Stave

When I came on board, I inherited a team of very smart people. We were the typical Silicon Valley company. Kind of in stealth mode, people with an entrepreneurial spirit, but our marketing was very disjointed.

“We didn’t even have a leader or a team. Just individuals doing what they thought of at the time. Throw caution to the wind, go do a campaign and hope it sticks.

“I quickly realized that, wow, I don’t have a marketing person I can count on. I didn’t have the time or expertise to undertake the marketing function myself. So bringing in someone that had done it before was important.

“But I didn’t want to make the mistake of hiring a VP of marketing or marketing director at a decent wage and not really know how to guide them or what we should be doing.”

Enter Stijn Hendrikse,* a fractional chief marketing officer with experience launching marketing functions for several successful B2B SaaS startups, including MightyCall, Acumatica, and Atera.

The biggest thing Stijn brought to Stave,” continued Mr. Clock, “was a discipline built around a cadence and a process he teaches people. He pointed out that we could have done things faster, better, cheaper had we done just a couple things differently.

“He has a very well thought out approach to marketing and, I mean this with the greatest of respect, there’s really a method to his madness. You’re an idiot if you don’t follow him and let him drive what needs to get done.”

As a software developer, Stijn was familiar with the independent spirit of entrepreneurs. Having introduced Microsoft Office 365 to small and mid-sized businesses in Europe and the U.S., he also knew what it took to successfully market B2B products.

In short, he was the perfect interim choice for Stave.

Today we have a much more disciplined process around gathering data, creating content, driving and measuring demand, and then holding people accountable,” continued Mr. Clock. “The difference from before Stijn and after Stijn is night and day. We now have a marketing foundation in place, everything from SEO to content build and brand management.

“We’re able to track our website and email inquiries and measure campaign effectiveness. Our Hubspot CRM system has gotten better because we’re following a standard methodology and best practices. Our social media campaigns are much better. Our visibility to the external marketplace has improved.

“We’re at a spot now where I can look at all the marketing KPIs that we have and trust them. I would never trust the data before. Stijn’s even helped us hire our first marketing team member to keep us on track when he completes his assignment.

“I’ve already recommended Stijn to a couple of folks already. He’s the guy if you want somebody that’s a current-day thinker, who understands social media, who understands the entire marketing process, the business of marketing, and gets your business quickly.”

As a CEO, Mr. Clock has to always be aware of return on investment. And that applies to hiring a chief marketing officer, even if only temporarily.

Stijn’s deliverables are not wasted. He’s always focused in a good way on his SOW. He’ll go beyond that and is always making sure you’re getting a good value for what you’ve hired him for.

“His attitude is I’m coming in with my program but I’m going to work with the team, be flexible enough with your team and adaptable to your business. He can scale fast, he can scale down, and he has an unbelievable network of Marketing and Operational Executives.

“You can’t hire somebody like that. I mean, you obviously can, but it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. So for a lot of SaaS companies, for a lot of startups like us, the fact that you can get Stijn on a fractional basis is unbelievable.

I quite honestly wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the fractional CMO option, but this has worked out fantastic. Stijn is a big hitter. I think the value we’ve received has been awesome.”