Services

• Search Engine-Optimized Content

• Expertise, Authority, Trust, and Speed

• Paid Media Strategy & Oversight

Remote-first, people-first executive

After 15 years of remote management and consulting for startups, I don’t think there is anything else I love more than developing high performing teams, content strategy, and marketing flywheels.

Currently I’m Head of Marketing at Paylode, where I build all the strategies, processes, and content for growing the brand. I also get to write articles about customer engagement and perks, which keeps my copy sharp. Writing well-researched articles teaches you the most, the fastest, about who the experts are in your field and what the most well-known stats and principles are in your niche.

I’ve worked in startups spanning from solar to B2B SaaS, across edtech, fundraising, customer rewards, and that one time I made some youtube videos for a knitting supply store.

Employee #3 at Finder US

Something I’m most proud of is building the Publishing department at Finder. I chose to go remote-first in 2016 (well before the pandemic), for a few reasons: I was trying to build a team of world-class talent on a startup budget; I needed to hire at a volume that far outpaced the availability of high-caliber talent in NYC (and our office space); and I was already remote, building my team from a cabin in the high desert mountains of rural San Diego county. If I can lead a team from there, at the end of a dirt road with a cell phone booster, my team should be able to work from anywhere.

Over five years, working closely with the EIC, we built the content department from 5 to 75, adding publishers, writers, editors, video producers, data analysts, SEO experts, and international publishing assistants from all over the world.

With no HR and no recruiter, we were left to create every single piece of the recruiting and onboarding ourselves, choosing to immediately enterprise our work with documented process and steps, knowing that as we brought on mid-level managers we’d be able to scale. We interviewed hundreds of people, wrote hundreds of job ads, reviewed hundreds of trials and made offers, onboarded employees, and trained trainers.

I'm addicted to building ego-less teams that tirelessly look out for their crew mates. By celebrating risks and mistakes, we protect psychological safety and empower the kind of collaboration that drives innovation. Each employee is committed to growing their skills, and together they create exceptional content that helps guide people through complicated decisions. 

Respect > Likability

My former reports will tell you I’m the “best boss they ever had and the hardest boss they ever had”, demonstrated by having high manager ratings and longer-than-average retention of employees on my team, as well as consistently hitting huge goals and fostering strong work ethic.

The best compliment I ever received was when I walked into our office and saw “How do we hire 10 more Adrienne’s?” written on the wall. I’ve only reported to CEOs in my career and found my magic is in harnessing chaos and turning it into a numbered list: executing toward a vision and scaling. I’m a driver, a coach, and an empathetic supporter. I have a knack for process and intuition for finding patterns in data. 

There is no doubt that with the right people on the team, we can hit a metric -- I’m the first person to ask “how high?” when it’s time to jump. But we could not do any of it without focusing on developing people first.

About Adrienne Kmetz

I live on the western slope of Colorado with my two dogs. When I'm not building content, I spend my time skiing, climbing, gardening or hiking. 

I like volunteering in my communities and everywhere I’ve lived I’ve been involved in the local land trust. I volunteered for La Plata Open Space Conservancy for the five years I lived in Durango, was a key member of the Friends of Hellhole Canyon and helped lead a campaign to acquire 500 adjacent acres, and did my thesis with Palmer Land Trust in Colorado Springs. I believe that conserving land is one of the highest leverage activities we can do today to protect future habitats.

I work with clients on a fractional basis. Contact me to learn more.