Dave Gerhardt

Hey I'm Dave Gerhardt. I created Exit Five, which has turned into the top community for B2B marketing professionals. Before starting Exit Five I had a 10 year career in marketing and grew from PR intern to CMO. I even once had hair! My wife says I'm more handsome now though, and she's quite pretty so that means a lot -- but the internet just boxes me in as the typical bald guy tech bro. So oh look, another bald tech guy writing on LinkedIn! whoopty freaking do.

Anyway. Where was I... OH. Receipts! I wanted to talk about receipts, because in a world of fluff and online influencers, I actually have some receipts and I want to tell you about them here because it signals power, credibility, and makes it seem like I'm super rich, so: I used to be pretty good at marketing, and my work as a marketer played a key role (at least I think so) in helping two software companies to successful exits: Drift for $1B+ and Privy for $100M+. I certainly helped the founders make a bunch of money, and I was able to comfortably purchase a brand new Toyota Sienna minivan for my family in 2021.

Today I spend my time working on Exit Five, and it's actually been super fun and given me a bunch of purpose. We're a team of six full-time team members now, and we have a private online community and host in-person events around the world. Plus there's a popular podcast and newsletter for marketers. We reach something like 20 MILLION marketers with our content every year, and we've got a pretty special thing going on. I hope to keep it going. You can learn more about it all at exitfive.com.

I spent most of my life in the Boston area but now live in the woods in Vermont with my wife, two kids, two cats, and one dog.

You can reach me at dave@exitfive.com if you want, but TBD if I reply. Depends on the message. But please don't send me any more swag or books. But if for whatever reason you do want to send me something, I play the ProV1x golf ball and like the low numbers.

PS. Find my podcast “The Dave Gerhardt Show” on Spotify

Founder & CEO

Exit Five is a media company focused on B2B marketing. We help B2B marketers build successful careers through our content and community. Learn more at exitfive.com

Content marketers run modern marketing.

Because almost all marketing today is shaped online.

And online marketing shows up as:

- Ads
- Videos
- Articles
- Podcasts and clips like this with Jess Cook
- Social posts
- Newsletters
- Communities
- Influencers

Different formats. But none of it works without a clear content strategy and strong content marketing.

Jess is a great example of this: she started her career as a copywriter for big CPG brands. She cut her teeth writing 200+ variations of a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats.

Then built a career in content marketing: content market manager, director, VP brand and content.

Then turned that into a Head of Marketing role at a startup and was recently promoted to VP on the heels of her success using - wait for it - content to drive revenue.

Not because Vector's content gets a lot of impressions and their podcast is unique or because their little mascot is cute.

But because it's working! Those things are driving revenue. 

I had a conversation with Jess last week (now out on my podcast) and she shared three key marketing plays that she's run over the past year:

1. Influencer Marketing - how does it work in B2B, how did she find influencers, what did it cost, how much pipeline was generated, how did they measure it

2. Podcasting - why they started a podcast, how their podcast stands out, how they record, when/where, how they prep, how they know it's working

3. LinkedIn - we talk a bit about what content types (and strategy) is working well here today

4. Career Path - her path from content to VP Marketing

Erin on my team messaged me last night and said this was the best interview we've done recently - please go listen if you need some tactical inspiration.

Founder: Exit Five | Community Builder | Former CMO

What events are you going to in Q1? We're hosting the first annual Exit Five Marketing Leadership Retreat in Arizona March 18-20.

This event is exclusively for in-house B2B marketing leaders.

It's all about who's in the room and we've pulled together a great group for this event. 

Here are the sessions we have planned:

1. How to Become the CMO Everyone Wants to Work With (with Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital)

2. Building and Leading a High-Performing Marketing Team (led by Hillary Carpio, VP Growth at Snowflake)

3. Managing Your CFO and Board Relationship (led by Pranav Piyush, Founder at Paramark)

4. Personal Branding for B2B Marketing Leaders (led by Jane Serra, Head of Marketing at MemoryBlue)

5. Ecosystem Marketing as the Next Big Growth Lever (led by Emily Kramer, Founder of MKT1)

6. How Are You Really Using AI? At Work and Personally (led by Katie Miserany, CCO and Head of Marketing at SurveyMonkey) 

And I'm interviewing Kim Storin (CMO at Zoom) about how she does things and what's changing this year.
 
PLUS since it's a "retreat" - we have time for activities like golf, a workout, pool hang, or in-room massage; get lunch, dinner, drinks.
 
Will you join us?

Pass this on to your VP / CMO friends in B2B.

Full details here:

bit.ly/3Lxj75e

Open article: Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026 by exitfive.com

Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026

growing beehiiv, the world's most powerful newsletter software

I’m Daniel Berk: beehiiv’s first sales hire-turned-strategist, cofounder of Palmetto Parents, and cohost of the Two Dads in Tech podcast.

From day one at beehiiv, I built our outbound sales engine—recruiting and coaching AEs, exceeding pipeline targets, and architecting GTM plays that grew revenue from under $1M ARR to over $15M ARR and established us as an industry leader.

As a startup and newsletter advisor, I’ve helped founders refine product-led growth initiatives, dismantle organizational silos, and develop targeted go-to-market strategies.

I specialize in combining disciplined sales processes with data-driven content marketing to drive customer acquisition, boost engagement, and deliver sustainable revenue growth. I also produce content for companies pursuing strategic partnerships and advise a limited number of ventures, selecting engagements to match my available bandwidth. 

Outside of work, I am a husband to my incredible wife and a father to two amazing boys.

If you’re ready to scale your newsletter, sharpen your GTM motion, or accelerate your startup’s growth, let’s connect.

Daniel Berk 🐝

After over 3 years of being at beehiiv, going from an early employee with less than $1M ARR, being the first sales hire at the company, and helping scale the company to over $30M in ARR (personally contributing over $3.5M in sales) I'm excited to finally announce that I still work at beehiiv.

Chief Evangelist @ beehiiv - Host of Two Dads in Tech Podcast

If you see this post on your feed because you’re just mindnumbingly scrolling LinkedIn like the tiny little psycho that you are, react to this post.

I’m tryna see something…

We got a new paid subscriber this morning to one of our local media company's newsletters and I wanted to check to see where they came from and what their historical engagement data looked like and...

Wow.

They've opened and engaged with almost every single email we've ever sent them.

I'm not crying you're crying.

I got new glasses. I had literally no idea I’d been using LinkedIn this entire time. I thought this was Twitter. Now I’m wondering what else I missed.

No alternative text description for this image

Me sending cold emails from a bunch of different domains.

Who else is going to Austin for the New Media Summit?

cc Daniel Berk for the inspiration

Had a call this week where someone told me they met with one of our competitors and were told "honestly you should probably just go to beehiiv, not gonna lie"

Do I:

1. Pay the competitor a commission
2. Send a thank you note to the competitor
3. Hire the competitor to do stealth outbound sales for beehiiv

Let me know in the comments 👇

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

There's a 7 figure beehiiv agency waiting to be built by someone who can blend design + content strategy + longterm support

You know I had to get in a quick run on The Strip before leaving CES.

You probably didn’t know this but my little brother Michael is a legend.

A secret admirer sent me a beautiful Amazon package after my glasses announcement yesterday.

Grateful

I don't know who needs to hear this, but put down your phone.

taplio

The Battle

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taplio

The Battle

Dave Gerhardt

Daniel Berk 🐝

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dave Gerhardt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDaniel Berk 🐝's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDave Gerhardt's LinkedIn Performance