Right Side Up Talent Spotlight: Jason Woods

The Right Side Up Talent Spotlight series profiles some of our full-time employees and growth marketing consultants. We chatted with them to learn about their incredible professional experiences, expert marketing insights, and how they’re balancing work and life.

Jason Woods | Project Strategy

Jason Woods is a marketing strategist with experience spanning several high-growth startup companies, as well as a background in journalism. He is part of the project strategy team at Right Side Up (RSU).

What’s it like to work at Right Side Up?

I’ve been with the project strategy team for a few months, but prior to that I was a consultant for RSU for about 18 months. I originally heard about this opportunity on AngelList, which is where I was finding most of my content gigs as a consultant working on my own. RSU worked out nicely because it basically let me do what I was already doing, but took out a lot of the manual work for me—they handle all of the contracting, billing, payments, and things that used to be a time sink for me. It’s nice to be able to focus on doing what I love instead of spending time on those back-end tasks.

Working in-house or with one organization, you tend to meet people that all have similar experiences. But here I get to know people that have all kinds of different experiences. I’ve met people that are doing podcast marketing, digital ads—basically the full gamut of marketing strategy and marketing experience. And the same goes for the clients I work with. I’ve worked with some big companies in the past, but here I get to work with so many types of brands, including super high-growth, billion-dollar companies.

Tell us what excites you about growth marketing.

Being in growth marketing allows me to work with different companies, brands, industries, and verticals. I really like learning about companies, hearing about their needs and strategies, and thinking about how we can support them in their growth. It’s a new challenge everyday.

In a broader sense, it’s an exciting field to be in because marketing evolves constantly over time. We’re continually exploring new channels and finding new ways of engaging with audiences.

What were you up to before joining Right Side Up?

I’ve always been a bit of a general marketing strategist, with an emphasis on SEO and lifecycle marketing. I was the third employee and first marketing hire at my first two startups, and then I led lifecycle and messaging at a bigger startup. The first three startups I was with all had acquisition exits, which is something I’m proud of. The fourth company I joined was also a startup and I was hired to lead US marketing for a German company. In that role I hired 30+ people, managed 15 direct reports at one time, and the company grew from 80 employees to over 500 in my time there—and it’s still growing! 

RSU is my fifth full-time job since graduate school, and in addition to those jobs, I've consulted for about 15 brands. I was also a reporter at the Boston Globe for two years.

How does Right Side Up’s fully remote, flexible work environment shape your lifestyle?

Today, my home base is Berlin, Germany. My last role was originally supposed to be split 50/50 between New York and Berlin, but the pandemic forced me into a semi-permanent locale switch. Although I haven’t been with RSU for too long, I’m already thinking about what I’ll be able to do with the remote work setup. 

I might do a month-long trip through the Balkans or a three-month trip through South America, working daily but then exploring the surroundings on nights and weekends. I really love to travel and I love nature, hiking, and just seeing the world’s beauty. Some of my favorite places to visit are Yellowstone National Park, Arizona, and Alaska within the US, and then beyond that it’s Iceland, Austria, and South Africa.

The pandemic has really exacerbated the shift in people wanting to own a bit more of their lives and work remotely. We all see that life is short and can be disrupted in a second, so that has led to lots of us exploring ways to live more flexibly. And the huge demand for marketers right now gives people like me more options than ever before.

And now, let’s get to the fun stuff…

• I proudly wrote my first novel when I was 5. It was 19 pages long and Luke Skywalker teamed up with Superman against Lex Luthor and Emperor Palpatine. My parents funneled that love of writing into journalism, which led me to being a reporter at the Boston Globe.
• I’ve been to 500 concerts, despite not really liking concerts that much. And thanks to a friend that works in music promotion, I’ve met Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, George Strait, Brad Paisley, Florida Georgia Line and more at their shows, most of them multiple times.
• One of my favorite quotes is “Don’t you understand, I already have a plan—I’m waiting for my real life to begin,” originally from a song by Australian singer Colin Hay and later featured in an episode of Scrubs. So for me, it’s a reminder to live every day.

Want to speak with Jason and our Project Strategy team about your company’s growth strategy? Drop us a line at growth@rightsideup.co to get started. Or maybe you’re interested in joining the Right Side Up team? We’d love to chat—reach out to hello@rightsideup.co and we’ll be in touch.