EP35: The value of founder communities
Welcome to the new season of the In Demand podcast! For this season, Asia is joined by her new co-host Kim Talarczyk, the Client Services Manager at DemandMaven.
In this first episode of the season, Asia and Kim discuss recent conferences like MicroConf and Indie Founders, highlighting the value of founder communities and the insights from conversations with founders. They cover how DemandMaven is evolving and new projects, like Asia’s work as a fractional CMO, and how the shifting tech paradigm is changing businesses in 2025. Let’s get started!
Meet our new co-host, Kim Talarczyk
At retreats and conferences, fans of the In Demand podcast frequently express a desire for more content. As a solo host and business owner, recording and publishing podcasts consistently can be challenging for Asia. Between getting diagnosed with ADHD last year and understanding her own work style and motivators, Asia has been on a journey to improve her operations and figure out the best way to share all of the knowledge she is accumulating every week.
Enter Kim Talarczyk, who has been working alongside Asia as the Client Services Manager at DemandMaven for the last four years. Not only is she managing client projects but she’s played a huge role in keeping Asia organized and on track behind the scenes. Kim’s background is in marketing and tech operations where she’s done everything from scaling companies to building teams, creating processes, growing the business, and handling client relationships.
Kim keeps the DemandMaven ship sailing, and her operations-focused POV is the perfect complement to Asia’s strategic insight. Over the last few years, they’ve been hashing it out behind the scenes. Now, they’re excited to be distilling and sharing their observations with you on the pod.
Indie Founders retreat recap
Asia recently returned from Italy where she attended a few conferences, including Indie Founders, an invitation-only founder retreat run by Rand Fishkin and cohosted by Giacomo (Peldi) Guilizzoni. The event distinguishes itself by focusing on zebras – smaller, profitable businesses prioritizing long-term value over a fast exit —rather than unicorns or decacorns.
Indie Founders could be described as an “un-conference” fostering real, transparent discussions among the founders in attendance. There’s a “leave your egos at the door,” human vibe thanks to a diverse mix of people at various stages of their careers and company growth.
For Asia, Indie Founders 2025 was a grounding experience, giving her time to reflect on her goals for the growth and evolution of DemandMaven. She realized it’s not about hitting that next milestone or completely changing the business in order to scale. She’d rather continue to solve problems for people while maintaining financial and emotional balance.
She also acknowledges how important it is to spend time traveling to events like MicroConf and Indie Founders, whether it’s going to New Orleans or Italy. Gatherings like these are critical for making new connections, shifting your energy, and rewiring your brain so you can see just a little bit more clearly.
What makes a good CEO (and why founders often aren’t best at CEO work)
Asia’s biggest download from IndieFounders was about understanding how and where she wants to stretch. In 2025, DemandMaven has started taking on fractional-CMO-as-a-Service opportunities, and – surprise, surprise – she’s been loving it. She does worry about feeling boxed in in the CMO role, which led her to contemplate what it takes to be a CEO.
In general, founder CEOs are makers who have had to learn the role of CEO. They face challenges that a traditional CEO or interim CEO might not, for example:
- Managing people: As a company grows, CEOs must focus on leadership and coaching.
- Adapting energy: Matching the energy of high-level VPs can be difficult.
- Making decisions: The pressure of running a growing business can be draining.
- Handling daily tasks: Shifting from hands-on work to strategy can be tough.
Discussions like these, along with topics like marketing channels, founder “therapy,” product vision, and industry shifts, are just a few examples of what makes events like Indie Founder so valuable.
Planning in unpredictable times
The tech market is always changing, but feels especially volatile now. It’s why Asia stopped making 3 or 5-year plans for her business instead choosing a path of constant iteration. So when another conference attendee asked the question “How do you plan in 2025?”, it made her think. When you’re leading or managing a team, you still have to have a plan on paper. You can’t predict the future, but you have to be able to create some palatable vision that people can digest.
How should bootstrapped founders figure out their next best move? They have to look at the leading indicators that are signalling that change is underfoot. Acquisitions are a red flag for major industry changes. If certain roles or hiring trends are taking place, that’s a good indicator. You can also look at shifts in the political climate. Asia gives the example of DemandMaven’s clients in the education space, who had to look at how the current administration treats certain education programs to figure out what strategies to prioritize.
Strong leaders have to constantly be paying attention, looking for signals and making sure they’re documenting and collecting data around them when possible. But no shame when you miss something! There will always be things you can’t predict – take the example of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse of 2023.
And now, something random: Delta’s 100-year anniversary video
Time to make a slight detour from founder content. During her travels the last few weeks, Asia happened upon another, unexpected, benefit of leaving home: In-flight entertainment. On her trip back from Paris to Atlanta, Delta showcased their latest safety instruction video which walks viewers through the last ten decades of styles, logos, and culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnOLUnExHvw
It may not have been perfect – the last thirty years felt noticeably off – but Kim and Asia think this Delta marketing experiment paid off. What do you think?
The power of podcasts and the challenge of creating when it can feel like you’re talking into a vacuum
At MicroConf and Indie Founders, Asia was amazed at how often people brought up the In Demand podcast. When you’re in the middle of the production process, podcasts can feel like a one-way street. You’re putting content out in the world, and sometimes it seems like that’s where it ends.
It’s easy to wonder whether podcasts really deserve a place in your marketing strategy and talk yourself out of it. Maybe you’re not someone who is naturally inspired to share. Maybe you don’t know how you’re going to ever attribute any business to it. Maybe you think too many people already have podcasts, or no one is going to really listen.
But just because you’re not getting consistent feedback or the attribution you wanted doesn’t mean it’s a wasted effort. At the end of the day, it’s valuable content that people probably want more of.
Which brings us to today…
What’s next for In Demand?
It’s not fair that Kim gets to hear Asia say brilliant things everyday during their calls with clients and discussions together. So many juicy nuggets have been mostly locked away until now. And while she shares a bit of what she sees through her speaking engagements, not everyone is going to have the opportunity to see Asia onstage at a conference.
The goal of this podcast is to bring you organic learnings from other tech clients and founders. Asia and Kim have promised to capture the aha moments that happen each week and unpack their discoveries over time.
The podcast might feel a bit different to long-time listeners – you’ll notice some new strategies and experimenting, and we hope you’ll stick around for it all. Indie Founder was a good reminder about how important it is to connect with and hear from other founders. So, let’s keep the parasocial conversations going right here. If there is anything specific you want to hear us cover, reach out to Kim or Asia and let us know!