👋 Hey, it’s Sundar! Welcome to experiMENTAL: a weekly newsletter on B2C Marketing & data science how-to guides, frameworks, and stories from 15 years including early Uber.

This week is sponsored by Hubspot and AdQuick

Learn What Fortune 500 Marketers Know

• Marketing strategies from industry leaders like the NBA, Liquid Death & Oatly.

• Behind-the-scenes stories of campaigns that crushed it.

• Actionable tips to boost your results today.

Subscribe Today

Modernize Out Of Home with AdQuick

AdQuick unlocks the benefits of Out Of Home (OOH) advertising in a way no one else has. Approaching the problem with eyes to performance, created for marketers and creatives with the engineering excellence you’ve come to expect for the internet.

You can learn more at www.AdQuick.com

My new dream job

In case you missed it (fresh off the LinkedIn press), I’ve joined Bounce as their Head of Data responsible for superpowering our growth efforts with all things data.

Note: Bounce is the largest network of luggage storage with partners in over 4,000 cities. If you find yourself traveling and need to safely and securely drop off your bags for a few hours or days, check us out. Shameless 🔌 over.

I won’t get into why I joined them in this post (that’s for another day) but I did want to share my story about how I found this job. I think it’s important to share as there are many people still looking for roles post layoffs and hopefully this inspires someone to take action. In full transparency, this took 2 years of reaching out, shameless outreach, and a bit of luck, so if you’re here for a quick solution to finding a job, you’re in the wrong place.

Act 1: The Intro

Finding an opportunity nowdays is brutal because demand (people looking) far outstrips supply. The traditional funnel of applying on Linkedin or applying on career sites isn’t going to work. The best avenue to finding something continues to be through your network.

When I first started consulting, I only wanted to work with consumer marketplaces because that’s what I loved from my time at Uber. Historically, there were a lot of consumer marketplaces popping up but they’ve dwindled significantly in the past few years. Bounce was one of a handful that seemed to have some momentum and I just happened to have a friend who knew the founder.

Here’s the email introing us

We were able to chat and had a good conversation.

Act 2: The chase

Like any good consultant, I followed up. They responded. And we went back and forth a few times. Here’s the timeline of our communications:

• April 12, 2023 → First call

• June 12, 2023

• Feb 12, 2024

• Jul 18, 2024

• Aug 13, 2024

• Nov 12, 2024

• Nov 19, 2024

• Jan 2, 2025

• Jan 14, 2025 → Chat about an opportunity
  

Between our first call and the time we actually agreed to set up another conversation took 21 months.

Act 3: Luck and the superday

In 2016, I had a superday at Uber where I met 10 people over 8 hours. This was on a Friday. The following Monday I had a 2 hour interview with 3 people at a different company. Guess which one was more tiring? The latter.

Superdays have for some reason become a big no no, but I think it’s the only way to vet someone especially at a startup/scaleup. It’s the perfect representation of what the work will be like.

1. A lot of context switching

2. A lot of intense questions

3. A lot of engagement and interaction

This was exactly how I felt when I chatted at Bounce. I think went 10am - 5:30 pm just meeting and chatting through problems. And while I was absolutely wiped at the end of it, I was also deeply energized. The people were so ambitious, driven, and kind. The problems were interesting and challenging. The potential was limitless. I knew if I got the gig, I’d take it.

Now, what did luck have to do with it? Turns out they had offered the role to someone else who decided to pass on it. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Also, another funny / lucky part was I had decided to stop consulting in November to go all in on the newsletter and podcast, but destiny had different ideas for me.

So, if you’re in the midst of a search (fulltime, consulting, or otherwise), here are my learnings:

1. Quality over quality. Don’t spray and pray.

2. Your network is your best lead engine

3. Be persistent. It shows enthusiasm.

4. Be kind to yourself.

P.S. A lot of people have asked if I’ll keep writing this newsletter and posting on LinkedIn and the answer is 100% yes.

Enjoyed reading this?

Share with your colleagues or on your LinkedIn . It helps the newsletter tremendously and is much appreciated!

Missed my last article?

Here it is: Why a funnel is a sh*tty Marketing analogy