CEO & Co-Founder GrowthAssistant | Helping 200+ companies leverage elite global talent to delegate rote tasks and maximize ROI

I did the scary thing. I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO:

Yet - within 4 years - we crossed $20,000,000 ARR. Totally bootstrapped! The secret to our growth? The value and ROI we provide make my company GrowthAssistant a simple business decision.

So what is GrowthAssistant doing? Why are 100+ companies - including brands like Calm, Hubspot, WeightWatcher, WPP or DoorDash - relying on us?

The idea is simple: We embed elite offshore talent into your company. When done right, it's magic. And we support you along the way to ensure it's done right.

Embedding offshore talent? Here's what it means:
Your $100k hires are likely still doing $15 / hour tasks. Tasks like launching ads, scheduling posts, pulling the weekly report or checking UTMs. Those tasks bog down teams. And our talent - we call them Growth Assistants - take them off your plate.

They join your team including Slack, Zoom and any other systems.  They work your hours. They are the secret sauce many effective teams use to scale.

Want to learn more? Just drop me a LinkedIn message and let's connect!

That's me: After running HR for 10+ years in a trading firm, I am now the CEO of my own company. And it has been wild. I learned a lot. Failed a lot. (See my featured posts for some of my learnings)

Forbes just named GrowthAssistant one of the best startups to work at.

Wow. Just got off a 23h plane ride to the Philippines and saw this.

Out of 20,000+ eligible companies.

I think this is the best way to kick-off our biggest company off-site today.
We're in good company too: Anthropic, Deel, Ramp, ClickUp, and… Growth Assistant.

Awards are great.

But on a day like today, surrounded by our entire internal team of 50+ Growth Assistants, “best startup up to work at” means more. It means building real growth opportunities for incredibly talented human beings. 

Creating a community around what we do.

That’s the real reason Jesse Pujji and I started GrowthAssistant.

To connect growing brands with amazing marketers, and build a community where those marketers can grow.

The best part was being able to experience this next to Alexis B., who, ironically, just designed the entire offsite for our Support and Client team. When we saw the news, we were both in tears.

“Are you crying?” Yep. Me too.

Incredibly grateful for how much everyone puts in every day to build this. It pays off. 

https://lnkd.in/gHSi7TAg

Adriane Schwager

Jesse Pujji and I just celebrated 5 years of GrowthAssistant.

Here’s our reflections on our co-founder dynamic that scaled us to $22M ARR:

1/ Shared background

Jesse and I have been friends since middle school.

If you told us at age 14, we never would have guessed we’d be in an office together, in our home town, St. Louis.

Our shared hometown connection makes candor and honesty easy. Many founders fail because of this.

2/ Deep Trust

Even when life moved us apart, our deep trust forged our connection.

I saw his journey as he built and scaled Ampush to 8 figures.

He advised me along every step of my corporate career.

After 14 years in corporate, when I wanted to start a business, I wanted to found with someone I could trust.

He was my first call.

3/ Holding each other accountable

I asked Jesse what surprised him most about working with me.

“I was surprised by how competitive you can be.”

He’s right. When I set a goal, I attach myself to making it happen.

Jesse’s role has been to level me when my goals are unrealistic, or when focus needs to shift.

I do the same for him.

4/ Domain expertise

Found with someone who’s an expert in something you’re not.

Jesse is exceptional at knowing the exact talent needs marketing teams have AND the founders of our biggest clients personally.

My strength is my 20+ year background in recruiting.

It's the best team GrowthAssistant could've asked for.

5/ Demarcation

We're co-founders. But I'm CEO.

I listen to his strong opinions about marketing, AI, hiring. It can often get heated.

But I make the call.

It can get tough. But it’s one of the best things about working together. And critical for a co-founder partnership that scales our business.

Our startup GrowthAssistant helps the best startups hire globally for marketing roles.

DoorDash, HubSpot, Calm, and 200+ others save 80%+ on talent costs and delegate rote work away from their core team.

Start hiring abroad:
https://lnkd.in/gysXV_hq

This VP just joined my team. In her first 50 days, she’s added $100K value.

She’s smart. She’s capable. But she’s done THIS one thing better than any hire:

Onboarding.

I asked her to compile every resource she used to onboard herself quickly.

It’s the same guide she gives anyone who joins our team: success metrics that keep scale repeatable, the Qs new hires forget to ask, 30 60 90 day plans, etc.

Over the past month, I’ve seen the difference.

Right now, I’m giving away the guide away for free:

Comment “GA” and I’ll DM it.

Your best hire is probably the person you just counted out.

I found the magic question to understand people more deeply.

I’ve hired hundreds. Interviewed thousands.

12 years of recruiting taught me to end every interview with this question:

“What’s the biggest misconception about you?”

There’s no right answer, the responses surprise me every time.

It tends to take people off their rehearsed talk track, and reveals how well someone actually knows themself. Self-awareness.

Perfect example: final round interview for an HR role on my team. This candidate made it through every round, but she seemed quiet, reserved. 

Low energy.

In 5 minutes, I created a story that she was low agency, not proactive.

Honestly, I’d almost moved on to the next candidate.

Then I asked the question.

She paused. Then said something I still think about:

"I probably seem really quiet to you.

I'm Asian. I'm a woman.

I think I look like the type of person who's not usually engaged. I’ve been given feedback that I’m a vocal, active leader, but in my first hour with people, I think people make assumptions.

Between you and me, I think my gender, my ethnicity work against me”

I was shocked at her fearless answer.

We continued talking about how people stereotyped us. I was worried she would be deferential, not what I want in a leadership position, her proactive sharing revealed something every leader needs:

Self-awareness. She understood how she was being perceived, and wasn’t afraid to name it.

And, she had the confidence to reframe it as a strength.

I hired her.

She’s been on the team for 6 months (she knows who she is!) and she’s made great impact because of what I assumed would be her biggest weakness. I can admit I was wrong.

12 years of recruiting in, and building my company GrowthAssistant to $22M ARR, I’m learning and sharing my lessons so you don’t have to learn them yourself.

I’ll teach you about hiring, AI, shifting marketing roles with posts daily. Follow Adriane Schwager for more!

Here’s the most important thing about letting people go:

Help them prepare for the next role. 

One of our VPs joined my team 2 years ago, when we were a lean team of 8, working dawn to dusk, to win clients like DoorDash, Ro, etc. 

2 years later, we’re at $22M ARR, he’s been a driving force behind that.

A couple weeks ago, he let me know he’d be leaving GrowthAssistant. Here’s how I’m off-boarding him, and preparing him for his next journey: 

1/ Candid performance review for each other

This is something a lot of CEOs skip in off-boarding: 

I give him his last performance review, shared nuggets he can take with him on his next journey: growth areas, where his zone of genius lies, how to not get trapped into being less strategic. 

But, I also opened the floor for him to review me. 

He shared where he thought my strategic blind spots were from a biz ops perspective. That’s worth everything, and unlocked this insight… 

2/ Evaluate “what do I need next in this position?” 

We reflected on how his role evolved. 

He started doing finance, but grew to be 85% biz ops. 

It’s making me question: what does the business need now? 

When leaders depart, consider the opportunity for you: What will make my team 10x better? What does my business need now to 2x growth, from this role specifically, and in general? 

3/ Send them off with a message from everyone

My team compiled 40+ messages in a board

And for a half an hour, surprised with a mini-roast and biz-ops themed gifts. 

We joked it was one of our most expensive meetings yet. 

Celebrating the wins and the losses we can laugh at now creates an opportunity-culture. 

20 years of recruiting in, and building my company GrowthAssistant to $22M ARR, I’m sharing the leadership playbook that keeps my team growing. 

I’ll teach you about hiring, AI, shifting marketing roles with posts daily. Follow Adriane Schwager for more.

I’m a first-time CEO and mom running a $20M business. It all works because of my schedule:

Here’s a week in my life:

SUNDAY:

This is when a founder’s week begins. If I get the set up wrong, everything goes wrong. 

My priorities:

> Urgent/on-fire emails

> Reviewing my CEO dashboard to see where we're off plan

> Prepping my deep dives for the week: which department I focus on to problem-solve and get us back on plan

> Critical thinking time

MONDAY: 

I front-load all of my 1:1s. 

By doing this first thing, I immediately find where blockers are and can push my team to stretch. 

I design my goals in month-long sprints, so every week is critical. 

Monday’s also where I meet with my co-founder Jesse Pujji. In our time, we address top priorities/blockers/strategies/etc. 

Jesse also helps me think through desired future states and how to get there quicker. 

TUESDAY

90-minute team meetings with all my departments.

Any big clients that want to meet/need help or that I want to check in with.

Tuesday is demand side. Progress to date, leads, meetings, marketing & sales plans etc.

WEDNESDAY

We’re far enough along in the week that I expect to see movement. 

I meet leaders as needed to help course correct.

Wednesday afternoon is when I meet my EA, Gee. This is a huge priority. 

I go through my calendar two weeks in advance, adjust for holidays, travel, our Q1 bets, leaders out of office, etc. 

Then date night with my husband. 

THURSDAY

Heaviest work day. Ad hoc meetings on important items.

Push things to the finish line where they’re stuck.

And I get 15:5s from my leaders. Quickest way I’ve seen to evaluate progress and problem solve.

FRIDAY

Review 15:5s, emergency client calls, ad-hoc.

But no meetings post-noon. I close out the week and take time to plan for the one ahead. 

If you look closely at successful people though, you'll start to see a pattern...

More time spent ON the business, rather than IN it. 

But it only works because of the infrastructure I built: me and my top team focus on strategy. 

We’re supported by a tactical team of 50+ Growth Assistants- global experts in marketing, ops, social, paid, design, SDR. 

The same talent trusted by HubSpot, Reddit, Ro, 200+ clients. 

If you’re looking to scale with elite global talent- for a fraction of US FTE $: 

Let’s talk:
https://lnkd.in/g_VS57Zn

Last week, I flew two candidates across the country for a final round.

What happened at 11:17pm that night made my decision for me.

Both came highly recommended.

Both impressed in conversation.

Candidate A had the technical skills I was looking for.

If I was hiring on paper, she was the obvious ‘yes.’

But after meeting myself and several members of my team, she didn’t send a text, a note, or even a “thanks for you time.” Nothing.

Candidate B didn’t have the exact technical skillset.

But she took feedback from every conversation that day, went back to her hotel, and reworked her case study incorporating the input.

At 11:17 p.m. that night, I got a notification from my inbox.

“Made some edits based on what we talked about today. Just in case it’s of value.”

The next morning, every member of my team had handwritten notes on their desk.

Same opportunity. Same access.

Completely different signal.

I sent Candidate B the offer letter 2 days ago.

After 12 years in recruiting, I haven’t seen the pattern change (there’s no trick either):

The follow-up is where most people lose. It takes 5 minutes.

It's how I know who actually wants to be part of what we're building. That’s what I’m looking for.

I post daily about hiring, AI, and building a $22M company.

Follow Adriane Schwager for more stories like this!

I don’t post like this, but I’ve been sitting with something that I can’t shake.

When 19 people you placed need a new home… it weighs on you.

A client recently let me know they were shrinking ops, and the team I placed with them would be rolled off by the end of the month.

In 12 years of recruiting, I’ve never had a rolloff like this– every single person scored a 9/10 or 10/10 on their evaluation.

And every person was reapproved to reenter our talent pool.

If you knew me as a recruiter, that’s a high bar.

That’s why I’m doing something about this.

Q2 budgets are up. The brands pulling ahead in paid, social, and creative have the right people in the right seats.

Let me introduce you to a few of them (and what they can do for you).

EJ — Grad of our first AI design accelerator, so she’s experienced in rapidly iterating on new Meta concepts (hooks, static + light image, new product photography w/o photoshoots) and everything else that comes with 13 years experience.

Arantxa — 4+ years running full-funnel strategy for major retail brands. Improved ROAS 40%, reduced CPS 35%, managed $2M+ in annual spend. She'll own your paid strategy end to end.

Guilherme — 4+ years in performance marketing, expert in Meta. Managed $2.5M in ad spend + pioneered a digital ad strategy that scaled his clients budget 30%, week 1. I’d hand him my ad budget, and be confident it’d multiply.

Ali — 4+ years as an end-to-end social manager. 50+ posts/month, blog content, and built a creative engine that boosted reach 49%. I can see her being a great fit with founders scaling on LI or X, no matter the stage in growth.

Jared — 15 years, paid media and ops. 7x'd his last client's ROAS from 1.9 → 14.1 in 6 months. He told me he was in his client’s accounts, tweaking spend, before they were. Wow.

These are 5 of 19.

AI-trained designers, paid social, influencer/content, paid search. All proven. All ready to join your team now.

I’m so confident in this talent, I’ll cover their first month on your team. Free.
DM me if you’re interested. Or share with a friend who might be.

First come first served. They need a new home by EOM.

AI-trained designers

I just talked to two digital marketers managing 30+ agency clients between them.

They only keep up because of ONE AI workflow.

Different experiences, different day to day. Same playbook:

Analyze → pressure-test with AI → execute.

That’s how they’re solving the problem most growing agencies face:

No QA team. No extra headcount. Same high volume.

The media buyer used to spend 3–4 hours buried in Ads Manager pulling week-over-week data, checking pacing, validating attribution, building reports.

Now?

He feeds performance data, promo calendars, and seasonality context into Claude. In minutes, he's working off up to date analysis that used to take half a day.

That frees him to check ROAS across 11 accounts every hour, scale budgets 20% at a time when sometime’s working, and kill what isn’t working on sight.

That moves the needle.

The strategist’s workflow is different.

But the pattern is the same.

She manages 12 accounts across different CRMs and platforms. She’s experienced in finding patterns in data quickly, it’s double-checking that takes long.

Before submitting recommendations, she prompts Gemini to pressure-test her intuition:

"I’m seeing X. Where are the leaks? What am I missing? What should I test next?"

She pressure-tests her intuition before anyone else does. No QA team required.

The best paid social operators I’ve met aren’t waiting for support.

They’re combining their expert judgement with AI to cover ground that used to take a whole team.

My team’s placing paid social specialists like these who know Meta inside and out and leverage AI to move fast.

The same talent trusted by teams at HubSpot, Reddit, DoorDash, 200+ more.

If your paid team is stretched thin (or stuck in QA loops) you don’t need another dashboard.

You need operators who’ve built their own edge.
https://lnkd.in/gP_YMPTQ

Our new 2026 plan is pacing 50% of goal nearing the end of Q1. I feel a pit my stomach when I see red on dashboards. Here’s how to actually recalibrate when something doesn’t work:

There’s frameworks all over LinkedIn. 

But you can’t use the Einstein matrix for real world issues. 

Here’s how I actually prioritize. 

1/ 50% at day 50 isn’t a tactic problem, it’s a strategy problem

Who are we trying to reach? What value are we bring them?

Are they helping us reach our goal? 

If it’s not working, that trade-off is broken somewhere. 

This is a world of AI, we’re recording everything. My team’s going over every recorded sales call, analyzing all objections, and redefine our sales strategy for these high qualified designers. 

That’s orienting our action plan for how we pivot and still hit our goal.

2/ Know when to invest

My team runs lean. 

We have over $1M+ revenue per employee. 

Bootstrapping profitably is one of my personal, core values. 

But not hitting goals is signal to invest, so I’m making three foundational hires to develop operations, sourcing, and sales for this Q1 push. 

And I feel confident investing in US strategic talent because execution is covered by my team of 50+ Growth Assistants (the same talent trusted by Reddit, Ro, Calm). 

But investing in new talent still doesn’t take that uneasy feeling out of my stomach… that’s why

3/ When I feel it, I take a walk. 

That ‘I’ve had too much, and I can’t operate’ feeling?

That’s when I take the walk, do the deep breathing, guided mediation. 

It’s a physiological thing that’s happening to my sympathetic arousal. 

It gets especially hard being on the Zoom world, but that makes getting out in the real world even more important. 

We're placing the best AI-enabled talent in the world

Talent trusted by HubSpot, Notion, Ro, 200+ more brands.

https://lnkd.in/gUeEHQVU

Yesterday, I stopped an interview 10 minutes to say this.

“Never use ChatGPT in an interview again.”

In 12 years of recruiting, thousands of interviews, I’ve never seen such a qualified candidate bomb an interview so badly.

The culprit? AI deepfaking.

It’s been silently poisoning my entire hiring team. As of Feb. 2026, 21% of candidates who apply to our postings have been AI deepfakes.

Here’s what’s becoming the new normal…

– AI-generated (nonsensical) resumes 
– Scripted, AI-generated interview responses 
– Recruitment wasting 3 hours/day on candidate that don’t exist.

With this candidate… I should’ve known better:

The red flags were all there.

His resume didn’t add up:

On paper: 5 years as a digital marketer. From startup, to big logo, now looking for a new growth opportunity. Clean story.

But based in St. Louis, works in Shreveport, Louisiana, and company based in Philadelphia? That’s when I pause.

He aced our rigorous skills test. Killed our AI-skills test (ironic… right?)

I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Then the interview started.

I asked him:

“Talk to me about a project you’ve done in Meta Ads Manager.” Should be simple.

Background noise, strange pause. His eyes darted to the right.

He started reciting how he lowered ROAS…

I cut him before he was done:

“I can tell you are reading off a script.”

He assured me he wasn’t, until I told him you would want to raise ROAS. Suddenly, he left the call.

Reality is, AI isn’t the problem. But unvetted AI “talent” is.

Here’s how I’m changing my filters:

1/ Screening for the story

When I read the resume, I should’ve been filtering for the career arc.

I’m hiring his story. A narrative that doesn’t make sense? Not what I want.

2/ Finding candidates from trusted sources

Here are some of my team’s most reliable anti-deepfake tools:

Juicebox for AI-powered talent sourcing. Where we define exactly what we’re looking for, not just on keywords, but with context.

LinkedIn Hiring Assistant for handling candidate volume. The layer that cross-references profiles, flags inconsistencies, and ranks candidates based on signal.

3/ Still vet for AI

I don’t want AI-powered interviewees. But I do want AI-fluent marketers.

I test every candidate for AI skills (prompting, role-specific tools, speed) to make sure that my team’s placing the best AI-powered marketers. Talent’s constantly up-skilled with the latest AI tools and workflows.

Every candidate I place goes through exact process:

AI-fluent, technically savvy marketers, designers, and ops- trusted for scale at brands like HubSpot, Reddit, DoorDash- all without the hiring risk.

Overwhelmed by interviewing AI output?

We built the filter, my team’s ready to vet for you.

https://lnkd.in/gdr_Mcxb

2 years into GrowthAssistant, we were doing $9M ARR. 100% bootstrapped.

Until Jesse Pujji told me: “You have to work less.”

It was long nights, working till dawn, taking every candidate interview during the day, then at night I was HR, sourcing, recruiting, finances, sales.

We scaled by brute force.

But 2 years in, Jesse stopped me cold.

We wouldn’t grow unless I stepped away from running our recruiting engine.

Strategy needed my focus. My team of myself and 2 Growth Assistants just hit a wall. It was hard to hear.

Year 5, the most noticeable change is my “trust, but verify” system:

TRUST

I started by hiring talent that I felt could do the thing.

I couldn’t run every interview anymore, so I hired people I felt confident could do it like I could.

It didn’t always work.

It required pivots, as I learned what my business needed. What I, as a leader, needed to put me on strategic work.

But, once I saw someone repeatedly hit their number, I could start to:

VERIFY (year 5 difference)

I recently passed off internal reviews to a new hire. How I “Verify” was my moat.

The pass off starts with trust that the team would get it right. That’s on me.

But I needed verification, an objective source of truth, it’s done right. That’s on them.

I base it on data, facts, measurable outcomes. For internal reviews, that was data around response rate, average reviews, etc.

At the end of the process, they handed off that top-level reporting to me, they even included top-line action items- who I needed to talk to, visibility on where there were problems, and their plans on how to problem solve.

5 years ago, I’d never imagine myself out of the weeds- but getting out of the weeds and delegating is how I’ve scaled to $22M ARR.

I’m helping brands like DoorDash, Ro, Calm, 200+ more delegate.

Embedding global experts in marketing, design, influencer, SDR to bring strategic leaders out of execution.

Ready for scale?
https://lnkd.in/gue4p-xw

I’m in shock. Before resigning, one of my most capable growth marketers told me this:

“I can tell you don’t trust my work.”

I think my heart actually skipped a beat.

In the past 3 years, this marketer has transformed several of our channels into meeting engines, millions of impressions on organic channels, booked thousands of meetings.

He didn’t feel seen.

I’m a pretty competitive person, and once I attach myself to a goal, I won’t stop working until we hit the number.

But great leaders know how they set goals affect how their team reaches them.

Here are the leadership insights I immediately changed once hearing this:

1/ Verify KPIs with trust

This was the crux of our problem.

He would regularly hit goals, go viral on LI with 2M+ impressions.

But, we never aligned on the best way to communicate when things would go right.

The effect: I wasn’t communicating that I trusted he was hitting his metrics. Here’s how I am in his last weeks:

2/ Celebrate when things go right

Millions of impressions on LI is amazing.

Even when I see room for improvement, I’m taking the time to give kudos when I see something that’s exciting for our team.

3/ Calibrate weekly

I was most shocked by his feedback- because we spoke very regularly.
He never brought it up.

I’m taking accountability, and checking in weekly 1:1s with all of my team:

“Do you feel supported? Is there anything I can give on my end?”

A leader’s most effective moat is how they support their team. And how their team feels supported.

I’ve made mistakes like these so you don’t have to. 12 years of recruiting in, and building my company GrowthAssistant to $22M ARR, these failures taught me more than any success.

I’ll teach you about hiring, AI, shifting marketing roles with posts daily. Follow Adriane Schwager for more!

If you’re scaling marketing in 2026, here’s exactly how I’d take advantage of GEO/AEO hype. This playbook closed $1M LLM discovery for my company.

(I’m literally leaking our best playbooks, bookmark this one) 

1. Build for decision prompts (not keywords)

We already rank content around prompts like “X vs Y,” “Best X for Y,” “Pricing,” “Security,” “Migration from A.”

In 2026 we’re turning that into a real Q&A hub: 

1 page = 1 decision, TL;DR on top, neutral comparison table underneath.

2. Make proof AI-quotable

We stopped hiding wins in PDFs and “pretty” case studies. LLMs don’t read those well.

Now every case study gets scannable H2/H3s + a claim block: metric, date (“as of May 2025”), and what drove it.

Next step: publish more “micro-proofs” (short, specific outcomes) so GPT has more ammo to cite.

3. Clean identity so models trust you

We tightened the basics: one canonical name/tagline, consistent across LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and the site.

We added a public facts page: ICP, positioning, integrations, security contact, and dated numbers.

4. Track share-of-answers, not rankings

A Growth Assistant built a tight list of must-win buyer prompts for our categories.

Weekly, we run them ourselves in ChatGPT / Gemini / Perplexity as well as tools like AthenaHQ and log: 

show up? where? what got cited?

Then we ship the gap: 

new page, updated facts, better proof, or a credibility hit (podcast/listicle/roundup).

ONE $3k GEO Assistant used this playbook to generate six figures in 90 days for a single client.

Start growing:
https://lnkd.in/gJ-PTVCd

My team's most capable growth marketer just gave his 2 weeks. The loss might cost over $100K.

Here’s how our new CMO is handling the change:

She’s 90 days in. Still learning the ropes.

I asked her how she’d still hit our Q1 bets without a key team member.

Here’s what she said:

1/ Stop doing what doesn’t work

Her first initiative isn’t something new.

It’s stopping what isn’t working.

In her first weeks, she discovered we were paying search dollars for the term “Jesse Pujji.”

That traffic wasn’t converting (sorry Jesse) so she shut it off, and is putting that spend towards what she thinks will work:

2/ Multiplying what IS working

She’s seeing signal in paid search on non-branded search terms.

From that response, she’s making a tactful bet on the channel most B2Bs spend $100K/month on.

She told me that betting on this channel, that’s already working, would counter balance the initial loss of my team’s biggest lead generator.

But I pushed back, with this question:

3/ When are you measuring your bets?

2 months? 6 months? 2x the buying cycle?

She told me she’d measuring her bets every week on forms started and forms completed

And each week, she’s centering her team around optimizing for meetings booked, with an eye on how deals closed correlate within a three week range. Our long funnel’s strategy won’t be immediately evident in the same way D2C would be. Wow.

Even though we’re losing our biggest lead generator, I’m confident her tactful bet strategy will counter balance growth.

The other reason I’m confident? My US team is supported by 50+ Growth Assistants, global experts in digital marketing, design, ops, and more.

The same talent trusted by HubSpot, Reddit, Calm, 200+ more.

Ready to scale?
https://lnkd.in/gXdjVvu4

I just spoke to three of the most impressive, AI-fluent designers. Grads from my $97K AI accelerator. They all told me the same thing about AI: 

The unlock isn’t more output.

It’s better quality assets that come more often, to allow strategy teams to test multiple variations and scale what works. 

Here's what I watched them do:

1/ Boosted campaigns with quick localization

One designer boosted a campaign’s ROAS by generating more “Floridian” versions of a successful static ad. 

His workflow took 30 minutes, using the base static as a prompt in NanoBanana to generate 15 localized versions of the ad.

2/ Lowering the barrier to video

Another designer showed my team dozens of ads with motion: koi fish swimming, aquatic grass swaying. I asked where she found the footage. 

She generated it. In 15 minutes, with Envato and VEO, she added motion to stock images for higher quality creative. 

3/ Elevating the parking lot photoshoot

A client handed one designer a single photo of a car in a parking lot and asked for an asset library.

She used AI to elevate the image quality, then generated the car from multiple angles. 

The client got a full library of testable creative from one (mediocre) input.

The patterns I saw: AI wasn’t replacing taste or judgement. 

Just the bottleneck between seeing what’s working, creating more of it, and testing. 

The clients that I place marketing talent for (HubSpot, DoorDash, Reddit) look for AI-enabled designers, for faster iteration and testing. 

You can hire them for less than $4K/month.
https://lnkd.in/gqfSDUge

I’ve physically hit my co-founder Jesse Pujji when we can’t agree on something.

5 years in, here’s how we still work together.

(To be clear, I don’t support a violent workplace… I’ve known Jesse since we were kids).

In most regards, we’re a rare co-founder combo:

Jesse’s genius is building: he scaled Ampush to 8 figs, bootstrapped multiple businesses.

Mine is executing: 12 years in recruiting, thousands of interviews, hundreds of hires.

65% of co-founders fail… 5 years in, here’s why I think we’re still going strong.

1/ I trust his process when I’m stuck

I like to jump to action.

Jesse considers every option.

There’s a time for one or the other, but when I’m stuck, I ask myself “how would Jesse handle this?” It’s almost always different than my instinct. That’s growth.

2/ He trusts my deadlines to execute

I need someone like Jesse to push my team, and their creativity.

But it all goes out the window if they don’t know when to execute.

When we’re brainstorming, and Jesse throws out a crazy idea, I clarify:

“Is this an action?”

If he’s making a request, that’s action.

If he’s throwing out an idea, I treat it differently.

3/ We stopped trying to think the same way

Jesse’s an extremely optimistic builder. He’s guided by what’s exciting to him.

My brain prepares for the 85 different ways something could go wrong.

What’s made our co-founder dynamic work is being able to delegate that attention: Jesse figures out what could really work, and I pressure test.

4/ Build up confidence to say “no.”

I think this is the source of the 65% number.

Not being able to say no creates a room of “yes.” Not what I want.

For example, Jesse’s ideas can keep coming and coming.

Sometimes, I need a second to figure out what I think.

We work because I tell him “no,” and exactly what I need to operate. He knows he can tell me the same.

The most effective co-founders can hit each other because they’ve done the work to make “no” feel productive (sorry again Jesse!!).

I post daily about co-founding, AI, and building a $22M company.

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“I’m not doing this anymore” 
That’s what my VP told me in the middle of saving a $200k client account.

My answer? “You’re right.” 

Even though I wanted my entire team in the weeds with me, she needed to be focused on hitting her recruiting KPIs until they were consistent. 

When fires like these do inevitably emerge, it reveals two different personality styles: 

1/ Firefighter (this is me) 

These are the high-ownership executors who will take on anything ambitious. 

Likely, they’ve been praised their whole life for being able to do a lot, and they have a problem saying ‘no.’

In a client fire, they’re incredible: they’ll say ‘yes,’ stabilize, and rapidly problem solve. 

The tradeoff: they can impulsively make ‘fire-fighting’ the whole job, and look over the core engine that prevents fires in the first place. 

My team (mostly firefighters) wouldn’t be able to scale if not for the opposite type: 

2/ Fire Marshall (my VP)

Her edge isn’t her competitiveness, it’s her judgement. 

This type thinks operationally, and knows it’s best to say it bluntly. 

They’ll put their attention exactly where it creates leverage and think in terms of repeatability. 

But, this type will often over-structure when speed is required. 

I'm a firefighter building a company that needs fire marshalls. That's why I'm prioritizing her skillset in my next hire.

Because the balance between saving the day, and preventing the next 10 days from needing saving designs your org for scale. 

Building my company GrowthAssistant to $22M ARR, these failures taught me more than any success. 

Go check out the AI talent enabling Perplexity, Reddit, Hubspot and 200+ brands:

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A young marketer on our team made a mistake that cost us $100k in revenue.
He's smart. Hardworking. But missing these key skills to grow:

Last week, he created several very viral posts. An incredible win. 

He presented the results to me, and offered a plan to spend 25% of his time in the next 3 weeks scaling this channel. 

I’m proud of him, but to reliably grow business from this new channel, he needs to learn these skills:

1/ Spend time on the WHY

Instead of seeking signal, formulate a hypothesis of why you think signal will repeatedly be there. 

His hypothesis: X articles focus on value-oriented content, exactly what I post. 

That’s unlocked this insight: 

2/ Designing a funnel that converts

He’s verified that there’s people there. Now, how do we drive clicks? 

He told me X has the potential to 2x our top of funnel, and wants to test adding only our top of funnel links (home page, further resources, follow).

3/ Test the hypotheses

He told me this channel would be successful if his 3 backlog posts continued to perform similarly, and by end of month, booked one meeting. 

I’m holding him to that. 

4/ Proactively communicate results

I challenged him to follow-up with a post recap after the next 3 posts, reflecting on the post performance, if it worked, why, and if it didn’t work, what he’s changing for the next post. 

Even if this channel isn’t scalable, logging those insights will create compounding value. 

5/ Celebrate the wins 

He did something great. 

Generating virality and finding signal in a new channel is impressive. 

Just because we expect more down the funnel, doesn’t mean we should minimize the success. 

I’m sharing everything my team learns, because there’s always value in reflection. 12 years of recruiting in, and building my company GrowthAssistant to $22M ARR, these failures taught me more than any success. 

I’ll teach you about hiring, AI, shifting marketing roles with posts daily. Follow Adriane Schwager

I had to tell the perfect, 10/10 candidate, “I can’t offer you a position.”

His response: “This was the right call.”

Here's why I told him no…

Last week, an outbound new biz leader came through my office. He came recommended by someone I trust, sharp insights on my business. He left me energized.

I immediately felt the pull:

Hire him.

It’s low risk, I could move fast and see how it goes. What would be the downside?

After recruiting for top founders for 12 years, I know this exact feeling. It’s a trap.

You meet someone who gives you energy, so you skip the hard question: where do they actually fit?

This is the highest risk hire a founder can make, because distraction risk is real.

I’d be asking this great candidate to “figure out” a lot. I’d also be asking my internal team to take on a lot of ambiguity, that erodes trust on both ends, not what I want.

Here’s the bar I hold myself to:

If someone maps onto a bet I’m already making, it’s an immediate YES.

If I needed to clean up our data and be more strategic, this candidate would’ve been an immediate “yes.” But that’s not where my energy is going.
So I ask myself, is the energy there?

12/10 is not enough.

The true bar is a 15/10. That’s the level of enthusiasm I need to be confident I can cut through the ambiguity of the role and see impact. These are force multipliers.

I didn’t feel that here.

So, I told this biz ops leader the truth.

Your work excites me, but I don’t have the role that deserves you right now. I’d love to stay connected, and bring you on the journey when I do.

His answer: “You’re right. Thank you.”

I’m always on the lookout for good people, and sometimes, that perfect hire does come from the lucky intro.

But the smartest founders who are hiring are disciplined enough to say “not yet.”

I've made these mistakes so you don't have to.

I'll teach you about hiring, AI, and shifting marketing roles with posts daily. 
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