Redefining Growth: Cody Gillund’s Blueprint for Marketing That Drives Revenue

After being laid off shortly after maternity leave, Cody Gillund transformed uncertainty into clarity—and clarity into a business. As the founder of Grounded Growth Studio, she partners with early- and growth-stage tech leaders to realign marketing with revenue, not just brand buzz. In this Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, Cody shares how she built a consultancy rooted in strategy, trust, and momentum. From redefining what effective marketing looks like to showing up as both a strategist and a mother of four, her story is a masterclass in intentional growth—and what it means to bet on yourself with purpose.

Hi, Cody Gillund! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

Grounded Growth Studio is a strategic marketing consultancy I created to help early- and growth-stage tech companies build marketing systems that actually support the business, not just the brand.

I primarily work with founders, CEOs, and CROs who are at a pivotal moment. Maybe they’ve grown quickly and need to realign marketing with their sales goals, or maybe they’ve had marketing efforts that just didn’t gain traction the way they hoped. Either way, they know it’s time to approach growth with more strategy, more clarity, and more focus.

That’s where I come in. I serve as a hands-on strategic partner, someone who can step in quickly, assess what’s working, and help build momentum fast. That might look like refining a go-to-market strategy, building a demand gen engine, tightening sales enablement, or reworking messaging from the ground up. I also offer structured packages designed to make high-impact marketing support more accessible to lean teams.

The impact? I help founders move faster, with more confidence. My work shortens sales cycles, sharpens positioning, and creates real alignment between marketing and revenue goals.

At its core, Grounded Growth Studio exists to make growth feel less overwhelming and more intentional, so good ideas have the clarity and structure they need to truly take off.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

For me, the shift from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur wasn’t a single “aha” moment, it was a series of quiet confirmations. I’ve always brought an entrepreneurial mindset to the table, even in corporate roles. But launching Grounded Growth Studio was the first time I truly bet on myself.

The real turning point came when I left my full-time, in-house role and stopped treating the business like a side project or placeholder. I began approaching it with structure, intention, and a deep sense of ownership. It wasn’t landing my first client that made it feel real, it was delivering results, earning referrals, and recognizing consistent patterns in how I could help companies grow. That’s when I knew: this wasn’t just something I could do, it was something people needed.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

The push to make the entrepreneurial leap came from a mix of personal and professional clarity. I was laid off just a few weeks after returning from maternity leave, and while I knew it wasn’t personal, it was a wake-up call. I never wanted to be in a position again where someone else’s decision could upend both my career and my family’s stability.

At the same time, I had been feeling the weight of something deeper: a realization that the culture of in-house marketing leadership, especially in early- and growth-stage companies—is often shaped by unrealistic expectations, limited support, and structural misalignment. I wrote about this recently in a Forbes piece, but the short version is: the problem isn’t the talent. It’s the setup. And it’s incredibly hard to be the kind of marketer I know truly drives growth when the role itself isn’t set up for success.

Starting Grounded Growth Studio gave me the freedom to rewrite that script—to build strategic partnerships where marketing is treated as a lever for growth, not just a service function. And to help other founders and companies avoid the churn, confusion, and missed opportunity that so often comes from getting marketing wrong.

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

One of the biggest game-changers for my business has been the rise of AI-powered marketing tools: specifically ChatGPT, Apollo, and HubSpot. Together, they’ve helped me operate like a full marketing team without sacrificing strategy or quality.

ChatGPT is my go-to for ideation, content development, and pressure-testing messaging. It helps me move fast without getting stuck in the weeds, especially when I’m juggling multiple clients or building something from scratch.

Apollo has been incredibly effective for outbound prospecting and campaign execution. It allows me to reach the right people with the right message at scale, something that used to take a full team and a lot more time.

And with HubSpot, I can tie it all together: building automated workflows, tracking lead behavior, and making sure marketing is driving measurable pipeline impact. It’s my central hub for aligning marketing and sales strategy across engagements.

Together, these tools let me show up for my clients with the speed of an operator and the clarity of a strategist, which is exactly the value Grounded Growth Studio promises.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

One of the biggest pivot points in my career was being laid off a few weeks after returning from maternity leave with my 4th child. I had just spent months preparing to re-enter work, balancing the demands of a new baby with the pressure to quickly deliver results. And then—just like that—I was out. It was gutting, but it also gave me the space to ask some big questions.

The more I reflected, the more I realized how often marketing leaders are set up to fail, not because they lack skill, but because the roles are overloaded, under-supported, and misaligned with business realities. I saw it in my own experience and in the stories of countless peers. That’s when I stopped trying to force-fit myself into roles that didn’t feel sustainable and started building something that did.

Launching Grounded Growth Studio wasn’t just about going out on my own, it was about creating a new model for how marketing strategy could work: clearer, more intentional, and more supportive of real growth. That hard moment—being let go when I least expected it—ultimately gave me the clarity and push I needed to build a business that reflects who I am and what I believe in.

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

One unconventional strategy that’s made a big impact on my business is building everything with the founder in mind first, not the marketer.

A lot of consultants lead with frameworks, jargon, or marketing theory. But I’ve found that the most effective way to earn trust and create traction is to translate strategy into language and systems that actually make sense to the people leading the business. That means simplifying without dumbing things down, prioritizing quick wins without losing sight of the long game, and treating every recommendation as if I were in the founder’s shoes: managing budget, context, and trade-offs in real time.

It’s why my work isn’t just about marketing strategy, it’s about momentum. I focus on what’s going to get them unstuck this quarter, and then build from there. That approach has helped me grow Grounded Growth Studio almost entirely through referrals and repeat work, because founders don’t just feel supported, they feel understood.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

Something I wish I knew sooner is that becoming an entrepreneur doesn’t automatically give you more work/life balance, it just gives you more control over how you struggle with it.

There’s this idea that going out on your own means more freedom, more flexibility, and less stress. And while some of that can be true, what I didn’t anticipate was how much more mentally demanding it can be when you’re the one holding the vision, the revenue, the execution, and the boundaries.

There’s no boss to tell you when to stop working. No one to remind you to take a break or protect your weekends. And especially as a mom of four, I’ve had to learn the hard way that “freedom” only exists if you actively create it.

My advice to newer entrepreneurs is this: build your boundaries as intentionally as you build your business. Don’t wait until you burn out to decide how you want your days to feel. Define success on your own terms and revisit that definition often.

Want to dive deeper into Cody's work? Check out the links below!

• Visit Grounded Growth Studio's website: groundedgrowthstudio.com
• Grab a time to chat with Cody: groundedgrowthstudio.com/contact
• Connect with Cody Gillund on LinkedIn: Cody Gillund
• Find Grounded Growth Studio on Facebook
• Follow Cody Gillund on Instagram: @groundedgrowthstudio