9 hard lessons learned going zero to one

and how I applied them to launching this Substack

It started with a single LinkedIn post.

I wrote about the 9 things I would do differently if I were the first marketer all over again (after having been the first marketer at two companies now worth over $2 billion).

I shared how I would go from zero to one with less guesswork and more leverage. I hit publish and went for a run. By the time I got back, the post had taken on a life of its own: nearly four hundred comments, founders tagging their teams, first-time marketers asking for playbooks, people adding their own hot takes of what they would add to the list.

That response was the signal.

A few weeks later, Pavilion invited me to speak at their national conference on the same topic. Preparing for that talk made me realize something important. If I believe in these nine principles, the best way to share them is to live them.

My next zero is this newsletter.

This post is both a launch and a case study in how I bring each principle to life. Rather than only list the ideas, I am showing how I applied every one to create The Zero to One Marketer.

1. Know your customer so well the strategy writes itself

What it is

I used to sit on every sales call and write every piece of copy. That proximity helped me hear what customers cared about, what words they used, where they hung out. Be close enough to “hear the music,” and messaging & growth channels become obvious.

The best strategy emerges when you understand the buyer so completely that your next move feels obvious.

I see a lot of marketers use AI to accelerate outdated playbooks (more blogs, more automated emails, etc.) when the real opportunity is using AI to listen, or to do something different.

I shared the story of our Marketing Shark Tank, where my team pitched wild ideas to “sharks,” internal folks who represented our buyer personas in character. A transformational use of AI was a requirement for every pitch. We brought ideas to the table like:

• Digital twins of our buyer personas to bring lived experience to life

• Social sparks: authentic, hilarious, and engineered to spread

• Interactive web experiences: from snarky avatars to surprisingly useful tools

• Out-of-home & conference stunts that would terrify traditionalists

• An insights engine powering everything from PR hooks to QBRs

• (and many more)

The idea wasn’t just a lot of fun, but the power of it was that having the “sharks” represent our buyer personas allowed us to measure those ideas based on what would land with our buyer. At the end of the day, who cares what I think or what the executive team thinks? What matters is what our buyer thinks.

How I am applying it here

The original LinkedIn post was more than a fun spike in engagement. It was proof of demand. I used AI tools to analyze all four hundred comments. Here is what surfaced:

• “Build brand as a scalable system” came up 22 times. People loved the idea of a modular design system and a single messaging document that AI can pull from.

• “Know your customer so well the strategy writes itself” was not the most common phrase, but those comments were the longest and most detailed.

• More than half of the commenters were founders rather than marketers and they were the most enthusiastic, tagging their teams and asking follow up questions.

Clearly there is a hunger for real, structured guidance on what to do in the early days, especially for first marketers, founders, and early GTM hires. That insight shaped everything about this newsletter. The audience is not only marketers. It is anyone trying to create something new.

At Pavilion, I opened my talk with an AI bot trained on my notes and invited the audience to feed it questions throughout the talk. Their questions will guide what I write next.

2. Start with brand as a scalable system

What it is

Build a modular design system early with components you can combine instead of create. A Figma system, Canva templates, Google Slide layouts. Pair that with a messaging doc, your “copy-paste” bank of positioning, beliefs, and product language. It becomes a foundation for consistency and a knowledge base for AI.

Curating beats creating. A brand is not a single campaign or a PDF of guidelines; it is a living system that grows. It’s a system of components that you curate into your next creation, instead of creating everything from scratch. And, consistency builds trust.

At the talk, I shared how a strong brand begins with a manifesto: the beliefs you hold, the old world you are replacing, the promised land you invite others into.

Motion video can crystallize that system: once you see your brand alive in motion you can pull every frame into decks, sites, and social. A brand with reusable shapes, repeatable motion, and an unmistakable narrative becomes magnetic (and consistent).

How I am applying it here

I wanted the visuals to feel like me: black and white, clean, timeless. I only wear black and white and it has become something people remember (plus, my closet looks like a showroom, packing for travel is easy, I could go on…).

The origami theme came naturally. Going from zero to one is like starting with a blank sheet of paper. It can become something intricate and beautiful or end up in a crumpled heap. Each post will feature an origami object tied to the topic so the design language is systematic and expandable.

The giraffe is personal. I grew up in Africa and spent weekends as a teenager chasing giraffes on motorcycles. Zero to one is that mix of adventure and risk.

I named the newsletter Zero to One Marketer because it reflects my entire career journey: from first marketing hire to CMO, reinventing myself many times over along the way.

3. Create the problem

What it is

Don’t build the whole funnel on day one. If you don’t have traffic, don’t worry about conversion. Solve the problem you actually have. Let the next one emerge or you’ll be building and rebuilding as things inevitably change.

Ship before you have every answer. I have made the mistake of building complex HubSpot workflows and conversion funnels long before we had traffic, only to rebuild them five times. You create the problem first…drive traffic so you earn the problem of conversion, generate leads so you earn the problem of follow-up.

Real data will rewrite your assumptions anyway.

How I am applying it here

Instead of perfecting every detail, I set a deadline to launch this thing: the Pavilion talk. I am writing this from a hotel lobby in DC the night before. Nothing like a real deadline to force a launch. I do not have every future post mapped out. I simply needed to get the first one live and have lightweight systems for how the rest will follow.

4. Prioritize the 95 percent, not just the 5 percent

What it is

LinkedIn & search ads worked early, but only because we caught the 5% already in market. The “demand capture” pool dries up fast. Invest early in “demand creation.” Reach the 95% who aren’t ready yet, but will be.

Only 5% of any market is ready to buy now. The 95% are not, but they represent real growth.

In my talk, I called over-focusing on the in-market few “crack marketing,” something an old mentor used to tell me. Crack marketing can be summed up as: just keep juicing the pipeline machine with more budget so we can hit the next quarter.

We learned to separate pain points from buying triggers through deep buyer-journey research and surveys, and built content programs that meet the larger audience where they are long before they are ready to purchase.

How I am applying it here

This is not only for marketers who are “in the market” for marketing advice.

It is for anyone going zero to one: founders, early GTM hires, and anyone reinventing themselves. The welcome page names all of those groups on purpose.

Zero to one is bigger than just taking a startup from 0 to scale. Even at Series D, I have launched projects that felt like starting from scratch. I have reinvented myself as a leader more than once. The only constant is change. With AI rewriting so many rules, it feels like we are all back at zero, drawing up new plans and hunting for different ways to grow.

5. Build lightweight systems

What it is

You don’t need full-blown infrastructure. A Notion board or copy-paste doc can carry you farther than you think. Build systems for speed, not scale.

Complex approval chains slow teams to a crawl.

For larger teams, I have reorganized marketing into cross-functional squads, each with the skills and authority to ship in days instead of quarters.

For small teams, I would focus on hiring two archetypes: the Tastemaker, who knows what great looks like and listens deeply to customers, and the Operator, who builds the engine and automates everything possible. AI fits here as an amplifier, not the source of creativity.

How I am applying it here

One core system is that I will use LinkedIn to see what really resonates. The LinkedIn posts that really spark something will be the backbone of the articles I decide to write here, so I will never be staring at a blank page wondering what to cover.

In terms of efficiency, here is my process. For my LinkedIn posting today, I voice note a stream of thoughts into ChatGPT and have it structure a post. I then rewrite most of it so it sounds like me, but that first draft gets me 80% of the way. I will do the same for this Substack. I will take a LinkedIn post that worked well, add more depth with a longer voice memo, and then edit it into a deeper piece. I would love to better train AI to write exactly like me but I have not figured that out yet. This workflow keeps things moving.

6. Look bigger than you are

What it is

Design clean & consistent. Logo small (bigger companies don’t oversize their logo). Feature your biggest customers, your compliance certifications. Use big company channels but use them small (buy one billboard, get one great PR story, speak on one well-known podcast). Make big company content but do it small (like a single high production video).

B2B marketing is crowded and often…very boring. To stand out, you need courageous moves that create the perception of scale. I told the Pavilion audience about bold plays like a Times Square billboard for ten seconds just to capture photos and video you can share everywhere, or connected-TV ads that feel like a national campaign but run as low-cost retargeting. Original research and proprietary data also signal authority and attract press.

How I am applying it here

Since I started posting on LinkedIn three months ago, the response has blown me away. Having a dedicated newsletter adds to that momentum. A media site signals that this work is not a side project. It makes everything feel more established and creates leverage for future opportunities.

7. Protect your focus

What it is

Get used to working with an infinite backlog. I used to start each day with a sticky note on my laptop of my 3 to 5 most important tasks. You weren’t hired to do everything, you were hired to make impact.

The to-do list is infinite. I learned to treat it as an “infinite backlog,” pulling only the highest-impact items into a weekly sprint. I keep a daily sticky note of three to five tasks and send a Monday “top five” email to align with leadership.

I also plan by organizing marketing tactics into “levers” (demand, lead flow, ACV, win rate) to keep energy on what actually moves the business. Tactics are what you do, levers are why.

How I am applying it here

My lightweight systems will help me stay consistent, but the deeper discipline is how I use my time. I plan to pick a day and time to write and I will likely do it as a voice note while I am commuting or walking. Tying the work to something already on my calendar is habit stacking. It is a tactic I have used for years to keep big goals from falling apart.

8. Build in public

What it is

People trust people more than companies. Let internal voices share what they’re building and learning. In the AI era, content is easy. Opinion & stories are valuable.

Early or late stage, the fastest way to build credibility is to turn the company inside out. Share what is happening behind the scenes, let your team become the brand, and use channels that favor real voices.

I ignored LinkedIn for five years before posting consistently and grew from 4,000 to 15,000 followers in three months. This unlocked podcast invitations, live speaking opportunities, people reaching out to me for advisory help, invitations to private communities, and more.

How I am applying it here

I will share lessons learned and progress openly on LinkedIn and here. What is working, the impact it is having, what I am learning in real time. This Substack is both the product and the process. You will see the experiments, the pivots, and the wins as they happen.

9. Start community early

What it is

Create spaces where early customers can connect: Slack, Reddit, meetups, certification. It fuels your roadmap and scales support when customers can help each other. Even better if it creates user-generated content that is indexable/shareable.

The most scalable growth loops are built by community. From launching the first RevOps meetups in San Francisco to co-leading Pavilion Miami, I have seen how small gatherings spark powerful networks. People crave real connection and peer learning, especially when technology moves faster than any book or course. Community creates ecosystem marketing: customers, partners, and creators who build growth loops you could never fund alone.

How I am applying it here

Community has always been my growth engine. I am deeply involved in Dave Gerhardt’s Exit Five community and I co-lead the Pavilion Miami chapter. The next level will be creating more of a community around what has started on LinkedIn. Maybe it becomes something more formal, maybe it stays informal. For now I am happy to meet people where they already are and to build relationships one conversation at a time.

Why this matters

If you are a founder, an early GTM hire, or anyone staring down a fresh start, I hope these posts save you time and help you move faster.

Zero to one is messy. It is also the most fun you can have in business. This newsletter is my own zero to one in real time. Welcome to the beginning.