Maximus & The Founder Quest: Episode 3 - Craft Your Message

Welcome to episode 3 of Maximus & The Founder Quest! In this monthly series, Max Greenwald (Co-founder & CEO of Warmly) continues his founder brand journey with Dave Gerhardt (Author of Founder Brand & Founder of Exit Five).

This month, Max shares his progress on defining Warmly's villain (ABM is dead) and niche (technical marketing leaders at mid-market companies), plus his big move to the Bay Area to be closer to his ICP. Dave and Max dive deep into Chapter 3: Creating an Effective Explainer, where they tackle the challenge of explaining what your company does without resorting to buzzword soup or elevator pitch pressure.

Dave breaks down his "So you know how..." framework that turns complex positioning into relatable conversations, and they workshop three potential explainer directions for Warmly - from TAM CRM to person-level intent platform to AI-powered super-marketers. They discuss why education is the best marketing, how to get authentic messaging from customer feedback, and why your story should always be evolving.

Tune in to learn how to create explainers that make people lean in and say "Oh, how do you do that?"

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:27 Episode Begins
2:05 Recap: Warmly's villain statement and niche definition
3:14 Max's move to the Bay Area to be closer to his ICP
4:18 The hero story and origin narrative strategy
4:57 Education as the best marketing - lessons from Drift
6:06 The power of manifesto content and strong points of view
7:37 Why messaging comes from customer feedback, not brainstorms
9:17 Chapter 3: Creating an Effective Explainer
9:41 Why Dave hates elevator pitches and tagline pressure
10:19 The conversational approach to explaining your company
11:22 The "first line, second line" copywriting principle
12:15 Taking pressure off the perfect one-liner
13:01 How Dave explains Exit Five using relatable analogies
13:53 Three potential explainer directions for Warmly
14:22 Option 1: The TAM CRM approach
15:15 Why buzzword soup can be problematic
16:15 Option 2: Person-level intent platform
17:09 The shift from inbound nets to outbound spears
18:04 Option 3: Powering super-marketers with AI agents
19:33 Making claims nobody else can make
20:14 Why messaging is never done - the iterative approach
21:33 Using your team to gather explainer feedback
22:01 Understanding your competitive landscape to stand out

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