Hustlebean
Building a marketing function from scratch and increasing MQL → SQL pipeline rate by 18.18%.
The lead generation function walked out the door
Hustlebean is a staffing platform that connects businesses with field sales agents for physical product deployment, with a web app for businesses and a mobile app for agents. I joined as Growth Marketing Manager at a pivotal point in the company's growth.
About a month into my role, the Sales Manager — who had been driving most of lead generation — resigned, leaving a gap in both marketing leadership and the company's demand-generation strategy. There was no established marketing function to take over. So I built one.
Built the function, then fixed who it was talking to
The job started as "build a marketing engine" and quickly became "make sure that engine is pointed at the right people."
Built the marketing function from scratch
Hired and led a team of three — a Social Media Manager, a Content Marketing Associate, and an Art Director — and built the engine across content, social, lead magnets, virtual events, physical events, and sales enablement. This gave Hustlebean a dedicated marketing function instead of relying primarily on sales-led prospecting.
Diagnosed the real acquisition problem
The initial strategy — blog content, lead magnets, virtual events — created awareness but wasn't generating qualified B2B opportunities. The problem wasn't the channels. It was the audience: our event strategy was concentrated around tech events, putting us in front of companies that needed software engineers and developers, not field sales agents.
Reframed the ICP and changed where we showed up
I went back to the product and asked where the businesses that actually needed people physically selling or deploying products would be — pointing toward companies with physical products and distribution-heavy models. I researched niche industry events where these businesses were more likely to be present, built a targeted event list, and attended with my team.
Connected marketing to sales across the funnel
I wasn't just filling the top of the funnel. That meant defining and qualifying prospects, building prospect lists, engaging potential clients directly, supporting sales conversations, creating sales decks, demoing the Hustlebean web app, tracking follow-ups, and feeding what I learned from sales conversations back into targeting. The goal shifted from "generate more leads" to "generate businesses that could realistically buy."
The flow that ran at every event
This ran the same way at every event — the discipline was in never skipping a step, not in the pitch itself.
Where the strategy became real work
The receipts — how the team actually operated, week to week.
Built and led a three-person marketing team
Hired a Social Media Manager, Content Marketing Associate, and Art Director, and ran the full engine together — content, social, lead magnets, events, and sales enablement — as a coordinated function rather than isolated campaigns.
Reworked targeting and pitch messaging with the team
Rebuilt the pitch messaging and, with the team, defined exactly which job titles to target on the buyer side — Head of Sales, Head of Operations, Expansion Manager, People/Talent Manager, and CEO/Founder for earlier-stage companies.
Built a shared prospect tracking system
Tracked every company by category, contact, lead owner, and stage — from New Lead through Contacted, Engaged, and Verbal Agreement — split across the team (Sola, Lucianne, Idris) so nothing generated at an event or through outreach fell through the cracks.
Tested LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Ran a one-month test as a new prospecting channel. It didn't produce the lead quality I wanted, but it was useful for researching accounts, identifying decision-makers, and qualifying prospects — and it surfaced a bigger insight: Hustlebean's addressable market was relatively concentrated, meaning broad lead generation wasn't the right long-term approach.
What the work actually moved
Also generated the highest volume of leads that progressed into prospect conversations during my time there, with several prospects reaching SLA discussions and contracts — though the longer B2B decision cycle meant not every opportunity closed within my tenure.
What this project taught me
"Your channel can be right while your audience is wrong."
Our initial event strategy wasn't failing because events were ineffective. We were simply showing up where our ICP wasn't.
"Marketing has to be connected to revenue."
Generating leads isn't enough. The real question is whether those leads can progress into genuine sales opportunities.
"Sometimes the job is to build the function, not just run the campaigns."
I joined expecting to manage growth marketing. I ended up building the team, establishing the operating rhythm, and creating the acquisition engine.
"A small TAM requires precision."
When your potential customer pool is concentrated, broad awareness tactics can waste resources. ICP precision, account selection, and targeted outreach become much more important.
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