I joined a founder-led startup as its only marketer. Five years later, Alien Gear was the #1 holster company in the country, the team I led had grown to twelve, and the company sold to an investment firm at a $100M valuation.
I joined Tedder Industries when it was still founder-led and early. I was hired to run organic social and all paid media, and at the start, the entire marketing function was me, a photographer, and a graphic designer. The goal was audacious for a company that size: make Alien Gear the #1 consumer holster brand in the country.
Over five years I grew the organic Facebook page past one million followers, an enormous number for a holster brand. But the size mattered less than the engagement behind it. This wasn't a passive audience; it was a community we could activate.
When we challenged those followers to spend Veterans Day weekend restoring neglected veterans' graves, cleaning headstones and planting flags, thousands of graves were tended across the country. That kind of response is what a genuinely engaged million looks like, and it translated directly into loyalty and sales.
We didn't buy an audience. We built one, and it showed up when we asked it to.
I leaned into emerging tools early. As a company we delivered ten hours of live video broadcasting per week, averaging 75,000 unique weekly viewers on Facebook Live. We ran live audio broadcasts too, bringing on industry guests to answer fan questions on air, around 5,000 unique listeners per broadcast.
It wasn't content for its own sake. On days we ran a live video or audio broadcast, sales rose 18% on average versus days we didn't.
I developed a single-day promotion that drove the largest revenue day in the company's history, over $1.6M in e-commerce revenue in one day.
We hit the goal: Alien Gear became the #1 holster company in the country. The marketing team grew from three people to twelve, and I was promoted to Director of E-Commerce. After five years, the owner sold the company to an investment firm at a $100M valuation.