Essays on AI startup growth, marketing strategy, and entrepreneurship by Mina Mankarious.
There's a version of ambition that skips over what's already in front of you. I've been guilty of it. Here's what I've learned about looking at the life you actually have before reaching for the next thing.
There's a version of marketing that feels productive but isn't. Announcement after announcement, update after update. It looks like momentum, but it's actually costing you your brand and your best work. Here's what I learned the hard way.
I’m not great at all three. I’m a marketer who studied engineering and fumbled his way into building software. But having all three perspectives in one head — even imperfectly — changed how I think about everything. Here’s why being willing to be bad at something might be the most underrated skill a founder can have.
After a year and a half of building, testing, and refining — Olunix Vantage is officially live. A positioning lab built for the founders who can't afford to get it wrong but couldn't afford to hire us. Here's what it is, why we built it, and what happens next.
I'm a marketer. I have no business building software. But after a year and a half of watching founders who couldn't afford our help struggle alone, I couldn't not build the thing. Here's what that looked like from the inside.
Most startups treat marketing like a creative exercise — then wonder why nothing compounds. The problem isn't your copy, your channels, or your budget. It's that you never engineered the system in the first place.
Most startup homepages sound identical. I got tired of explaining the same positioning problems on calls, so I built a tool that does it in 10 seconds. Here’s the thinking behind the roast.
I’m going to walk you through the exact playbook most marketing consulting firms use — the pricing tricks, the dependency loops, the recycled strategies. I know it because I was taught it. Here’s why I stopped using it.
Everyone’s waiting for the moment it all clicks. The breakthrough, the turning point, the dramatic shift. That’s not how it works. Here’s what actually pulls you through — and why the season you’re in right now might be building more than you think.
Marketing systems engineering is the discipline of applying engineering principles to marketing strategy. Here's the framework I use at Olunix to build growth systems that actually scale.
There are 70,000 AI startups globally, and most of them describe what they do in nearly identical language. Positioning isn’t a marketing exercise — it’s the strategic decision that determines whether your company lives or dies.
90% of AI startups will fail — and it won’t be because of the technology. In a world where anyone can build anything, the only moat left is making people care. And almost nobody knows how.
A founder spent $40K on marketing consulting and had nothing to show for it. Here’s why the industry rewards diagnosis over delivery — and what to look for instead.
Every startup founder asks this question. The answer isn’t either/or — it’s about sequencing. Here’s a stage-by-stage breakdown of which channel makes sense and when.
Before I knew what SEO or CTR meant, I was optimizing Minecraft thumbnails on my parents’ computer. Here’s what a zero-subscriber YouTube channel taught me about marketing.
There’s a disconnect between quality content and the stuff that actually goes viral. Is it the algorithm? The platforms? Or something deeper that we’re all complicit in?
I’ve never cold-called a prospect, never sent a pushy follow-up, never promised the moon to close a deal. Here’s why — and what happens when you let the work do the talking instead.
From doing nothing with my life during COVID to obsessively building my first company. This one's for the person who thinks they can't do hard things.
The AI space is crowded, noisy, and full of companies saying the same thing. Here's how the startups that actually win are approaching marketing differently.
The real lessons from early client work that no business school teaches you. From pricing mistakes to learning when to say no.
74% of startups fail due to premature scaling. Here's what that actually means for your marketing budget and how to spend smarter, not more.
From Egypt to Canada, from engineering to marketing, and everything in between. The story of how a young man's curiosity, hustle, and refusal to cut corners led to building Olunix.
What it's actually like to start a company while finishing your final year at McMaster. The resources, the challenges, and the things nobody warns you about.
Consulting vs. marketing — agency, consultant, or in-house? The answer depends on your stage, your budget, and what problem you're actually trying to solve.
How studying Automotive Engineering at McMaster shaped the way I think about marketing, and why the best marketers think more like engineers than creatives.
The real story behind our rebrand: why we did it, what we learned, and the practical steps of changing your company's identity without losing what matters.