This week on Velocitea, Emily and Forrest are joined by product marketing legend Jim Walker for a deep, opinionated, and wildly practical conversation about what great product marketing really looks like. Jim shares his unconventional path from engineer to product marketer, why technical credibility matters more than buzzwords, and how the best marketers act as translators between complex systems and human understanding.

They dig into why names like CockroachDB work (and why analysts were wrong), how to build a durable message stack across product, value, and company identity, and why product marketing should sit squarely inside the revenue function—not as a helper role. Jim also breaks down how to think about developer audiences properly (hint: “developers” are not one group), why vague words like robust and enterprise are meaningless, and how bad messaging quietly kills trust.

This episode is a masterclass in clarity, audience empathy, and saying the real thing, even when it’s uncomfortable.

In this episode of Velocitea, Emily and Forrest break down what actually makes someone successful in this space (spoiler: do the work first). They also discuss why credibility beats clout and how to build an audience without giving off “desperate thought leader” energy.

They get practical on the nuts and bolts too: why you probably shouldn’t have your spouse manage you, what creators love about working with F&F (briefs, fast pay, no agent fees), and why the world is supply-side constrained on real tech voices. They also dig into the big question: should you quit your day job to create full time?

In this episode of Velocitea, Emily and Forrest pull back the curtain on how influencer marketing actually gets built from startups to enterprise giants. They talk about why influencer marketing isn’t a plug-and-play tactic, how brand voice and product maturity shape every campaign, and why influencers succeed at saying things brands simply can’t.

They break down what really matters when selecting influencers (hint: it’s not follower count) and how outcomes should always come before names. The conversation also covers why short pilots aren’t ideal, why exclusivity usually backfires, and how the best collaborations happen when creators genuinely love the product.

In this episode of Velocitea, Emily and Forrest take on “vibe marketing”: the growing trend of letting AI drive your content and hoping for the best. They break down why AI-generated marketing usually lands in the same bland mid-off, why AI influencers aren’t the future, and how synthetic data is quietly polluting the internet.

They also talk about what junior marketers actually need to learn, why writing is still a human craft, and why your weirdness is still your best marketing asset.

In this episode of Velocitea, Emily and Forrest get spicy about influencer marketing in B2B tech. They break down why internal influencer programs so often turn into glorified PR, why “we’ll just work with a few creators we know” doesn’t scale, and how treating influencers like journalists backfires fast.

They dig into what actually makes a good influencer program work: repeatable systems, real data, clear ROI, and a healthy respect for creators as partners. Along the way, they talk about tastemaking, why most brands only see the tip of the iceberg on performance, and how the right campaigns can force a marketing org to finally get serious about analytics.

In this episode of Velocitea, Emily and Forrest tackle a spicy question: Are we trying to kill Developer Relations? (Short answer: no.) The two unpack how DevRel has evolved from 2019’s conference-circuit celebrity era into something deeper, more technical, and far more human.

They dive into burnout, invisible labor, and what great DevRel actually looks like: bridging product, marketing, and community in ways that can’t be neatly boxed in a company org chart. Along the way: • why the “next Kelsey Hightower” probably wouldn’t get hired today • the difference between DevRel and DevEx (and why the term “relations” makes people squirm) • and who makes it onto their personal DevRel Mount Rushmore.

A mix of inside-baseball humor, empathy, and hard truths for anyone trying to build or support a developer community.

This week on Velocitea, Emily and Forrest are joined by the one-and-only Kendall Miller: community-builder, meetup-runner, connector-of-humans, and self-described “bubbly business guy.” Kendall talks about the art of getting the right kind of attention in tech, why “mid” products still win all the time, and how delight (or lack of it) shows up in the products we build.

The conversation dives into the controversial startup Cluely and whether going “full chaos marketing mode” actually works in B2B SaaS. They discuss why influencers exist in the first place, how product teams lose their spark, and why founders should never design anything by committee.

Plus: • bald ponytail CTO lore • the Slack-to-Enterprise pipeline • and Kendall’s new startup Maybe Don’t, AI (yes, that’s really the name).

In the inaugural episode of Velocitea, co-founders Emily Freeman and Forrest Brazeal finally sit down in the same room (a rare event!) to talk about how Freeman & Forrest came to be, what “influencer marketing for B2B SaaS” actually means, and why tech marketing could use a little more humanity. They unpack what surprised them most about leaving Big Tech to bootstrap their own company, why influencer strategy isn’t about chasing the biggest names, and how being outside the typical tech hubs gives them a different lens on the industry. Also: potatoes, rage quitting, and unsolicited career advice.