Ellie Mirman's Startup Marketing Blog

A lot can change in a week. Just 5 days ago, I was happily in a role I had had for a full year (which is actually surprising for me in my 4.5-year tenure at this startup) and had no intention of changing anything. Now it's Saturday morning and I'm waking up at the crack of dawn because I can't sleep from excitement for a new role I'll be taking. Or maybe it's stress. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

It was a tough decision at first to take this step, but after talking with some close friends and family about the opportunity (who were smart enough to even repeat back to me what I was saying - which was that I wanted to make this move), I realized that there was no question that I should do it.

There was a time when I loved the Passover holiday. I don't really remember this time, but I believe my parents when they say that it happened. Sometimes it's hard to believe - after all, I could probably survive on pita and hummus year-round if I needed to. But today - after two nights of 5-hour seders at my parents' house - I do remember a couple of the reasons I so enjoy Passover and many other Jewish holidays throughout the year: ritual.

Ritual gets a bad rap when it gets interpreted as a meaningless practice that people do out of habit or without thought. But there's a lot to love in ritual and we got to indulge ourselves in just that this weekend.

It's been much too long since I last blogged, and much too long since I did a speech at Toastmasters. So here's me killing two birds with one stone: my second speech in the Toastmasters book, focused on Organization, while also sharing a bit more about me and my family.

Photo (right) shows me on my 21st birthday, where we had 3 birthday cakes. They were all delicious.

Even when my parents lived in a single room in shared apartment, they were hosting big dinner parties for all their friends. They've always loved to host, and I grew up with many dinner parties and brunches and even more dinner parties. The parties were always big, fun ordeals that I never quite saw replicated at my friends' very normal homes. So when I went to college and got my own apartment, and again when I moved back here to my own place in Somerville, I picked up my mom's tradition of playing hostess. My parties are never quite the same big ordeals that my parents plan, but I think I've picked up a thing or two from them over time. And today I want to share with you the 3 steps to hosting a Mirman Family Dinner Party.

This is a piece I prepared for my first Toastmasters speech, presented at the HubSpot Chapter of Toastmasters last week. It was surprisingly tough to talk about myself for a full 7 minutes - both when I was writing the speech as well as delivering it. One of the interesting comments I got from my evaluator is that it was a very intimate, personal speech, which I realize is my way of sharing stories generally, especially on my blog. So here you go, blog readers, my first Toastmasters "Ice Breaker" speech!

Thank you, Mr. Toastmaster and fellow members and guests.

In preparing for this speech,  I thought back to some of the defining moments in my life and found a surprising common thread. I don’t consider myself much of a risk taker. I don’t like to gamble. I don’t really play the stock market. I've never been sky diving and have no desire to do so.

But when I look back at those defining moments of my life, they all involve taking a risk. And I wanted to share a few of those stories of these risks that have shaped who I am today. 

It's been a while since I've blogged and, while I have an excuse, it's not a particularly good one. There have been a lot of changes going on at work (it's our constant state) and I've taken on a new role. Two months into the new role, I'm at a familiar point and looking back at the fun and excitement that is Beginning.

This is role number... I've-lost-count and I'm noticing some interesting patterns around taking on a new job. I've always loved the Beginning. It's fun and exciting; there are lots of new things to learn and people to meet. The Beginning is the start of a new school year - a time I've always loved - a time when there are no exams and no drama, just old friends and hope for a great year.

Only people who work harder to achieve their goals. I'm lucky in that my parents drilled this into me as I was growing up. Maybe not in these words, but they refused to believe that I couldn't do something. And it's not just because I was their darling little girl.

My parents tell me the story of how, in 4th grade, I came home from school and told my parents I was bad at math. This might sound pretty normal or familiar to you, but my parents would have none of that. It's true that my family is, in general, pretty... mathy (hey we're better at math than English - so I'll use that as an excuse to make up words). I don't really remember what spurred me saying I was no good at math, but I do certainly remember my parents then sending me to Russian math school for a year (oh yes, it exists). It was a pretty awful experience, but from that moment on, math suddenly came easy to me. It was probably partially because of the math principles I learned that year, but also partially because I learned that it wasn't a matter of my "smarts" but rather how committed I was to achieving something.

It's not often I get to present on lead nurturing at events - it's not exactly what you'd consider a flashy topic - but I had the pleasure of doing so for the Tampa Bay American Marketing Association. Below you can check out the presentation (with audio coming soon hopefully)!

I've been thinking a lot lately about winning (no, not the Charlie Sheen-esque #winning). I've never really been into winning competitions (as my last post touches on) - I didn't play team sports as a kid (what, you didn't peg me as the quiet artsy musical kid?) and generally didn't participate in a lot of competitions. Oddly enough, though, I've recently entered into a competition at work that I'm very much getting into: the mixed doubles foosball tournament. Thanks to my teammate, I've been working on my foosball skills and now, I must say, we are quite the formidable team. I've been practicing and loving the games and can't wait to kick some foosball butt.

Editorial Warning: This is a bit of a letter-style rant. This may come off crazy and/or self-promotional. I have neither intention. Read on, and consider yourself warned!

I was chatting with a fellow marketer recently and we started talking about different personalities on the marketing team and how I am a very altruistic marketer. It's not the first time I've been "called out" (in a friendly way of course) for being altruistic, sometimes to a naive degree.

I don't mind it at all.

It's finally time to tell my oh-so-loyal blog readership what I've been up to the past couple months. I'm excited to finally share that I'm helping out with the best new program for Boston entrepreneurs: Founder Mentors.