Blog Archives
EP106 – Michelle Penczak: Squared Away, CEO & Founder
Michelle Penczak was my assistant for 3 years. Today she runs a 400-people strong brand employing military spouses that made #297 on the Inc 5000 last year.
Squared Away is rooted in a mutual bond between people and philosophies and is doing what I keep advising most everyone to be doing: The brand is highly niche-focused, was born out of a personal necessity, and came with a tribe in-tow.
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EP105 – Alex Ostroy: Ostroy, Co-Founder & Creative Director
Alex Ostroy successfully combined his passion for cycling and art into a beloved brand that creates eclectic clothing for cyclists who crave self-expression in an industry known for the opposite.
Coming from a graphic design and Creative Direction background, Alex’s story and advice will resonate with a lot of you who struggle with blending art and business, who doubt yourself when going with your gut instincts rather than catering to the audience and market at all times and are afraid of combining passions to create a brand for themselves.
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EP104 – Omsom: Kim Pham, Co-Founder
Kim Pham is a first-generation Vietnamese-American, the daughter of refugees, and, together with her sister Vanessa, the Co-Founder of Omsom, the loud and proud Asian food brand of noodles and sauces.
This episode already ranks very high on my top favorite HTM interviews ever. When founders start with a why and figure out the how and the what in the process, that’s when you know great brand stories are in the making. Don’t miss this episode.
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Building Brands vs. Building Businesses
Entrepreneurship’s unforeseen twists and turns, the difficulty of hardware startups, failure (aka growth), and of course a whole lot of tips on building brands in 2024.
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EP103 – Thumbtack: Marco Zappacosta, Co-Founder & CEO
Marco Zappacosta built Thumbtack, the marketplace for home services, over the last 15 years. In 2021 Thumbtack had a $3.2 billion valuation and the highest number of professional listings, followed by Yelp.
In this episode, we dive into how Marco’s background from having entrepreneurial parents – his father co-founded Logitech nonetheless – and running his startup basically from straight out of college to today has shaped the Thumbtack brand.
As you can imagine, many insights are awaiting you in this inspiring conversation.
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EP102 – Norwegian Wool: Michael Berkowitz, Founder & CEO
Michael Berkowitz was a commodities trader who switched to the fashion world after taking on coat-making as a hobby. Yes, you heard that correctly. So he shifted to what in plain sight could be seen as yet another commodity: making coats. But there is more to this story than meets the eye as he solved tangible problems while being credited with making ‘quiet luxury’ a new movement in the world of brands.
Launching a quiet luxury brand seems to come with tons of added risk. What gave him the confidence to launch into the flashy fashion world without that type of branding? The answer to that, plus plentiful branding and marketing insights is what awaits you on this episode as we kick off the New Year.
Oh, and in case you think you have not heard of Norwegian Wool, I am certain you have seen their products on HBO’s hugely successful show Succession which has outfitted their cast and even mentioned the brand by name.
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EP101 – Toneoptic: Fabian Geyrhalter, Founder
Hitting The Mark is back from its hiatus with guest host Kara Ebel interviewing Fabian Geyrhalter. We wanted to do something special for episode 101, and here we go!
You know Fabian Geyrhalter as the host of this show, but today we spin things around and have Fabian in the hot seat talking about his innovative hardware startup for audiophiles and music lovers. Trendhunter calls Toneoptic ‘progressive,’ Forbes ‘revolutionary,’ and the Financial Times ‘clever.’ Fabian shares the hurdles and fails, how he crafted the brand strategy and created bootstrapped journeys and experiences for his tribe, and he dives into all things branding, marketing, and entrepreneurship. An episode as unique as his company’s product. Enjoy!
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How Brand Strategy Can Be Implemented Seamlessly
I dive into how a new or revitalized brand strategy can swiftly be crafted, successfully owned, and seamlessly implemented by a client and their partners.
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Branding Strategy vs. Business Plan
An edutaining conversation on why a brand plan is important and how it positively affects companies of any size and shape with plenty of examples shared along the way.
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EP100 – Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach, Founder
This is episode 100 of Hitting The Mark and we worked for months to ensure we have the founder of an iconic brand for you. One most probably all of you know and many of you own a piece of the brand. To say we succeeded would be an understatement.
Travis Rosbach founded the world’s most used water bottle brand that took the nation, and the globe, by storm: Hydro Flask. From its iconic icon – pun intended – to its many colors and varied audience, let me take you on a ride from Travis’ background as a pilot, Scuba diver, and marine captain to being presented a 99 designs logo by a pricey marketing agency to his 1-liter bottle launch that in fact held 40 ounces. It is a wild ride, it is an educational ride, it is the ride of HTM 100.
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The Post Host
Fabian Geyrhalter is the Principal of FINIEN, creating clarity for brand transformations.
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