Transforming the landscape of GTM recruitment for B2B SaaS and D2C companies. 

Our mission is clear: 

We find the right talent to drive your business forward, faster and more effectively than ever before.

At the heart of our approach lies the Rocket Talent precision system, a powerful blend of technology, psychometrics, and AI. This innovative method allows us to pinpoint the perfect candidates for your organization, ensuring a seamless fit that lasts.

Our track record speaks volumes:

96% of our placements remain with their new employers after a year.

We fill roles 40% faster than traditional methods.

Our clients save an average of $127K+ on every hire.

We offer up to a 24-month guarantee on placements.

But numbers only tell part of the story. Our impact reaches far beyond statistics:

We helped Consumer Affairs build a CRM Growth team in just 60 days, leading to a 150% increase in company lifecycle and retention revenue targets.

Our work with Listen Lively resulted in a $100 million exit within 12 months.

A Google Venture portfolio company achieved a $200M exit in 18 months thanks to the GTM team we placed.

Lennar saw a 310% increase in inbound leads while maintaining their CAC, courtesy of the growth marketing team we assembled.

We placed a CPO at Cognism who had previously scaled a company from $30M to $100M.

VTS generated over $100M in revenue after we filled 7 key digital marketing roles in under 3 months.

We understand the unique challenges faced by CEOs, founders, marketing and sales executives, and HR leaders in the fast-paced world of B2B SaaS and D2C companies. Our goal is to alleviate the stress of recruitment, allowing you to focus on what matters most – growing your business.

Ready to revolutionize your talent acquisition strategy? Let's connect and explore how we can help you build the team that will drive your company's success. Book time here: https://calendly.com/jonathan-268/dm-intro-li-clone

The $350K executive who uses AI every day is getting fired.




The $180K director who’s building autonomous agents is getting promoted.
And that director? They’re about to be worth $400-500K.
I’ve watched this happen three times in the last 60 days.

The AI Gap Nobody’s Talking About

Most executives I speak with are stuck in AI 1.0:

 ∙	Using ChatGPT for copywriting
 ∙	Running basic data analysis
 ∙	Maybe some light personalization

 They think they’re “AI-forward.”
 They’re not.

 What Scared Me This Month

 I’m placing a Head of Lifecycle for a client that’s moving hard toward agentic workflows across their entire business.

 They’re building toward AI systems that:

 ∙	Monitor every customer interaction across email, SMS, push, in-app
 ∙	Predict churn in real-time using dozens of behavioral signals
 ∙	Autonomously trigger personalized interventions before customers think about leaving
 ∙	A/B test, learn, and improve the models—without human involvement
 
Meanwhile, I’m interviewing $200-400K “leaders” who can’t explain how AI fits into their 2026 roadmap beyond “we’re experimenting with it.”
Even the ones who think they’re advanced?

They point to Braze’s new AI features as proof.
Which is cute.
But it’s scratching the surface of what’s already possible TODAY.

Here’s The Problem
 
Most growth leaders are hiring for “AI familiarity” instead of AI architecture.
They’re treating AI as a feature, not a fundamental shift.
They’re not learning tools like Claude Code, Cursor, or how to actually build agentic systems.
They’re attending webinars while their competitors are building autonomous orchestration.

What This Means
 
If you’re a growth leader and you’re not personally building agentic workflows right now—not reading about them, BUILDING them—you’re falling behind faster than you realize.
 
The gap between AI 1.0 and what’s coming isn’t incremental.
It’s exponential.
And I’m watching it widen in real-time across every conversation I have.
 
Your move:

Are you building autonomous systems, or are you still using AI to write better emails?
Because in 18 months, one of those people will be managing the other.
Or more likely—managing the AI that replaced them.
 
Tell me I’m wrong in the comments.

Jonathan Spiess

CEO @Rocket Talent - Connecting the top 1% of Growth Talent

This Growth Director walked away from $240K.
He had a mortgage, two kids, and bills to pay.
But he chose $185K instead, here's his math.





He wasn’t naïve about money.
He had a mortgage to pay and two kids to take care of…
A very clear sense of what his experience was worth.

But when I asked why he’d take the cut, he didn’t hesitate:

The $240K role required four days a week in the office…
In a city two hours from where his family lived.

He’d done that commute before.
Two years of it.

And described that period simply as “the years I missed.”

The $185K role was fully remote. Leadership measured outcomes instead of looking at attendance.

They had a product he believed in.
And offered him the freedom to be present for his kids. 
In a way the other role structurally wouldn’t allow.

The commute alone for the higher-paying role would cost him roughly $18K a year in travel and lost time.

Relocation or split-living would cost more… 
Financially and emotionally.

So that $55K gap started shrinking fast. 
Because income and compensation aren’t the same thing.

Top growth marketers are increasingly making this calculation.
They’ve already chased the higher salary…
They know what it costs on the other side.

Instead, now, they’re comparing trade-offs.
Time. Autonomy. Energy. Presence.

If strong candidates keep choosing elsewhere, it’s not always because someone paid more.

Sometimes it’s because someone asked for less of their life.

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Binghamton University School of Management

Rocket Talent Inc

Dashlane

The Huffington Post

OnDeck

M-Logic

FactSet Research Systems

Transforming the landscape of GTM recruitment for B2B SaaS and D2C companies. Our mission is clear: we find the right talent to drive your business forward, faster and more effectively than ever before.

At the heart of our approach lies the Rocket Talent precision system, a powerful blend of technology, psychometrics, and AI. This innovative method allows us to pinpoint the perfect candidates for your organization, ensuring a seamless fit that lasts.

Our track record speaks volumes:

96% of our placements remain with their new employers after a year.

We fill roles 40% faster than traditional methods.

Our clients save an average of $127K+ on every hire.

We offer up to a 24-month guarantee on placements.

But numbers only tell part of the story. Our impact reaches far beyond statistics:

We helped Consumer Affairs build a CRM Growth team in just 60 days, leading to a 150% increase in company lifecycle and retention revenue targets.

Our work with Listen Lively resulted in a $100 million exit within 12 months.

A Google Venture portfolio company achieved a $200M exit in 18 months thanks to the GTM team we placed.

Lennar saw a 310% increase in inbound leads while maintaining their CAC, courtesy of the growth marketing team we assembled.

We placed a CPO at Cognism who had previously scaled a company from $30M to $100M.

VTS generated over $100M in revenue after we filled 7 key digital marketing roles in under 3 months.

We understand the unique challenges faced by CEOs, founders, marketing and sales executives, and HR leaders in the fast-paced world of B2B SaaS and D2C companies. Our goal is to alleviate the stress of recruitment, allowing you to focus on what matters most – growing your business.

Ready to revolutionize your talent acquisition strategy? Let's connect and explore how we can help you build the team that will drive your company's success. Book time here: https://calendly.com/jonathan-268/dm-intro-li-clone

I stopped a placement that would've earned me $60k.
The candidate was ready for the offer.
But he was too burnt out for a role that intense.
 



During the final interview, the CEO asked: "How do you feel about working nights and weekends during launch periods?"

The candidate answered smoothly: "I'm flexible when needed."

The company was ready to extend an offer. 
The candidate was excited.

But something felt off to me.

After the call, I asked them what they really thought.

"Honestly? I just got out of a role where I worked 70-80 hour weeks and burned out. But the money's good, so..."

That was the moment.

The role wasn’t the thing that really convinced them to see it through.
They were motivated by recovery… financially.

And this new job was built on intense sprints and high-pressure launches.

So I called my client back.

“This candidate is coming off burnout. Your role demands it. This won’t last.”

To his credit, he appreciated the honesty. We restarted the search and found someone who wanted that pace 3 weeks later.

They’re still there after 2 years. 

I then managed to place the burnt-out candidate at a different company with better work-life balance at 15% bump.

Taking the commission would've been easy.
But my reputation is worth more than $60k.

Bad placements don’t just hurt candidates. They damage trust.

And once a client or candidate feels like you pushed something through for a fee, you don’t get that credibility back.

In this business,
Trust is the only currency that matters.

The most dangerous hire in growth marketing: 
Someone who managed a $30M budget… 
But never touched the platform.



I’ve seen many resumes say how the growth marketer oversaw millions in annual ad spend across Google, Meta, and TikTok. 

When hiring managers see that number, 
They assume this person knows what they're doing at scale.

But I ask three questions that change the conversation:

"Who was actually building the campaigns?" 
The agency.

"Who was optimising daily spend allocation?" 
The agency. 

"Who was running creative tests and analysing performance?" 
The agency.

So what did the candidate actually do? 

Vendor management. Slide decks. Quarterly reviews. 
They were a $30M budget holder, not a $30M budget operator. 

And that’s a huge difference.

Meanwhile, I have candidates who have personally managed $2M in spend, built their own attribution models and run 300+ creative tests a quarter

They can tell you exactly why a specific hook outperformed another by 40%. 

They know what every dollar did, because they were the one spending it.

This is the hire that transforms a growth team.

Not the impressive title with agency dependencies, 
But the operator who's earned their expertise through thousands of hours inside the platforms.

When I screen growth marketers, budget size is one of the last things I look at. 

Ownership is the first. 

A $30M figurehead can protect your ego.
A $2M operator will protect your P&L.

And only one of them will still be standing when the numbers start moving the wrong way.

Head of Marketing @ Lindy | Tesla, Uber, Affirm

Jack Dorsey just fired 4,000 people — nearly half of Block — and said AI made them unnecessary.

The stock jumped 24% overnight. Wall Street literally cheered.

Here's what actually happened:

Block tripled its headcount from 3,900 to 12,500 between 2019 and 2022. This is the same Jack Dorsey who admitted he "grew Twitter too quickly" after Elon gutted 80% of the staff and the site kept running.

He then went back to Block and kept hiring.

At the end of the day, this was an overhiring correction wearing an AI costume.

And Block isn't alone. Forrester published a report in January calling this out directly: most companies announcing "AI-related layoffs" don't actually have mature AI applications ready to fill those roles.

Even Sam Altman — the guy who arguably benefits most from the AI-replaces-everything narrative — called it "AI washing."

And that's the tension we're inherently experiencing during this inflection point with the technology. AI is genuinely changing how companies operate. I see it every day at Lindy. A small team with the right AI tools can absolutely do what a larger team used to do. That part is real.

But there's a growing grey area where CEOs are using "AI" as a magic word to justify cost-cutting they would've done anyway.

Fire 4,000 people because you overhired during zero-interest-rate mania? Stock drops.

Fire 4,000 people because "AI fundamentally changes what it means to build a company"? Stock soars 24%.

The incentive structure is broken.

The real tell is the pattern. Block cut 8% in late 2023. Another 1,000 in January 2024. Another 931 in March 2025. Now 4,000 more.

That's not "AI changed everything overnight." That's a company that's been right-sizing for three years and just found the narrative that makes investors applaud instead of worry.

Two things can be true at once:

1. AI is genuinely eliminating certain categories of work
2. Some companies are weaponizing that narrative to juice their stock price

The danger isn't AI itself. It's that "AI made them redundant" becomes the acceptable euphemism for every layoff — making it impossible to hold companies accountable for bad management decisions.

If your business is "strong" and "not in trouble" — Dorsey's own words — and you still fire half your workforce, that's not AI disruption.

That's a choice. Own it.

Most executives would have said yes immediately. 
He turned down $700K out of loyalty. 
To a company that packaged him out.


This guy built their business from nearly zero.

Knows every player in the space. 
Both sides of a two-sided marketplace. Grew it into something real.

Then the company needed to cut costs.
So they let him go. With a package.
No non-compete. Clean exit. Nothing wrong contractually.

We called him about a role that fits him almost perfectly.
New business line. Nearly zero to several hundred million dollar opportunity. Everything he's built his career to do.

He lit up on the call.
"I've heard great things about this company. The role is exactly what I love."

Then he paused.
"But I still have colleagues there. I built real relationships. I'm not sure I can compete against them."

Here's where I pushed back.
They packaged you out during layoffs.
They weren't thinking about your loyalty when they made that decision — they were thinking about costs.

So what exactly do you owe them?
A non-compete would answer this question for you. They didn't ask for one. That tells you something.

But here's what I actually respect about this guy:
Most executives at his level wouldn't think twice.
He's thinking twice.

That's rare. And it says a lot about who he is  which is exactly why companies want to hire him in the first place.

So I'm putting it to my network:
What would you do?

Does getting packaged out release you from the unwritten loyalty code?

Or does what you built together not have an expiration date — regardless of how it ended?

Drop your take below. I'm genuinely curious where people land on this.
Want any final tweaks before this is ready to publish?

More than a third of CMOs plan to cut staff in 2 years.
The reason isn't performance, it's AI efficiency.
But there's something AI still can't replace…



A survey published last month found that more than a third of CMOs expect to reduce staff over the next two years.

At the largest companies, it’s closer to half.

And the justification isn’t performance.
It’s efficiency.

CEOs and CFOs are asking a very direct question:
“If we’ve invested heavily in AI tools, where are the savings?”

Marketing, particularly mid-level roles in content, reporting, and campaign execution, is where that scrutiny is landing.

The people who build briefs. 
Run performance reports.
Optimise campaigns.
Manage workflows.

AI can approximate much of that work now. Not flawlessly.
But well enough for a CFO looking at a cost line.

And “good enough” becomes dangerous when budgets tighten.

AI may be able to generate copy, surface trends and optimise bids.

What it can’t do is own a decision…

It can’t sit in a room when a funnel collapses mid-quarter and decide which lever to pull.
It can’t absorb accountability when a scaling strategy backfires.
It can’t read between the lines of messy data and spot what isn’t being measured.

Judgment isn’t automated.
Accountability isn’t outsourced.

The growth marketers with long-term leverage won’t be the busiest ones.

They’ll be the ones who think in systems.
Who understand how revenue actually flows.
Who can explain why something is happening 
Who knows what to do next without hiding behind a dashboard.

AI won’t replace marketing.

But this shift will see AI expose those who were operating vs executing.

And the companies restructuring right now aren’t waiting for anyone to adapt.
They’re simply drawing a line between automation and ownership.

On one side, tools.
On the other, decision-makers.

Only one of those survives a cost review.

The best Meta ads I've seen share one single trait...
They don't look like ads.
And they outperform every other one.




I spend a lot of time studying the practitioners managing $2-5M/month in DTC ad spend.

The pattern is so consistent you can set your watch by it. 

The creative that performs at scale isn't the polished brand shoot.
It's the founder talking to a camera, a UGC clip, or raw product demo.

I'm not saying production quality doesn't matter.

But native content earns attention before the algorithm taxes it.

So what does this mean if you're a growth marketer job hunting right now?

Hiring managers at DTC brands don't just want someone who can manage a Meta account. 

They want someone who can brief creative, identify what hooks are working, and build a feedback loop between performance data and the creative team.

It's a different skillset to just media buying.

If your CV only shows ROAS and CPAs, 
Add a line about how you brief and iterate on creative.

Trust me, that'll be the line that gets you the call.

Candidate: "Hey, can you talk? I got let go." 
His company was facing FDA lawsuits… 
In a business crisis, even A players aren’t safe. 




When I got his text that morning, 
I was reminded how unpredictable business can be.

"Hey, can you talk? I got let go."

I'd just placed this candidate at a powder greens company. 
The same one with the intense interview process I’ve mentioned before.

My first assumption was performance.
It almost always is.
But this time, it wasn’t even close.
Their flagship product had been contaminated with salmonella. Over 20 reported cases. So the FDA got involved…

And they were forced to recall months of stock, including their best seller.
The timing of his placement couldn’t have been worse.

Massive refunds were in process.
Marketing spend was frozen overnight.
Consumer trust evaporated.

When a company's back is against the wall like this, even top performers are under fire. 

It's not about merit anymore. 
They need to survive.

This VP had done everything right.

He’d integrated well and was hitting his targets.
There were no concerns about his capability or leadership.

But none of that mattered once the runway came into question.
That’s the part people don’t like to talk about.
You can be excellent at your job and still be expendable when the business itself is under threat.
Market shifts happen. 
Product recalls happen. 
Economic downturns happen. 

Acquisitions and restructures wipe out entire teams.

A strong performance review doesn’t protect you if the fundamentals underneath the company start collapsing.

That’s why the best insurance policy isn't just being great at your job. 
You need to understand the broader business context you're operating in.

And make sure YOU remain employable
Even when the company you joined suddenly isn’t.

61% of marketers say AI is the biggest disruption ever.
But they're asking the wrong questions about it.
That mistake will decide who wins and who loses






The internal conversation happening in companies right now seem to focus more on tools than on capability.

Which platforms to adopt.
How to automate workflows.
How to produce content faster.
How to reduce execution costs.

All reasonable questions. 
But they're the wrong questions to be leading with.

The deeper question which will separate durable growth teams from average ones is this:

→ What does human expertise mean when execution is no longer scarce?

Because that’s what’s actually changing.

Content volume is close to free.
Variation is close to free.
Speed is close to free.

And when something becomes abundant, its value collapses.

An average level of creativity used to win. Now it blends in.

That means that the growth marketers who’ll command leverage over the next 5 years won’t be the ones who can prompt better.

They’ll be capable of better decisions.

Interpreting ambiguous data to make a call.
Understanding why a channel is working before the algorithm catches up.
Knowing when to stop scaling “healthy” metrics in the dashboard that aren’t moving revenue.
Aligning sales, product, and finance around a bet and own the outcome.

AI can optimise.
It cannot take responsibility.

That’s the dividing line.

The people who invest in decision-making ability now will become harder to replace.

The ones who don’t won’t be replaced by AI…

They’ll just be replaced by someone who knows how to use it.
While still being able to think for themselves.

The first question I ask every growth marketer:
“Tell me about a campaign that failed.” 
It instantly tells me everything I need to know. 





When a growth marketer has actually done the work, and overcome the setback, they light up. 

They’ll tell you about the Meta campaign where they scaled spend too aggressively
and watched CAC triple almost overnight.

Then they’ll walk you through what they did next. How they…

Throttled the budget.
Rebuilt the creative testing cadence.
Segmented audiences properly instead of broad-stacking.
Fixed attribution leaks.
Recovered profitability within weeks.

There’s ownership in their voice. They don’t need to blame the algorithm, product or even the “market conditions.”

They talk about what they misjudged and how they corrected it.

Now compare that to someone who’s mostly managed agencies or inherited someone else’s strategy.

Ask the same question and you’ll hear:

“It was just bad timing.”
“The product-market fit wasn’t there.”
“The market shifted.”

Vague, detached. No numbers or recovery plan.

There’s zero evidence that they've ever personally fixed something that was broken.

And that distinction matters.
Because the growth marketers my clients hire aren’t stepping into mature systems.
They’re building a new engine or repairing one that’s overheating.
That requires someone who's made expensive mistakes and knows how stabilise.

One honest conversation about failure tells you almost everything you need to know about whether someone can actually perform when the pressure hits.

If you're only interviewing growth marketers on their wins, 
You're only hearing half the story. 

The half that matters less.

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