Episode #201: Cait Anderson — Building trust into a repeatable growth system

Trust breaks faster than funnels.
This episode is for operators trying to make growth predictable without killing speed.

Cait Anderson is Chief Marketing Officer at Winston Francois. In this conversation, she and Jason unpack what actually makes a growth system sustainable: predictable returns, clear operating rhythm, and trust that compounds instead of resets. They walk through concrete examples, including a B2B SaaS company spending $1M/month in paid media, how experimentation budgets are set at different stages, and why breaking a product promise can wipe out downstream revenue faster than any channel issue.

What you’ll hear

• How Cait defines a growth operating system across acquisition, nurture, and conversion
• Why early-stage teams need wide flexibility, while later-stage teams cap experimentation at ~10–20%
• A real example of reallocating spend that moved ROAS from 2:1 to 20:1—and why that was still not the end goal
• How broken trust (not missing features) kills retention, referrals, and revenue

Chapters

Timestamps from episode transcript

• 00:00 — Aspirational vs. functional promises and why trust breaks fast
• 01:14 — What a growth operating system actually is
• 02:50 — Compounding metrics, referrals, and overlooked revenue
• 04:16 — Early-stage vs. late-stage operating rhythm and spend mix
• 06:49 — $1M/month paid media example: foundation vs. experimentation
• 10:27 — Activation, funnels, and building demand before conversion
• 15:23 — Turning around a struggling ad program and rethinking ROAS
• 17:13 — North Star metrics, buyer intent, and what to track first

Links & resources

Guest
Cait Anderson — Chief Marketing Officer, Winston Francois
https://winstonfrancois.com

About Frank Growth

Frank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions.
Hosted by Jason Shafton.

Promotional links

• Work with Winston Francois: https://wf.team/podcast
• Subscribe / Follow Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonshafton/