Frank Growth

Jason Shafton

5.0 (5)
Marketing
Updated Monthly

Frank Growth is a sharp, execution-first podcast about how companies actually grow. Hosted by Jason Shafton, it features candid conversations with founders, operators, and investors who are in the work right now. The focus is real decisions: distribution, demand, pricing, org design, incentives, and what breaks once the early playbooks stop working. No hype. No recycled advice. Just clear thinking from people accountable for outcomes.

3d ago

Your Bookkeeper Is Failing You with John Zdanowski

Episode #228: John Zdanowski — Why you're losing money on 80% of your customersMost owners can tell you last month's revenue but not which customers actually make them money. This episode gives you the math to find out.For founders and operators—especially DTC brands—who suspect they're spending too much to acquire customers who never come back. John Zdanowski is co-founder and CEO of Weekly Accounting and a Harvard MBA who describes himself as a sonar engineer applying signal-processing math to business data. He previously co-founded Assembled Brands, a $100M fund that has seen the financials of 3,000+ emerging consumer brands—the vantage point where his core thesis formed: most brands optimize for revenue growth and quietly lose money on customers who only buy once. In this episode he walks through his "fourth statement" (audience to first-time customer to repeat), the sets of books every business already has or still needs, and why he runs accounting on a weekly cadence instead of monthly. He gets specific: the lifetime-gross-profit-to-CAC ratio, why a 1.7 ratio means you're grinding the engine, and how he turns a quarterly goal of $189,000 for 6,100 customers into a weekly target of $14,500 and ~470 customers. What you'll hear The "fourth statement" framework: turning audience → first purchase → repeat into unit economics you can forecast growth and saturation from How to run the numbers weekly—divide a quarterly goal by 13, compare this week to the same week last year—for 52 feedback loops a year instead of 12 The common mistake: optimizing for revenue growth and losing money on one-time buyers instead of optimizing for contribution The first number to calculate: lifetime gross profit (purchases per customer × average order value × gross margin) ÷ CAC, and why anything near 1.7 means you're overspending to acquireChapters 00:00 — The fourth statement: audience, first purchase, repeat 01:16 — Why most owners are flying blind on customer profitability 02:44 — Assembled Brands, and optimizing for contribution over revenue 03:59 — The break-even math on a first-time DTC customer 05:22 — What bookkeepers actually deliver vs. what you need 07:07 — Two sets of books, then a third, then a fourth 08:05 — Weekly cadence: 52 feedback loops instead of 12 09:53 — Daily vs. weekly vs. monthly, and troubled to world-class 11:58 — The integrated financial model: weekly tied to the quarter 14:45 — Warning signs your accounting is broken 15:25 — Why accounting is a venture-scale opportunity 17:11 — Inside the Weekly Accounting platform 19:48 — The one number: lifetime gross profit to CAC 20:32 — Lightning round 21:59 — Takeaways and a 10-minute actionLinks & resourcesGuestJohn Zdanowski — Co-founder & CEO, Weekly AccountingWebsiteLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason
Jul 7

The Three-Sided Growth Problem with Robin Izsak-Tseng

Episode #227: Robin Izsak-Tseng — Marketing one brand to three audiences at onceMost B2B companies fight to win one customer segment. WellHub has to win three at the same time.For marketers and operators running multi-audience, marketplace, or multi-country growth. Robin Izsak-Tseng is VP of global B2B marketing at WellHub, a corporate wellness platform serving over 40,000 companies across 18 countries. She runs a three-sided marketplace — HR buyers, fitness partners, and the employees who use it — through three distinct teams that report to one CMO. In this episode she breaks down how those teams stay aligned without becoming siloed, how acquisitions like Urban Sports Club buy instant brand recognition, and why pulling back GymPass paid search and web properties too early after the rebrand opened a door for a competitor in Brazil. She also names the simple mistake complex teams make: assuming the same level of market maturity everywhere, when a household name in one country still gets "what's WellHub?" at marketer dinners in another. What you’ll hear How WellHub structures three marketing teams (B2B, partners, B2C) under one CMO and keeps them aligned around a single company story Using zip-code-level data to map partner supply down to individual neighborhoods, not just cities Why cutting GymPass search bids and web properties too soon let a competitor gain authority in Brazil When to put the product in employees' hands first (a SoulCycle class, 30 days on the diamond plan) so engagement opens the door to HRChapters 00:00 — The market-maturity trap (cold open) 00:42 — The three-sided growth engine 02:46 — Inside WellHub's triple-sided marketplace 04:48 — Proving ROI on employee wellness 05:49 — Acquisitions and instant brand recognition 08:24 — The GymPass to WellHub rebrand 10:08 — Martech, HubSpot, and AI disruption 15:35 — Events and the product-led sell-through 20:11 — The biggest mistake: assuming market maturity 22:58 — Lightning roundLinks & resourcesGuestRobin Izsak-Tseng — VP of Global B2B Marketing, WellHubWebsiteLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois: Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason: Follow Jason on LinkedIn
Jun 30

The $10 Million Rule with Seth Lowery

Episode #226: Seth Lowery — The $10M rule that kills good ideas, not just bad onesHow to decide which growth bets to fund when every idea on the table already looks good.For marketing and growth leaders drowning in too many opportunities and a team that's too small to chase them all. Seth Lowery is VP of Marketing at Octane, a fintech that has originated over $8 billion in consumer loans and runs both a lending arm (Roadrunner Financial) and an in-house SaaS layer—with close to 50% of the company in product and tech. On Seth's first day, his CEO handed him a single rule: a new initiative needs to clear $10 million in incremental originations to get approved. In this episode he breaks down why that number is a guideline rather than a hard rule, how it forces his team into P1/P2/P3 backlogs, his four-prong method for working with sales, and how he runs three different go-to-market motions—OEMs, dealers, and B2B2C—at the same time. What you'll hear The $10M incremental-originations bar, and why Seth treats it as a compass rather than a cage The four-prong method for sales and marketing: to sales, for sales, through sales, and in lieu of sales Why the hardest no's are the easy internal asks—a better-looking slide deck, an event t-shirt—and why he tells his team "let me be the bad guy" How he runs three GTM motions at once while deliberately keeping Octane's own brand in the backgroundChapters 00:00 — Cold open: the problem isn't too few ideas, it's too many 00:33 — Intro and the initiative-overload problem 02:35 — Lending company or tech company? 03:40 — Where the $10 million rule came from 05:13 — How the rule changes what to run and what to kill 06:30 — The hardest no's and "let me be the bad guy" 07:57 — Running a remote team to results, not hours 08:40 — The four-prong method for sales and marketing 11:21 — Hiring for B2B and channel marketing over fintech 12:15 — Octane's moat: the octane score and the soft pull 12:54 — Running three GTM motions at once 15:04 — The overlooked lever: loyalty 15:34 — The two biggest prioritization mistakes 16:33 — Lightning round 17:53 — Jason's top three takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestSeth Lowery — VP of Marketing, OctaneWebsiteRoadrunner FinancialLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois: Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason: Follow Jason on LinkedIn
Jun 23

The Taylor Swift Effect with Blakely Neilson

Episode #225: Blakely Neilson — Building a high-growth EdTech brand when buyers aren't on LinkedInThis episode is a tactical playbook for marketing to a buyer that ignores LinkedIn, retargeting, and white papers: the school district.For operators and founders selling into education, or any relationship-first market where you can't performance-market your way to pipeline. Blakely Neilson came from finance and joined the founding team at Parallel Learning, an EdTech company building virtual special education services for school districts in over 25 states. She built the B2B marketing function from scratch as the company pivoted from DTC to B2B, which meant trading paid social and paid search for conferences, webinars, email, and thought leadership, and shifting the message from emotion and urgency to compliance, scale, and risk mitigation. She gets concrete about what works: a lemonade-stand booth during a California heat wave, a Taylor Swift email sent the minute the engagement news broke, and using AI to track Google alerts so the message can adapt when a district like Wake County cuts $18 million from special education. What you'll hear Why the DTC-to-B2B pivot meant moving from paid acquisition to an organic mix of conferences, webinars, email, and thought leadership, with messaging built around compliance, scale, and risk mitigation How the team pairs marketing with revenue at conferences, sets up pre-conference meetings, and uses creative on-the-ground tactics like a lemonade stand during a heat wave to drive top-of-funnel leads Why leading with "we're radically changing the field through AI" backfires with late-adopter special-ed buyers, and why the message instead focuses on absorbing administrative burden How to keep one core message constant while tailoring execution state by state, using Google alerts to flex when budgets get cutChapters 00:00 — Cold open: why most B2B EdTech marketing is boring 00:27 — Why EdTech marketing breaks the standard playbook 01:33 — Meet Blakely Neilson and Parallel Learning 02:32 — From finance to building marketing through a DTC-to-B2B pivot 03:39 — Building trust with relationship-first district buyers 04:44 — Making conferences a real pipeline driver 05:59 — The webinar formula that stands out post-COVID 07:17 — Marketing an AI product to AI-skeptical buyers 08:27 — Pop culture, the Taylor Swift email, and humanizing B2B 11:05 — Awareness vs. conversion in a two-sided marketplace 11:45 — Scaling across 25 states with Google alerts and AI 13:01 — Sales and marketing operating rhythm 13:50 — Lightning round 15:22 — Jason's top three takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestBlakely Neilson — Founding team, Parallel LearningWebsiteLinkedIn (Blakely)LinkedIn (Parallel Learning)Instagram About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason
Jun 16

The Bootstrapper's Revenge with Alex Roy

Episode #224: Alex Roy — Bootstrapping an AI company for 12 years, no fundingHe founded an AI company in 2014—when AI was a punchline—bootstrapped it with zero outside capital, and landed Fortune 50 clients.For founders and growth operators figuring out how to build (and sell) AI products in a market that shifts every few weeks. Alex Roy is the founder of SalesBox AI, a single-founder, bootstrapped company he started in 2014 after 20+ years in martech (MarketFirst, TrueInfluence). With no outside funding, he reached Fortune 50 clients through a partner-led, agency managed-service model—building the part of the product that generated both capital and data first. In this episode he walks through why he moved from lead-centric to a buying-group, opportunity-centric model, how SalesBox's agents work toward one unified revenue goal, how he proves ROI to enterprises burned by AI promises, and why he says product-market fit now lasts "maybe a month." What you’ll hear Why he scrapped lead-centric and account-based marketing for a revenue/opportunity model that scores and prioritizes buying groups How he bootstrapped: building the managed-service module first to capture both capital and data, then reaching Fortune 50 through a partner-led agency model Where founders go wrong—chasing the hype to "hop off" in a couple of years instead of building, and not yet knowing when to override the agent How to apply it: start with a pilot before a full rollout, and learn how the system makes decisions so you know when to step inChapters 00:00 — Cold open: don't build it for free 00:31 — Intro: the three AI traps 01:50 — What breaks when you scale revenue 02:29 — Betting on AI in 2014 03:39 — Building in 2014 vs. 2026: PMF as a moving target 05:10 — Why bootstrap, and what it cost 05:52 — Landing Fortune 50 clients with no VC logos 06:38 — What makes SalesBox AI different 08:00 — How the platform works 08:51 — Lead to account to buying group 09:45 — Hype vs. real: start with a pilot 10:27 — What AI can't do: knowing when to override 11:37 — Proving ROI to burned enterprises 12:56 — What founders get wrong about timing 14:39 — Advice: get someone to pay the first dollar 15:38 — Lightning round 16:22 — Live demo: RevOps, voice agents, LinkedIn 20:47 — Where to find Alex + the offer 21:28 — Closing takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestAlex Roy — Founder, SalesBox AIWebsiteLinkedIn MentionedGet $1,000 in SalesBox AI credits About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason
Jun 9

Most Tests Will Fail, That's Fine with Divya Ramaswamy

Episode #223: Divya Ramaswamy — Running one growth function across travel and fintechHow a lean team runs acquisition, retention, and cross-sell across a travel marketplace and a fintech suite on a single brand.For growth leaders who own multiple products serving one customer across very different trust thresholds. Divya Ramaswamy runs growth across travel and fintech at Super.com—acquisition, activation, retention, and cross-sell—on a lean team of around 16 people. The products span hotels, flights, cash advance, credit, cash back, direct deposits, and a new pharmacy product, built for everyday Americans that premium brands typically walk past. She explains how the Super+ membership ties these disparate products together, why turning a $79 hotel booking into a fintech relationship is the hardest conversion they face, and what building financial trust actually requires beyond performance marketing. She also walks through the company's first major brand push—New York subway and out-of-home ads, plus becoming NASCAR's official savings partner—and why ruthless prioritization is the underrated lever that keeps the team focused. What you’ll hear Why Super+ membership is the flywheel that ties travel and fintech together, not just a perk layer on top (the “house and rooms” frame) How the team predicts cross-product adoption using behavioral signals—booking frequency, product bundles, in-app activity like games and surveys—alongside direct user research Why a direct travel-to-fintech handoff doesn’t happen, and how they build the journey through “value moments” instead (cashback on headphones, gas savings on the drive to a hotel) How they split channels by intent—Google for demand capture, Meta for storytelling—and use quarterly OKR resets to ruthlessly prioritize on a lean teamChapters 00:00 — Why trust in fintech can never be taken for granted (cold open) 00:29 — Intro: one growth function across travel and fintech 02:16 — What Super.com is, in one sentence 02:42 — The day-to-day operating model: acquisition to cross-sell 03:40 — Running one growth function across products that don’t behave alike 04:32 — The Super+ membership flywheel (house and rooms) 05:59 — The customer Super.com is built for 07:01 — Turning a $79 hotel booking into a fintech relationship 08:19 — Signals for predicting cross-product adoption 09:22 — Channel strategy built on customer context, not product category 10:20 — Google vs. Meta: capturing demand vs. storytelling 11:36 — What building financial trust actually requires 12:36 — The brand push: NYC subway and out-of-home 13:43 — Betting on quality creative and the NASCAR partnership 14:45 — One creative team, one brand voice across products 15:44 — The most underrated growth lever: prioritization 16:51 — Hard lessons on meaningful testing and embracing failure 17:57 — Advice for leading a complex product portfolio 18:33 — Lightning round 19:15 — Where to find Divya + closing takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestDivya Ramaswamy — leads growth (travel and fintech) at Super.comWebsiteLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason
Jun 2

Getting a CFO on Board with Your Growth Plan with Simon Heyrick

Episode #222: Simon Heyrick — How CFOs become real growth partnersWhat it actually takes to turn your CFO into a growth ally instead of a gatekeeper.For founders, CEOs, and CMOs trying to align finance with marketing and growth investments. Simon Heyrick is the CFO of Sun World International and was Jason's CFO and then CEO at Soothe. In this conversation, Simon walks through what changes the moment you step into the CEO seat ("overnight, there was a shift in the relationships"), what every CFO role across green Dot, Soothe, and Sun World has had in common, and how he evaluates growth pitches from CMOs. He shares the story of Soothe's brand refresh that didn't survive a single board member's objection, the TV spend he'd take back in hindsight, and why at Sun World — a 50-year-old PE-backed agriculture IP business — the finance model runs out 25 years and the data sets matter more than the AI strategy. What you'll hear The two CFO archetypes — growth partner vs. growth gatekeeper — and how risk tolerance separates them How to pitch growth investments to a CFO without getting dismissed (skip the impression counts, bring an intellectually honest ROI story) Why institutional investors rarely understand operations, and how to manage the "feet below the surface" dynamic What Simon learned moving from tech and marketplaces to a 50-year-old agriculture IP company where customers are farmers, not consumersChapters 00:00 — Stepping into the CEO seat: the loneliness shift 00:54 — Introducing Simon Heyrick 02:19 — The through line across a CFO career 05:37 — From CFO to interim CEO at Soothe 08:33 — What translates across every CFO role: managing institutional investors and the under-promise / over-deliver rule 11:32 — The growth bet Simon greenlit and the brand refresh that didn't land 14:16 — Growth partner CFO vs. growth gatekeeper CFO 17:21 — How CMOs should (and shouldn't) pitch growth investments 21:53 — Inside Sun World: a 50-year-old PE-backed agriculture IP business 24:31 — Climate risk, varietal IP, and a 25-year forecast model 25:56 — Data as the linchpin of the AI strategy 28:07 — Lessons across five C-level roles, and advice to a younger Simon 30:57 — Lightning round 32:33 — What a founder should do this week to turn their CFO into a partner 34:17 — Jason's three takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestSimon Heyrick — CFO, Sun World InternationalWebsiteLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason
May 26

Stop Selling. Start Method Acting. with John O'Donnell

Episode #221: John O'Donnell — Selling AI Trust When Your Best Outcome Is InvisibleHow do you sell infrastructure that works best when nothing bad happens?For GTM leaders, founders, and sellers building pipeline in category-creating, mission-critical sales motions. John O'Donnell leads go-to-market at Alice, where he sells AI trust and safety to the top foundation model companies and the enterprises deploying AI in production. Before Alice, he built pipeline at Rapid7 in cybersecurity and led GTM in music distribution. In this episode, John breaks down his "method acting" approach to selling, why storytelling beats feature pitches in invisible-infrastructure categories, the milestone approach Alice uses to convert AI FOMO into committed deals, and why he sees the AI trust category today as the cybersecurity space in 2008-2010. He also shares the one discovery question most enterprise sellers never ask: "Can you live with your current situation for another year?" What you'll hear The "method acting" framework for entering a buyer's world before the first call Why Alice leans on storytelling and 200+ PhD dark web experts instead of feature pitches The milestone approach for converting AI FOMO buyers into committed deals What breaks when you scale founder-led sales too fast, and how to train a team to replicate itChapters 00:00 — Cold open and the three GTM traps in invisible-infrastructure sales 02:56 — Method acting: living inside the buyer's character 06:13 — Marketing something mission-critical but invisible 09:33 — The AI FOMO problem and the milestone approach to closing 12:19 — Scaling beyond founder-led sales without breaking culture 16:58 — Where the AI trust category is now, lightning round, and takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestJohn O'Donnell — AliceWebsiteLinkedIn About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois Subscribe / Follow Jason

5

out of 5

5 Ratings

Honest and Fresh

05/06/2024

Sutton216

Can’t wait for more episodes of this. Love the honest take and the spouse POV

Frank Growth is a sharp, execution-first podcast about how companies actually grow. Hosted by Jason Shafton, it features candid conversations with founders, operators, and investors who are in the work right now. The focus is real decisions: distribution, demand, pricing, org design, incentives, and what breaks once the early playbooks stop working. No hype. No recycled advice. Just clear thinking from people accountable for outcomes.

Creator

Jason Shafton
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

34
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Jason Shafton
Show Website

Frank Growth