Marketing leadership for technical brands

Positioning and messaging, demand generation, community growth, and the teams and operations behind them.

Let’s talk
Jonathan E Cowperthwait

Slow runner, fast talker, good writer

Who I am

I’ve spent my career in developer tools and open source. Why we built this and whom it’s for can be surprisingly hard to articulate, but you need to nail it before everything downstream, and then nail all of that, too. Fortunately, I do it all well.

I led marketing at npm as it grew to 20M monthly users, built the marketing function at Cube Dev as its first go-to-market hire, and ran global marketing at The Duckbill Group. For two decades, I’ve also worked independently as a fractional leader for B2B and B2C technology brands, introducing amazing things to loving communities.

Sweat the small stuff—and the big stuff too

What I do

Selected services

  • Positioning and messaging
  • Go-to-market and launch strategy
  • Content and SEO strategy
  • Demand generation
  • Global brand and product launches
  • Press and analyst relations
  • Crisis communications
  • White papers, explainers, comparison guides
  • Case studies
  • Marketing operations

Experience

Whom I’ve helped

  • Cybersecurity startup (stealth) United StatesLead marketing for a post-quantum cryptography company selling to government, defense, and enterprise buyers.
  • The Duckbill Group San Francisco, Calif.Led global marketing for a FinOps strategy firm, reaching 85,000+ podcast and newsletter subscribers through SEO content.
  • Cube Dev San Francisco, Calif.Built the marketing function for a developer-focused cloud data platform from its launch, as first go-to-market hire.
  • npm, acquired by GitHub Oakland, Calif.Led marketing for the world’s largest open-source registry as it scaled to 20M monthly users.
  • Leeo Palo Alto, Calif.Launched an IoT hardware product with a $2M+ digital advertising program and SEO content funnel.
  • awe.sm, acquired by Unified Social San Francisco, Calif.Led product positioning, messaging, and go-to-market efforts for an API platform and SaaS offerings.
  • Spiralgroup Marketing and Public Relations San Francisco, Calif.Directed media relations, social media, messaging, and content marketing programs for technology and consumer brands.

Causes

  • San Francisco Civil Grand Jury San Francisco, Calif.Grand Juror and Foreperson Pro Tempore
  • The Julia Burke Foundation Kailua-Kona, HawaiiMember, Board of Directors

Education

  • The University of Chicago Chicago, Ill.AB, Political Science

Contact

Let’s talk.

A note about what you are working on is plenty—or just say hi. I make very good coffee and order very good wine.