Mobile Marketing, Marketing Manager: Me!

I'm thrilled to be joining the Marketing team at Fiksu after an action-packed run with Client Development.  The questions I've been getting about the transition, while natural, seem to barely scratch the surface about what’s going on:

• Is this a promotion? Yes.
• What's the new title? Marketing Manager.
• More pay? No comment :)

For those unfamiliar with Fiksu, we provide the most cost-effective way for Android, iPhone, and iPad developers to acquire mobile app users through paid advertising.  

Inspired by Chicago Booth success stories like Bump, Benchprep, and Power2Switch, I came back to Boston looking for startups.  While I didn’t know exactly how my role would develop when I first joined Fiksu, I took a leap of faith since I saw an opportunity to have a meaningful impact on a high-growth business, work directly with management, and contribute to a key player in a dynamic new industry.   I also knew that working at Fiksu would quench my thirst for buzzwords: a “mobile app marketing startup” lets me say 4 in a row.

I’m looking forward to becoming Fiksu’s technical liaison to the sales team and spending more time devoted to the following functions as part of my new role.  I can imagine that my initiative in stepping outside my defined responsibilities as a member of Client Development helped to precipitate the shift:

• Marketing: I acquired the @Fiksu Twitter handle from a non-active Twitter user just hours before our official transition from Fluent Mobile (we rebranded in April).  Every time I see Fiksu tweet I like to think I played a little part in saving my company from a branding disaster like Qwikster.
• Sales Collateral: I initiated the creation of our mobile banner ad best practices PDF alongside designer Steve Zimmerman.  I can only imagine how many times this has come in handy already.
• Sales Operations: I helped configure Salesforce to automate notifications of new client signings across the organization and I bring some experience doing similar sales-enablement work at GradeBeam.com, which recently got acquired.  I’m betting Jess Hasenplaugh is hoping I’ll prove to be the same kind of good luck charm for Fiksu :)
• Sales Proposals: I worked alongside my tireless client performance counterpart (and fellow Tufts Jumbo) Eric Garcia to formulate a proposal so detailed that one VP compared it to something the client might have been lucky to get had they hired Bain management consultants at the same time as they hired us.  I consider this one of the greatest professional compliments I’ve received to date.

I’m obviously pretty excited to be contributing to one of the hottest startups in Boston and to start applying my writing and background in data analytics towards Fiksu’s marketing efforts.

If you’ve read this far, you should feel free to get in touch by emailing adam@adamstober.com to learn more about Fiksu or if you just want to talk about startups, mobile apps, or new web services.  I can offer business model feedback and I’ll take almost any opportunity to chat with software engineers, product managers and web designers.  You can ask Alex Kalish, Carla Pellicano or @SethWynne respectively if you have any doubts about that.

Special thanks to Craig Palli, Jo Wightman, and Viki Zabala for everything so far, and a final thank you to Ram Parameswaran for the introduction from Charles River Ventures.   Fiksu has been a ton of fun so far and I’m eager for the next challenges alongside an incredibly talented team.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at @AdamStober –say “hi” when you do!

-Adam


Bonus blurb

For those who care to read even more about this Fiksu-er’s forays into other functions while a member of Client Development.  In an early-stage venture-backed startup, there are opportunities to lend a hand towards a broad range of functional departments:

• Creative Services:  When an early client’s unwillingness to create their own banner ads became a bottleneck for running ad campaigns, I initiated Fiksu's banner ad design services to better serve app advertisers who prefer to have Fiksu create mobile-optimized banner ads for them.
• Human Resources: Interviews, interviews, interviews.  I usually conduct several every month (Yes, Fiksu has open job listings, check them out, or just email me).
• Operations: I persisted in advocating for Basecamp to help manage collaboration during the always-hectic campaign launch process, saving Fiksu roughly $20k per year relative to the presumed and less appropriate alternative, expanding the use of Salesforce.
• Training: I started Client Development’s “Training Tuesday” series that has spanned 14+ sessions as we scaled the team from 6 people to 20.
• Recruiting:  I supported Greater Boston Hockey teammate Curt Wells in his bid to redirect his relentless energy, risk-taking attitude and big picture thinking away from professional poker and towards our budding field of mobile app marketing.  The result has been a devoted client manager and the enthusiastic engine of an initiative that has the potential to change the way iPhone & iPod Touch users get paid apps.  As your reward for finishing the bonus blurb, I’ll leave a tip.  Follow @FreeMyApps for breaking news and an “apptastic” surprise in the near future.  You'll be glad you did.

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