Theme of 2025: Alignment
DemandMaven turned eight years old on February 4th.
Eight years. I’ve been running this business longer than I’ve been at any full-time, in-house role. Almost as long as my entire career before starting it. That kind of hit me this year in a way it hasn’t before.
I haven’t done a proper year in review in a while. I used to do them mid-year, which never felt right. But reflecting from the other side of a full year, with a little distance? This feels like the right time.
Last year’s theme, if I’m being honest, was probably survival. 2024 broke me. No new clients for the first four to five months. The tech market was rough. It was the worst year I’ve ever had running DemandMaven.
But 2025? The theme was alignment. I stopped trying to force DemandMaven into something it’s not. I stopped chasing the “20-30 person agency” version of success. And I settled into something that actually feels good.
We’re making about half of what we made in 2023 (our best year). But I’m more balanced, less stressed, and more aligned with how I want to work than I’ve ever been.
DemandMaven is a lifestyle business. And I’m saying that out loud now without flinching.
Major 2025 Wins
Honestly? It was a solid year. I really can’t complain.
Research Processes: Absolutely Nailed
This is the one I’m most proud of. Our entire qualitative research process now crunches into one week.
Jobs to be done, UX, win-loss, competitive intelligence, pricing interviews. Doesn’t matter the type. The full project takes five to six weeks, but the research sprint itself? One week. We can spin up a UX research project in no time.
We also got hyper-specific about who we talk to. We pick our panels carefully. We maximize insight potential. And I know a lot of people groan about interviews taking forever, but the way we do it now, it’s a big sprint, a big swing, and we get it done.
Being slow is a choice. We choose to be fast. And watching our clients embrace that mindset and carry it forward after our projects end? That’s been really cool to see.
Expanded Research Methods
Jobs to be done is great. I love it. But it can’t do everything.
So last year I really doubled down on adding more versatile methods. UX interviews, pricing interviews, competitive intelligence, win-loss. Each gives you something different.
Competitive intelligence interviews were the surprise hit for me. Hearing how other companies run their operations, where they found success, where they didn’t. Fascinating. And yes, there are ways to do this that are perfectly legal and ethical.
Win-loss is tricky (especially for purely self-serve PLG companies where nobody responds to the churn call), but when you have a sales team, it’s powerful.
Figured Out How to Get Me to Create Content
I’m going to say this generously, because content is still one of my top challenges. But here’s the breakthrough.
With my ADHD diagnosis, I finally understood where and how I need to create. I don’t get a dopamine hit from writing blog posts or LinkedIn posts. I just don’t. I used to, but that’s gone.
What I do get energy from is talking. Speaking. Having a conversation.
So we figured out that the podcast is the center of DemandMaven’s marketing universe. Everything else gets repurposed from there. Kim and I published 20 episodes in 2025. And I actually enjoy delivering it, which is kind of the whole point.
I’ve also gotten better at using AI for my specific process. My tripwire is to speak. So I’ll talk to Claude for 10-20 minutes, take the transcript, and have it help me write it up. The source material is always me. AI just helps me express it consistently. It’s not perfect (sometimes it does cringe stuff and I rewrite it), but it’s helped me actually ship things.
Repeat Clients
This was new for us. Usually clients come back after one to three years. But in 2025, a lot of them finished one project and immediately asked: what’s next?
I think it’s because of how we work now. More flexible, scope-based projects that naturally lend themselves to continued engagement.
Embraced Flexible, Custom Projects
I leaned into fractional CMO work. Pricing projects. Activation work. Hiring projects. We branched out in ways I wouldn’t have expected.
I know for a lot of consultancies, doing too many things sounds like the death toll. But I think DemandMaven makes more sense as a full-stack growth provider than as a one-trick turnkey thing. The companies that hire us have challenges across so many functions. Being flexible has worked.
The tricky part is that this makes it hard to scale. But that’s kind of the point.
Speaking Highlights
Light year for speaking (usually I do three to five), but still had some good ones:
- SparkTogether (Sparktoro’s conference) where I told stories about big oh-shit moments and client turnarounds
- Startup Mountain Summit in Johnson City, Tennessee, teaching early-stage founders about JTBD and customer psychology
- User Insights podcast (run by UserTesting), which was a standout conversation
Challenges of 2025
Because consultancies have challenges too, right?
Client Acquisition is Always the Thing
It’s tough for every services business. It’s especially tough for someone who hates emailing people and doesn’t want to write unless she’s genuinely excited about something.
What’s wild is that 2025 was the year we brought the podcast back, and now we actually get clients from it. We also started showing up in AI searches. People talk to Perplexity and ChatGPT, ask for recommendations, and DemandMaven pops up. Kind of cool.
There were two moments last year where I got a little stressed about pipeline. But something always came through. It always worked out. Which brings me to one of my biggest lessons learned (more on that below).
Email: Still a Dumpster Fire
My email list? I feel massive guilt about it. I’ll get motivated, send one email, get the dopamine hit, and think I’m good forever. The truth is, I don’t like email. I don’t read it. My inbox is a graveyard. So sending someone an email feels like an apology.
But I know that’s how people remember you exist. And how a lot of people buy services. So this is still very much a work in progress.
Case Studies: The Consultant’s Dilemma
I was just talking to April Dunford about this. We’ve literally helped companies triple their MRR. But sometimes those clients won’t do a case study.
April’s take was helpful: if you’re a good consultant, your job is to make the client look amazing. From their perspective, they made the smart choice in hiring you. Any result you help them achieve, they see as their own. And honestly, that’s fine.
But here’s my PSA: if you have consultants, agencies, or providers you love, do the case study with them. It literally helps them keep going.
And the SaaS economics are real. Any MRR we help you lift, you keep making forever. We get paid once.
Lessons Learned
The Deliverable Is Not the Work
This is probably the biggest shift I’ve made. I used to put all the energy into the slide deck. The strategy doc. I wanted clients to be blown away when they opened it.
Now? The real work is what happens during the project. Can we unblock the team? Can we help them make progress in real time? Including the client in the process along the way has been the single biggest change in how we deliver value.
I still build the artifacts. I’m a consultant. But I’m under no illusion that a beautiful slide deck is what creates the outcome.
It Kind of Just Always Works Out
This sounds naive. I know it does. But here’s the pattern: every year, I think we might die. It hasn’t happened yet. 2024, I was panicking for five months. Then in July, we got four clients at once. 2025, I was waiting for the shoe to drop. It never did.
I don’t think this means I can be passive. But I do think there’s something to trusting the process, showing up consistently, and not manufacturing panic.
Goal-Setting and I Are on a Break
2024 broke my brain around traditional goal-setting. I set aspirational goals, and the first five months made them feel completely irrelevant. It wasn’t that I was giving away my power. It was that I didn’t have control over everything, and that realization changed how I think.
I didn’t really set goals for 2025. I’m not really setting them for 2026 either. And I’m trying not to feel bad about it.
Theme of 2026: Explore
I’m hesitant to commit to too much. But I have intentions.
More Partnerships
This is the big one. We’re not a full-service marketing agency. We’re a full-stack growth consultancy. But there are parts we don’t touch: development, certain marketing execution, product design.
I’d love to collaborate with niche specialists where we fill in for each other. We’re already in talks with a pricing consultant where this makes sense. I’m happy to give up the pricing work if it means collaborating on everything else.
Work with Design-Forward Companies
I worked with a company called Makeswift years ago where the CEO wouldn’t ship anything unless it looked and felt good. At first I thought it was intense. Looking back, I took that experience for granted.
I want to feel that again. That mindset where brand and design matter in every part of the experience.
More Speaking
Last year was light. I’d like to get back to three to four conferences this year. More than five and I’m brain dead, but I miss having the excuse to travel. I’m already eyeing a few for the second half of the year.
Product and Design Work
I just did a project where I actually designed some activation comps and in-app product design changes. Seeing them get implemented, and then seeing users respond better? Super satisfying. I’d love to pair with actual product designers on future activation and retention projects.
AI Search Visibility
Nothing about DemandMaven has ever felt traditional. But people are finding us through AI search, and I think there’s something worth leaning into there.
Kim’s Demand Recruiting
And in exciting news: Kim is launching Demand Recruiting, a marketing recruiting service for B2B SaaS companies. It’s a natural extension of the hiring work we’ve done for clients over the years, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it become its own thing. More on that soon.
One More Thing: Touch Grass
On the personal side, I’m learning Spanish with an actual teacher (a darling man from Argentina). I’m somewhere between A2 and B1, which means I can read easily but get stuck expressing myself. My goal is to have a full conversation with my abuelita someday.
I’m sending my teacher interview clips and Bad Bunny videos as lesson material, so at least the content is fun.
And gardening season is coming. Seeds are getting ready. Backpacking trip in March. Maybe Peru at some point? My commitment levels are low right now, but I have a feeling spring will change that.
Thanks for reading, for listening, and for being part of the DemandMaven journey for eight years and counting.
What are you exploring in 2026? I’d love to hear.