Prasid Pathak’s Post

After a year helping Allison Cherrette and Stefan Batory and the team at Booksy, we just wrapped-up our engagement. Going-in I had imposter syndrome about if I'd be able to help: I'd never run a marketing org this big (Booksy was already 500+ people - bigger than Codecademy). What I learned is that if you start from hard-won first-principles — those will translate well. Here are 3 of the first-principles that served me best: -*having* data is just the beginning of being "data-driven." But adding these 3 things changes everything: (1) "what direction" (2) “why” and (3) “so what?” Instead of presenting the numbers in-isolation, I coach the team to explain: (1) Are the numbers headed the right direction over time? (2) why are they moving that way? (3) What are we doing about it? - all the leverage is in the lower-funnel - everyone's attracted to shiny-new (i.e. getting 100,000 views on TikTok). We forget there’s often more revenue to be gained from doing the boring stuff 1% better. Like rewriting your onboarding journey for the third time to get 1% more conversions out of every dollar spent. -Break revenue growth down into smaller levers, organize pods around each lever, give each pod a north star metric, and let them run. This matrixed structure created a lot of headache and confusion. But every time we thought about reversing course, I continued to come back to the same conclusion: "at least now everyone's working on something that moves the needle." 🤷♂️ Thank you to Allison and Stefan for this incredible opportunity (including a chance to attend the leadership offsite in Warsaw!) And thank you to Julien, Inga, Aja, Rafał, Maxime, Katarzyna, Lauren , Kate, Patrycja, Ulrico, and so many others who instead of being threatened by having this eccentric advisor looking over their shoulder, instead welcomed me and collaborated to make the work better.

Hi folks - looking for referrals for a Sr. Performance Marketing Manager - Meta/Google to join Hearth's growth team. This is a mission-driven product and a wonderful team. The only drawback to the role: you'll be spending a lot of time with moi. Hearth is already in over 10,000 homes and was recently named one of Time's Best Products of the Year. https://lnkd.in/ddD8ivfY

🚨 Looking for a top-tier copywriter! 🚨 Hey folks — I’m currently hiring for a seasoned copywriting consultant to join us at Hearth, DTC family organizational system — recently named one of TIME’s Best Inventions. ✅ Immediate need: We’re gearing up to launch a new website, and we need someone strong in product messaging and conversion copywriting to craft compelling copy for our product page, features page, homepage and landing pages. If you or someone you know has a strong background in website messaging and product messaging, with a knack for conversion-focused copy, I’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to drop me a message or tag someone in the comments. 🚀 Thanks in advance!

What a ride it’s been so far working with the Hearth team 🎢 Hearth was named Time’s Best Inventions of the Year, is already in over 10,000 homes and was just named a 2024 Good Housekeeping Award winner. A special thank you to the co-founders, Susie Harrison, Nathalie Mansueti Stratton, M.Arch and Mei Lin Ng, for building a mission-driven company that’s making a real difference for families. 🏡 Big shoutout as well to Lindsay, MaryAnn and Carrie for welcoming me and for trusting me to help. I’m excited for us to drive a massive back-to-school and holiday season. 🚀 One of the highlights for me has been our second-ever live product tour. I truly enjoyed working behind the scenes with Nathalie, Katie, Lahn, and T. to bring this event to life! Reminded me of the 200+ Bloc product webinars we did together Mike Jewett Dave Paola Chris Courtney Joey Kirk!

Really digging this vision for how content marketing is evolving! Stewart Hillhouse , Emily Kramer let me know what you think: a fourth area might be technical evangelism. When marketing to a more technical user, a lot of times the most-engaging content is from practitioners i.e. hands-on workshops, use-case tutorials. I could imagine for technical products instead of the Personality-hire you might need 20% personality and 80% practitioner.

This SIMPLE strategy from Seth Godin is actually a goldmine for building loyal audiences 💎 Stumbled upon an interview by the amazing Erika Kullberg with marketing guru Seth Godin and want to share some insights that stuck with me. The strategy, simply, is to employ EMPATHY in marketing. Sounds simple, right? But it’s powerful and transformative. 💡 Then vs Now ✖️ Old way: Traditional marketing focused on promoting products and services through hype and interruption. The goal was to get as many eyes on your ad as possible, regardless of whether it resonated with the audience or not. ✔️ New way: Start from empathy and genuine understanding of your audience. Instead of pushing messages out, it’s about deeply understanding who you are serving and what they truly need. 👉 Seth emphasizes: “Who are you seeking to serve? What is the change you hope to make? And these people you’re serving, what is it that they need and want from you? It’s not about you. It’s not about what you worked so hard to make. It’s what are their dreams, their desires. If you can serve other people and help them get to where they want to go, marketing looks really easy.” How to apply this: 1️⃣ Challenge everyone on the team to understand the customer and their pain points. For example, I require every new marketer joining my team to do an onboarding project interviewing 3 customers. A lot of marketers will go years without talking to a customer, so this forcing function builds some empathy from the get-go. 2️⃣ Challenge quant folks to do qualitative research as well. For example, at Hearth, Lindsay Kuula leads our paid acquisition efforts. But rather than relying on data alone, she recently reinstalled HotJar. It completely changed her plan for our recently-launched Features page. She had preconceived notions about what she wanted the next iteration of the page to look like, but the simple act of watching 20 user session recordings completely changed her point of view. 👉 As Seth puts it, “Empathy is the resilient, reliable thing to do, and you can learn a lot just by noticing, by watching, by saying, why did that person at the supermarket grab this instead of grab that, following people around, asking them hard questions.” Out of empathy you will get: ✅ Deep connections. ✅ Loyal audiences. ✅ Higher conversions. When you truly understand and serve your audience’s needs and desires, you create lasting relationships that go beyond mere transactions.

Hey 👋 I know we're all busy making magic happen. But let's take a sec to talk about something super important— prioritizing between growth levers. Ripsy Bandourian Jonathan Metrick Katrina Wong Aditya Vempaty — curious to know what you think! P.S. Have other thoughts not in the options? Leave it in the comments! Psyched to hear what y’all are prioritizing. 🔥

Let me tell you about the ONE sign that your startup is about to fail. 🚨 Hint: It’s not just about money or market—it's about the team dynamics. Most people assume startups fail due to a lack of money or poor market fit. But from what I’ve seen, the real red flag is often hidden in plain sight: a shift in your team’s energy and commitment. When the passion that once fueled your startup begins to fizzle out, the impact is far-reaching—and dangerous. Rashi Goel points out that 99/100 people are unhappy in their jobs, and that much of this frustration is self-created. In startups, this frustration often manifests as disengagement among key team members, leading to a cascade of negative effects: 🚩 Passion fades—and with it, productivity. 🚩 Communication cracks—leading to costly misunderstandings. 🚩 Innovation stalls—as your team becomes reactive instead of proactive. 🚩 Turnover spikes—creating a revolving door of instability. 🚩 Customer satisfaction drops—because a disengaged team can’t deliver excellence. But here’s the thing: this isn’t the end of the story. The sooner you recognize these signs, the sooner you can take action. Reignite the spark. Foster open communication. Invest in your team’s well-being. Don’t wait for a crisis to hit—be proactive and protect what truly drives your startup’s success: your people.

WhatsApp has just crossed the 100 million monthly user mark in the US—can it challenge iMessage’s dominance? 🤔 WhatsApp reaching this milestone is BIG news because messaging is built directly into iOS and Android—so why install a separate app? Furthermore, both Apple and Google have found ways to drive OS lock-in with blue message bubbles and integrating FaceTime into messaging. So what’s driving WhatsApp’s surge, and what can marketers learn? Let’s break it down: ✅ (1) Bold advertising Meta’s recent ad blitz, placing a 200-foot bubble between Apple and Samsung stores, is a bold move that highlights their unique offering in a saturated market. This visual statement underscores WhatsApp’s commitment to standing out, even amidst the heavyweights of mobile communication. ✅ (2) Cross-platform ease We all make fun of the one friend who ruins the group chat (or gets left out) because they’re on Android. WhatsApp has turned Apple/Google’s lock-in ploy into a strength: move your group chat to WhatsApp, and you can assemble your own Avengers—everyone’s invited. ✅ (3) Privacy & encryption WhatsApp had always positioned itself around it’s end-to-end encryption. But Meta amplified that differentiator and turned it into their marketing anthem. They’ve launched PR stunts and TV commercials that put privacy at the center. Meanwhile, Apple is gearing up to roll out something called Rich Communication Services (RCS) with iOS 18. Think of RCS as the next generation of text messaging—like an upgrade from regular SMS. But here’s the thing: unlike WhatsApp, it doesn’t have end-to-end encryption, which means your messages might not be as private. 🤷♂️ This could be a critical miss. As WhatsApp grows, RCS may not be the game-changer Apple hopes for. For marketers, the lesson is clear: Instead of trying to overpower the competition, do some marketing Judo. 🥋 WhatsApp didn’t just follow the crowd; they turned their competitors’ strengths—like platform lock-in—into weaknesses by emphasizing cross-platform support, privacy, and usability. By understanding and addressing specific user pain points, you can drive growth even in the most challenging markets. If a mature platform like WhatsApp, in an already crowded space like messaging, can grow their penetration so substantially, what’s stopping you from doing the same? 🚀

Congratulations to Rajat, Yucheng, Ajit, Ann, and the entire XetHub team on being acquired by Hugging Face! In the year+ that I was XetHub's fractional CMO, two things stood out: - First, I was always impressed by the breadth of what y'all were able to build in (many different products, many different value props) in such a short time. - Second, it was really apparent how deep y'alls roots were in the community - it was clear you all had been building in this space for 10+ years. Congratulations!