The latest episode of The Irish Marketing Podcast has dropped and this week we feature a lengthy discussion with Una Herlihy, co-founder of The Indie List and former advertising practitioner who talks about the platform’s rapid rise over the last six years.
The platform’s origin story has become modern industry lore. At the start of the pandemic, with her long-standing freelance pipeline wiped out overnight, she put out a simple post offering to match struggling freelancers with work, drafted while swinging on a garden hammock from her home in Kilkenny. The post blew up overnight, prompting media veteran Peter McPartlin to partner with her and formalise what is now a highly vetted community of professionals.
Unlike transactional gig sites, The Indie List operates on a strict matchmaking model. Hurley explains that not everyone gets on the list; they strictly vet candidates’ portfolios and check references to present only the perfect fits for senior-level skills gaps. The episode also demystifies the rise of the Fractional CMO and what that phrase really means
To maintain absolute focus during rapid scaling, The Indie List strictly evaluates every opportunity against distinct business pillars: a revenue goal, an operational efficiency goal, and a cultural goal to be “a force for good in our industry”.
In addition we have the winner of our exclusive competition to win a bespoke, strategic session with marketing and AI guru Paul Dervan to mark the launch of his online course, “AI Fluency for Ambitious Marketers” starting this autumn.
(Drumroll). And the winner is Cathy Curran, Curran PR.
The Irish Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the team at IMJ/Adworld and Tinpot Productions and his hosted by Daryl Moorhouse.
