Our CEO is Your Intern

YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT

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Last month we announced that I was available to hire as an intern. We made an infomercial about it. We have a landing page where you can raise your hand to have me work for you but I want to explain why we are doing this.

Years ago I remember seeing AirBnB’s CEO, Brian Chesky, announcing that he was going to spend half of the year living in AirBnB’s. He was a billionaire at the time and the company was obviously resourced to a level where the CEO didn’t have to spend his time doing in depth product research, but he felt the product needed to change and to be an effective agent of change, he needed to experience the pain points personally.

The first iteration of Fohr came in part from me experiencing and hoping to solve for two key pain points:

1. Brands were looking to partner with bloggers but didn’t know where to find them, I would see marketing execs posting on their Facebook pages asking “does anyone know any bloggers in Chicago”

2. If you found a blog you were interested in you couldn’t see how many followers or how much traffic they got, you had to reach out and get a media kit

Here’s the thing...the next 3 years are pivotal for influencer marketing and Fohr. In that time, I believe we will emerge as the clear winner in influencer marketing. I believe the best path to doing that is offering both software AND services, and I know that continuing to offer category defining software means aggressively iterating and expanding what our products can do. I also know that building those products means having in-depth and, for me, personal exposure to the spectrum of problems and pain points clients are facing.

So, my solution for getting those insights is to embed myself inside a number of different companies over the coming months. Once a month I will do a one day, on-site, intensive internship at a new company. We will go through their influencer work from the problems and opportunities, the strategic approach and the tools and processes they use to make it all happen.

Interested in hiring me to do your bidding? Know anyone else who might be? Let us know on our for hire page, I recently completed my first internship with Acqua di Parma and got a good review:

"Unlike any other intern. James' experience with influencer marketing and willingness to learn on the job were a level above others! We offer only the most enthusiastic of recommendations that you hire him. Also voted ADP's Best Dressed by peers and managers. 10/10"

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PERSONAL CORNER

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I have been obsessed with the new Hurray for the Riff Raff album, there is a kind of reckless pent up energy that permeates the whole thing, at one point she sings “Suns coming at the moment, it feels like a purr” how good is that?

I just finished reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. How did I live so long without reading this book? All the main characters are terrible or at best terribly flawed. It’s violent, messy, passionate and I couldn’t put it down. This quote from the last moment’s of a character's life floored me: “I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.”

I always love looking through Pete Wells’ list of the 100 Best Restaurants in New York. I recently finally had dinner at Via Carota (#5 on the list) and thought it was maybe the most overhyped restaurant I’ve been to. Mid!
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Cheers,
JAMES NORD
Founder & CEO
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