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🤝Building a content engine that operates on autopilot - Adrian Alfieri, Founder & CEO of Verbatim

Who are the leading Founders and how do they think about early-stage investing in startups, SPVs, and microfunds?

Today, we are excited to present an awesome interview with Adrian Alfieri.

Adrian has robust dual experience across content & venture capital, having come from an investment (VC) background while now primarily focused on building content engines for startups. As a content writer at The Proof, Adrian has interviewed the founders of Eight Sleep, Sweetgreen, Public, Athletic Greens, Hims, and Levels. In his current endeavor, Verbatim, he is helping startups build a content engine that drives attributable revenue growth, and has worked with 148+ startups including OpenStore, Goody, Tydo, Highbeam, Archie, Kasheesh, Angel Squad, Accelpay, Black Crow, Showday, and Marco among many others.

Given Adrians unique perspective on content, sizable angel portfolio, and participation as an LP in microfunds/SPVs, we wanted to bring him on to share his experience on leveraging content to get into competitive deals and why he stays so active in the VC ecosystem – we’re very excited to share the Q&A with LMI readers here.

Let’s share more on this Founder…..

Founder Profile:

Adrian Alfieri is the Founder & CEO at Verbatim - a B2B content agency that helps startups generate demand and drive more leads. Since launching 18 months ago, they’ve worked with 150+ startups and launched 75+ content engines to market - with a client roster that counts teams like OpenStore, Baseten, Betterleap, Captions, Black Crow, Polywork, Puzzle, LTSE Equity, SimpleHash, Goody, and Cohere. Based in Brooklyn, Adrian is also an active angel investor and LP in early-stage venture funds.

We are huge fans of what Adrian and the Verbatim team, and in a short period of time, we strongly believe he and the Verbatim team are building the premier agency in the content space (w/148+ companies that likely agree)! If you’re interested to learn more, feel free to check Verbatim out here.

And now, on to the interview….

Our interview with Adrian below:

Why did you start Verbatim?

I spent my first 3 years out of college in early-stage venture. In tandem, I was running an interview series and newsletter interviewing a bunch of founders and investors - including folks like Mark Cuban and Rob Dyrdek. I saw firsthand the value of social proof content to expand my network and get into competitive deals. As I was thinking about leaving VC, a surprising number of B2B founders I was close with started to hit me up about content. They all had the *exact* same problem: right after a Seed or Series A raise, they needed to ramp up and launch a content function that actually generated pipeline and unlocked new revenue streams. But they had no idea where to start. Should I hire an expensive team in-house? Should I work with a cheaper freelancer? Should I work with an old school 100-person agency? TLDR: there weren’t any great options in front of them. After about 10 B2B SaaS founders all expressed the exact same frustration, I decided to get after it and try to build a boutique content studio that would solve the problem that they were trying to solve. That initial idea evolved into what Verbatim has become today.

How does Verbatim help startups?

Verbatim exists to help B2B startups build content engines that actually generate demand, scale pipeline and top of funnel leads, and close more deals. We act as a team’s embedded head of content across 3 core functions: strategy, execution, and distribution. In short, we run your content function from end to end – saving time and headache for founding teams while generating outsized ROI in the form of new revenue. Content, specifically editorial and social proof assets that Verbatim focuses on, isn’t rocket science. It’s just a logistical nightmare that requires constant maintenance, operational rigor, and 24/7 support. That’s where Verbatim comes in.

What excites you most about running Verbatim based on the past year of operations?

About 4 months ago, we hit product-market fit. It’s a crazy feeling – and my first time experiencing it. Successful founders talk about the intangible ‘pull’ from the market while describing PMF. It’s real – and insanely exciting. What unlocked this phase was dialing in distribution. Once we produce a piece of content, say a case study for example, we’ll then get it distributed across on-site, socials, email flows and campaigns, and sales enablement assets – including design. That allowed us to better attribute impact and ROI, while saving teams even more time and headache than before. What I’m most excited about is our ability to tangibly help B2B startups generate leads – and help more teams do this at scale. Ultimately, working closely with founders and early-stage content teams and helping them grow even faster using content is what really gets me hyped.

Where are companies overlooking the value of content in today’s startup environment?

Say you’re a seed-stage company that just raised $6 million. As you’re ramping up GTM, you have a ton of different levers you can pull to generate more leads and move those leads through the pipeline. It’s just a capital allocation equation. You could go hire a few BDRs or an AE, test drive paid campaigns on Google or LinkedIn, focus purely on Twitter and hire a ghostwriter, ramp up partnerships or BD and focus on ecosystem referrals, spin up an outbound email campaign - the list goes on. Content, from my lens, is one of the very few levers that not only can generate demand on its own - but also influences and amplifies every other lever that you can pull as a founder. That’s very, very rare. For example, if you hire a BDR to kickstart an outbound sales motion - that has no impact on affiliates or paid strategies. However, if you invest in editorial content and social proof assets like case studies - those assets that then be used across paid campaigns, ecosystem referrals, sales enablement channels, growth teams, and more. When you reframe a GTM motion in that light, it quickly becomes clear that this content lever has outsized ROI - both directly and indirectly - by impacting all of the additional GTM levers you can kickstart in tandem.

You are an active angel investor w/ 25+ portfolio companies and an LP in 10+ early-stage venture funds. Why are you also so active in venture capital?

Short answer? It’s a ton of fun. I spent my first few years out of college in venture. I absolutely loved it. You get to hang out with the smartest, most ambitious people actively trying to innovate and build a better future. While I’m not a full-time investor anymore, I still love that aspect of it - hanging out with and betting on smart, positive, ambitious people. I think a lot about the people that I spend my time with, both digitally and physically. When you invest in a company, you open up comms channels with the most ambitious people in the world. It’s impossible not to be positively impacted as a result. That’s why I love it and why I’m still active.

Why do you actively take LP positions in micro funds & SPV’s?

For the same reason that I love backing founders and angel investing. It’s just a different game. I’m a huge fan of investing small LP checks in first-time fund managers. They’re very much founders in their own right - equally ambitious, sharp, hard working, and positive - just operating in a completely new arena.

What types of founders/companies are you most excited to invest in?

Two answers. First, I love backing inevitable founders. People that just won’t stop attacking a problem until they’re figured it out. Second, I like to invest where I have some degree of proprietary information. At Verbatim, we’re lucky to be in a position where we’re interviewing our clients’ customers for case studies and enablement assets. As a result, we have unique insight into how sticky those customers are, how happy they are, and their price sensitivity. All in real-time. Then, when one of our clients is raising capital, I sometimes have the opportunity to put my own money into the round as well based on that proprietary knowledge. That’s my sweet spot and where I like to lean in when I get the chance.

Where can people find more info on you and Verbatim?

Check out our new site at verbatimlabs.com or DM me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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Sydecar is a frictionless deal execution platform for emerging venture investors. We make it easy for anyone to launch SPVs and funds in minutes, with automated banking, compliance, contracts, tax, and reporting so that customers can focus on making deals and building relationships.

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✍️ Written by Alex and Zachary