Breaking down early-stage SaaS marketing | Madhav Bhandari (Storylane)

Explicit content warning

01/07/25 • 113 min

Early-stage marketing can be full of challenges, but what if there were a playbook to follow?

Meet Madhav Bhandari, first marketing hire at Hubstaff and one of the first marketers at Close.io, and Weflow, all of which he helped to cross $10M+ in ARR.

He's currently the CMO of Storylane, where he has helped grow their ARR by 250% in 2024 alone.

In other words, Madhav has pretty much mastered the art of scaling SaaS companies from $5M to $15M+ ARR.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro

(1:01) Early-stage marketing playbook

(12:25) Why Madhav only scales to $15M

(15:42) The average tenure for a CMO

(19:50) The ideal CEO/CMO fit

(26:46) Earning your CEO’s trust

(36:01) Employee advocacy as a marketing tool

(49:10) Easing friction by bringing community together (Demo Days)

(56:16) Creativity in community awards (Demo Dundies)(1:05:40) 10xing traffic in 6 months through demo-led SEO(

1:13:36) Hot take on backlinks

(1:15:41) Strategies for growing a brand

(1:24:08) Defining and codifying a brand

(1:31:20) When rebranding makes sense

(1:34:18) Founder brand vs company brand

(1:40:50) Is testing multiple tactics in a short period of time a good idea?

(1:45:17) The best channels for early stage founders

(1:47:47) Fixing burnout in marketing

(1:52:45) Outro

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Madhav:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/madhavbhandari/)

Website: https://earlystagemarketing.com/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/)

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

-------------------------

Referenced:

• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com

• Canva: https://www.canva.com

• Notion: https://www.notion.so

• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com

• Slack: https://slack.com

• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

• Hubstaff: https://hubstaff.com

• Close: https://close.com

• Weflow: https://www.getweflow.com

Early-stage marketing can be full of challenges, but what if there were a playbook to follow?

Meet Madhav Bhandari, first marketing hire at Hubstaff and one of the first marketers at Close.io, and Weflow, all of which he helped to cross $10M+ in ARR.

He's currently the CMO of Storylane, where he has helped grow their ARR by 250% in 2024 alone.

In other words, Madhav has pretty much mastered the art of scaling SaaS companies from $5M to $15M+ ARR.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro

(1:01) Early-stage marketing playbook

(12:25) Why Madhav only scales to $15M

(15:42) The average tenure for a CMO

(19:50) The ideal CEO/CMO fit

(26:46) Earning your CEO’s trust

(36:01) Employee advocacy as a marketing tool

(49:10) Easing friction by bringing community together (Demo Days)

(56:16) Creativity in community awards (Demo Dundies)(1:05:40) 10xing traffic in 6 months through demo-led SEO(

1:13:36) Hot take on backlinks

(1:15:41) Strategies for growing a brand

(1:24:08) Defining and codifying a brand

(1:31:20) When rebranding makes sense

(1:34:18) Founder brand vs company brand

(1:40:50) Is testing multiple tactics in a short period of time a good idea?

(1:45:17) The best channels for early stage founders

(1:47:47) Fixing burnout in marketing

(1:52:45) Outro

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Madhav:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/madhavbhandari/)

Website: https://earlystagemarketing.com/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/)

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

-------------------------

Referenced:

• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com

• Canva: https://www.canva.com

• Notion: https://www.notion.so

• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com

• Slack: https://slack.com

• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

• Hubstaff: https://hubstaff.com

• Close: https://close.com

• Weflow: https://www.getweflow.com

Previous Episode

Creatively outmarketing industry giants to a $5.6B valuation | Jon Stona (Airwallex)

How can you rise to unicorn status in an industry dominated by legacy players? Jon Stona, VP of Global Marketing at B2B global payments processor Airwallex shares his insights into growing the company from a coffee shop in Australia to a dominant player in the fintech space.

Today, Airwallex has a $5.6B valuation and handles $100B in processing volume. So, what's the marketing machine behind this financial challenger brand?

00:00 Intro

01:29 What is the marketing budget for a $5B company?
02:55 Sponsorships and the theory of economic value
10:48 Celebrity partnerships

22:04 The mechanics of sports marketing
23:48 Bringing structure to a marketing team
26:53 The role of product marketing within a company
33:14 Transforming company culture
35:47 The difference between leadership and therapy
45:17 Building a sustainable brand
59:43 Measuring growth through branded search

1:06:20 Are operating principles important for a company?

1:12:01 Differentiating yourself as a commodity
1:14:08 Building out PMM teams for different products
1:16:57 Allocating SEO budget
1:18:48 The usefulness of industry reports
1:26:11 How to use case studies in marketing
1:31:04 Getting your name in the press
1:34:33 Driving growth through industry events
1:41:17 Industry awards

1:46:48 Outro

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Jon:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jstona/)

Website: https://www.airwallex.com/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/)

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

-------------------------
Referenced:

McLaren: @mclaren
F1: @Formula1
Lando Norris: @LandoNorris
Shifted Perspectives: https://www.airwallex.com/airwallex-mclaren-racing-shifted-perspectives
Michael Murphy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Murphy_(sculptor)
Mere exposure effect (psychology): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
Forrester: @forrester
Edgar, Dunn & Company: https://www.edgardunn.com/
Skift: @skiftnews
YouGov: https://www.yougov.com/
David Fallarme: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dfallarme/)

Stripe Sessions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcoWp8pBTM3CYTQho8i-a_lzx4cq7-ePh
Beyond Black Friday
eCommerce Champion Awards: https://www.airwallex.com/newsroom/amid-online-spending-resurgence-airwallex-unveils-inaugural-airwallex
Money20/20: https://www.money2020.com/

Cloud 100 list: https://www.forbes.com/cloud100/list/

Next Episode

This is how viral marketing really works | Delbert Ty (Coffee Meets Bagel)

What's the key to creating a viral marketing campaign? Meet Delbert Ty, CMO at Coffee Meets Bagel, a popular dating app that sets itself apart by courting only those interested in serious relationships.

Before joining CmB, Delbert worked as Head of Marketing at Circles.Life - a Singaporean telco - where he grew revenue to 9 figures in 5 years.

And even before that he worked at Procter & Gamble, where he was responsible for such well-known brands as Duracell, Tide & Pantene.

During his time at these companies Delbert has pulled off quite a few hilarious creative marketing campaigns.

Some of them failed, but others brought lots of new customers and tons of brand awareness.

In our interview, we discussed quite a few of Delbert's viral campaigns and tried to deconstruct what made them successful and how you could replicate that success.

In this episode:

(0:00) Intro

(02:17) Three biggest marketing campaigns

(06:44) Vandalizing a billboard

(11:10) Buying out telco contracts (failed)

(13:10) Coffee Meets Bagel tells users to leave

(16:30) "Free money" from a vending machine

(25:01) The cost (not in $$$) of viral campaigns

(30:10) Courage in viral marketing

(35:43) Setting objectives for viral campaigns

(41:13) Measuring the impact of viral campaigns

(47:20) When bad ideas are actually good ideas