376: Differentiation and Design Ops with Amrita Mathur, VP of Marketing at Superside

When Amrita Mathur joined Superside as their first marketing hire in 2019, there was no product, no platform, and no recurring revenue. She is no stranger to being called in when companies are at a strategic inflection point with their growth strategy, so she did what she spent a career in B2B marketing learning how to do: implement a marketing-led growth strategy that translated into $8 million in subscription revenue in the first year and 400% year-over-year growth since then. Amrita is passionate about community, but she denotes an important difference between community building and a sense of community. For her, it’s about a sense of goodwill and feeling like you have someone in your corner. Now as VP of Marketing, with that sense of community top of mind, she and her team are revolutionizing design at scale for ambitious brands like Amazon, Meta, Shopify, and Coinbase.In this episode, Alan and Amrita discuss her journey from developer to Marketing VP, the moves that played a key role in taking Superside from $0 to $55 million in annual recurring revenue in just four years, and the importance of Design and Creative Ops in running an efficient and effective team. Superside is a fully managed design subscription company that serves marketing and creative teams to help them unbottleneck their design challenges and empower them to get creative work done in a fast and efficient manner. Unlike an agency, freelance marketplace, or internal team, Superside acts as a point solution for key problems inside a company. They optimize for efficiency, speed, and scale, which allows them to cater to companies that are pivoting and changing rapidly. Amrita says an understanding of the importance of Design and Creative Ops helps Superside be an extremely efficient and effective partner. When it comes to Superside’s rapid and sustained growth, Amrita tells us they did make smart moves, but also attributes some of their good fortune to good timing. One key move was figuring out their differentiation early. With marketing, the problem is well-defined but the solutions are messy, so from the start, Superside dove deep into what their best use cases were and what value they would provide in that space. Another key move was the founder's investment in marketing from day one to intentionally "build an efficient machine" for lean operations.In this episode, you'll learn:What is the Superside use case?How Amrita took Superside from $0 to $55 million in ARR in four yearsThe benefits of a marketing-first mindsetKey Highlights: [02:05] An appreciation for "community"[07:30] Path to becoming CMO of Superside[10:20]  What is Superside?[14:00] ARR increased from $0 to $55 million in four years.[18:30] No convincing is needed when the higher-ups get marketing.[20:00] What are "moon shoots," and what is an example of a win?[28:10] The nexus of design, creativity, and operation[31:50] A crazy (and impressive) designer to design operations ratio[36:00] Being a chameleon isn’t such a bad thing.[39:00] Advice for her younger self[40:05] Be aware of dilution in marketing.[42:40] Misconceptions around mass amounts of data Thank you to our sponsor:PartnerHero: to waive set-up fees, go to https://www.partnerhero.com/marketingtoday and mention “Marketing Today” during onboarding! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.