Hey 👋 I'm Cindy — marketing leader and strategist for consumer brands.
I have 10 years experience owning go-to-market for innovative modern brands. My superpower is storytelling: I translate complex and technical products into compelling narratives that resonate with today's cultural trends and market needs. Then I lead cross-functional teams to execute GTM plans that bring those stories to life and deliver standout launches.
I made a big pricing mistake on my first startup.
The business was a women’s intimate apparel brand with eco, size-inclusive products, and we scaled mainly through Instagram.
Sales growth was healthy, but I wanted things to grow faster. Our annual one-day sale was always the most successful day of the year, and I noticed occasional social media comments saying prices were too high.
I decided we would lower prices by 10-15%, and these anecdotes were all the evidence I needed that this was the right decision.
Did our sales increase? Yes—for two weeks. Then they dropped to the same volume as before, so we were selling the same number of units, and now less profitably.
After a few sleepless nights, I reached out to a third party analytics company. They charged us what felt like an arm and leg to analyze our customer information, but it was completely worth it because we learned an invaluable lesson.
As it turned out, our most loyal customers (15% of our customer-base) were in the top 2% wealthiest women in the country.
Lower prices didn’t serve my super fan customer. She needed world-class service, faster delivery and in-person experiences, and she was willing to pay more for it.
There are several lessons here:
Know your most valuable customer and serve them.
Make data-driven decisions and avoid founder bias.
Brand fans on social media and your best customers might be different cohorts.
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Pick an audience. Just one audience.
Nearly every business I work on, there's a brilliant founder who loves their product and can talk for days about all the use cases to serve every human under the sun.
I love the passion and the eagerness for everyone to try their product, but this doesn't make a marketing strategy.
A marketing strategy is created by finding the white space, which usually goes something like this:
What cohorts could use your product? List them.
Of those cohorts, which one will buy most? Refer friends? Be most profitable? This is your ICP. 2a. Not sure? Talk to real people to find the answer.
What's the psychographic (mindset + emotions) of your ICP?
Build a brand perfectly tailored to your ICP.
Continue iterating forever. Never stop talking to real customers.
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The funny thing about money stress.
A friend of mine runs a technology company on the brink of profitability with a $50 million customer pipeline, and he can’t seem to raise venture capital. Delays and uncertainty mean investors aren’t pulling the trigger.
I am a freelance marketer commanding a healthy day rate, and, for the first time in three years, my upcoming projects have been pushed back.
My friend and I are both high-achiever types. We think a lot about success, and we work very hard.
The funny thing about money stress is it hits your confidence in illogical ways. We tie it to self-worth, independence, family contribution, comparison.
Try this.
Embody the most confidence, happy and eager version of yourself. How would they solve this money stress?
There are often fewer problems and more optionality that you realize.
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