We became the second pair of hands while they built the rest of the team. Events, social, launches, hiring, brand, ads. Whatever needed doing next.
A startup with a marketing team of one
Runware is a startup with a serious product and a fast-moving market. When we met them, their marketing team was one person: the marketing director. Plenty of direction, nowhere near enough hands.
That mattered because Tech Week, one of the biggest events in AI, was seven weeks away. They needed to be there, be visible, and host events for the developer community in the USA. Seven weeks isn't long to plan a week’s worth of events and activities, let alone build the team to do it.
They didn't need a strategy deck. They needed someone who could start on Monday, learn the business by Wednesday, and have the first venue booked by Friday. Then keep going while the director hired the people who'd take it on for good.
A reliable pair of extra hands
The first job was to absorb the industry, get up to speed with the product, and become a safe pair of hands. Not a consultant on the outside, but the second person in the team who gets things done. That bought the marketing director the time to grow the team properly and find the specialists they needed.
While they did that, we covered the ground:
- Tech Week 2025. Planned and ran developer events in the USA around Tech Week, from venues and logistics to the decks and materials on the day.
- Social media. Took over the channels and ran them day to day, including every model launch.
- Newsletter. Managed and designed a new newsletter email for different audience personas.
- Hiring. Helped find and bring in the right marketing talent, so the work had somewhere to land.
- Brand. Supported the launch of a new brand, and shaped the narrative and tone of voice that went with it.
- Content. Kicked off the content programme and wrote the first case studies.
- Merchandise. Designed, organised, and ordered the merchandise for events.
- Website. Wrote and built fresh pages as the product moved on.
- Advertising. Set up digital ads, onboarded specialist agencies, and ran out-of-home campaigns, deciding the messaging and working with designers on the artwork.
- Partners. Managed partner relationships and the projects that came with them.
- AI adoption. Helped the team put AI tools to work inside their own marketing, not just in their product.
Underneath all of it, general project management: keeping the plates spinning so the director could focus on the decisions only a director can make.
Runware needed help hiring, and that's how Avapond found me. They didn't stop once I was through the door either: onboarding, processes, campaigns, all of it happened alongside us rather than being handed over. The care they gave was the kind you'd expect from someone running their own company, not an outside hire. Finding someone is the easy part. Avapond did the harder job of making sure the team worked once we were in it. – Olena Trifan, Creative Technologist at Runware
Seven weeks later, and the year after
- Tech Week 2025: Two hosted events, three co-sponsored events, totalling over 700 attendees, and deals in the pipeline for sales.
- Social: Increased social following by 163% over twelve months, with launches and events driving most of the jump.
- Team: from one person to 6 people.
- Launches: Over 50 model announcements. Two investment rounds. And multiple product and feature updates were handled.
