Sway Copy

The product marketer seeing strategy through to execution for clients such as HubSpot, Unbounce, Wave, Hotjar, AWeber, Circle, Hugo, Hunter, InsightSquared, Visual Web Optimizer (VWO), Deputy, Snappa, and 100+ more. Customer and competitor research, positioning, messaging strategy, and copy.
swaycopy.com

SaaS Product Marketing Consultant and Copywriter

University of Waterloo

The Problem Lab works to identify and understand important problems to create innovations with disruptive economic and social consequences.

I work with a small team to help undergraduate and graduate students identify these important problems, quantify the scale of their problems, explore the history of their problem and past attempts to solve it, and package their work into a concise and compelling pitch.

Problem Lab Startup Advisor & Coach, University of Waterloo

Decision.io

I was responsible for a number of marketing functions including: content creation (blog, print and online ads, video, etc.), copywriting, competitive intelligence and social media.

I also supported our customers by setting up and configuring their workflows, conducting in-person and online tutorials, creating written tutorials, and providing email and chat support.

Marketing Manager

I worked to improve the capacity to communicate and create for two people with advanced neuromuscular disease. I investigated technology such as consumer grade brain-computer interface devices, eye trackers, tablets, voice recognition software etc. 

Ultimately, this project resulted in a massive lesson in user empathy, the limitations of technology, and what it means to persevere. 

While I wasn't as successful as I had hoped, recent developments from the likes of Intel's work with Stephen Hawking, mainly the release of the open source Assistive Contextually Aware Toolkit (ACAT), bring me hope that great work will be done in this field.

Graduate Researcher - The Games Institute (IMMERSe)

Master of Digital Experience Innovation student

Assisting the Global Business and Digital Arts students at the University of Waterloo achieve success in their undergraduate studies by providing consultation and workshops.

Project Assistant

In the Gambling Lab, the focus was primarily on slot machine gambling. The line of research investigated what it was about the gambler's user experience that caused some gamblers to become addicted. Put simply, it appeared to be an interplay of flashing lights, music, a phenomenon known as "near misses", and particular physiological responses to the experience of playing.

In this lab my responsibilities included:
- Collecting, organizing, and analysing data for academic papers
- Writing research ethics proposals that resulted in approved research experiments
- Recruiting participants and following proper research protocols to ensure validity and reliability
- Measuring Galvanic skin response and heart rate
- Assisting with an on site Casino study

Research Assistant - Gambling Research Lab

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition where stimulation in one sensory/cognitive pathway leads to an automatic and involuntary sensory experience in another domain. There are many types of synaesthesia including: sound/colour synaesthesia which is the automatic association of colours with certain sounds and notes, time/space synaesthesia which is the automatic association of certain dates with certain mental spaces, and number/colour synaesthesia where numbers appear to have their own unique colour assigned to them.

My responsibilities within this lab included:
- Collecting, organizing, and analysing data for academic papers
- Writing research ethics proposals that result in approved research experiments
- Recruiting participants and following proper research protocols to ensure validity and reliability

Research Assistant - Synaesthesia Lab

Learning to capture quality video and to edit footage was a side effect of this position. Mainly, I was exposed to lectures in a wide variety of disciplines including: physics, astronomy, math, philosophy, optometry, biology etc. Further, I filmed many esteemed guest lecturers during my time here. This helped me round out my education further by exposing myself to a wide range of ideas and ways of thinking.

- Responsible for the filming of class lectures for distance education learners 
- Responsible for the filming and editing of guest lecturers for DVDs and websites
- Opportunity to film and meet interesting speakers from around the world (Members of Parliament, CEO’s, Entrepreneurs, Scientists etc.)

Distance Education Video Camera Operator/Editor

Undergraduate thesis topic: Effects of an acute bout of exercise on cerebral blood flow and cognitive function.

- Completed my undergraduate thesis under Dr. Richard Hughson and Dr. Laura Middleton
- Worked within a group of undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students, in addition to faculty supervision.
- Wrote and revised the ethics proposal
- Administered cognitive function and physical activity questionnaires.
- Used a finometer to take blood pressure and heart rate measurements.
- Used transcranial Doppler ultrasound to measure cerebral blood flow.
- Used Sensewear to measure daily participant energy expenditure.
- Used SPSS to analyse data

Undergraduate Thesis

Marmot Labs

I completed a summer internship at the Communitech Hub based start-up Marmot Labs along with three other MDEI students. My primary role was to oversee the student project as its facilitator, with a focus on overall strategy. As a group, we were involved in many aspects of the business including: Product/Feature Planning, User Experience (UX) Design and Research, Usability Testing, Marketing/Onboarding Strategy, Social Media Strategy, and Market Research. Our goal was to help the Marmot team move their first product towards a successful open beta launch.

Facilitator - MDEI Summer Intern

I helped HubSpot increase free-trial conversions by nearly 100%, demo requests by 35%, and product signups by 27%.

I helped Deputy collect 40% more phone numbers during onboarding.

My work "blew away" any other test AWeber had tried. 

My email campaign for Poppulo to a mostly cold list resulted in over 200 quality enterprise leads and a webinar that outperformed every goal.

Snappa saw an "immediate uptick in paid conversions" after working with me.

And InsightSquared is still getting compliments on their messaging from other CMOs...

If you're a SaaS company, email me at josh@swaycopy.com to talk customer and competitor research, positioning, messaging strategy, and copy that sells.

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