Experience
I first heard the term 'Founder Mode' earlier this year. It really struck a chord with me. At its core, 'Founder Mode' means diving deep, talking directly to colleagues and customers across all levels, relentlessly improving products, and driving forward from a clear, compelling vision.
I realised I’d been using 'Founder Mode' long before I ever heard the name. When I was launching BathandBodyWorks.com, as an “intrapreneur”, this is exactly how I behaved. I consciously embedded myself in every detail, spent countless hours speaking with frontline teams, questioned traditional methods, and worked obsessively to refine our products.
More recently, while building Delve Deeper, as an “entrepreneur”, I've carried this same approach forward.
And you know what? This ‘mode’ works.
But I've also witnessed the opposite in my soon-to-be 30 years in marketing. I've seen managers in large companies buried under spreadsheets, disconnected from real customer needs. Watched as genuine conversations were replaced by PowerPoints and bureaucracy. Observed talented people lost in management for management's sake.
Engaging 'Founder Mode' stops this from happening. It reminds us to stay hands-on, curious, and authentically connected. It’s the antidote to the layers and silos that kill real understanding. It ensures we never lose touch with the true pulse of our business.
Reflection
Recently, a Wall Street Journal article titled "AI’s Biggest Threat: Young People Who Can’t Think" really hit home for me. It described students increasingly outsourcing their thinking to AI tools like ChatGPT. As a result, they're not developing the skills they need to challenge and think independently.
I've seen similar dynamics play out in marketing teams - both among junior, but also senior marketers.
AI isn’t an “easy button”, for anyone.
AI excels at personalization and scale - but it falters without genuine human insight.
True marketing clarity and deep customer understanding never arise from tools alone.
Particularly in recurring revenue businesses – such as the charities, insurance and credit card brands I've worked with – AI should complement, not replace, human intuition.
Effective leadership requires maintaining our capacity to think deeply and critically, using AI strategically but always guided by human experience.
Action
Here are my simple suggestions about how you can activate Founder Mode as an ‘intrapreneur’, practically, and based on my personal experiences:
Step Outside Your Comfort Zone: Spend a day with frontline staff. Ask them about your most valuable customers. Then, group 20% of those most valuable customers, into 3 groups (A, B and C) of at least 50,000 each, by genuine reasons or affinities for loyalty to your brand (warning: no jargon allowed!).
Master a New Skill: Challenge your team and your colleagues to consistently “tag” customers based on real-world buying motivations. Leverage clear, accessible 1st party data signals – purchase patterns, web interactions, chat history. Consistency beats complexity every time.
Create Immediate Impact: At Delve Deeper, we consistently see that targeted campaigns built on authentic insights outperform generic ones. Craft personalized campaigns (different for groups A, B and C, from step 1) by specific customer needs or affinities, measuring their performance directly against your current strategy (are CTRs higher? CPCs lower? Conversion rates higher? AOV higher?).
Accelerate Your Career: Embed these targeted insights into your data systems and marketing platforms.
Bottom line: Structured first-party data is the foundation of AI-driven personalization, enhancing your value and accelerating your career progression.
(I speak about this 4 Step RoMC, Return on Marketing Career, framework - in my ‘seminar’ post, which you can find here).
References
Harvard Business Review – “The Strengths and Weaknesses that Set Founders Apart”
Wall Street Journal – “AI’s Biggest Threat: Young People Who Can’t Think”
Deloitte Insights – ”Evolving leadership to drive human performance”
If you’d like to discuss your career journey with me one-to-one, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or message me on LinkedIn.
Thank you for reading.
If you know someone who you think would appreciate this newsletter, please forward it to them.