Tarryn Marcus, Director of Demand Generation
Tarryn Marcus, Director of Demand Generation
In this episode, Katherine talks to Tarryn about her work in digital marketing. Tarryn been interested in business, marketing, and entrepreneurship since high school — and she’s really good at it.
Katherine first interviews Tarryn over 2 years ago while they were working remotely & traveling together with Remote Year. They spoke about her education, internships, work experience, and what marketing even is. They later did a followup interview in 2019 and talked about her new job working for a VR / extended reality company.
Tarryn Marcus
Tarryn Marcus is the Director of Demand Generation for an XR technology startup by day and CEO of her own sales technology startup by night.
Tarryn was a member of Remote Year’s second group, Battuta, and currently splits her time between Berlin and Seattle, working remotely.
When she manages to find the extra time, she generally spends it cooking new New York Times recipes, scouting the best Ramen, or traveling with her boyfriend
Show Notes
Education
University of Washington, 2015
Bachelor’s in Marketing & Entrepreneurship
Tarryn discussed the benefits and richness of experience that came with living from a diverse group of students with varied academic interests versus the other business students living in a business bubble; she argues that business isn’t really something you can learn in school, and things evolve so quickly that the books / lessons are often outdated.
“Those moments [of being exposed to roommates and their other academic interests] were almost more interesting than some of the stuff I was learning in classes.”
Career
Digital Marketing Specialist, Pyramid Analytics (2015-2017)
Traveled with Remote Year’s second group, Battuta (2016)
Digital Markting Manager, Shiftboard (2017-2018)
Director of Demand Generation, Pixvana (2018-2020)
Co-founder, Dara (2018)
Dara is an AI / machine learning solution that helps sales organizations track sales calls but also train sales people on how to be better by using their AI to learn
“Marketing gives you the opportunity to explore things that you wouldn’t normally pay attention to.”
Tarryn’s Startup: Dara
In 2018, Tarryn met up with a friend from her former company and decided to found a startup together. After brainstorming ideas, they came up with Dara. Dara is an AI / machine learning solution that helps sales organizations track sales calls but also train sales people on how to be better by using their AI to learn. Tarryn and her cofounder both come from the marketing space and work with sales teams, and constantly hear about sales people not sticking with the messaging, or not asking key questions – they identified this as a pain point in the industry and decided that they wanted to solve it for their own work.
Tarryn and her cofounder identified AI / machine learning as the sticking point, and found someone who was willing to explore machine learning with them. Using a Microsoft program, they were able to test their program on sales recordings. Their first focus was to see if it could find questions with a conversation. Tarryn and her cofounder were able to build a rough demo, but learned that they need massive amounts of data to really test and build a solution
Dara is currently presenting demos to companies by recording their sales calls, and running them through Dara software to get solutions and insights.
Dara’s next steps are building a website, get the 3-4 pilot companies to practice with, and then go towards getting a round of VC to get the developer on full-time and devoted to working.
Website is now live: https://telldara.com/
Let’s talk acronyms:
XR = extended reality, aka a big bucket that everything fits into — Pixvana’s mission is realizing the potential of XR storytelling
VR = virtual reality, immersed in a virtual environment, typically done with a headset
AR = augmented reality, virtual elements overlaid into your real space (like Pokemon Go)
MR = mixed reality, in your actual environment but can now interact with virtual elements
Ref: Crossing the Chasm business book
Last year, VR was getting massive, lots of VC, then crossed into the “trough of disillusionment”, and now innovating again
Creative options to explore the medium, like Oculus Go ($200)
VR video is made with 360 camera, can get versions for a few hundred dollars to create an experience using online stitchers
The Modern Work podcast is produced by Conaway Creative. The team behind this episode:
Hosted & directed by Katherine Conaway
Editing & sound by Charlotte Oakley
Social media by Kelly Becker
You can support Modern Work financially via Patreon, by spreading the word on social, and by writing a review on your favorite podcasting platform. We appreciate it all — thank you!
