Sharpend

I work with startup founders to develop self-awareness, improve emotional intelligence (EQ), learn communication/leadership skills and scale with their business.

Prior to coaching I spent 7 years as founder and head of marketing at Looksharp, and then worked as a marketing executive and advisor to a number of leading San Francisco startups. 

Learn more at https://www.sharpend.co/

Executive Coach

500 Startups

Mentor

Parallel18

Various Companies

Advise, consult, and do marketing work for various venture backed startups.  

Specialties include:
-SEO
-Content Strategy
-Content Development
-Marketing Ops (automation through sale)
-Lead Generation 
-Business Development
-Data and Analytics
-Email Marketing
-PR and Marketing Communications
-Brand Strategy & Creative

Software Expertise includes:
-Google Analytics
-SQL
-Marketo
-Salesforce
-ExactTarget
-Mailchimp
-Optimizely
-SproutSocial
-Trello
-more

Marketer in Residence

Carta

Helped Carta through a critical rebrand, new marketing team hires and growth of demand gen channels that resulted in a 40% lift of net new MQLs.

Demand Generation:
-Managed Carta's inbound marketing efforts including webinars, white papers, and product marketing content. Webinars alone accounted for a 20% increase in monthly marketing generated revenues.
-Collaborated with Carta engineering team to implement site-wide SEO changes that resulted in numerous keywords moving from 50+ rankings into top 3 results and a 70%+ increase in organic traffic.
-Developed and launched Carta's first-ever event marketing series including two large-scale half-day events in New York and San Francisco. Each event was cash-flow positive and resulted in hundreds of net new leads, increased brand exposure and powerful online content.
-Worked closely with Carta's outbound email team to nurture new leads from lead generation through the sales pipeline.

Rebrand:
-Helped develop new brand messaging map, including key messages for press, current customers, internal stakeholders and more.
-Worked with engineering team to develop strategy for domain cutover and technical rebrand implementation.
-Collaborated with marketing, engineering, and design team to help redesign and rewrite content for every webpage on the Carta website and reposition product pages with new brand in mind.

Team:
-Hired and grew marketing team from 1 to 6 people. Led charge in interviewing, hiring and training new marketing hires.
-Used Asana to manage team goals and sync day-to-day work with broader business strategy.
-Developed marketing dashboards and pulled key marketing metrics using SQL, Google Analytics, Looker, and other tools.
-Presented marketing metrics at monthly KPI and leadership team meetings.

Digital Marketing

Looksharp

Founded Looksharp and led the marketing team from idea stage through Series A and beyond. Used an "Iterative Marketing" approach (running rapid fire tests and using data to track and scale campaigns) to drive user and revenue growth.

Overall:
-Grew student audience from 0 to over 10 million uniques annually through SEO, business development, content, press and more.
-Generated over 100,000 inbound B2B leads to support successful sales operation.
-Built reports using SQL and Google Analytics to measure campaigns and drive business strategy.

SEO:
-Worked with engineering and design team to optimize website and gain #1 ranking for over 90% of top keywords in the internship space.
-Developed content strategy and managed team of fifty plus writers to support SEO goals. 
-Used Optimizely to improve conversion rate on SEO landing page by over 50%. 

Content:
-Developed long term content strategy using personas, competitive positioning, and SWAT analysis.
-Managed editorial team of 50+ bloggers to create compelling daily content.
-Invented new recurring B2B content including 'Annual Internship Report' to monthly "College Hiring Webinars" and more that drove thousands of net new leads.

Data​:
-Queried SQL database to develop monthly cohort graphs used to analyze business KPIs.
-Queried Salesforce and Marketo to pull reports and graphs and analyze marketing / sales operation.

Branding and PR
-Developed relationships with top industry journalists and received press mentions in publications including: the WSJ, TechCrunch, WashingtonPost, Mashable and more.
-Managed brand transition from established brand to a parent brand including a number of technically challenging changes.

Founder

Founder -> CMO -> Exec Coach

I coach founders and co-founders from Series B - D. I specialize in co-founder dynamics--helping co-founders build more effective and fulfilling partnerships. 

I believe in a world where leaders have done the work to know themselves, in order to build lasting businesses and a more interesting future.

Nathan Parcells

Upstream Minds

Supporting founders through difficult transitions, and high growth phases to become emotionally lighter, clearer, calmer, and sharper.

Bringing back a reasonable approach to high performance, without the hype.

Message me to ask about my ‘Founders Friend’ Package.

Performance Coach

Helping build confident, competent, resourceful teams, adaptable to change in businesses with 5 - 50 head count, in professional services, Tech, and creative industries.

High Performing Teams

Circuit Breaker Days

Is your resolve being tested by the business? 

You’re not alone. Behind every leader, is a man who *deserves the same support* he gives his family, friends, and team, unconditionally. 

That’s why the Circuit Breaker was born.

A non-judgemental space for businessmen to pause, refocus, and shape their mental game away from office, and the business.

> Disconnect from the business and get the blood and the brain pumping outdoors in nature.
> Learn strategies high performers use to switch-off, relax, and refocus on-demand.
> Share, and talk openly about your everyday challenges in life with other men who understand the journey.

Finish feeling clearer, calmer, sharper, and ready for the next quarter! 

👉🏻 www.circuitbreakerdays.co.uk

Lead Coach & Facilitator

Unnatural 2 Ultra 2022

Raising funds for Stem4 - supporting teenage mental health!

Running my first 100 mile ultra marathon in June 2023. 

Having never run a marathon before, I’ll be taking on my first marathon, 50 mile, and 100 mile ultra all within 15 months.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/unnatural2ultra

Fundraiser

Agora3 Offices, Coworking space and Wellbeing

Agora is a purpose built co-working and wellbeing clinic designed to promote a new way of working, integrating work life balance better within your day. I helped design the wellbeing space, operating strategy within the business model, and corporate partnerships.

AGORA Workspace + Wellbeing - "Love Where You Work"

Founding Partner

Unnatural Athlete

A fitness professional, and nutritionist dedicated to ‘Unnatural Athletes’. 

A holistic approach to fitness, health, and nutrition focussed on behaviour and habit change, without the traditional quick fixes, 
fads, and restriction.

Fitness Professional

Big Image Photography

Specialists in event photography providing on-the-spot studio print quality photographs at children's dance festivals, sport tournaments, theatre schools, and corporate parties. 

I owned and operated the Southampton franchise.

Franchisee

What if … Your winning mindset in business is a losing mindset for your mental health? 


They (the hustle gurus) say ... “no Pain, no Gain”     

Push, push, push, push … 

I say … “to get Upstream, you need to Swim Different..."

That means being emotionally adaptable, and agile!

TDLR: The stuff I care about 👇🏻

💡Fighting hustle culture, and mental health stigma
💡Promoting proactive tools for emotional fitness 
💡Cutting through the hype in high performance


Driven people, i.e. 'Successful business people like you' push themselves hard.

And without realising it, completely out of the blue, you can hit the wall. 

The problem is, applying that 'winning' mentality you use in business.

Is very much a losing formula when applied to your own emotional health.

It creates the boom ‘n’ bust cycle. 

Leading to fatigue, burnout, and lost Mojo. 


Modern business needs a new way of operating. 

One that doesn’t let your ambition get the best of you. 

One that puts YOU in control of the 'sweet-spot'. 

Where you'll still achieve your business ambitions…

AND you'll have better emotional health AND be a lot happier.

The world has changed in the last few years …

The ability to 'dial it up' and or 'dial it down' on demand is essential in navigating change. 

So, if you've been noticing any of the early warning signs....

🌪 Feeling low energy despite resting
🌪 Nothing really exciting you
🌪 More irritable, and grumpy
🌪 Maybe a shorter fuse than normal
🌪 Not feeling as “present” or engaged
🌪 Easily distracted, losing productivity

I'll teach you the inside-skills that take you Upstream, so that:

⚡️You have emotional energy that can last 
⚡️You can relax and “switch off” on demand
⚡️You have higher levels of focus and flow

Who knows, you may even lose a few pounds in the process..

⚡️ A flexible, pragmatic, and self-compassionate method for the fast-paced business world.

A QUICK HELLO - I’m Sam 👋🏻

- I'm an outside and divergent thinker - I see what others often don't. 
- I'm a coach, talk therapist, clinical hypnotist, and strategist all-in-one 
- I'm a natural risk taker and love emotional rollercoaster of modern business. 
- I'm a father of two, and understand the demand of balancing business and life. 
- I’ve suffered burnout, and multiple mental health trauma and challenges. 

I’m no stranger to both the beauty and the dark side of business …

taplio

The Battle

Nathan Parcells

Sam Griffiths

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