We talked about the top of the funnel. And now… they signed up
👏 Cue internal celebration + 37 Slack emojis. But if you want them to stay in love with your product? You’ve got to earn it. Daily. Otherwise, it’s:
😐 Mild confusion
🌀 Wandering clicks
🚪 Eventual ghosting For stickiness, you don’t need fireworks.
You need flow. And flow begins with personalization — not a one-size-fits-all tour. Here’s how to keep the spark alive:
🧠 Ask: “What are you trying to do right now?”
🎯 Use that intel to build a guided path — not a maze
📍 Drop tiny, satisfying breadcrumbs
📏 Show them they’re winning — with a clear way to measure success
Because stickiness isn't about keeping them trapped. It’s about making them never want to leave.
Community - the kind that actually drives product adoption, user love, and retention
If you’re wiring your SaaS for success, think of community as infrastructure. Here are 3 core dimensions to build it right:
🧱 1. Plug in a Community Platform Slack, Discord, Teams — sure. But also look into purpose-built spaces like Circle or Mighty if you want rich interaction, live events, or deeper member engagement.
📚 2. Build a Knowledge Library Think Notion or Confluence. This is your hub for workflows, templates, user-generated brilliance — and repeat FAQs that deserve better than a Google Doc. Tag it. Index it. Make it ridiculously easy to find. (Shoutout to HubSpot — they crush this.)
📣 3. Capture Feedback Like a Pro Your users are inside your house.
Why should SaaS brands care about social media
Because your user’s first impression might not be your website — it’s your LinkedIn, Instagram, or yes... even Facebook.
We live in the age of:
⚡️ 30-second attention spans
🌀 Infinite scrolling
👀 Silent judging of brand personality
So if your social media is an afterthought, you’re missing the plot. Done right, it’s not just a vanity metric engine — it’s:
🔹 Your first touchpoint
🔹 Your content amplifier
🔹 Your CAC slayer
Don't just post. Show up. Speak your brand’s truth. Be useful, visual, and a little human.
Your funnel isn't broken. Your story is!
Most times, we are out to solve our revenue and pipeline problem by trying to fix the funnel. But before fixing the funnel, it is important to fix the story and the narrative and target it to the right audience. Fix the story, the funnel will fix itself.
Brand matters - the agents of growth series
Agentic AI for Marketing - Introduction
Design in the World of Agents.
🔹 Clarify the stakes. If they don’t solve this now, what’s the cost? What’s the risk? Create tension.
🔹 Paint the shift, not just the solution. Don’t sell what your product does. Sell what your buyer becomes.
🔹 Make your customer the hero. You’re the guide. Not the main character.
🔹 Say it simply — so they can say it too. If they can’t repeat it, they won’t remember it. And if they don’t remember it, they won’t buy.
🧠 Because people don’t fall out of funnels. They fall out of stories that don’t make them feel seen.
Preview to Agentic AI and Design
What are they doing with AI?
✨ At the ops level: Midjourney, DALL·E, Canva — not just tools, but tireless collaborators. Sketch-to-render? Auto-branding? Already happening.
🧠 At the strategy level: GPT is the new UX sidekick — brainstorming flows, mocking up interfaces, helping plan the whole design sprint.
💭 And then come the bigger questions: – Who owns a brand’s soul if AI designs it? – Do AI-generated assets feel like your brand?
All Things AI, Agentic AI and Design
A refreshing discussion on how AI is transforming the world of design. We talked about:
🎨 Tools Ecosystem — how AI tools have woven into the day‑in‑the‑life of designers
🧠 Brand & Design Soul — how the core identity of brands is evolving with AI infusion
🤖 Agentic AI Use Cases & Ethical Guardrails — exploring AI-driven design while addressing ethics, governance, and nuance
👥 Future of Design for Gen Z — what design careers look like for the incoming generation
⚖️ Org Structure: Marketing + Design — the value of human‑in‑the‑loop workflows
Preview to Agentic AI and Content Marketing
If design is the style, content is the substance. And AI? It’s shaking up both. From GPT to Claude to Perplexity, AI is now the engine behind how we research, write, optimize, and personalize content—at speed we’ve never seen before.
💡 Jasper, Copy.ai & Writer are adding the brand layer—so it’s not just smart, it’s on-brand. But we’re now entering the next phase:
⚡️ Agentic systems — where AI doesn’t just help you write… it thinks, plans, and acts.
We’ll dive into:
🔍 GEO vs. SEO – optimizing for AI reviews
📝 From prompts to polished drafts
🧠 The ethics: bias, hallucinations & authenticity
🤖 Human vs. AI content – can you tell the difference?
🔥 The future of content is fast, smart, and agentic.
All Things Agentic AI and Content Marketing
AContent Marketing in the Time of AI 🎙️
In conversation with Mickey Aharony
Here are a few big shifts we unpacked:
SEO isn’t dead — but the game is changing. Indexing rules evolve, yet relevant keywords and increasingly visual content are still your ticket to page one.
Top-funnel? Commodity. With AI flooding the zone, mid- and bottom-funnel content will matter more than ever — especially when powered by real customer pains mined from Gongs and CRMs.
Agentic marketing systems are coming fast. But they’re only as good as the customer knowledge base you feed them. Garbage in, garbage out.
The soul of content? Still authenticity, quality, and meaning. No algorithm can fake that… for long. AI will keep changing the how. The why — telling stories that matter — is here to stay.
All Things Agentic AI and Hyper-personalization
Hyper-personalization isn’t a buzzword anymore. It’s the growth engine that powers modern marketing. And AI is taking it from “nice-to-have” to non-negotiable.
In this episode, I sit down with Saranya, a brilliant product leader, to unpack how enterprises are delivering personalization at scale.
We cover:
🔹 Personalization strategies across the funnel — from awareness to adoption 🔹 How AI and agentic systems enable context-aware and even emotional experiences
🔹 The governance and guardrails needed to scale responsibly
🔹 The future role of growth marketers in an AI-first world If you’re a growth marketer, product leader, or RevOps practitioner, this conversation is for you.
All Things Agentic AI and Sales Enablement
Sales Enablement — and why it’s getting redefined in this new AI-powered, agentic world.
To explore this, I’m joined by someone who’s been in the trenches and the boardrooms: Scott Schnaars. Scott’s built and scaled go-to-market teams across startups and global SaaS giants — think dynamic storytelling meets ruthless pipeline discipline. He brings a sharp eye for aligning sales and marketing, a pragmatic view on what AI should (and shouldn't) touch, and tons of stories from the front lines of scaling.
In this episode, we talk about:
🔹 Sales-led vs PLG motions — and how enablement shifts
🔹 How AI can empower sales reps, not just replace effort
🔹 What makes a playbook truly “intelligent” today
🔹 Why content, intent, and timing are the new sales trinity
If you’re a founder, a RevOps leader, or a product marketer in the thick of GTM planning — this one’s for you.
All Things Agentic AI, Brand Strategy and Storytelling
Brand has always been about trust, story, and differentiation. But with AI reshaping how we create, communicate, and connect — the rules are changing. In this episode, I sit down with Leila Modarres, an exceptional CMO, to explore:
🔹 How AI is rewriting the playbook for brand storytelling
🔹 Why a strong brand strategy is more critical than ever in a noisy, AI-driven world
🔹 The balance between automation, authenticity, and human creativity
🔹 Lessons from scaling brands that last, even as technology shifts beneath them
If you’re a founder, marketer, or leader wondering how to keep your brand human in an AI-first world — this conversation is for you.
Brand matters - the crafted by design series
Intro to the Crafted by Design Series
Design in the World of Agents.
Clarify the stakes. Quick prelude to the new podcast series (crafted by design) that will be dropping from next week. My first guest is a good friend and a colleague Dolly Parikh. I will be chatting with Dolly on all-things system, process and product design. Stay tuned. 🤘
All Things Product, UX and Systems Design
We’ve always known design thinking is about building products that delight humans (not robots… at least not yet 🤖). ✨But we're seeing some shifts now in design thinking with AI. 🎙 Here’s a conversation with Dolly Parikh—a design leader who’s shaped SaaS and consumer products at e-Trade, PayPal, and Medallia, and also driven innovation in areas like water and nature conservation. 👉 We explore how AI is disrupting (in a good way) the design thinking process and helping us build more intelligent products. #DesignThinking #AI #ProductDesign #AgentsOfGrowth #Innovation
Prelude to the Product Marketing and AI
From messaging to market insights, GTM launches to sales enablement, every PMM workstream is getting redefined. The big question: are we moving from creators to orchestrators in this new AI-powered world?
All Things AI and Product Marketing
Less grind. More impact. That’s the story of how product marketing is evolving. Across both quantitative and qualitative workstreams, AI is freeing PMMs from the tactical churn — and creating the headspace and mindspace for more strategic work. I’m excited to sit down with Savita Raina on the next episode of Crafted by Design 🎙 to explore how our roles are morphing, what this means for PMM-PM-Sales collaboration, and how we can lean into the future of product marketing with clarity and confidence. Join us for a conversation on what’s changing — and what that unlocks for PMMs everywhere. 🚀 #ProductMarketing #AI #AgentsOfGrowth #GTM #SalesEnablement
All Things AI Agents and Product Management
From agentic workflows and the human-in-the-loop in dynamic feature prioritization, to the new era of collaboration between PM, Engineering, and Marketing — plus insights on the evolving role of PMs and practical tips for aspiring product leaders — we cover a lot of ground in this session.
All Things AI, Agents and Product Management for Sales Enablement SaaS.
From CRM and ERP to marketing automation and sales enablement, product leaders are weaving AI into every layer of their stack. The result? Hyper-contextual, hyper-aware, hyper-intelligent products that make sales teams not just faster, but sharper. ⚡ Joining me on the next Crafted by Design podcast is - Sandeep Garg, SVP of AI Products at Seismic. Sandeep will shine the light on various topics, and importantly on:
💡 The pre-AI vs AI-first era of sales enablement
⚙️ How product + engineering is co-build intelligent features in the age of instant gratification.
🧭 The governance and ethics behind responsible AI innovation especially as we're working with tons of data.
This one’s going to be a fascinating look at how AI is quietly rewriting the SaaS playbook. Stay tuned. 👀
In Conversation with Sandeep Garg on Sales Enablement SaaS
In depth on the role of LLMs and Gen AI in wiring sales enablement SaaS, understanding governance and ethical data constructs when working with data at scale, creating a solid cross-collaboration foundation for Xfn teams like marketing, sales and customer success to work with PMs, and the ethos of PMs - to build world class products!
Brand matters - the unwire to rewire series
Intro to the Unwire to Rewire Series and Rutesh Shah
We’re kicking off a new series that’s close to my heart — Unwire to Rewire — conversations with founders who’ve built, broken, and rebuilt. From garage moments to global scale, we’ll dive into the messy, magical middle of building something that lasts — the pivots, the rehires, the rejections, and the rewiring it takes to stay the course. And who better to launch with than Rutesh Shah — a friend, mentor, confidant (and yes, the HUGO BOSS in our circle). His story is one of grit, grace, and generosity — and this episode glows a little brighter because it’s our Diwali special. 💫
From Garage to Scale: In Conversation with Rutesh Shah
Our first episode features Rutesh Shah, who takes us through his incredible journey — from zero to scale — and how he continues to embrace Continuous Learning and Continuous Integration (CL/CI) in the age of AI.
This conversation was simply too powerful to trim down. So here it is, raw and unedited, released in two parts. We’re rolling out Part 1 this week, capturing the essence of a founder’s journey — unfiltered, unrefined, and unforgettable.
From Garage to Scale: In Conversation with Rutesh Shah (Part 2)
The conversation continues as we dig deeper into some powerful themes:
1️⃣ The evolving role of AI in building products — how founders and teams are learning to work with it, not against it.
2️⃣ Stories of personal resilience — lessons and real-world takeaways for aspiring entrepreneurs.
3️⃣ Rewiring GTM and product strategy while keeping an eye on the ever-shifting AI wave.
It’s a thoughtful mix of product insights, growth lessons, and human stories. Plenty of takeaways to inspire the builder in you. 💡
Prelude to the Future of AI Discussion with Deepak Goyal
was trying to find the right words to introduce Deepak— and if I had to put it simply, I’d say this: he’s a technologist who’s always a few steps ahead of his time. Long before “Gen AI” and “LLMs” became the buzzwords they are today, Deepak was already experimenting with machine learning — using it to power an e-commerce platform that found true product-market fit. He didn’t stop there. His next act? Building a powerful e-commerce SaaS platform that solves one of the biggest pain points sellers face — creating high-quality product pages at scale. Thrilled to have Deepak Goyal join me on this episode of Unwire to Rewire — where we talk about his founder’s journey, and how he continues to build with curiosity, conviction, and a deep understanding of what’s next.
Product-Market Fit to Traction - In Conversation with Deepak Goyal
FSome conversations are just impossible to trim — every thread is a nugget. In Part 1 of Finding Product-Market Fit in the Agentic AI World, Deepak walks us through a framework that every founder should know on the road to traction — and he does it through his own story.
The Brave New World of AI - In Conversation with Deepak Goyal
In this segment, we go deeper into what Gen AI and LLMs have in store for us — not just for e-commerce, but for the broader business landscape. 💡 Deepak also gives us a look at the Optiwise demo, and it’s a real game-changer — showing how AI is transforming the seller experience through: ✨ Smarter content creation 📈 Better performance optimization 🎯 Sharper campaign intelligence It’s a glimpse into how Gen AI is reshaping the future of commerce — one seller at a time.