Just a bit ago I was named General Manager of Stir.com. It has been an interesting transition to stay the least. We’ve always had a very open environment and generally had some great team chemistry. We had a nice set of principles that everyone agreed with, and we all had a shared vision of creating a social network that was focused on getting people off the computer and out on the town.
So when I was given my opportunity, it’s not like there were a ton of changes that I had in mind. For the most part we were headed there anyway. None of the above has changed.
There is one thing symbolic about my move out of marketing and into a broader role. Going forward, our product has to be the marketing. Stir can be a remarkable site, and we have to build genuine word of mouth. I’ll have far less time to focus on paid marketing. Luckily I now have an intern to help with social media and other content creation. She’s turned out to be a real asset.
That’s also the challenge here. I’m good at the paid marketing model. I love to measure ROI, click rates, and work on improving cost of acquisition. I’m an experimentalist that loves to constantly improve his marketing. Now I’ll have to take those same principles and apply them even more to the product.
There’s also this aspect of my leadership that come through teaching. I’m used to being the expert on a the subject and helping my team learn in the process. Now I have to lead things that I don’t have expertise in. It’s a different role to tell people to do something you couldn’t do yourself. I’m excited for the opportunity, and I’m sure I’ll learn a bunch.
Tags: General Manager, Marketing, social media, social network, stir.com, Technology/Internet