17 years ago, I dropped out of college to work with my mom, Gillian, on the business that became Moz. For 7 years (from 2007-2014), I was that company’s CEO. For the last 4, I’ve been in a variety of individual contributor roles. And today, for me, that journey ends.
On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is “fired and…
Preface: This is a hard post to write, and one that’s taken far longer than I hoped to publish. Never before have I been so challenged to walk the line between empathy and transparency. Never before have I had to get a blog post approved by my boss, board, and legal team. And so I ask, humbly, that you read…
The older I get, the less sure of myself I become. Certainty, it seems, diminishes with age. Hopefully, that’s part of the “wisdom of the aging brain” as Nautilus described it. This week, at Business of Software Europe, I was asked to give a talk on this topic, and created a short, visual set of slides. Typically, I put those…
It’s been 22 months since I stepped down as the CEO of Moz and turned over the role to my longtime Chief Operating Officer and close friend, Sarah Bird. Since then I’ve recovered from depression, traveled to and keynoted dozens of events, started (and now nearly completed) a new product with a small team at Moz, and kept up my…
From October of 2004 to April of 2015, Moz’s website remained entirely mobile-unfriendly. The experience on mobile, tablet, and desktop devices was the same, and if your screen was small, you had to pinch and zoom. Many of our readers complained and many more wondered why a technology company in the web marketing field would de-prioritize such a crucial element…
Wil Reynolds is one of my closest friends. When I reflect on people I love, respect, and want to spend time with (even when I’m in my introvert state), Wil is on the top of that list (along with his wife, Nora). But, that doesn’t mean we see eye to eye on everything.
In an on-stage interview last month, Wil…
Yesterday morning I woke up early to speak at the Business of Software conference in Boston. It was my first time there, and it’s an exceptional group. Then, after some meetings, I spoke in the afternoon at Hubspot’s Inbound conference (thankfully just across a long skybridge that connects Boston’s World Trade Center from its Convention Center). This morning, I woke…
A few weeks ago, Andrew Warner of Mixergy interviewed me on a number of topics. We started by talking about launching a startup marketing strategy, got deep into the tactical process of earning an audience, and ended discussing some of the challenges I’ve had at Moz this year.
(Andrew via Extra Pack of Peanuts)
Andrew is one of the best…
During the worst weeks of this year, I’ve had this weird mental cycle that, despite being incredibly exhausted, keeps me awake. In my head, I’ve taken to calling it “The Loop.”
(photo credit: Geraldine in Paris)
The Loop starts out with something small. I’ll be lying awake, in bed, trying to fall asleep, and thinking (as I do most of…
2013 has been a really hard year for me. In many ways, it’s been harder than even the 2002-2006 era when my Mom and I went deeply into debt and worried about paying the rent and being chased by creditors. Some of that is attributable to the less-than-what-I-hoped-for results the business achieved (mostly because we artificially constrained our acquisition funnel…
