123: Building, Bootstrapping, and Doing It Your Way - with Ruta Sudmantaite of Lava Metrics and Emma Davies of Thesmia AI

Ruta Sudmantaite and Emma Davies have built their careers across marketing, consulting, and now tech entrepreneurship. After meeting as teammates at a B2B SaaS company, they went on to become fractional CMOs, podcast co-hosts of Blame It On Marketing, and founders of their own startups - Lava Metrics, a marketing analytics platform, and Thesmia AI, a low-cost AI assistant for HR teams. In this episode, we talk about building while bootstrapping, the realities of fractional consulting, what it’s like to start companies with your friends (and partners), and how they bring kindness, candor, and community into every room they enter. Here’s what we cover:How Ruta and Emma went from coworkers to fractional CMOs and co-foundersThe differences between starting a consulting practice and a tech companyWhy they believe “two heads are better than one” in fractional workBuilding products without outside funding - patience, scrappiness, and first customersHow to disagree kindly, give feedback, and earn trust with in-house teamsWhy executive presence doesn’t have to look like a suit or a scriptCreating community through honesty: confessions walls, career couches, and real talkThe power of female allies, industry besties, and personal boards of directorsAnd yes, Ruta’s side business selling sourdough starter - and what it taught her about SEO Key Links: Guests: Ruta Sudmantaite: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rutasudmantaite/ Emma Davies: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmadavies1989/ Host: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra/ Thesmia AI: https://www.thesmia.ai/ Lava Metrics: https://lavametrics.com/ Blame it on Marketing Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3X0IiwUIupVa4tCNg8AMpR?si=5d01dceb2c6d4c86 Ruta's Epic UK Sourdough co: https://getsourdough.co.uk/ –– Like WIB2BM? Show us some love with a rating or review. It helps us reach more