Pando’s Solo Founder Story: Building a Technical Product with a Marketing Background

The conventional wisdom suggests technical founders have an edge when building software companies. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Barbra Gago shared how her marketing background prepared her for the founder journey in unexpected ways.

The Marketing Leader’s Advantage

“I feel like I was pretty prepared, to be honest,” Barbra explains, reflecting on her transition from CMO to founder. Her experience as a marketing leader provided unique advantages: “As a CMO, there’s a lot of pressure to understand so much of the business if you’re focused on driving revenue, of course, and so really understanding the buyers.”

This deep understanding of customers and business fundamentals provided a strong foundation. Having joined companies like Greenhouse as the 13th employee and Miro pre-Series A, Barbra had developed what she calls “that savvy of what we should do and what we should focus on and how to think about the company and marketing and branding early on.”

The Solo Founder Challenge

However, being a solo founder brought its own set of challenges. “I’m a solo founder, so that comes with a whole host of challenges,” Barbra notes. The biggest hurdle? “Really being comfortable leading and hiring for roles that even if I was close with our VP of engineering, or more so technical, because my husband’s an engineer and we talk about all these kinds of things, hiring roles and building parts of the business that I didn’t directly oversee before.”

The technical side proved particularly challenging. “I’ve rebuilt my engineering team a few times, actually,” Barbra admits. “So I think that’s been one of the biggest challenges for myself.”

Leveraging Past Experience

Her time at companies like Culture Amp and Greenhouse provided valuable insights into the people space and recruiting processes. “I learned so much about the people, space and how to recruit. And I think recruiting is definitely one of my superpowers and something that I brought into Miro, for example.”

This experience with best-in-class tools and processes proved invaluable when building her own company. “I think having that exposure to best in class tools and processes like that have given me a lot of experience.”

The Technical Learning Curve

While marketing leaders might not initially seem like natural technical founders, Barbra’s experience suggests they might be better equipped than commonly thought. “I have been working at the intersection of, I would say people and sort of tech work, definitely focused on disruptive technologies and category creating products,” she explains.

This exposure to technical products and markets helped bridge the gap between marketing and product development. Her experience working on marketing automation, enterprise social networking, and collaboration tools provided a foundation for understanding technical products from a market perspective.

Building for the Long Term

Despite the challenges, Barbra sees her marketing background as an advantage in building for the long term. “I didn’t start a company sooner because I really wanted to learn as much as possible,” she explains. This patient approach to founding a company has influenced how she builds Pando.

The vision extends beyond just building a technical product. “I really want to build kind of the ecosystem where levels are sort of a bit more standardized and calibrated so you can go from company to company with that kind of context,” she explains. This broader vision requires both technical expertise and market understanding – a combination that her unique background helps facilitate.

For other non-technical founders considering the journey, Barbra’s experience offers valuable lessons. Success doesn’t always require deep technical expertise from day one. Instead, it requires the ability to understand market needs, build strong teams, and maintain a clear vision – skills that marketing leaders often possess in abundance.