Founder-Led Marketing Club

A structured group for kind, smart tech startup founders running their own marketing to get early happy paying customers facilitated by a 0 to $1m fractional marketing leader

To skip the line, schedule a 15-min chat.

Real member-only session: marketing goals workshop
(yup, those are genuine laughs)

Running marketing as a time and budget constrained tech startup founder is overwhelming, lonely, and risky.

We’ve all heard “first time founders build product, second time distribution”.

But marketing can feel scary when you’re still figuring out the product, business model, and just trying to get early traction.

Enter: Founder-Led Marketing Club (FLMC)

“Before FLMC, I was using a lot of YouTube videos and Slack communities. I describe FLMC as a curated 0 to 1 marketing resource, and a community of founders. I consider it my marketing home, and that is a big, important thing for my business.”

— B2C SaaS founder, pre-Seed VC funded startup

Here’s how it works:

Begin by creating a go-to-market plan to acquire, retain, and monetize customers, without burning cash.

FLMC membership includes a founder-approved template and 3-hour crash course using our Signature 5-step business-market fit framework.

The outcome is an execution-ready go-to-market plan 100% customized to you, your tech startup, and your market.

And, join a group of smart, kind founders also executing go-to-market plans for their tech startups:

Together we celebrate marketing #wins big and small 🎉

We also learn from each other’s experiments, ask questions, and vent…because founder-led marketing is hard.

📈 This bootstrapped revenue-funded B2C startup grew 33-45% monthly since joining.

It took < 1 order to breakeven on their FLMC investment.

Why should other early-stage founders consider joining FLMC?

Zainab Ghadiyali, founder of Eat Cook Joy, shared:

"Once I shared I was frustrated I wasn't getting conversions with events. I got:

- 8 comments within a single day.
- Reality check on why events ≠ conversions.
- Suggestions for ways to use event marketing.
- Specific feedback on the event itself.

That's the kind of thing that you can read five blogs and still not really get."

What else? Zainab has been working on the Eat Cook Joy positioning in the group. She has received feedback on several iterations of her website from members. She discovered ‘review mining’ through a FLMC live session which revealed business-critical insights for her and led to her revamping her site overnight.

And, after crushing her revenue targets she quit her job to work on her startup full time!

☝ This is FLMC. Facilitated by a 2x first go-to-market hire, we provide actually useful support for tech startup founders running their own marketing while wearing 17 hats 🎩

To skip the line, schedule a 15-min chat.

Once a month admissions: apply by end of month to join your new marketing home the following month 🏡

Access just what you need to run marketing on your own to get 100+ customers:

  • Go-to-Market Design Pack to draft an execution-ready plan

    Valued at $1,500+

    Template and crash course to design a go-to-market plan to get 100 happy paying customers with founder-led marketing.

  • Sessions with experts & founders who get 0-to-1

    Valued at $200+ per session

    Want to know how to start with SEO from scratch with limited time? Discover review mining? See what other founders are doing? You’ll love these!

  • Zero-noise, always helpful Slack for founders

    ∞ value

    Whether you want feedback on your assets, have a specific question about SEM, want advice on email tools, or just need to vent, we got you.

To skip the line, schedule a 15-min chat.

We prioritize underestimated founders (women, BIPOC, immigrants, LGBTQ+, etc.).

This Forbes 30 under 30 founder sees FLMC as her marketing lifeguard

For Jessica, founder of Dailies, critical to their success was setting a clear plan and then surrounding herself with other early-stage founders who are also figuring out marketing. FLMC provides her exactly that. Here are the specific ways she’s using FLMC:

  • To create the go-to-market plan: “The go-to-market plan I created using the template in the Go-to-Market Design Pack is our Bible for the year. We are not deviating until we’ve met the goal, or if we need to pivot.”

  • To learn from other founders: “As I continue to figure out marketing for our tech startup, I am always Googling or talking to other founders. Founders I’ve met through FLMC, and Sweta, have become my first-stop on all things marketing. I use FLMC to understand what is and isn’t working for other early-stage founders.”

  • As her daily marketing home: “As soon as the monthly events are announced, I add them to my calendar before I get booked with other meetings. After my company Slack, FLMC is the next one I check every morning, and worse case every other day. It has become muscle memory now.”

Why she joined: “When I heard about FLMC, I thought, I am a founder leading marketing and I don’t know what I am doing. I'm pulling information from all of these sources, but if there's someone who knows and understands marketing and it's going to be providing tips and also community, like why wouldn't I join?”

Why she recommends it to her founder friends: “The Go-to-Market Design Pack helped kickstart and reflect on the fundamentals that we all struggle with. Sweta providing us the expert oversight is a game changer. We’re already swimming; we’re doggy paddling in the pool. And, at the right times Sweta has thrown me a life jacket or safety ring so I can catch my breath for a minute, while also learning how to swim better.”

Jessica Shelly, founder of Dailies, an edtech startup, mom of 5, and Forbes 30 under 30 founder

If you’re a smart, kind founder figuring out marketing, and you too, want a marketing coach and lifeguard, we’d love to have you in the Founder-Led Marketing Club

To skip the line, schedule a 15-min chat.

Once a month admissions: apply by end of month to move into your new marketing home the following month 🏡

Your investment options if you are ready to get (more) happy paying customers:

  • Quarterly

    $215 / month (billed quarterly)

    Exactly what you need to draft your go-to-market plan and build a marketing routine to execute it.

    For the price of just 1 hour with a marketing coach, access structure, resources, and support for the whole month.

    Ideal for founders getting started with marketing your tech startup to test your idea and get first 10 paying customers.

  • Annual

    $1935 (billed annually)

    BONUS: 1:1 strategy session to get customized feedback on your plan (valued at $500).

    Save $645, the price for an entire quarter, with this 25% discount on the annual membership.

    Ideal for founders seriosly prioritizing marketing for their tech startup to get 100+ paying customers in the next year.

Ashley Chang, co-founder of Sundays, a revenue-funded startup

“Sundays just hit $100k ARR, 4 months after joining FLMC. I honestly do not think we could have done it without the group and Sweta.”

Before FLMC: “I had read Traction, met with marketer friends, and even set up marketing time blocks. But, I had no idea where to start so I wasn’t using that time well and wasn’t doing sufficient marketing. I needed a framework and structure to figure out marketing on my own.”

With FLMC: "I immediately used the Go-to-Market Design Pack to create my plan. This is the framework I was looking for. The templates, live sessions, and Slack conversations provide the structure, resources, and inspiration to use my marketing time blocks productively.

  • I use the monthly OKR (objective and key results) template to identify priorities for my entire business, not just marketing.

  • My biggest learning this year came from FLMC: focus on business-market fit, not just product-market fit.

  • FLMC has directly influenced the channels I prioritize, my LinkedIn plan, email automation, and even our pricing tests.”

FAQs about the Founder-Led Marketing Club 👇

  • FLMC is designed for busy founders, on a tight budget, who are serious about figuring out marketing for their tech startup (b2b, b2c, eCommerce, marketplace) on their own.

    Every member is vetted to confirm the above, and that they value community and accountability. What doesn’t matter: your marketing expertise. We’re all learning from experiments.

    This is NOT for you if:

    • Someone else ‘owns’ marketing e.g. Head of marketing / growth

    • Your startup is not a tech company

    • Your startup has USD 250K+ annual revenue

    • You do not want to share your learning

    • Marketing is a ‘later’ problem

    • You are looking for someone else to do marketing for you (see my other offers)

    Priority is given to underestimated founders building values-driven tech across health, education, future of work, parenting, and more.

  • Founders running marketing at their tech startups, across industries and sectors, on a limited budget, and with no/limited marketing support.

    We proudly prioritize self-identifying underestimated founders e.g. women, POC, LGBTQ+, building impact-first startups, etc. 

    See this LinkedIn post that features several of the founders, and testimonials from several can be found throughout the site as well as in my LinkedIn recommendations.

  • FLMC is a group facilitated by a 0 to $1m fractional marketing leader and coach.

    • You will draft / iterate your go-to-market plan using my template and ~3 hour crash course. For feedback / questions, join live group sessions (or book a free one-on-one strategy session on the annual plan).

    • To start executing your plan, you will then have access to other resources such as an experimentation prioritization framework, objectives and key results template, customer journey template, and more.

    • At the heart of FLMC is a structured and marketing-focused Slack founder community for asynchronous support - feedback on landing pages, questions about content, celebrating, or venting.

    • 3+ times a month we meet live for sessions led by experts / other founders on topics requested by members (that could be you!).

    • We’re early so this means you get direct access to a 0 to $1m fractional marketing leader, you can request resources/sessions, and help us continue to shape FLMC into just the right marketing home for you.

  • You decide. FLMC is designed to help you maximize your allocated 'marketing time' per week/month to achieve your targets. Members describe it as their 'marketing home' and use it when they are working on marketing - some use it daily, others weekly.

    Those who get the most value from it:

    • Used the Go-to-Market Design Pack to draft/iterate theirplan (~3 hours)

    • Set their goals and identified priority experiments (~2 hours)

    • Ask questions about how to set up the experiment, tools to use, etc. before executing (varies)

    • Attend live sessions 1-2x a month (~1 hour)

    • Share learning / answer questions (varies)

    TL;DR: They are using FLMC to increase the ROI of their limited time/budget allocated to marketing.

  • I work exclusively with founders (and am 1 myself!) so I know we will only spend money on something that is truly valuable. Plus, the goal with FLMC is to make marketing fundamentals accessible to underestimated founders so you can grow your tech startup, on your terms, and avoid running out of business.

    FLMC is akin to a marketing coach dedicated to seeing your startup succeed i.e. saving time/money and making money. The Go-to-Market Design Pack alone is valued at $1,500 (included for free in your membership) and live sessions are valued at $200+ per session.

    FLMC is priced competitively at USD 215 / month (billed quarterly). This is less than the price for just 1 hour with a marketing coach. Or, $1945 / year (billed annually) which includes a free strategy session with Sweta (valued at $500) and a 25% discount (i.e. $645 savings).

  • FLMC was created by Sweta Govani, a 0 to $1m fractional marketing leader. She has been a first go-to-market hire at 2 startups, and advised/worked with 100s of founders. She has 15+ years of experience with marketing for 30+ brands. Her marketing approach focuses on helping tech startups achieve ‘business-market fit’, a term she coined. Her sustainable go-to-market approach helps startups not only build a great product, but also ensure you can acquire, retain, and monetize customers.

  • FLMC is part of my (Sweta’s) larger mission to support 100s of underestimated founders grow their tech startups, on their terms.

    Problem: I believe most startups fail because of time and money wasted on bad marketing before achieving, what I call, business-market fit. Early-stage founders often don't have the budget to hire me, or other marketing strategy coach / consultants. The existing resources are not designed for the 0 to 1 stage, and certainly not for founders with limited tech startup/marketing experience. This disproportionately affects underestimated founders.

    Solution: I started FLMC because founders in my network asked me for a safe space without investors to talk marketing. I aim to make marketing fundamentals accessible to underestimated founders so they can grow their tech startups to a stage where they can bring on marketers - contractors or full-time.

  • The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and founders consistently refer FLMC to other founders. You likely heard about this through someone else in your network too, right?

    You can read the case studies above. See this LinkedIn post that features several of the founders, and testimonials from several can be found throughout the site as well as in my LinkedIn recommendations.

If you’re a smart, kind founder figuring out marketing for your tech startup, we’d love to meet you

To skip the line, schedule a 15-min chat.

Once a month admissions: apply by end of month to move into your new marketing home the following month 🏡

Get actionable 0 to 1 marketing insights in your inbox 1-2x a month

You’ll get proven frameworks for early-stage startups, and learnings from founders running marketing at their startups.