Episode 90: Startup Leadership Fundamentals with Erik Kostelnik of Postal.io
Erik Kostelnik, Founder/CEO at Postal.io, talks about the impact and effect of offline marketing campaigns. Offline marketing campaigns refer to direct mail, handwritten notes, gifts, or corporate swag. With marketing efforts pivoting to digital due to its reach and convenience, Kostelnik argues that offline is now even more significant. His case studies have shown a 20% increase in conversion through effective use of offline campaigns.
He identifies this opportunity and solves the business problem of logistical inefficiencies when mounting these campaigns. With corporate offline spend amounting to about $125B a year, his platform gives corporations bang for their marketing buck through automations and seamless communication across channels.
Kostelnik goes on to share key learnings from his startup journeys. A major learning point is to find people who aren’t like you. It’s important to find people who bring different skills and ideas to the table. Kostelnik reinforces setting up the right vision, so even with different backgrounds you are all still aligned.
Another important point is to trust the people you hire and not micromanage them. Allow them to fail with little fires, but support them and direct the right resources to fight the bigger fires. If fires continue to erupt around the same areas, then it’s not a people problem, but rather a process issue that may be related to the core product of the business.
Finally, Kostelnik emphasizes the need to commit and stake your claim to your startup idea. A founder needs to think long and hard about what they will be doing in the next five to ten years, bounce their ideas off their network or mentors, then invest into it.
Startup founders and business leaders will learn a ton of leadership insights from this episode. From product strategy to people leadership to growth hacking, the episode is full of great lessons.
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