John Short

CEO at Compound Growth Marketing

I spent the first decade of my career building demand generation teams at Monster, LogMeIn, Yesware and Workable. During my time in operating roles I saw the market of B2B tech grow faster than the supply of B2B marketing talent, which created an opportunity to build a demand generation focused firm. 

We have built CGM different than the agencies I worked with when I was in-house. We built the Predictable Demand System to integrate strategy, demand generation, demand capture and GTM engineering to support the businesses we work with on a deeper level.

Compound Growth Marketing delivers transformative go-to-market results for B2B tech businesses by blending strategic consulting with expert execution across the entire customer acquisition journey. Our Predictable Demand System operationalizes GTM strategy, GTM engineering, demand generation and demand capture as a unified system that drives sustainable business outcomes.

Core Member

The Underscore Core is a curated group of exceptional entrepreneurs, executives, and experts who work in partnership with Underscore VC, an earliest stage venture capital firm, to identify transformative entrepreneurs and support them as they build iconic companies. Core Members have collectively built hundreds of companies, created thousands of jobs, served millions of customers and created billions of dollars in value for their stakeholders.

I had a call recently with a marketer who leaned into the PE playbook where most marketers would have leaned away. 

This person was put in a difficult situation over the last 24 months. New PE backer, new C-Suite and budget cuts. 

A new C-suite member had joined and immediately starting prying through the marketing budget. Most marketers I know would have run under the cover of "this PE firm doesn't get it". She leaned in. 

But this person did something smart. Instead of being intimidated. Instead of looking for a new job. Instead of fighting budget cuts she opened up to listen. 

The new executive had experience with: taking companies public, selling companies, and driving results. 

But most marketers would have ignored this. 

Instead, this marketer leaned in. She talked to the executive, asked them for their perspective, asked great questions, and even looked to connect with former marketers that person had worked with.

Its an important lesson for marketers because:
- It is no longer 2019, we don't live in growth at all costs
- B2B tech increasingly is getting bought by PE, not raising a Series E from VC

As PE continues to have more and more ownership in tech, its important for marketers to learn how to work with stricter budgets, and focus on results. 

For one, it will provide you with job security. Folks that know this playbook will have a more predictable career path. While VC can be reactionary to larger market trends like a big fund raise by a company in your industry, new round of funding, or the whims of the CEO, the PE playbook is a bit more consistent. 

Also, if you get into the C-suite in PE, it can drive predictability in your career especially if you know what levers to pull when brought in by the PE firm. 

So think twice before getting angry when your budget gets cut. Learn why the budgets getting cut, and lean in. 

*This is a real story, not dramatized. I had to keep it high level so no one would get caught*

Everyone has had the same VC growth playbook since 2018.

Step 1: Raise money. 
Step 2: Flood LinkedIn and Google Ads. 
Step 3: Repeat.
Step 4: CAC increases

The problem? When thousands of companies run the same play simultaneously, the play stops working — and the cost of running it doubles.

B2B tech search CPCs hit $8.86 in 2024. That's 57% above the eight-year average. LinkedIn CPLs now routinely exceed $100, climbing to $314 for conversation ads. CAC payback periods stretched from 14 to 18 months in a single year.

This is a structural market problem, not just a need for better creative as many on this platform will say.

So what does a good company do when the entire industry is trapped in the same playbook that's driving an increase in prices?

You mix it up. 

The answer isn't to optimize harder inside two auction-based platforms where your competitors are also bidding. The answer is to go where they aren't.

The fastest-growing companies figured this out early. Brex, Slack, and Anthropic all moved aggressively away from a Google/LinkedIn-dominated strategy as they scaled — investing instead in brand, community, and channels their competitors weren't crowding.

They weren't being contrarian. They were being rational.

The diversification playbook looks like this: industry publications and niche communities where your buyers already congregate, programmatic display, and CTV. You're reaching the same decision-makers that you were trying to reach on LinkedIn at 10x the cost.

Our research on this is clear... companies concentrating a vast majority of demand gen budgets in LinkedIn and Google are holding a highly correlated, inflation-exposed portfolio. 

I'm not suggesting abandoning LinkedIn and Google Ads. Both still do something no other platform does well, LinkedIn's professional targeting is unmatched, Google captures active purchase intent. Use them surgically. 

But the playbook is getting used over and over and over. And we've seen significant increases to pipeline and improvements in efficiency when we create a proper channel mix.

The companies that recognize it early on will have a significant structural cost advantage compared to competitors.

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