Maven

Helping experts make a living teaching what they love. Maven was named Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative Education Company in 2022.

Instructors have earned $14M+ in course sales teaching on Maven. Over 20,000+ ambitious professionals have taken courses on maven.com

Co-founder

weskao.com

Built, launched, and grew courses that have reached 250,000 students. Clients included: Section (Professor Scott Galloway), Outlier (from cofounder of MasterClass), Build a Second Brain, Write of Passage, Poo~Pourri, Morning Brew, and more.

Cohort-based courses

altMBA

Created and built the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. Grew from zero to thousands of students in 45 countries and 550+ cities.

Singularity University

Selected as 1 of 90 innovators from 40 countries. Received $30k scholarship sponsored by DB Pharmaceuticals and Google. The 8-week fellowship was hosted at the NASA Ames in Mountain View, CA.

Program Fellow

Flite (acquired by Snap)

Flite was a real-time online advertising technology platform, funded by Sequoia Capital. Built the content marketing engine from scratch. 

Content strategy and execution: Flite’s blog, editorial calendar, ghostwriting for the CEO, product videos to show features and benefits

Co-marketing partnerships and events: Flite’s inaugural customer summit, joint case studies with clients like Shell Oil and Kellogg’s

Marketing communications: website messaging and copy; product messaging; managed PR agency, then took function in-house. Saved $180k/year while securing coverage from New York Times, TechCrunch, MediaPost, AdExchanger, etc.

Head of Digital Marketing

Bare Escentuals

Focused on growing market penetration for the Face category, including the bestselling and award-winning BareMinerals foundation.

Created a new framework for analyzing category performance for new product development. Incorporated competitive analysis, trend analysis, internal sales data, packaging, pricing, etc. Rolled out as the company-wide standard among marketing teams.

Revamped the in-store sampling program to better represent the BareMinerals foundation product. Created new guidelines and educated the field team.

Appointed to lead a weekly task force of 20 people for the company’s largest product launch of 2010, the "Customizable Get Started Kit.” Led a cross-functional team across Legal, Merchandising, Product Development, Channel Marketing, Marketing Ops, Finance, and Production.

Global Brand Management Marketing

Gap Inc.

Created financial plans, forecasted sales and inventory levels, and optimized profitability for $165M women’s tops category. Exceeded gross margin % targets each season.

Completed Gap Inc’s Retail Management Program, a competitive executive leadership program for ~15 hand-picked graduates per year. Rotated through Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, in core retail functions of Merchandising, Inventory Management, and Production/Supply Chain.

Business Analyst

L'Oréal

Drove student in-store traffic by 250% in 3 months for Kiehl's via grassroots marketing, sampling, and events.

Created sales enablement collateral for new product launches; sent to 1,000+ stores globally. 

Initiated a deep dive on the market opportunity for organic skincare.

Brand Management Marketing

Co-founder of Maven, the first marketplace for live online courses. Funded by First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. 

Check out my newsletter for marketers, builders, and high performers —> weskao.com/newsletter

Notion docs are beautiful, and this presents a problem for managers: It's easy to be fooled by good design.

Why? Because good design obscures poor logic.

As a manager, I'm amazed at how often a direct report sends me a Notion doc and my immediate visceral reaction is "ooh this looks great."

Upon engaging with the content, I realize the mileage varies. Sometimes the content is excellent, other times it's lacking in insight. But in all cases, my initial response was more optimistic than it would have been because the doc itself was visually-appealing.

Good design and good content isn't mutually exclusive. The problem is good design can trick you into thinking the content is good, when normally you would be more skeptical.

In the past, Google Docs were less forgiving because you only had cold, hard text. You had to make a compelling business case and argument. You had to use sentences and transitions, which showed your logic and rationale. There was nowhere to hide.

With Notion, the default is all content is easier and more pleasant to read--with well-designed headers, call-outs, toggles, emojis, etc--but this doesn't replace high-quality insight and logic. A shiny doc that's well-organized but offers little substance, is still useless.

This doesn't only apply to Notion. This applies to any asset with a visual component. For example, slide decks. Let's say you're assessing a marketing candidate's take-home project. The slide deck might be beautiful, but (a) the candidate might have had help creating the deck, (b) you're not hiring them to make decks, and (c) you want to get a sense of their strategic thinking, not deck building skills. If you're not careful, the great design becomes a distraction.

This means you need to actively ignore how beautiful the document is.

To be clear, the problem isn't Notion. I love Notion. The problem is Notion is so good at using design to elevate our ideas, that we may subconsciously fool ourselves into thinking our ideas are better than they are. There's a halo effect: "It looks good, so the ideas within must be pretty good."

Remember to use the appropriate level of skepticism when you evaluate well-designed documents. And if given the choice between the two, I’d rather see a simple text-only strategy doc that's dense with insight, rather than something well-designed with mediocre content.

Wes Kao

Excited to announce that I'm launching a new Substack! 🚀 Since 2010, I've written on and off. One year, I wrote 47 blog posts. The years when I ran Maven, I wrote 0-3 posts. 

As my work evolves, I'm thrilled about this next chapter where I'll be investing more time in writing, reflecting, and sharing lessons with you.

If you've already subscribed to my existing newsletter, I'll port you over, so there's no need to subscribe again. If you're new, I hope you'll give it a try (it's free) -> https://lnkd.in/gqijGFu9

Each week, I’ll cover an idea that will help you build new products, influence others, and be a more effective operator. I’ll always aim to share practical advice rooted in my own personal experience, but will experiment with different topics, lengths, and formats.

New issues will be published on Wednesday mornings (because I love a good alliteration re: Wes on Wednesdays).

______

Who is this newsletter for?

This is for marketers, operators, leaders, and doers who want to make better decisions when building something new and creating forward momentum.

My perspective is informed by being on both sides of various metaphorical tables:

• I’ve been a manager and a direct report
• I’ve been a founder and a team member
• I’ve worked in corporate retail and in stores
• I’ve been steamrolled and done the steamrolling
• I’ve been in front of the camera and behind the scenes
• I’ve been the consultant and the operator who executes afterwards
• I’ve been the older and the younger sibling (yes I’m a middle child, it explains a lot)

I believe being able to empathize with different actors with different incentives allows me to see around corners, weigh potential options, and strategize to maximize what I’m working with.

With this blog and newsletter, I hope to share what I've seen work well, so I can provoke your thinking and help you make better decisions about your work too.

______

Mainly, I see my Substack as a place to go deeper on topics you already like seeing here on LinkedIn. 

What topics do you want me to write more about?

I've been recommending this book to my close friends so I thought I'd share it with y'all too. I picked this up at the library last week.

My problem with business books is usually:

(a) many could be 10 page blog posts

(b) many focus on inspiring stories or a big concept, but skimp on the "how"

I almost didn't pick this up because of that, but I'm glad I did. 

This book is about the science behind why your brain is the way it is, especially at work. 

As knowledge workers, we deal with a constant stream of incoming stimulus, ambiguous situations, and decisions with complex interconnected variables. This book helps you become more intentional about what, when, and how you ask your brain to do what you want it to do.

Many of the takeaways were elements I've intuitively figured out through the years. But hearing the science behind it is helpful for understanding why, for example, going for a walk or taking a shower really does lead to breakthroughs.

What I’ve started doing differently:
- putting phone in another room so it's out of sight
- conserving my conscious thinking as a limited resource
- stopping a negative thought before it fully forms and takes hold
- not trying to hold more than one idea in my head at the same time
- catching when my mind drifts and bringing it back to the task--or letting myself fully wander

Also, I have a newfound appreciation for how much work my brain does. Good job, brain, for doing so much all the time.

I'm only halfway through the book, so it's possible the back half sucks. But I've already gotten enough out of it that I wish I had found it sooner. 

If you read it, I'd love to hear what you think.

PS One of my favorite parts of taking time off is the opportunity to think, write, and read. What book should I check out next? Would love to get your recommendations in the comments.

How I answer any question with confidence (hint: it involves the "question behind the question"):

When someone asks you a question, there's the surface question--but there's often a deeper layer.

A few signs you should address the question behind the question (QBQ):

• You're repeating yourself multiple times
• There are more follow-ups than usual
• They're still skeptical

These are clues that, for whatever reason, your original answer wasn't satisfactory.

What should you do? 

1. Don't blindly engage in never-ending back-and-forth. They might not even be aware why they're feeling skeptical, so you're playing defense against a moving target.

2. Identify what their true concern might be. Take a step back. What might feel risky for them? What would make them confident that you've got this?

3. Reward their inquiry with a positive attitude. They’re asking because they care, so try not to take it personally. Be patient and treat their questions as valid.

4. Use this as an opportunity to build trust and show your competence. This is a touchpoint to educate and give visibility into the rigor of your thought process.

I've used the QBQ framework when answering questions from internal stakeholders (my cofounders, direct reports, team, investors) and external stakeholders (customers, partners, candidates, journalists).

No question is wasted with a mediocre reply because I'm empathizing with my audience and answering strategically. It's win win. 

Considering the QBQ takes a few extra seconds, but it's worth it. And over time, it becomes instinctive.

Give it a try and I'd love to hear how it works for you.

Question behind the question

Happy Friday! Nothing about marketing, rigorous thinking, etc today. Just me rocking a hella cool hat with a neck flap because sun protection.

Idleness is treating me well. With the free time, and despite my best efforts, my brain has been brewing on a new project I’ll share soon. ✨

PS Any guesses on where I am in this pic?

I've seen too many marketing strategy write-ups that have zero point of view. These "strategies" make sense on paper, but in reality they are a generic list of tactics lacking a through line. And they certainly aren’t infused with conviction.

This is because when we draft strategy docs, there's an element of going through the motions. Setting quarterly goals sneaks up on you every time. It's hard to zoom out from the day-to-day while continuing to execute.

So you rush through the process and end up with a lackluster document with minimal creativity, rigor, or life force behind what you're about to spend the next 3 months focusing on. 

Yes, I just used "life force" to describe strategy. If your strategy doesn't light up you and your team, you should choose a strategy that will.

A strategy is simply verbalizing what you believe is your best shot at getting from A to B. That's why you must feel conviction around the "what to do and why" part. That conviction is the most important part.

If you are a marketer tasked with creating a strategy, don’t waste time on tasks that feel productive, but are actually a distraction:

- To-do lists
- A content calendar
- Brainstormed list of tactics
- Project management milestones

These are all important and you should do them, but not yet. They're marketing plans disguised as marketing strategies.

If the prompt is to put together a strategy, focus on the strategy. It’s the harder part, it's why you're compensated at your level, and everything else (the to-do list, tactics, etc) is informed by your strategy.

That means you need to develop an actual point of view on what to do, then share your logic, rationale, and thought process for why your strategy is worth advocating for and is likely to work.

A strategy doc is hard to write because you're not sure what you want to do. It's hard to write because it isn't about writing, it's about thinking.

You can write, but after you do a bit of thinking first. You might say, "But Wes, I think by writing." That's fine. But be aware of sunk costs from drafting half a doc, then realizing you want to go the opposite direction. That's why I recommend that you think first, then write.

As you put together your Q4 goals and strategies, give yourself permission to step back. Clear your mind of the detailed numbers you'll eventually report on. In general, how are things going? Are they panning out the way you thought they would? What’s been unexpected? What’s working better or worse than you thought? 

Think about where you'd place your bets if you only had limited chips (that is the case, after all). Let your mind connect dots, start to feel excitement about what to do, and start to build conviction.

How important is conviction for you?

Growth Channels @ Dr. Squatch | ex-Kearney | Strategist, Marketer, Operator | Scale-up leadership insights

Wes Kao nailed it when she write this post on spiky points of view. 

A spiky point of view: 
- Is something you're willing to advocate for
- Can be disagreed with 
- Is defensible 

And having a spiky POV is a great way to stand out from the noise and drive other peoples' enthusiasm. 

A great thing to develop. 

One of my spiky points of view: 
I think patience is generally overrated. Having a sense of urgency about life and work puts you way ahead people who are waiting things out. 

What's a spiky view of yours? 

Open article: Wes Kao — 🌵 Spiky point of view: Let’s get a little controversial by weskao.com

Wes Kao — 🌵 Spiky point of view: Let’s get a little controversial

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