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Jake FinkelsteinJake Finkelstein is the CEO and Founder of 10cubed, a company that creates advanced technology for modern marketers. With a focus on growth and scale, 10cubed offers an all-in-one digital marketing platform that blends hands-on services and advanced tools to help brands grow faster at reduced costs with increased speed-to-market.

Jake is a serial entrepreneur and revenue marketing expert with over 25 years of brand and performance marketing experience. Before 10cubed, he founded and led Method Savvy, an integrated marketing consultancy servicing ambitious middle-market and enterprise companies.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • Jake Finkelstein talks about what they do and the tools they create at 10cubed
  • Why is it important to talk to your customers and know their thoughts
  • The lessons Jake learned from his previous agency that he uses at 10cubed
  • How Jake is pressure testing in the B2B SaaS market
  • The eight practice areas at 10cubed
  • How Jake decides what not to do
  • What are the usual challenges and issues faced by 10cubed clients?
  • How 10cubed onboards new team members
  • Hiring local versus virtual staff
  • How Jake became an agency owner
  • Jake’s experience working with multiple industries, including music and manufacturing
  • Jake’s favorite work and productivity tools

In this episode…

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, leveraging advanced technology and data is no longer a luxury but a necessity. The ability to harness these tools can be the difference between a thriving business and one that falls behind. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to understand how data and technology can drive business growth.

Jake Finkelstein, a revenue marketing expert, is a pioneer in this space. With a unique blend of hands-on services, advanced technology, and exclusive data, Jake has taken the guessing game out of digital marketing. His journey from starting his first company as a teenager to becoming a successful digital marketing agency owner is a testament to his innovative approach and relentless drive. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to understand how data and technology can drive business growth.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz engages in a riveting conversation with Jake Finkelstein, Founder and CEO of 10cubed. They delve into Jake’s journey of becoming a successful digital marketing agency owner, the importance of leveraging advanced technology and data in marketing, and the potential of digital marketing in transforming industries that are lagging behind.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

Jeremy Weisz 0:13

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have Jake Finkelstein of 10cubed.co. Jake, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes people should check out of the podcast. Since we are in EO I had Verne Harnish on the podcast. He’s the founder of EO he wrote Scaling Up. That was a great interview. Also, another favorite guest and book was Gino Wickman. Who wrote Traction who started EOS. And another fan favorite, one of my personal favorites is Chris Voss, who wrote Never Split the Difference. He’s a ex FBI hostage negotiator. So I actually got the book, Jake, not for business, but because of kids. And I was like, I need to be able to better negotiate with my kids and get them out the door when they’re not listening to me. So that’s why I got the book, but that and many more at inspiredinsider.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships and partnerships, and how do we do that? We actually help you run your podcast, we’re an easy button, break company to launch and run a podcast we do the accountability, the strategy and the full execution. And Jake, as an agency owner has been started multiple agencies and you know, just like agencies work with the magic elves that work in the background to make sure the host in it makes it look easy for the hosts in the company. You know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way over the past decade to profile the people in companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, and if you have questions go to rise25.com actually have many episodes I’ve done on inspired insider that walk through a lot of things like the five different types of episodes every podcast should create, how do you name your podcast and every other question that we’ve gotten, so you can check those out. And without further ado, I’m excited to introduce Jake Finkelstein. He’s the founder and CEO of 10cubed, you can find them at 10cubed.co. And 10cubed creates advanced technology for modern marketers, and he’ll go into what they’re doing and how kind of his agency journey has evolved to what he’s creating now. He’s a really accomplished serial entrepreneur and revenue marketing expert, he cut his teeth in the entertainment business before founding two successful marketing agencies and his client his past client experiences include but is not limited to Lenovo, Citrix, Dollar Tree, to Duke University, and many, many more. Jake, thanks for joining me.

Jake Finkelstein 2:58

Jeremy, thanks so much for having me. It’s an honor and pleasure.

Jeremy Weisz 3:02

You know, I’m really, really interested to hearing your evolution as an agency owner, and what lessons you brought from each of the no past one to this one. But let’s just start with tell people a little about 10cubed, and what you do.

Jake Finkelstein 3:19

Great. So 10cubed is a marketing technology firm. As you mentioned, we create advanced technology for modern marketers. The first product that we’ve brought to market is a all in one digital marketing platform that helps our clients accelerate revenue growth, decrease costs, and increase speed to market. So we’ve done a lot of work around creating a library of tools, resources and prepackaged services that allow us to live up to that promise. And we work with clients, across industries have good stories to tell in b2b software as a service and manufacturing as well as a couple of others.

Jeremy Weisz 3:58

I know when we talked previously, you have you know, I think of I guess in sports. And when you look at sports, they have a playbook. And you were saying you have over 100 plays that you run talk about what that means that you have these these plays for businesses to run?

Jake Finkelstein 4:18

Yeah, so no, it’s a great question. And they really fall into three buckets. So on one side, we’ve invented a number of tools that allow us to more efficiently and effectively again, scale revenue. And these are, are have a very wide range of applicability. So it’s things like content creation, campaign planning, even simple tactical things like search engine optimization, and ad split testing on advertising. So right now, these are all kind of behind the curtain. You know, as we’ve gone to market, we’ve actually gotten a lot of feedback that you know, our clients don’t want another screen to log into. So we do operate as a managed services business. You know, but the kind of tools and technology we build you know personally, I find really fun and exciting. Second bucket is we have prepackaged campaigns. So this is where the verticalization strategy that we have is really important every time that we run a play. So whether it’s a email program or digital advertising program, we learn and we get better because we’re constantly testing our hypotheses, and leveraging that data in a recursive learning standpoint. The third way is actually the data that we’re creating. So you know, this is primary data that’s built off all the different campaigns that we’re running across all of the industries and just makes what we’re doing that much more effective and efficient.

Jeremy Weisz 5:38

Talk about feedback. I mean, we’ll talk about, you know, the feedback that you’ve gotten that got you to this particular agency and what you learned from the last but what are some of the as, as 10cubed evolves? What are some of the feedback you’ve gotten that help you shape? What you’re doing now?

Jake Finkelstein 5:56

Yeah, no, it’s a great question. So I’m a huge believer in the customer development process, Steve Blank, if if you’re familiar with Four Steps to the Epiphany, I think that you just gotta go out and ask all the dumb questions and get all the right answers. And that’s really how I started every business, including 10cubed. So I had this idea around building technology that was going to be more meaningful for marketers went out and just said, Tell me all the reasons why this isn’t going to work. And what I kept hearing again, and again and again, is that they prospects are frustrated with the tool said that they oftentimes felt underwater, that, you know, they were under resourced, and they really needed ways to more efficiently and effectively kind of do what they’re challenged to do, particularly when you’re dealing on the smaller side of the market. So think like 1 million to $10 million a year in revenue. They’re big goals. They’re ambitious. But the toolset doesn’t always scale to where they’re going. But if you look at kind of the fastest growing businesses in the world, they have these tools, they have these datasets, and we’re really trying to bring that down market to the problem set and really is around accessibility a lot of times, and the feedback that we’ve gotten from the tools that we’re creating is, is that we actually move really fast. And our clients really liked that. Even if they don’t always understand that, you know, how some of the magic is actually happening.

Jeremy Weisz 7:15

You know, I was watching a video of you from over 10 years ago. This is pre beard. And you were actually talking about some of these exact same things, which is how important it is to talk to your customer and go and ask them their thoughts. Even going back then.

Jake Finkelstein 7:38

Yeah, I mean, I think that they’re particularly when you’re looking at, you know, creating personas or ideal customer profiles, you know, the textbook is going to say, go out and do survey and, you know, go out and do, you know, third party, you know, research and look at the, you know, journals, I think all of that’s fine and good. But you know, maybe it’s the sales guy in me, nothing beats sitting across from somebody and asking the question, and then watching their body language watch where they pause, you know, watch where they hesitate. I think all of that is enormously useful, and tells you a lot about where their real pain points are, you know, in especially when you’re dealing with folks that may not be as sophisticated as you are in the subject matter, because they don’t know what they don’t know. And you can just learn so much by exploring questions and a real hands on way, even if it’s not quite as scalable as something like a survey.

Jeremy Weisz 8:26

Talk about what you learned from your previous agency. Method Savvy, I know you had a couple, what did you learn from Method Savvy that you now bringing into 10cubed?
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