The Catching Fire Podcast
Any successful venture starts with great ideas, but it takes great marketing to make them stand out. In the Catching Fire Podcast, we delve into outstanding products and ideas that have gone to market and what it took to get there. Listen to conversations with inspiring startup founders and marketing leaders. Rethink your team’s approach to marketing in an increasingly crowded digital landscape. Learn how to make your ideas “catch fire.”
Episodes
37 episodes
Inside Waymo’s Growth Playbook
Waymo’s Ori Herschmann joins Bryan Karas to share his journey as a growth marketer behind some of the world’s most well-known brands. Ori unpacks what modern growth marketing really looks like by highlighting the role of creative, AI, personali...
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43:02
SEO that Pays: Driving Revenue, Not Just Traffic
Your website gets traffic but your brand isn’t seeing revenue. SEO expert Eli Schwartz reveals why most SEO strategies fail at making money and shares the product-led approach that transformed companies like Zillow into billion-doll...
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39:34
30-year MarComm veteran reveals why your brand is losing customers
Here’s a fiery discussion with the final boss of marketing that you must face, Scott Robertson. Scott is a Fractional CMO who has over 30 years experience in marketing, and has gone on to start his own PR & marketing agency Robe...
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51:58
The Future of PPC: How Humans Win in an AI World with Fred Vallaeys
Before “PPC” was even a term, Fred Vallaeys was helping Google build it. Now, he is on a mission to help marketers make sense of the monster it’s become.Fred unpacks his journey from those early Google days to founding Optmyzr, revealing...
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53:29
Problem, Product, Profit: How Jessica Turned Constipation into Cash
Jessica Postiglione couldn't find a fiber supplement that actually worked. So she made one.This chat reveals how Bonny grew from personal frustration to thriving brand by tackling an uncomfortable topic with humor and brutal honesty.&nbs...
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49:51
What Most Marketers Get Wrong About CAC—Northbeam’s CEO Explains
If you still trust your blended CAC, you might be burning cash.In this episode of Catching Fire, Bryan Karas sits down with Austin Harrison, CEO of Northbeam—our Partner of the Month and a quiet force behind some of the fastest-scaling b...
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38:42
Private Credit is the Next $1.7T Opportunity. Here’s How to Build for It
In this episode, Bryan sits down with serial entrepreneur Chris Tolles, co-founder of Transparency Analytics and advisor at Common Crawl, to talk about what really drives innovation, from the explosion of private credit to the invisible data po...
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56:09
Crypto Collapse, AI Ascent: How a Founder Ditched Web3 for AI’s Frontier
Karthik Kalyanaraman built his company on blockchain, only to see the market vanish beneath him. With the world moving on, the pressure was real. Sleepless nights, silence on Discord, and raw uncertainty forced him and his team to reinvent ever...
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49:23
From HBO to Apple: Industry Creative Director on Why Performance Needs Brand
What’s the difference between a $20 bottle of vodka and a $50 one?Nothing—except the story you’ve been told.In this episode, Bryan Karas sits down with award-winning creative director Christopher Donovan (Apple, Nike, HBO) for a c...
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43:16
Why Most Startups Stall—and How to Reignite Revenue with Revenue Architecture
When referrals dry up and your calendar's still full, it’s time for a new kind of growth. In this episode of Catching Fire, fractional CMO and two-time CEO Maria Trysla shares her playbook for moving from founder-led to founder-insp...
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47:17
From NASDAQ to Venture Capital: The Power of Storytelling with Josh Machiz
Have you ever wondered how global brands like NASDAQ build massive followings online or what makes certain startups unforgettable? Join us for an insightful conversation on this week’s Catching Fire podcast, where we welcome Josh Matchiz, Partn...
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49:12
From Mad Men to MVPs: Gary Stein on Reinventing Marketing for Startups
Is your marketing still stuck in the Mad Men era?In this episode of Catching Fire, we sit down with Gary Stein, founding partner & Chief Strategy Officer at 61Hawk, to talk about how startup founders and growth marketers can stop gam...
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47:27
From Zero to 200,000 Businesses: How Novo Is Rebuilding Banking for Entrepreneurs
Why do some startups win, while others stall? For Michael Rangel, Founder of Novo–the answer is clear: stay close to your customer and focus on real problems. In this episode of Catching Fire, Michael shares how he built Novo, a bus...
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50:01
24 - From Cold Calls to Ben & Jerry’s: How Marlo Giudice Grew a CPG Powerhouse
How do you take a small, mission-driven food brand and land deals with giants like Ben & Jerry’s, JetBlue, and DoubleTree?In this episode of Catching Fire, we sit down with Marlo Giudice, a powerhouse entrepreneur and VP, Sales at Pa...
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44:35
23 - $6.5 Million Fund Closed - How Growth Marketing is Reshaping Women's VC with Jess Kamada
On this episode of Catching Fire, we sit down with Jess Kamada - Managing Partner of Swizzle Ventures, who recently closed a $6.6 million fund focused on advancing women's health and wealth. With 15+ years in growth marketing and experience wor...
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Episode 23
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56:17
22 - Dark Humor & Million-Dollar Dreams: A Marine's Netflix for Veterans
In this raw and revealing conversation, discover how dark comedy became a powerful tool for a veteran's mental health, why authenticity trumps production value, and what it takes to build a community-driven business from scratch. Whether yo...
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1:13:47
21 - Inside Meta's War Room: From Election Safeguards to AI Revolution w/ Sakshi Chadha
In this week’s episode, former Meta executive Sakshi Chadha pulls back the curtain on Silicon Valley's most controversial moments.From managing Facebook's 2020 election integrity team to witnessing the platform's dramatic shift under rec...
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1:08:03
20 - What Brands Get Wrong About Content w/ Jared Blitz of Blitz Creative Studio
What happens when you treat talent as partners, focus on creative agility, and refuse to cut corners in production? You get Blitz Creative.After transitioning from entertainment to branding, founder Jared Blitz built his sports-focused c...
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57:22
19 - Blockchain and the Future of Advertising w/ Peter Jonas of Thirdwave
Peter Jonas has had a fascinating journey through the tech world. A former executive at Facebook, Uber, and Compass, he went from launching Facebook’s mobile app install product to co-founding his own company, Thirdwave, which gives developers ...
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1:00:21
18-Investing in Brand Story w/ Kirk Nielson of Tap In Digital
There’s no bigger buzzword than “data-driven.” Tap In Digital co-founder Kirk Nielson actually earns the description – and he’s making one big bet based on data:The importance of investing in brand marketing.Kirk is in the busines...
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51:21
17 - Performance Branding 101 with your host, Bryan Karas
Are click-based attribution models holding your marketing strategy back? In this special solo episode, Bryan introduces a new Playbook Media service called performance branding: a game-changing approach that shifts marketing dollars from...
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23:06
16 - Rethinking E-commerce w/ Chelsea Jones of C+R Co.
As a single mom, business owner, and cancer survivor, Chelsea Jones knows what it means to be resilient. At Chelsea & Rachel Co., her UX design and Shopify development agency, she inspires her team to design creative, eye-catching websites....
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46:38
15 - Be the CEO of Your Life w/ Mark Bavisotto of Successive Technologies
As the founder of Successive Technologies, teacher-turned-entrepreneur Mark Bavisotto acts as a trusted tech concierge for business leaders. As the Chairman of education tech venture EduTrust, he works on another passion project: the intersecti...
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Episode 15
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1:04:55
14 - Authentic Growth on LinkedIn w/ Owen Sammarone of Unleash the Knowledge
Personal branding is Owen Sammarone’s personal brand. From his early career in college basketball, to a stint in finance, to launching a six-figure business from his laptop, Owen has picked up plenty of priceless insights on how to drive engage...
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54:40
13 - What Values Really Mean w/ Nick Baily of From Day One
Nick Baily is the founder of From Day One, a media outlet and conference series focused on helping corporations figure out what they stand for—and how to put those principles into action. As an expert on corporate values, Nick has produced over...
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1:09:28
