Rand Fishkin is the co-founder of SparkToro and previously built Moz to $50M ARR—before stepping away and rethinking everything about how he works, hires, and grows a company.Today, SparkToro is a 3-person, profitable SaaS business doing $1.5M+ in revenue, and it’s intentionally calm: no cold calls, no demos, and no aggressive sales playbooks.In this episode, Rand explains how to grow sustainably without chasing scale, how he leveraged brand to jumpstart SparkToro, and why product, not integrations, features, or funnels, is the real growth engine.Topics we cover in this episode:Why SparkToro doesn’t offer demos and still grows fastHow Rand built a waitlist of 14,000+ on day oneThe tradeoffs of calm growth: fewer integrations, higher churnHow to design a business around what you’re good atWhat Rand would do differently if starting todayWhy founder-led marketing still works—and how to scale itRand’s take on AI, competitive risk, and moving slowly on purposeProduct-market fit is a journey, not a destinationDon't forget to subscribe to the podcast for more insights from industry leaders reshaping B2B SaaS and marketing!Connect with Rand:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkin/SparkToro: https://sparktoro.com/Rand’s book - Lost and Founder: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Founder-Rand-Fishkin/dp/0735213321Snackbar Studio: https://snackbarstudio.com/Connect with me:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/Website: https://www.project33.io/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03CXzsZp7wdqIRVDcqPTFHChapters:00:00 Building Moz to $50M ARR → Starting Over at SparkToro01:35 Founder strengths, weaknesses, and designing around them04:10 Why Rand stopped taking sales calls (and what happened)07:12 Hiring for cultural fit, not just talent09:24 Intentional product limits—and accepting churn12:30 The “rules for business life” Rand wrote before SparkToro14:15 Why calm companies make better decisions17:21 Product is 80%. Here’s what the rest looks like19:37 Do you need a founder-led marketing motion?22:20 Building brands without being the face25:08 Launch strategy: how Rand got 14,000 waitlist signups26:22 What changed after Rand’s Moz exit windfall28:01 Is financial comfort a requirement for calm growth?30:26 How Rand would grow SparkToro if he started at zero31:27 The role of content, Reddit, YouTube, and cross-posting34:36 Why Reddit is a B2B marketing cheat code36:14 Should technical founders learn marketing, or just hire?38:58 SparkToro vs. SnackBar: building in different industries#linkedin #founderledmarketing #saas #b2bmarketing #contentmarketing #ecommerce #shopify #personalbranding #linkedinads #linkedinagency #founderbranding #demandgeneration #demandgen #content #b2b #revenue #performancemarketing #videomarketing #personalbrandingcoach #aiagents #salesautomation #outboundsales #growthstrategy

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