Building Marketing Waiting Rooms™ - Join the community 🦄 | Content | Demand-Gen | Inbound

I practice the art of staying top of mind 🧠 This means I help brands clarify their message and bring it to life in unforgettable social content and ads.

Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

When I was a marketing intern I’d drink beers with our sales director and write ad copy on the back of a napkin.


Those napkin scribbles outperformed 80% of the campaigns I agonised over with the marketing team.

I honestly got along better with sales than my marketing colleagues.

Their world just made more sense to me LOL.
The sales floor was my church.

I'd lurk in the hallways, eavesdropping on reps pacing back and forth with their headsets on, totally in their flow.

I got to hear bizarre customer objections they handled.
I got to observe them close a deal everyone else had pronounced dead.
I got to know our customers so much better thanks to them.

And I think it’s beautiful 🫠

No grand revelation today. 

Just this:
Go grab a drink with your sales team.

They'll make you a better marketer.

What's the best thing you've learnt from your sales colleagues?

Justyna Ciecierska, MSc

Founder @ Marketing Waiting Room - Messaging & creative strategy

I stopped dumping detailed buyer personas docs into ChatGPT. I replaced it with 3 sentences. Content gets DRAMATICALLY better.


When you vomit a 20-page document into AI, it doesn't magically cherry-pick the most important things.

It sees 47 different directions it could take, and it tries to lump it all together into one generic, illogical content sludge.

If you want AI to generate HYPER-RELEVANT content that attracts your IDEAL buyers, you need to strip your targeting down to its essence.

You only need three elements.
Three short sentences.
That's it.

1. DREAM OUTCOME: What are they trying to achieve?

2. PROBLEM: What's getting in their way while chasing that dream?

3. PSYCHOGRAPHICS AND BEHAVIOUR: How are they wired? What makes their situation unique?

So for example:

Imagine you are a business coach helping people get their first customers.

Here's your audience:

DREAM: "They want to start their own business or are in the early stages."

PROBLEM: "Terrified of losing stability and wasting lifetime savings."

PSYCHOGRAPHICS AND BEHAVIOUR: "Perfectionists. Not business-savvy. Overwhelmed. Overthinkers. They think they have to have a perfect product before selling."

Now here’s the thing:

Two people can have the same dream, and even the same problem.
But if one is business-savvy and the other is an overthinker paralysed by perfectionism, they will be interested in different content.

See the difference:

Overwhelmed perfectionist: "How do you know your offer is good enough before you start selling?"

Business-savvy doer: "Here’s the fastest way to sell your offer so you can find out if it's good enough."

See the nuance?

AI needs explicit, non-ambiguous guardrails to know exactly who it's writing for.

And yeah, I know, stripping everything down to its core is annoying, uncomfortable work.

But trust me - once you do it AI content gets waaaaay better and you stop prompt-wrestling.

This is literally what I do when I set up an AI Content Brain for my clients:
I turn their messy targeting and messaging into something AI can easily use.

Want me to do the same for you?

Go to: marketingwaitingroom.com and book your intro!

Founder @ Marketing Waiting Room - Messaging consultancy

How this truck salesman uses a BIZZARE playbook to hijack your brain in 120 seconds.


You might think this sh*t is chaotic, super random and silly.
But it’s actually well thought-out.
Masterclass in attention and memory encoding.
Let me explain

1/ CURIOSITY GAP
The video starts with a man telling a woman:
“Lean back. Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”
You immediately want to see how this ends so you keep watching.

Attention? Check.

______

2/ SHOCK AND PATTERN INTERRUPT

→ He lets her fall.
You feel shock. Confusion. Surprise. This breaks your expectation. Your brain is now more receptive to the message that follows. 

→ That's when he delivers a life lesson: “Don't trust anybody.”
Your brain assigns him authority and credibility. Then he adds: "Except when buying trucks - trust me". That’s his bridge to the product.

(btw notice how he uses that gigantic comb for no good reason to keep your attention).

______

3/ SHOWMANSHIP + NOVELTY BIAS

The guy doesn’t list features.
He PERFORMS the features.

→ He measures the truck’s length by doing mid-air splits
→ He pretends to be a doctor while “diagnosing” engine power

You might think it’s silly but it’s actually genius for two reasons:
1) The weirdness keeps attention high
2) The showmanship bypasses sales resistance

When people realise they’re being sold to, they instinctively put up mental defences and stop processing the message.

By wrapping the pitch in weird, entertaining behaviour, he prevents your brain from labelling it as “advertising,” so those defences never activate

______

4. MEMORY HOOKS

While you’re entertained, he casually encodes the USPs in your brain:
→ Engine power
→ Cargo box size
→ Comfortable interior

He uses memory hooks to ensure you remember the most important things:
→ The brand name
→ The product and its USPs

Dude keeps saying:
“Jerry… Jerry… Jerry…”
Jerry is the company name.
He repeats it so often that it burns into memory.

And the weird acts (doctor, splits, comb) act as memory glue.
Your brain links:
Jerry → weird doctor → powerful engine
Jerry → splits → long cargo box
Jerry → comfort → funny guy

After watching the video, your memory is left with the most important keywords:

Jerry
Chinese
Great trucks

NOW CHECK THIS:
Next time you need a truck, your brain will remember these keywords, and you will Google the,m and you will find them.

The reason AI content sounds generic has nothing to do with AI.

It's you.

You're dumping 20 pages of audience research and 47 pages of transcripts into ChatGPT hoping it will do the hard work of figuring out whom you're actually talking to.

It won't. That's your job.

AI doesn't need all that information.

It needs clarity.

Three sentences.

If you can't explain your audience in three sentences, your problem is not generic content.

Your problem is targeting.

Clarity in, clarity out.

Want me to ruthlessly clarify your targeting and messaging and set up an AI content assistant that writes hyper-relevant content?

Go to marketingwaitingroom.com and book your intro.

The term “long-term marketing” is misleading. It suggests that results take years to appear, but that’s not true.


We praise direct response marketing for its quick and measurable results:

> Show an ad
> Customer clicks
> Customer takes action

But there’s another part of marketing that feels more ambiguous.

It’s often labelled as “long-term,” “brand awareness,” or “brand marketing.”

But not many people understand its mechanics.

A good way to think about it is indirect-response marketing.

(Or how I like to call it - Marketing Waiting Room™) 

It works differently.

The purpose is to build something deeper: memory structures in the buyer’s mind that can be retrieved when a buying trigger hits.

These memory structures are what drive people to come directly to you or make your direct-response marketing efforts perform better.

This type of marketing is often lumped into the “long-term” category, making it seem vague and uncertain in its ROI.

The real issue is that many marketers don’t fully grasp how to make it work.

It requires a different set of skills, thinking, and approach.

It’s about creating a resilient and valuable asset.

One that lasts beyond any specific channel or campaign and doesn’t show up neatly on a dashboard.

But that doesn’t mean it takes years to see results.

If someone is exposed to marketing your assets that build memory structures and then experiences a buying trigger just days later, that memory will activate, driving action.

Over time, this memory structure gets stronger, and these effects become even more visible.

I’ve built an AI content system that doesn’t just generate content, it follows your strategy. And OMG, it works ridiculously well!

If you’ve followed my work, you know I’m annoyingly picky about content.

I care about relevance, nuance, originality, and quality.

So I’m not interested in cranking out more AI slop.

For me, it’s all about using messaging, targeting, content strategy and internal expertise to create on-brand, original content across channels.

I pre-package and pre-chew it for AI.
I call it the “AI Content Brain” and it works like a charm!

Why?

Because I strip down the strategy to its essentials and structure it in a way that AI knows how to use it when creating content.

To be clear, it’s not something I whipped up quickly overnight.

I've been obsessing over this since 2022.

Testing, breaking, refining.
Figuring out exactly how to make AI finally *get it*.

I’ve been offering this as a productised service for a few months now, and I'm opening new slots today!

In 3 weeks, you get:

→ Your positioning, messaging, targeting, and content strategy defined and compressed into a clear doc AI can follow, no 20-page-long pdfs

→ Your internal expertise, product info, opinions, stories, and IP extracted and structured so it can be easily reused across content

→ A Content Brain that gives AI the exact context it needs to stay on strategy and stop hallucinating

→ AI content assistants that turn any raw input, ideas, notes, transcripts, conversations into on-brand, high-quality content across channels

All set up for you in a tool of your choice: Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude - you name it.

So if you want to scale your content creation without losing your soul and substance, I would LOVE to build this for you!

Head to marketingwaitingroom. com and book your intro.

The future of AI content creation is: 'interview me until something worth posting comes out.’

Let me explain:

I worked with 7 clients last year.

I helped them define their positioning, messaging and content strategy and built an AI content system that creates on-brand content across channels.

But there was something I didn't expect…

These people are incredibly smart.
Brilliant at what they do.

They'd tell me stories that made me go "Wait THAT'S a post."

And yet they kept struggling with content creation.

How’s that possible?!

They had the expertise. They had the stories.
So what was missing?

It became clear when they tried the "Interviewer" feature I built into their content system.

An AI assistant that:
- Understands their audience and strategy
- Asks targeted questions
- Pulls out stories, opinions, anecdotes
- Surfaces angles they didn't know they had

THEY LOVED THAT FEATURE THE MOST!

That’s when I realised they didn't have a content creation problem.
They had an insight extraction problem.

All they needed was buried deep in their minds.
And they couldn't access it on demand.

The Interviewer changed that.

They kept telling me that this made them think in a completely different way.

It sparked ideas they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Opened doors they didn't know were there.

THAT’S WHAT MAKES CONTENT INTERESTING!

That's when I understood what content operations should actually look like:

→ LAYER 1: Extract insights from experts through a natural conversation with an interviewer AI assistant 

→ LAYER 2: Process it through an “AI Content Brain” trained on positioning, messaging, and audience 

→ LAYER 3: Remix into different formats and channels.

The expert's job is to think and talk. 
AI’s job is to turn that into original, on-brand content assets.

So if you want your expert team to create content stop asking them to write LinkedIn posts.

Start building systems that pull the best of what they know and then let the “AI Content Brain” do the rest.

Would you like me to create such a system for you?
Book an intro via the link in my bio!

B2B marketing has a technical addiction


Growth hackers
GTM engineers
Frameworks
Automations
Ratios


We treat marketing like an engineering challenge.
And we don’t want to admit that it’s mostly a communication challenge.

I came across this quote lately:

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, 
and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, 
and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, 
and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, 
and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

Bill Bernbach figured this out decades ago, but somehow we convinced ourselves that B2B marketing works differently.

We’re excused from clarifying our message and allergic to a little art.

Is it because we think our products speak for themselves?
Or is it because we don’t feel like doing the difficult work?
Or is it because martech has led us to believe that we don’t need clarity and creativity if we have a good tech stack?

I don’t know.

But I do know this: clarity and creativity in marketing aren’t optional.

They’re THE job.

POV: LinkedIn Ads perform at Got Talent...

I wish more B2B marketers and founders knew that…


1. Brand is your silent salesperson

2. Having no competitors is usually a bad sign

3. Signing up to a newsletter doesn’t mean someone is in "consideration stage"

4. Building brand awareness means building mental availability (buyer memory)

5. A marketer’s job is to make the brand easy to recall and easy to buy

6. You shouldn’t “scale marketing” before you’ve decided on positioning and messaging

7. Good advertising kills bad products

8. Creativity in marketing isn’t optional. It’s THE JOB

Couldn’t come up with 10. Help? 😅

My content workflow lately: I talk out loud to my “AI Content Brain” for 15 minutes on Monday mornings. Then it remixes my answers into endless posts.


That’s it.

Since I built my AI Content Brain in Claude, my content workflow got 

SO.
MUCH. 
EASIER.

And weirdly, way more fun.

Here's what I do now:

STEP 1: I start with the "interviewer mode"

Claude asks me questions as if it were my ideal buyer.
I just answer out loud (I use WisprFlow)
Casually. No writing. No pressure.
You would not believe what comes out of your brain when you're not trying to "write."


STEP 2: Claude remixes my answers into endless content pieces

It doesn't just summarise. 
No, no.
It does something more sophisticated.

It filters my rambling through my specific Targeting, Messaging & Positioning rules.

This means it knows what I sell, my unique PoV and what my target audience is interested in.

The Result:
→ 15 minutes of talking = 5-10 high-quality LinkedIn posts.
→ It’s not "AI-generated." It’s "AI-extracted."
→ The thoughts are 100% mine. The typing is 0%.

So here’s my advice to you:

Stop trying to create content from scratch.
Start having conversations and let AI do the remixing.

Want me to build your AI Content Brain for you?

Go to: marketingwaitingroom (dot) com and book your intro.

How to deal with messaging and content in an emerging vs. a mature market
TLDR: 

- Emerging market: your goal is to make your brand name = category. Which means your messaging and content should be category-focused. Not differentiation-focused

- Mature market: your goal is to communicate why your solution is better than the default. Which means your messaging and content should be differentiation-focused. Not category-focused.


EMERGING MARKETS:

Context:

→ Few competitors and no clear category leader yet
→ The real race isn’t differentiation. It’s becoming the obvious choice for the category
→ Low and uneven buyer awareness: many don’t know the category exists or don’t understand it
→ Buyers feel the problem but lack the language to describe it 


Messaging & content goals:

→ Create category awareness
→ Associate your brand with the category
→ Establish shared language: Frame and name the problem and the solution
→ Proprietary naming helps create associations (e.g. GTM engineering, Clay tables)

MATURE MARKETS

Context:

→ Many competitors and a clearly defined category
→ Buyers understand the problem and the available solutions
→ One or more strong leaders already exist
→ The game is differentiation

Messaging & content goals:

→ Clearly articulate how you are meaningfully different from the default options
→ Justify switching
→ Question what the category has normalised, or what is outdated etc. (e.g. Basecamp's calm work philosophy)

If I were Head of Marketing with a $300K+ budget, the first thing I'd do is:


Decide what our brand should be known for.

Don't forget this:

You're not investing $300K+ in channels.
You're investing in spreading a message.

TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY.

It's what makes your big girl budget deliver big girl results.

Pretty please, don't reduce yourself to 

a traffic factory 
a leads generator 
an ROI calculator

You're the architect of the big idea.

The thing people remember. 
Repeat. 
Talk about at dinner. 
Mention to their boss in every Monday check-in.

You're here to create something people are impressed by. 
Inspired by. 
Attracted to.

That's your real job.
The clicks and leads will come... wait, scratch that... they'll POUR in as a result of that.

Brands people can't stop talking about stand for something and own it:

→ Basecamp: "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" 
→ Gong: "Sales call reality over opinions" 
→ Intercom: "Marketing is conversational" 
→ Miro: "Where teams think together" 
→ Lovable: "Build something lovable"

So tell me - what's the one thing you want living rent-free in your buyer's brain when they finally have the problem you solve?

Why your “TOFU” or “demand” or “brand” campaigns are not working.


Because you’re trying to run them before you’re clear on what they’re meant to do.

Not many people realise that these campaigns are supposed to achieve mental availability.

Which simply means that your brand is top of mind when buyers realise they have specific needs and wants.

Like: When I need to decorate my house and I want it to be stylish, but also functional I think IKEA.

Or: When I need to improve how my sales team performs and I want clear, objective insight into what actually closes deals, I think GONG

This should be your starting point.

If you don’t define the needs and wants that your brand satisfies in one sentence like above, you don’t have the foundation for demand gen.

You end up with Frankenstein ads communicating everything and nothing.

They are hard to understand.
And therefore are hard to remember.
And therefore they will not work.

This gets especially painful in B2B software companies that kept adding features, use cases, integrations, and personas…

…until nobody can explain in one sentence when someone should think of them.

When this happens, the smartest thing to do is to hire an expert to help you boil it down to one simple message.

Otherwise you’re setting your marketing budget on fire.

Go-to-market (GTM) micro-tests for entrepreneurs on their path from 0 to $1M ARR | 2x first go-to-market hire | Founder-Led Marketing Club (DIYing founders) | GTM Booster (done-with-you)

96% of startups never hit $1M in revenue. I am on a mission to help underestimated founders beat these odds. 

Most startup advice out there is for VC-backed companies with: 

• 18-24 months of runway
• $1M+ in funding
• Full-time technical teams
• Growth-at-all-costs mindset
• Building to an IPO

But what about the rest of us?
• Bootstrap founders
• Solo entrepreneurs
• Side-hustlers becoming full-time
• Underestimated founders

We need a different playbook.

One that focuses on:
• Getting paying customers from day -1
• Revenue-funded growth
• Sustainable business models
• De-risked path to market
• Setting our own terms for success 

The system might be rigged, but that doesn't mean you can't win.

You just need to play a different game.

This is exactly what I help ambitious, underestimated founders with. 

About me: 

- Nearly 2 decades of experience working with early-stage startups 
- Helped generate $82M in revenue 
- Advised 200+ founders and worked with 85+
- A rare $0-$1M ARR go-to-market specialization 
- 100% focus on underestimated founders 
- Preference for tech(enabled) businesses

What I do now: 

Founders come to me when they are at the concept stage (to validate and design their business), or launch stage (to take their idea to market). Either way, we start with drafting a go-to-market plan and running micro-tests. Then, I provide high-touch advisory support to find and keep your first 100 Happy Paying Customers. 

Within just a month of working with me you can expect:
 
🎯 specific options for pricing / positioning
🎯 which customer segment to focus on
🎯 1-2 GTM playbooks to prioritize
🎯 6-week action plan to micro-test it
🎯 supporting content blueprint 

Then, you have unlimited Slack access to me (and peers!) as you implement your micro-tests. Or, join us for small group coaching sessions for live support. 

All this ties back to my proven Happy Paying Customers methodology that has helped founders like Ashley Chang (Sundays CEO) grow to $1M+ ARR. Countless founders went from spinning for years to not only launching their startups but getting Happy Paying Customers. 

Here's the real reason this works: it is grounded in business fundamentals and buyer psychology. No unethical hacks or flashy trends. 

TL:DR: you can expect to know *what* to prioritize, and *how* to get it done so you can remain on the right path to $1M ARR, on your own terms. 

Ready to validate your business with 100 Happy Paying Customers? DM me to snag a spot in the Founder-Led Marketing Club with other ambitious, underestimated founders.

Sweta Govani 🧩

I took 854 hours away from my business last year, and still made more money than the previous year.

Yes, 854 is oddly specific.
I tracked my hours because I needed to hit 750 to qualify as a real estate professional per the tax code (happy to answer questions on that). 

🤔 Why didn't my revenue drop when my hours did?

Here's what I believe helped make this happen: 

📌 2022: I got radically specific about whom I solve what problem for
I stopped trying to help “startups” in general

I help first-time founders coming from corporate get their first 100 Happy Paying Customers ™.
They’re not beginners. 
They’re smart, high-achieving professionals who are just new to entrepreneurship.
That clarity alone eliminated a huge amount of wasted effort, for both me and them.

📌 2023: I built the solution by working closely with early founders

From the very first customer, I treated client work like product development.
Every smart question.
Every repeated problem.
Every moment of confusion.

After each project, I paused and asked:
“What am I explaining that future founders will also need?”

Patterns emerged quickly.
So I started codifying everything into tutorials, frameworks, and resources - directly from real work with real founders.
 
📌 2024: productized my services into a membership

I centered everything around the fact that every founder is on the same journey

Different businesses.
Different goals.
Different lives.

But the same journey: zero → 100+ happy paying customers.
The fundamentals don’t change, only their context does.

Once I embraced that, I redesigned my work so: 

+ everything repeatable is documented and taught once
+ founders are pointed to what they need, when they need it
+ my live time is spent only on high-impact moments
(think: pressure-testing decisions, diagnosing what’s actually blocking progress, applying the system to a founder’s specific situation)

Founders get more clarity, more consistency, and better decisions, and I can support more people without burning out.

TL;DR: got hyper specific on whom I solve what problem for > built a solution while serving them > productized it

This is just the beginning.
As I’ve been experimenting more, I’m asking:
+ How can I create more value for founders?
+ How can I do it while spending less time?

We live in an era of no-code, AI, and automation. If we combine that with real domain expertise and a problem we genuinely care about solving, it is possible to build a business that scales, without sacrificing our other life goals.

This year, I’m challenging myself to 2× revenue while continuing to build my real estate portfolio.

Putting it out there.

➡️ what else should I be thinking about for this year? 
➡️ questions for me about all this?

Founder of Happy Paying Customers™ System: validate your idea and de-risk your business with micro-tests | Used by 110+ founders | Seasoned GTM specialist: $82M+ revenue generated

A lot of founders are quietly choosing a different game. And, we're going to see more and more of this in 2026.

When I look at the founders around me, I don’t see people chasing growth at all costs to build 'unicorns', overnight. 

I see people asking different questions:

+ "What's the right solution for the problem I want to solve?"
+ "What type of business is right for me?" "My dream customers?"
+ “What kind of life does this business create?”
+ “How do I, as the founder, make money?”
+ “What must I give up?” "For how long?"

These aren’t new founders with nothing to lose.
They’re experienced professionals.
People who already climbed ladders.
People who know what stability feels like.
People who don’t want to risk it all away. 
People who want to keep money as owners. 

Smart, ambitious and risk-aware.  

That’s why their goal is not overnight unicorn. 

It’s:

+ personally make money (read: multi-millions) 
+ intentionally build something that fits their life
+ de-risk intelligently (read: with Happy Paying Customers ™ ) 

This makes them clear about what winning actually looks like for them. 

Different game. Different scorecard. 
No right answer. Choice is yours.

Inspired by this movement of ambitious professionals turning their ideas into businesses, I created these postcards as part of a New Year treat for some of my Happy Paying Customers. 

What do you think of my definitions? 

p.s. I've got extras so let me know if you want me to send you one! :)

A founder in my portfolio is based in Minneapolis. 

She has been doing incredible volunteer work there. This week, during our group coaching session, as she told us about the situation on the ground, we all burst out crying. I’ve been scared, confused, and feeling completely useless. 

This founder took time out of her busy founder + volunteer life to create a thoughtful list of ways any of us can support from wherever we are. I’m pasting it all below directly with her commentary and links which I found super helpful.  If you can, please support in one of the ways she suggests below. 

Even if you cannot, here's a small thing you can do help spread the word: LinkedIn doesn't like links in posts so please like/share to help me with the algo.

And, if you've got suggestions to add, please do so in the comments. Specific commentary is always helpful. 

p.s. if this post offends you, I am completely fine with you unfollowing me. 

----

“Dios Habla Hoy
This church has been on the ground for months actively helping families who are unable to leave home. I loved this interview with their head pastor: https://lnkd.in/dNUrbfCC

The main website is here (https://www.dhhmn.com/) and the link to give to rental assistance is here (https://lnkd.in/dzsKjpKP).

GoFundMe
The problem for many families is that they are distrustful of providing their addresses to any organization. The nonprofits often require those addresses, but providing it comes with risks to the family. ICE agents sit and wait outside food distribution centers, following volunteers to the homes of vulnerable families. Our food shelves are having to tell families not to come in person: https://lnkd.in/dh83a6eV One of our food shelves even confirmed that plain clothes ICE agents had signed up as volunteer delivery drivers. 

Because of this, many families and neighborhood groups are setting up GoFundMe campaigns for direct support. 

Here are two I recommend:
* https://lnkd.in/drA94SUU
* https://lnkd.in/d-ZgTgH4

Mexico City Cafe
The number of restaurants closed in Minneapolis is really shocking. Restaurants with more white employees can still operate, but many of those that employed mainly black and brown people are having to temporarily shut down. This one is close to my heart, as it’s in my neighborhood. They are currently completely closed. 
* https://lnkd.in/dY4BjYBA

Thank you all so much for your support <3 “

Founder of Happy Paying Customers™ System: validate your idea and de-risk your business with micro-tests | Used by 110+ founders | Seasoned GTM specialist: $85M+ revenue generated

Open article: Donate to Support Mexico City Cafe & Staff, organized by Rita Garcia by gofundme.com

Donate to Support Mexico City Cafe & Staff, organized by Rita Garcia

It breaks my heart to see founders chasing someone else's dream.

Want to know the secret step every successful founder in my portfolio took in their early days?

It's not writing a business plan or securing funding. It's defining what success looks like - for you as the founder, at every stage of your entrepreneurial journey.

Reading headlines or fancy posts on here will fool you into believing you MUST be the next unicorn startup, have a certain number of employees, or to hit a specific revenue target.

But the truth is, success looks different for everyone. And if you don't take the time to define what it looks like for you, you risk building a business that doesn't align with your values, goals, or lifestyle.

🔥 So how do you define success for your business?

Here are some reflection prompts I've shared with my closest friends and family when they tell me they want to start a business:

1️⃣ What does my ideal workday look like Day 1, in Year 1? Year 5?
2️⃣ How much revenue do I need to generate to support my desired lifestyle at each stage?
3️⃣ Do I have sufficient PERSONAL runway for a year or more?
4️⃣ What impact do I want to have on my customers, my industry, and the world?
5️⃣ Who are my dream customers (people you'll be inevitably spending a TON of time with)?
6️⃣ What kind of team do I want to build, and what culture do I want to create?
7️⃣ How will I know when I've "made it"?
8️⃣ What sacrifices am I willing (and not willing) to make for my business?
9️⃣ What impact will this business have (or shouldn't have) on the most important things in my life?

Take the time to really think through your answers. Get specific. Write them down. Add more questions or prompts.

And most importantly, make sure they're true to YOU.

Once you have clarity on your personal definition of success, use it as a guidepost for every decision you make in your business.

These responses should even guide the idea you prioritize, or whom you decide to work with, and absolutely the business model.

Always ask yourself: "Does this align with my vision of success?"

Remember, you're the one who has to live with the consequences of your choices.

Don't let anyone else dictate what success should look like for you and your business.

Define it for yourself, at every stage of your journey, and then go out and make it happen.

p.s. if you've got an idea you want to validate and turn into a business this year, DM me the concept. I promise to give you kind, candid reactions!

It was nearly midnight on Jan 1st, and I found myself at a luxury resort in Riviera Maya, sipping cocktails with friends, and discussing our goals for 2026. 

That's when one of them confessed: "I want to start a business."

As a 2x founder and startup coach, I shared what I've learnt along the way about making the plunge over from corporate (esp. as a high-achiever). 

As I was reflecting on this topic further, here are the 5 things I wish someone had told me to do when building a new business post corporate:

1️⃣ Define success for your business:

Get specific about financial goals, work-life balance, team size, funding strategy, etc. Make sure your definition of success aligns with your personal values and lifestyle. 

(I did a whole post on this yesterday with very specific reflection prompts. I'll include that post in the comments).

2️⃣ Determine whom you solve what problem for:

 Identify your target customer and the problem you're uniquely positioned to solve. Be crystal clear on your niche and value proposition.

3️⃣ Figure out how *you* will make money:

Don't get caught up in vanity metrics like app downloads or social media followers. Focus on creating a sustainable revenue model from day one that result in meaningful take-home for you. 

4️⃣ Validate your hypotheses ASAP:

Only real proof is getting real people to pay you to solve the problem. 

(This is exactly why I created the Happy Paying Customers ™ System - to validate your idea in the real world). 

5️⃣ Put aside enough PERSONAL runway for at least a year:

Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. Having a financial safety net will give you the peace of mind to focus on building your business. 

(Pro tip: Don't be afraid to start with a "bridge business" to generate revenue while you build your dream business). 

So if you're a corporate high-achiever dreaming of starting your own thing, don't let fear hold you back. Take action, but do it strategically. Define your success, validate your ideas, and give yourself the runway to make it happen.

Trust me, your future founder self will thank you. 🚀

What's the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business? Share your wisdom in the comments below! 👇

(photo: delicious breakfast haul one of the days at the resort! I promise I shared it lol)

Someone threw fries at me. All for sitting at the 'senior' table in high school. How was a 14-year old new immigrant kid to know this table was off limits?! 😅

When I first moved here, I had no idea how to navigate the system...or that I even had to. 

But as anyone who has had to navigate a brand new system can attest, you quickly start to notice patterns on how to survive (then comes thriving!). 

Take school for example: I learnt the power of making nice with the counselor who could get me into all my top choice classes (and also wrote my recommendation letter for college!). 

Then came college: each teacher had their quirks - some classes were a breeze if you just showed up and crammed before tests. Others, like finance, took more work. But as long as I understood the rules of each 'system' (read: class), I'd be fine. I graduated in 3 years with honors. I'd say it worked out great haha 

Then I entered the workforce and realized the corporate world has its unwritten rules too. (That's likely an understatement LOL)

At first, I put my head down and developed my skills. Later, I focused more on visibility and relationships. That's what helped me double my salary and land jobs I never could otherwise. 
 
Looking back, I see a common thread. 

In any new environment, there's the game everyone sees and then there's the meta-game. The key is to look beyond the surface and figure out what really makes the system tick.

✨ It's not about gaming the system in a shady way. It's about understanding the unspoken dynamics so you can be intentional with your energy.

Now, I'm bringing this mindset into 2026. How might I ethically "game the system" to 2x my revenue this year and scale my real estate investments? 

What are the right levers to pull? 
Where is my energy best spent? 
What are boring ones I must still do?
What are the tough things I need help on? 
Where can I be imperfect and still be fine? 

I'm channeling teenage Sweta's confidence to navigate this new year. At least I know no one will be throwing fries at me🤞 

Because ultimately, it's not about gaming the system. It's about facing the reality of the system we're in and knowing how to excel in it - on our own terms.

👉 Anyone relate to needing to learn how to work a system?! (1000 bonus points if you've had food thrown at you)

taplio

The Battle

Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

Sweta Govani 🧩

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJustyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSweta Govani 🧩's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

Sweta Govani 🧩

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSweta Govani 🧩's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJustyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan's LinkedIn Performance