In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Roman Kirsch interviews Nathan Levi, CMO at Popsa, a mobile-first “memory curation platform” that’s disrupting the traditional photo printing industry. Popsa has transformed a dated category dominated by web-first incumbents into a frictionless mobile experience, particularly appealing to an older demographic seeking beautiful photo products without needing design skills. Nathan shares how Popsa built a global presence from day one, why they’ve rejected traditional brand marketing in favor of self-reinforcing growth loops, and how they’ve achieved impressive revenue-per-employee metrics through senior talent and AI-enabled workflows.

Topics Discussed:

• Transforming the photo printing industry through mobile-first technology and frictionless design

• Building an international business from day one versus focusing on a single market

• Rejecting traditional marketing funnels in favor of self-reinforcing growth loops

• Managing marketing complexity across multiple countries, platforms, and channels

• Creating an internal creative agency to handle unprecedented content velocity

• Leveraging AI throughout the organization for productivity and product enhancement

• Balancing digital and physical photo products to serve core customer needs

Lessons For Consumer Marketers:

Prioritize Self-Reinforcing Loops Over Marketing Funnels

Rather than the traditional funnel approach of buying brand awareness through mass media, Nathan focuses on optimizing self-reinforcing loops that build sustainable growth. Popsa operates several loops: paid acquisition, viral sharing of designs, customer referrals, and retention loops. Their growth team’s primary objective is optimizing every stage of these loops to make them “spin faster” rather than dumping money into traditional brand marketing.

When Going International, Build It Into Your DNA

Popsa launched as a global company from day one, designing products with international adaptability built-in (like auto-populated country-specific calendar dates). While this approach increases complexity, it provides significant acquisition flexibility—allowing them to dial spending up or down across markets as needed—and creates massive long-term opportunity while reducing dependence on any single market.

Diversify Marketing Channels “At All Costs”

Nathan emphasizes channel diversification as essential given today’s rapidly changing digital landscape: “everyone’s standing on quicksand right now.” Popsa runs hundreds of campaigns across multiple platforms, markets, and channels, creating complexity but providing resilience against algorithm changes or channel disruptions. This approach prevents dangerous dependence on any single traffic source.

Create In-House Creative Capabilities For Modern Content Velocity

The pace of modern digital marketing made traditional agency relationships unworkable for Popsa. They produce hundreds of ads weekly across multiple markets, making it impossible for external agencies to match their velocity needs. Their solution was building an internal creative agency with in-house video editors, filming capabilities, and production resources.

Use AI to Enable Small Teams to Deliver Outsized Results

Popsa has achieved $1 million in revenue per employee by strategically hiring senior talent and using AI to automate junior-level tasks. The company established an AI Council for knowledge sharing and encouraged team members to embrace AI tools, viewing them as enablers that allow people “to do the work of 10 people” rather than as replacements for human jobs.

Leverage AI to Remove Product Friction and Increase Lifetime Value

Popsa has implemented several AI features to reduce friction in the creation process: facial recognition to quickly find specific people in photo libraries, dynamic themes that automatically match background colors to photos, and AI-generated captions. These features have significantly improved customer lifetime value by enhancing the user experience and increasing retention.

Balance Digital Innovation with Deep Customer Needs

While exploring digital photo book options, Popsa recognizes that the physical product serves a fundamental human need around legacy and creating lasting memories. Understanding these deeper motivations—that people print photo books partly “to leave something about yourself to your loved ones”—informs their product development strategy and helps them see how digital and physical products can complement each other.

Get Out From Behind the Laptop

Nathan’s top advice for CMOs is deceptively simple: “get off your laptops and start talking to customers.” He emphasizes the critical importance of continuously talking to customers, selling to real people, and putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. This direct customer connection remains essential despite all the technological advances in marketing.