A marketing masterclass and Monday.com’s founder shares his secrets of scale
Welcome to the latest edition of Business Leader Masterclass.?
You may have noticed a name change to this newsletter. After speaking to our readers and members, we are curating our content around two key pillars: masterclasses and case studies. This newsletter will contain the same great content, just with more of an emphasis on offering practical advice and tips that can help you scale your business. We hope you enjoy it.?
In this issue:?
?? A marketing masterclass from Serie A?
?? monday.com founder on how to build a global software giant?
?? Grind | Certified B Corp CEO shares his leadership secret????
?? How De Beers created a marketing from nothing
?? Founder mode: when to step in and when to step back?
How Serie A plans to reclaim global glory?
Serie A was the top football league in the world in the 1980s and 1990s. But in recent years that has not been the case. It's been overtaken by other leagues, notably the English Premier League. Now, however, it is fighting back. And it is doing so by focusing on marketing and trying to expand its audience around the world.?
We speak to the league's commercial and marketing director Michele Ciccarese about the key pillars of its strategy and what he thinks is required for effective marketing. His approach focuses on taking the league beyond Italian borders, opening international offices, and forming cross-promotional partnerships with iconic organisations like the NBA.
In our latest Masterclass, we explore:
- Understanding your audience?
- Copying and pivoting?
- The power of partnerships?
- Expanding reach through targeted audience insights
Grind CEO: Reinvent and replace yourself
Coffee brand Grind began when the company's founder and CEO David Abrahamovitch took over the lease of his father’s phone shop in Shoreditch, London in 2011.??
Today, Grind has 14 locations in London serving coffee, food and cocktails and has developed a thriving e-commerce offer, selling compostable Nespresso coffee pods. Like the cafes, they use a coffee blend from the company’s own roastery.?
Not all founders stay on board as their companies grow, as they feel they lack the skills to take things to the next level.?
Abrahamovitch says he has had to grow as a leader and “reinvent” himself to stay relevant to the needs of his own business. “If you can get good and excited about that then that’s a huge advantage,” he says, “because not everyone can adapt and keep going up a level in that way.”?
Monday.com: How to build a global software giant?
Eran Zinman co-founded Monday.com with fellow software engineer Roy Mann in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2012.? It now has more than a quarter of a million customers in over 200 countries. Around 27 per cent of its global revenues come from Europe and the UK is its second-largest market globally. The firm employs more than 2,000 people.??
When Monday.com went public in the US on Nasdaq in 2021 it was valued at $6.8bn (￡5.2bn). In October this year, that valuation rose above $14bn, cementing its reputation as another Israeli tech success story.?
In the latest episode of the?Business Leader Podcast, we speak to the company’s co-founder Eran Zinman about how the company has scaled so rapidly.?? ?
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Your invite to the Business Leader Summit?
The Business Leader Summit is a not-to-be-missed event exclusively for the CEOs and founders of the UK’s mid-sized companies.?
Join us for a day dedicated to leadership, innovation and growth. Covering everything from building the right teams and securing funding, to knowing when to expand globally – and much more. Learn from business leaders who have been in your shoes, as well as from peers facing the same business challenges.?
The Business Leader Summit takes place on March 26, 2025, at Central Hall Westminster, London. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.businessleadersummit.co.uk.?
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How De Beers created a market out of nothing?
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,” Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, once quipped. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, didn’t conduct focus groups and yet developed a range of highly coveted products no one knew they wanted until they were available.?
But probably the best example of creating demand for a product where there was none is diamond giant De Beers. It convinced generations of men they should spend at least two months’ salary on a diamond engagement ring and told women that their peers would judge their choice of spouse by the size of the stone set in it. It did it through powerful marketing across a number of decades, including the creation of the world’s longest-running commercial payoff line. But it almost never happened.?
Founder mode: When to step in and when to step back?
In his monthly column, Caspar Lee explores the delicate balance between involvement and trust in leadership.?
Paul Graham, co-founder of the start-up accelerator Y Combinator, wrote an essay called Founder Mode that went viral earlier this year. In it, he referenced a talk by Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb, where he challenged conventional advice on managing larger companies. Apparently, as Airbnb grew, Chesky was told to “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs”, but this led to poor results.?
As a co-founder, I find this concept relevant as I have experienced the challenges that come with balancing delegation and involvement. The idea of finding the right level of engagement spoke directly to the tensions I have felt while growing our company.?
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