Why Companies with an Innovative Product Hire the Wrong Marketer
JOURNAL
JUNE 2026
I have spent the past few days scrolling through fractional CMO roles in B2B, and in nearly every other one I kept tripping over the same pattern. The products themselves differ — an AI platform, complex fintech, embedded payments for non-financial services, cybersecurity. What unites them is their stage. These are new categories that did not exist in this form even five years ago, and the market does not yet quite grasp why it needs them. And yet the brief for the marketer is always identical: set up the funnel, build landing pages, run performance campaigns.
FORTHCOMING, PROBABLY
On Something or Other
A piece that has not yet decided what it is about. The conviction is in place. The subject is still being negotiated.
— forthcoming, probablyA Matter of Some Import
On a question of evident weight, the precise nature of which escapes me at the moment of writing. It will return. They usually do.”
— forthcoming, allegedlyWRITTEN RARELY AND ONLY WHEN THERE IS SOMESTHING WORTH FIXING IN PRINT
The Unfinished One
There is a thought here. It begins with conviction, proceeds with confidence, and then, regrettably,
— to be continued, perhaps