Hey, I'm Obaid 👋🏼

Here's my journey, so far:

☎️ started off in sales, scaled a content writing company from $1.7M ARR to $7.2M ARR in 2 years (this was also my intro to content writing/SEO)

🎭 bootstrapped a 5-person content & animation team to $35k MRR, and edited 3,000+ blog posts, grew 6 websites to 150k+ in monthly search traffic, trained 40+ content marketers, wrote and directed 15 animated explainer videos, and closed $1M in sales along the way

💤 got bored of that side of content marketing (I didn't it find it challenging anymore nor was I learning anything new), so I moved on from running an agency in late 2021, gradually quit all my writing gigs, and began transitioning to demand gen

🎨 started posting more on LinkedIn in March 2022, began exploring new marketing concepts, and creating a variety of content (marketing music, marketing/gaming content, skits, etc.) that got some traction

📚 created a framework that grew a marketing agency's LinkedIn presence (872% increase in views, 917% increase in likes, 104% increase in shares, 64% increase in followers, and $274k in new MRR) in 4 months

🎮 started a podcast called Cheat Codes (which became one of the top 20% most-shared podcasts in the world) and co-created The Easy Mode Framework, which helps B2B SaaS companies turn their in-house marketing team into creators & establish a content engine built on their company's goals, narrative, product, and audience

🎯 implemented the Easy Mode framework at Cognism over a 4-month period, helping them craft a strategic narrative, ideate and create a wide variety of content, and refine their content engine (Alice de Courcy, their CMO, wrote a book and talked about me in it, FTW)

🔮 started 2023 tired of jumping around from place to place all of 2022 (and having stumbled upon something I really enjoyed doing with the Easy Mode framework), I took a break from job hunting, deciding I'd choose what kind of work I did and which companies I worked with from that point on

🐐 after a 3-month break and passing on a few companies, I was convinced by Emir Atli to join HockeyStack as their first full-time marketer in March 2023, and it's been the perfect place for me to learn, experiment, and make an impact

I'm a life-long fan of music, anime, the Philadelphia Eagles, and my wife and kids.

Feel free to connect if you want to talk about HockeyStack, The Flow, marketing, design, consultation, video games, or space. ✌🏼

Obaid Durrani

Founder & Creative Director

Helping B2B SaaS companies increase ARR through strategic media engines

Hey, I'm Obaid 👋🏼

Here's my journey, so far:

☎️ started off in sales, scaled a content writing company from $1.7M ARR to $7.2M ARR in 2 years (this was also my intro to content writing/SEO)

🎭 bootstrapped a 5-person content & animation team to $35k MRR, and edited 3,000+ blog posts, grew 10+ websites to 150k+ in monthly search traffic, trained 40+ content marketers, wrote and directed 30 animated explainer videos, and closed $1M in sales along the way

💤 COVID hit, the world changed, so I moved on from running an agency in late 2021, gradually quit all my writing gigs, and began focusing on learning B2B GTM 

🎨 started posting more on LinkedIn in March 2022, began exploring new marketing concepts, and creating a variety of content (marketing music, marketing/gaming content, skits, etc.) that got some traction

📚 created a framework that grew a marketing agency's LinkedIn presence (872% increase in views, 917% increase in likes, 104% increase in shares, 64% increase in followers, and $274k in new MRR) in 4 months

🎮 started a podcast called Cheat Codes (which became one of the top 20% most-shared podcasts in the world) and co-created The Easy Mode Framework, which helps B2B SaaS companies turn their in-house marketing team into creators & establish a content engine built on their company's goals, narrative, product, and audience

🎯 implemented the Easy Mode framework at Cognism (their CMO Alice de Courcy wrote two books and talked about me in them, FTW), and parts of the framework at Meta. The Easy Mode Framework is now being used by 20+ B2B SaaS companies, such as Intercom, Directus, and more

🔮 started 2023 tired of jumping around from place to place all of 2022 (and having stumbled upon something I really enjoyed doing with the Easy Mode framework), I took a break from job hunting, deciding I'd choose what kind of work I did and which companies I worked with from that point on

🚀 after a 3-month break and passing on a few companies, I joined HockeyStack as their first and only marketer in March 2023. I created a media engine from scratch that drove millions in pipeline and resulted in the company growing from 0 to 7 figures by December 2023

✈️ in Dec 2023, I moved back to the US and in March 2023, moved on from my role at HockeyStack

🏔 after taking some time off and settling down in Colorado, I joined Clay to help build out their influencer marketing program

I'm a life-long fan of music, anime, the Philadelphia Eagles, and my wife and kids.

Feel free to connect if you want to talk marketing, video games, or space. ✌🏼

Creator Advisor

Cognism on Easy Mode.

"IF I WAS THE HEAD OF MARKETING AT A $70M+ ARR COMPANY, HERE'S-"

but you're not

are you?

so i dont wanna hear it

Todd Clouser 🧙‍♂️💜

I learned content growing a YouTube channel from 0 - 10M+ monthly views.
I learned social by building an audience of over 1M followers across channels.
I learned community growing two Facebook groups to 12k+ monthly active users.
I learned influencer marketing building a team of 15+ creators that drove millions in DTC revenue.


Now I help B2B companies incorporate those strategies and tactics to build their own marketing machine.

DM me to chat.

Party Wizard

https://qrco.de/be1MOp

Todd Clouser

Things I want to see more (and less) of on LinkedIn this year:

MORE:
- detailed playbooks on small experiments that you've run with real numbers/results (wins and losses)

- entertainment connected to messaging and povs (not just product)

- community -- at one point LI felt like a big community, now it feels like ground zero for the dead internet theory

- collabs -- speaking of community, we used to collab for the fun of it and to see how audiences reacted. Nowadays pretty much any collab comes with a dollar sign.

*personal one* - a return of cheat codes (Obaid?)


LESS:

- 'hooks' -- we've glorified clickbait as 'good hooks'. I'm so tired of reading/watching content where every sentence is a tease to the next sentence. Yes, I understand that you want me to get to the end, but once upon a time we did that with good content instead of holding value hostage with every freakin sentence.

- AI generated content -- probably gunna get hate for this one, but i don't agree with the 'typing my thoughts into ChatGT and then refining the output is not the same as ai-generated content' argument. feel free to disagree, but (in my opinion) ChatGPT is a crutch and makes you far less creative the more you use it and LI far less enjoyable.

- AI comments -- 18 months ago (when AI was more obvious) we all pointed and laughed at the ai comments. Now that AI is good (and harder to spot) everyone has adopted ai comments.  **see community bullet above**

What do you want to see more/less of here this year?

Shout to Jen Allen-Knuth for prompting the idea for this post.

Tech hub people be ravin on rooftops and shit in their "day in the life".

I haven't shaved in a month and just kinda move throughout my house a lot.

Anyone else?

taplio

The Battle

Obaid Durrani

Todd Clouser

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taplio

The Battle

Obaid Durrani

Todd Clouser

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);}Obaid Durrani's LinkedIn Performance

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