Hassan Ahmed
Surges exists to match founders with the perfect marketing software to grow their business.
Us marketers love to romanticize our craft. But the truth is that you can build high-converting websites, rank higher, automate your onboarding, acquire more leads, build links, grow your email list and retain more customers in record time thanks to marketing software.
I do this in my spare time, alongside running my marketing agency, Like No Other.
Tell us about yourself?
What is your background? What made you get into this line of work?
One way or another, I’ve been working in marketing or for myself for 20+ years. Which sounds a scarily long time to say out load!
I have used marketing software for most of that time, reviewing them for three years. I draw on my firsthand experience running Like No Other and in bootstrapping numerous ventures. Working with the likes of Google, Aviva, Northern, The Office Group, and plenty more startups, I like to call us the most resourceful agency on the planet, all because of marketing tools and an ethos of trying to do more with less. I was also an award-winning journalist in a former life, so every review is obsessively researched and totally impartial.
Why does this matter? The world of marketing tools is muddied somewhat by fake reviews and dodgy endorsements. I take a lot of pride in test driving all the tools myself and wouldn’t recommend anything I wouldn’t pay to use with my own money.
Aside from that, I’m a very curious person and I really enjoy spotting new tools and passing them on. Meeting the founders behind them has also been a personal highlight.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Probably to pay even more attention to SEO. There’s been a few setbacks with Google updates and the discovery of new content. Still, I’m enjoying learning and the benefit of starting small is to grow at your own pace without any external pressures.
Other than SEO, I’d make the leap from reviews to experiments even sooner. Really getting under the bonnet of tools, testing them in a live environment and being candid with results. People love this content as proof it can do the same for them.
What problem does your business solve? *
There’s a marketing tool for everything – landing pages, launching, finding your first customers, retention, newsletters, you name it – and Surges helps you to find the very best ones for your business. With so many tools, the choice can be overwhelming, which is where we come in.
What is the inspiration behind your business? *
Very few marketing departments are using the software at their disposal to its full potential. I help them to do more with less, without needing an extra headcount.
What is your magic sauce? *
I’d say it’s the 100% honesty in our reviews and jumping on independent tools before anybody else. I get a real kick out of using our tiny platform to help independent makers and I think it’s important their stories are heard too.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve? *
This year (2022) is going to be a big one. I hope to really ramp up our content velocity and find my eyeballs with everything that’s published. There’s a few major players in the same space, so I hope to make a dent with an alternative, more in-depth curation of marketing tools. Doing so will involve developing more robust, repeatable systems and squeezing even more out of the marketing tools I use myself.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far? *
It’ll be core Google updates. They’ve hit momentum for sure. However, they’re also a great challenge as there’s often a lot of merit to some of the criteria Google is judging websites on (although still a lot of rubbish still goes unpunished) so there’s some enjoyment in finding out what needs improving, making the changes, and seeing the rewards.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision? *
I’d encourage anybody who is swamped with manual marketing tasks to turn to marketing tools. I promise: you won’t turn back!
I also send a monthly digest full of my latest discoveries. Subscribe at https://www.surges.co/club
