Viral Poem vs. Growth Marketing (+ Your Invite!)
Inspired by The New Yorker piece.
Recently, I read Patricia Lockwood Goes Viral in The New Yorker.
The piece recounts how her poem “Rape Joke“ spread across the internet in 2013.
It wasn’t a campaign. It wasn’t optimized for SEO or designed for distribution. It wasn’t even meant to “go viral.”
And yet it did.
Why? Because it was raw. It was uncomfortable. It was true.
Lockwood took something personal and terrifying and wrote it in a way that was unflinching, jagged, and human. Readers didn’t just consume it; they recognized themselves in it. They passed it along. They said: this is my story too.
That’s why it spread: not because it was marketed, but because it resonated.
Campaigns push. Poems pull.
Here’s the parallel I couldn’t stop thinking about:
A growth marketing campaign is polished, scheduled, and engineered.
A viral poem is jagged, human, and alive.
Campaigns try to persuade.
Poems don’t persuade—they echo.
Keep reading.
The Invisible Years
Before “Rape Joke”, Lockwood had been writing for years. She published a small-press collection, built a tiny following on Twitter, and kept sending poems out into the void.
Nothing “took off.”
She didn’t have the pedigree. No MFA. No insider connections. No well-funded PR machine.
Sound familiar?
Most founders live in this space for years. You build. You write blog posts that nobody reads. You tinker with landing pages that nobody clicks. You whisper into the void and wonder if anyone’s listening.
And then, one day, something lands.
Not because it was engineered, but because it was true.
My $8K MRR “Poem”
When I look back on how I grew my SaaS to almost $8K MRR with just $200 in ads, it didn’t come from funnels or campaigns. The ad spend barely moved the needle.
What worked looked more like Lockwood’s poem than a marketing plan:
Blog posts in my own messy, awkward voice.
Candid conversations with early adopters.
Referrals born not of incentives, but of recognition.
It wasn’t engineered growth. It was resonance.
Join Me Live Next Week and WIN a free audit!
When I hosted my first webinar on organic SaaS growth, things didn’t go perfectly—there was a hiccup. But afterwards, dozens of you reached out asking: “When’s the next one?”
I heard you. So here I am.
📅 September 3rd, 16:00 Lisbon time
🎯 What you’ll learn:
The three organic levers that actually worked.
Why “campaign thinking” nearly cost me traction.
How to build a growth engine rooted in resonance, not burn rate.
🎁 You’ll get:
A free copy of my Organic Growth Blueprint (PDF)
An exclusive bonus offer just for live attendees
This time, it’s updated, sharper, and with a twist:
👉 Three live attendees will win a FREE Organic Growth Audit Call with me, where I’ll review their product and growth strategy one-on-one.
Because growth isn’t just theory—it’s practice.
If you’re done chasing tactics and ready to build a system that grows with you, this is for you.
Grab your 2-for-1 tickets below before they are gone!
The Real Lesson
Lockwood’s viral poem wasn’t scalable in the way a campaign is. But it was unforgettable. And it built trust in her voice that carried across books, essays, and novels.
That’s the kind of growth SaaS founders should crave. Not engineered spikes, but resonance that compounds.
Because here’s the truth:
Campaigns are expensive and brittle.
Organic growth is messy, but it’s durable.
The things that spread aren’t the things we optimize. They’re the things that feel most true.
The First-Time CEO Podcast News
Later today, I’m meeting my first Season 2 guest for interview prep, and I’m very excited! Because of the recent unexpected (and painful) turn of events around an AI SaaS I co-founded, Olympia, I had to recalibrate, hence the delay. So Season 2 now launches in September.
Meanwhile, watch or listen to Season 1, where my incredible guests share their lessons and tips on marketing, sales, growth, fundraising, business development, team and crisis management, and all their secrets on launching and running businesses for the first time. And subscribe to not miss future episodes:
YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY | APPLE PODCASTS
WANTED! 10 Influential Women in AI
I’m writing a piece for HackerNoon on 10 influential women shaping the future of AI. If you know someone whose work deserves recognition, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please reply to this email or comment under this newsletter on Substack. My previous piece on influential women in NFT reached nearly 10K reads.
I’m excited to spotlight the brilliant voices shaping AI next!
#CEOCheck
If your marketing looked less like a campaign—and more like a poem—
what truth would it tell?
Hit reply, and let me know. I read all of them!
See you there,
Victoria
For more authentic content on launching and running companies for the first time, follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram, and The First-Time CEO podcast on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.