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Embracing Marketing Mistakes · July 14 · 1 hr

EP 119: Moz Founder: 'I Was Making $50M a Year and Miserable'

Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him. In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics framework for the AI and zero-click era, and why your boss is wrong to give Google credit for your branded search traffic. If you're interested on how to track marketing influence beyond click-based analytics, why website traffic is dropping while revenue holds steady for many businesses, and why brand and positioning remain the most durable marketing assets in the AI era, then this episode is for you. Send us Fan Mail Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈 Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show. Subscribe to our newsletter The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈 Follow Chris: X, TikTok, LinkedIn Follow Will: LinkedIn Follow The Show: TikTok, YouTube

0:00 · Welcome And Why Rand Matters-1:00:35

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show notes

Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him.

In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics framework for the AI and zero-click era, and why your boss is wrong to give Google credit for your branded search traffic.

If you're interested on  how to track marketing influence beyond click-based analytics, why website traffic is dropping while revenue holds steady for many businesses, and why brand and positioning remain the most durable marketing assets in the AI era, then this episode is for you.

Send us Fan Mail

Struggling to prove marketing's worth to your board? Grab our free one-page Board-Proof Scorecard: 👉 Download the scorecard 👈

Got a marketing problem you would rather not admit to? Reply to this and we will answer it anonymously on the show.

Subscribe to our newsletter
The mistakes we see marketers make, every fortnight. 👉 [Subscribe here] 👈

Follow Chris:
X, TikTok, LinkedIn

Follow Will:
LinkedIn

Follow The Show:
TikTok, YouTube

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