Grown On

In this episode, Joseph Lee shares how he built one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in a market where everyone keeps saying SaaS is dead. From scrappy early-stage tactics to building a product-led growth engine, this conversation breaks down what actually works in modern B2B marketing and software growth.Host Caitlin O. Bigelow and Joseph dive into the playbooks Superdemo used to reach 200,000+ users with a lean team. Including manually creating demos for dream customers, using programmatic SEO, building free tools with zero signup friction, and turning YouTube into a major acquisition channel.They also talk about why founder brand has become one of the biggest competitive advantages in the AI era, why storytelling matters more than features, and how companies can build durable moats when software itself is becoming easier to replicate every week.If you're trying to figure out how to grow a SaaS company today, build a personal brand on LinkedIn, create content that converts, or understand the future of distribution and brand marketing, this episode is packed with practical insights and real-world lessons.Whether you're a founder, marketer, creator, or operator, this episode will change the way you think about growth, content, and building a defensible business in 2026.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT YOU WILL LEARNJoseph’s early-stage growth tactics that helped Superdemo land its first usersWhy founder-led content and personal brand are becoming essential for SaaS growthHow Superdemo uses YouTube and free tools as a product-led acquisition engineWhy brand, distribution, and change management are the new moats in software━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS[00:00] — Why vulnerability and honesty create the strongest engagement[00:46] — Joseph Lee’s background and building Superdemo[02:06] — The scrappy customer acquisition tactics that worked early on[05:58] — Programmatic SEO and experiential product marketing[08:06] — Is SEO dead in the AI era?[09:18] — The strategy behind Superdemo’s free tools and zero-friction onboarding[12:15] — Product-led growth vs sales-led growth[14:08] — Building a founder-led YouTube strategy[17:05] — Why sharing failures builds stronger audience connection[18:25] — LinkedIn, founder brand, and category ownership[20:13] — What makes SaaS companies defensible in 2026[23:36] — AI, shipping culture, and maintaining product quality[26:02] — Joseph’s advice for getting your first 100 YouTube subscribers[27:12] — Why Superdemo’s YouTube audience converts so well[28:23] — Is SaaS actually dead?[30:01] — Why brand is the strongest moat in modern software[31:31] — Wrap-up and where to connect with Joseph Lee━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━LINKS AND RESOURCESJoseph Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhylee/ Caitlin Bigelow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlinbigelow/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT GROWN ON PODCASTSubscribe to Grown On for conversations with founders, marketers, and operators building modern distribution engines and scalable brands.Blazel helps founders and executives grow their audience and drive pipeline on LinkedIn, pairing content strategy with AI collaboration so your voice stays authentic.Learn more: https://blazel.com/

If your content marketing strategy still depends on clicks, organic traffic, and SEO rankings, this episode will change how you think about all three.Amanda Natividad coined the term "zero click marketing" in 2022, built one of B2B marketing's most-read newsletters (60K subscribers, 40% open rate), earned a LinkedIn Top Voice badge, and is now Chief Evangelist at SparkToro, Rand Fishkin's audience research platform. Her content marketing strategy is built around one idea: create value where your audience already is, without asking them to click anywhere.59% of Google searches end without a click. AI summaries cite sources just 1% of the time. LinkedIn rewards in-platform behavior and does not reward links (yes, that means it penalizes them). Your website is no longer where your brand reputation is built.In this episode we cover what is actually happening to organic reach, why the GEO and AEO obsession is mostly noise right now, how to find and use your authentic voice in content, and what a zero click content marketing strategy looks like in practice for B2B brands and solopreneurs in 2026.Watch this if you are a founder, marketer, or content creator trying to build brand, trust, and pipeline without being dependent on Google.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT YOU WILL LEARN- What zero click marketing is and why Amanda Natividad coined the term in 2022 before anyone else saw it coming- Why 59% of Google searches end without a click and what that means for your content marketing strategy right now- How the LinkedIn algorithm actually works and why it penalizes links even when LinkedIn says it does not.- The difference between GEO, AEO, and SEO and which one B2B marketers should actually prioritize in 2026- How to find your authentic voice and inject personality into content without looking unprofessional- What leading and lagging indicators look like for a zero click content marketing strategy- How SparkToro uses LinkedIn as their number one growth channel with a team of just three to four people- The exact framework Amanda Natividad uses to build brand, trust, and demand without relying on website traffic.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━LINKS AND RESOURCESAmanda Natividad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandanat/Caitlin Bigelow on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlinbigelow/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT GROWN ON PODCASTHosted by Caitlin Bigelow, Grown On strips away the corporate polish to reveal how the sharpest leaders build brands and businesses in public.Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Blazel helps founders and executives grow their audience and drive pipeline on LinkedIn, pairing content strategy with AI collaboration so your voice stays authentic.Learn more: https://blazel.com/

Most B2B content is corporate theater. Renée Shaw blew it up with a glitter bomb.Renée Shaw is the head of Brand and Social at tl;dv, an AI meeting assistant, and arguably the funniest person posting on LinkedIn right now. With 8.5 to 9 million impressions last year and a quarterly KPI that once included getting a cease-and-desist letter, her approach to content is the direct opposite of what most marketing teams do.She schedules posts at 4am so she can turn her phone off before they go live. She once went to an actual airport to film a bit before realizing she could have just faked the B-roll. And her organic LinkedIn presence is generating the equivalent of €40,000 a month in paid ad value, with no media budget, no editor, and no formal strategy.In this episode:Why mental illness is Renée's actual content strategy and what that means in practiceThe chaos scheduling method: draft it, do not fix it, let it ripHow to build humor into B2B content when you are not a naturally funny personCunningham's Law: why intentional mistakes drive some of the highest engagement on LinkedInThe psychology of different LinkedIn audiences and how engineers, marketers, and salespeople engage completely differentlyWhy low-fi unpolished video consistently outperforms high-production content in B2BThe Sam Altman saga: how pretending to know the OpenAI CEO got Renée contacted by actual OpenAIWhy creativity is a nervous system state, not a personality traitSKIP TO:00:00 – Hook and Renée introduction01:38 – Idea generation: chaos, real life, and no strategy03:52 – What works, what flops, and trusting instincts06:10 – Career journey and landing the role09:30 – Confidence and unlocking creativity10:18 – LinkedIn impact and content ROI12:18 – Using humor to integrate the brand14:24 – Content strategy and engagement tactics18:03 – Audience psychology and going viral25:18 – Creativity, video content, and low-effort wins32:26 – Why humor works and real-world outcomes36:35 – OutroConnect with Renée: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneeeshaw/Hosted by Caitlin Bigelow, CMO at Blazel. The Grown On Podcast steals the playbooks of the sharpest organic builders in tech so you can apply them to your own growth.

Bad storytelling is killing startups. And most founders don't realize it's happening to them.In this episode, Olivia O'Sullivan, General Partner at Forum Ventures, breaks down why the ability to tell a compelling story is the single most underestimated skill a founder can have. Not just for pitching investors. For hiring talent away from Google. For converting your first customers. For building a company people actually want to be part of.Olivia took Forum Ventures from zero inbound deal flow to over 6,000 founder pitch submissions per year. Not through ads, not through a PR agency. Through a disciplined LinkedIn content strategy built entirely on one principle: stop posting for yourself and start posting for your audience.In this episode:• Why bad storytelling costs founders capital, talent, and customers• How to make top talent leave Google to join your startup• From zero to 6,000 inbound pitches, The LinkedIn strategy behind it• The 2-week challenge that built Olivia's posting habit• Why most thought leadership is just product placement in disguise• The audience-first framework Olivia gives Forum's 500+ portfolio founders• Why a post with 14 likes can outperform one with 14,000 impressions• How to get in front of VCs when you have zero warm introsIf you are building a company and nobody knows your name yet — this episode is your playbook.SKIP TO:00:00 Hook: why bad storytelling kills startups00:38 Welcome to the Grown On Podcast01:38 From creative writing major to VC General Partner03:44 What Olivia actually means by bad storytelling kills startups05:35 How to make top talent leave Google for your startup07:44 Why Forum Ventures made LinkedIn a firm-wide strategy08:17 From zero inbound to 6,000 pitch submissions per year12:27 The 2-week challenge that changed Olivia's LinkedIn trajectory15:35 The real reason Olivia's engagement numbers are unusually high19:40 Why fake thought leadership is costing you your audience24:44 Vanity metrics vs. actual business results on LinkedIn27:31 The LinkedIn playbook Olivia gives Forum's 500+ portfolio founders34:35 Warm intros vs. cold outreach: getting in front of VCs without connections38:09 Build your audience before you need your audience38:43 Olivia's favorite LinkedIn accounts to follow right nowConnect with Olivia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oosuli/Hosted by Caitlin Bigelow, CMO at Blazel. The Grown On Podcast steals the playbooks of the sharpest organic builders in tech so you can apply them to your own growth.