Hiring the right talent is one of the biggest challenges for any startup, but what if teachability matters more than a resume?

In this episode, Melissa Rosenthal, Co-Founder of Outlever, shares her insights on building a team that thrives on adaptability, creativity, and fast-paced problem-solving. She explains how her unique career path—spanning BuzzFeed, Cheddar, and ClickUp—helped her identify gaps in how B2B companies own their narratives and build credibility.

Melissa also discusses the art of creating trade publications for customers, scaling editorial teams, and why outbound motions can become inbound growth machines.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why teachability often outweighs experience
• How to create a unique hiring strategy for hybrid roles
• The value of owning your narrative in competitive industries

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Why teachability matters more than resumes with Melissa Rosenthal

(01:14) The decline of media companies and challenges in B2B SaaS

(03:49) Founding Outlever: Bridging media and B2B content gaps

(06:06) Lessons from building and scaling a startup team

(09:30) Hiring for unique roles: The journalist-sales hybrid

(13:07) Creating trade publications to own customer narratives

(18:01) Leveraging exclusivity in competitive and niche industries

(21:02) Balancing top-of-funnel awareness with bottom-of-funnel impact

(27:47) Strategic growth: Bootstrapping, funding, and scaling thoughtfully