Marketing for the Messy Middle: David deSouza's Framework for Growth-Stage Companies
Summary
David deSouza has the rare combination of Fortune 500 training and growth-stage battle scars. His "messy middle" framework takes all the marketing overwhelm and distills it into three channels that actually work — no matter how scrappy your team or limited your budget. His approach helps you connect what you already know into something that actually drives growth.
What’s in it for you:
A simple three-channel framework (inbound, referral, outbound) that covers 90% of what you need for a good marketing plan — without the overwhelm
Practical wisdom from someone who's been there, including the strategic foundation most organizations skip
Clear guidance on what to focus on first - and how to know if it's working within six months
Real examples from organizations that went from guessing to systematic growth
Helia’s Perspective
Talking to David was a JOY! I worked with David at Revolution Foods for a few years, and while we were each running a million miles a minute on different initiatives, I was deeply impressed with how thoughtful he was and the care with which he approached the work. Getting to reconnect with him as he's refined his craft was such a pleasure!
While there was nothing he said that I didn't know, this felt like the first time I actually understood marketing – both how it a great plan is structured, what to do, AND why it makes sense. And this is from someone who's always been a bit skeptical of marketing — not that I don't get it in theory, but in practice, it always feels a bit disconnected and fancy.
Examples - while at Rev Foods together, we had a marketing leader who wanted to take pictures of our school meals on fancy white plates - which was obviously not how it ever showed up. My team and I would get called out as "fake marketing" in basically every school meeting and with every kid I chatted with. And then the photos all had Berkeley Farms milk that, while fine in the Bay Area, I would get BLASTED for in New Orleans, New Jersey and even the CA Central Valley. Think variations of “those fancy CA hippy folks trying to tell us how to eat!” While the approach was smart in ways — it was also really confusing for many of us working on the ground - and mostly not helpful???
While I often thought marketing had great ideas - and often executed some beautiful campaigns - I've never had the luxury of working somewhere where marketing was serving an obvious and aligned function in the business. (Note - I’ve worked in only a few places and often marketing was lumped in with comms and/or sales - so this may certainly be more representative of my experience than the norm!).
Then, in this conversation with David, I finally understood marketing - I felt a little like the “insider” who finally got it and now, very much wants to do all of it! My mind was flowing for Helia — even though we're obviously still very much in finding the product market fit versus the messy middle, I always like to think and plan ahead!
David connects the wisdom and discernment that comes from experience. As he said: "It's frightening how much of it is really everybody knows but they don't connect all the pieces." That's exactly what this felt like — he helped me connect pieces I already had into something that actually made sense. AND, this conversation inspired us to create a complete implementation guide - because as we both agree, we don't need to start from blank pages!
David's Story
David's expertise in "messy middle" marketing came from living through the transition himself. "While my current expertise is in ‘the messy middle’, I didn't start my career there.. I started actually at a big consumer package goods company,Kellogg... straight out of completing an MBA in India. I had the good fortune to work for Kellogg in three different countries - Australia, South Africa and the US."
Those 20 years at Kellogg gave him conventional training: "It was the best kind of basic business education you can get for a marketing person... and it really grounded me in business fundamentals, interaction with sales, understanding finance, all of the things that big companies teach well."
But the real learning came when he moved to smaller companies. "I moved first to a smaller company. That's where you and I interacted, Revolution Foods, and then to a couple of midsized companies. And that's where I sort of formed this thesis of companies that are small to medium-sized... and I call it the messy middle."
He discovered these organizations faced a unique challenge: "Messy because, while they have found product market fit. ( It's not that daunting startup phase.). but they have questions and they have needs around how to grow marketing specifically... it becomes challenging because what got you here won't take you forward."
The difference between startup and growth-stage marketing became clear: "When you're building a business, when you're trying to find product market fit, you are trying a bunch of different things and doing many experiments. After you find it, you have to go forward in a very scalable process- driven, systems- driven way . It's just a different mindset."
His breakthrough came from making mistakes: "I found that I was good at building those scalable processes and systems,and mostly from making mistakes along the way I have made myself a little bit of a playbook."
"It's will how much of it is everybody knows, but they don't connect all the pieces." His framework helps organizations move from scattered marketing experiments to systematic growth.
What this looks like in practice
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Before you can do marketing that actually works, you need three things sorted out: segmentation, targeting, and positioning. As David puts it: "People use the word marketing for these elements, but this is really about starting at business strategy and making sure that is right because if itisn't... then the marketing is going to be pissing in the wind."
Here's exactly how David figured this out at Monterey Bay Herb Co — and why it completely transformed their approach:
Segmentation = Who are ALL the groups you're serving?
Monterey Bay Herb Co thought their customers were a mix of home chefs, herbal enthusiasts and small businesses. . "The first thing we did was we took our top customers and we had a Customer Service team member categorize them into whether they were personal use or a business. We quickly found that the vast majorityof the revenue was coming from business customers,which we hadn't realized. We thought selling to people and businesses it was equally important to us."
They dug deeper and found 10 different types of businesses: dietary supplement companies, tea and coffee brands, alcohol companies, health food stores, and more. Just that simple exercise — looking at their actual customer data instead of relying on their assumptions — changed everything.
Targeting = Which of these segments do you want to focus on?
Once they knew who was actually buying, they had to choose. David's team looked at the market size for each segment: "We were able to do some math to say okay the addressable market for this type of business ( tea and coffee stores for example) is valued at... say, 5 million dollars, whereas this other segment that we thought was really exciting is actually more like 250,000 dollars. Okay, we're going to focus on these five segments rather than these other five."
Positioning = What's most important to them that you want to "get right"?
Here's where David did something brilliant. "I was the CEO. We didn't have a marketing person. I just organized 30 calls, video calls with our top customers in those segments and asked them, Why do you buy from us? What's important to you? Where have you had trouble working with us or our competitors?"
What they discovered completely shifted their whole approach:
Being in stock was critical — "when they decide that they want to buy ingredients, they want you to have all 10 that they need for their production run. They don't want to have to buy five from you and three from somebody else"
Volume discounts mattered — they'd been structuring discounts for individual consumers, not business orders
Content needed to be industrial-focused — "How to use herbs in those business applications, not how to use herbs in home cooking or making kombucha at home"
With these three insights, they rebuilt their whole business strategy. Their website, their pricing, their content — everything shifted to serve business customers instead of home cooks.
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"Messy middle companies should focus primarily on new customer acquisition. Most of the time the things you do for new customer acquisition are going to have a halo effect on retention and much of the time retention is driven by things other than marketing."
David's framework is beautifully simple: three channels cover 90% of what you need for a solid marketing plan.
Inbound — Anyone who comes to you without you reaching out: website visitors, people who find you through search, folks who see your content and reach out, people who meet you at conferences and look you up later
Referral — Anyone referred by a current customer: word-of-mouth recommendations, formal referral programs, partnerships where other organizations recommend you
Outbound — Anyone you reach out to purposefully and specifically: cold emails, calling potential customers, reaching out on LinkedIn, buying targeted lists
David's key insight: "Very often businesses will focus on inbound because that's the popular,and I would dare to say, glamorous view of marketing... That may not be true for your particular business situation... It might be that referral or outbound is the best way to start."
For Monterey Bay Herb Co, once they understood their real customers were businesses, not individual consumers, they focused on inbound and outbound — reaching out directly to businesses rather and optimizing their web experience for business customers.
The magic happens when you measure consistently and build systematically
David's philosophy: "The basics get you a long way. Get it right, rinse and repeat." After six months of consistent tracking using the right metrics: "You have a pretty good sense of how your inbound or outbound is working. You know, how many people came in, how many people moved through the funnel, and how many people converted. If you’ve set things up properly, you also know why"
The wisdom that makes it work: As David reflects: "Most of us know a these things conceptually or from our own experiences as customers but we don't connect all the pieces when it comes to our own business." His framework helps you connect what you already know into something systemic that actually drives results.
Ready to dive deeper into implementing this framework? Our Messy Middle Marketing Guide walks you through each channel with templates and real examples!
Secret Sauce & Takeaways
If there's one thing you should do: Start with business strategy before marketing tactics. Make sure you know who your customers actually are and what they value.
AI can jumpstart your market segmentation — " 60% of the work probably can be done there. You can test a lot of hunches. You can ask AI to segment the market 10 different ways and use those to cross check against what you know about your customers"
Three channels cover 90% of marketing — Focus on inbound, referral, and outbound rather than trying to be everywhere.
Ask for referrals at the moment of joy — Timing is everything with referrals. David's insight: "For an IT services company I helped with this, it made sense to ask for the referral when the job was complete and the certificate of compliance was being issued because that's the moment of extreme joy for the customer. If you wait for six weeks and then send an email out, it's not going to be as potent."
Start with business strategy — Get your segmentation, targeting, and positioning right before jumping into tactics.
The wisdom comes from connecting the pieces — As David puts it: "It's frightening how much of it is really everybody knows but they don't connect all the pieces." The framework helps you connect what you already know into something systematic.
Measure consistently for six months — "With six months of data on this, you have a pretty good sense of how your [marketing] is working." Focus on traffic, engagement, and conversion across all channels.
Test systematically — Don't guess what works. "You send one email to 500, another email to 500 others, and you measure the click rate... and you say okay that one email was more successful than the other one."
Questions to Ask Yourself
If I asked five people on my team what our top customer segments are, would they give the same answer?
Which of the three channels (inbound, referral, outbound) is most likely to drive new customer acquisition for our specific business?
Do I have six months of consistent data to know what's actually working in my marketing?
Can someone understand what we do and who we serve within 10 seconds of visiting our website?
Am I measuring traffic, engagement, AND conversion — or just one piece of the puzzle?
Want to Try This?
Templates & Guides:
The Complete Messy Middle Marketing Playbook — David's full framework with step-by-step implementation, templates, and 6-month plan
Here’s Helia’s AI GUIDE on How to Segment Your Market 10 Different Ways (David deSouza’s recommendation as a starting point!)
The Above-the-Fold Website Conversion Checklist— The essential elements David uses to convert visitors (with credit to Nik Sharma)
Recommended Reads:
Check out From Scattered to Clear - getting to clarity about who you are and why it matters in your brand both before you start this process AND after to incorporate all you learn will take your business far!
David’s favorite sources?
Dave Gerhart runs a B2B marketing community called Exit Five and has some good content on LinkedIn and the Exit Five podcast/webinars
Nerd Marketing is another good podcast
Connections:
David deSouza for marketing strategy consulting in the messy middle — especially when you've found product-market fit and are ready to grow!. He brings Fortune 500 training AND growth-stage battle scars, plus the rare ability to help you connect marketing pieces you already know into something that actually works.
Looking for a list provider - especially one that offers matching services? David’s preferred vendor recommendation is Data Axle
Need a Full Service Web Developer with a strategic marketing brain: Jesse Hodges at twoloonsoftware.com. Jesse won't do a one off Google Analytics setup but he's a great resource for a slightly more comprehensive web project.
For the specific Google Analytics work or smaller, specific website project: David recommends MarketerHire. Tell them what you need and they will have a bespoke, cost effective solution.
About the Contributor
David is a President and Business Leader with a track record of scaling consumer brands, from mid-sized to Fortune 100. Most recently, as President of Monterey Bay Herb Co., he led a four-year transformation that doubled revenue, increased profit margins, and significantly improved cash flow.
David thrives in the "messy middle" of growth-stage companies—where complexity needs simplification, and culture is being shaped to deliver results. What struck me most about our conversation was his generosity in sharing what he's learned, combined with the practical wisdom that comes from making mistakes and refining his approach over decades. He's someone who genuinely wants to help others succeed and brings both the strategic insight and tactical knowledge to make it happen.
This article comes from a coffee chat with David in July 2025. These conversations form the heart of the Helia Library – because I've learned the most from doing and from talking with other doers willing to share their wisdom. We don't need to start from blank pages or do everything alone.
As always, take what's helpful, leave what's not, and make it your own.
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