Paige Arnof-Fenn is the founder & CEO of global marketing and digital branding firm Mavens & Moguls based in Cambridge, MA. Her clients include Microsoft, Virgin, The New York Times Company, Colgate, venture-backed startups as well as non-profit organizations. She graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School. Paige serves on several Boards and is a popular speaker and columnist who has written for Entrepreneur and Forbes.
Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up
I am a child of the 60s and 70s who grew up in the Deep South. All 4 of my grandparents were Southerners too, we all lived within a few hour’s drive when I was a child. I am the oldest of 3 and was always a good student and athlete growing up, responsible and hard working. My father and both grandfathers were in business so I always thought I would go that route too. From a young age, I loved sports, movies, TV, and travel. I went to a girls’ sports camp every summer for 2 months from age 9-16. I was an exchange student in France in high school and Italy in college. My family moved when I was in middle school and I am still friends with most of the people I grew up with from school and camp. As an adult I have lived and worked in NYC, LA, Bay Area, Atlanta, DC, Cincinnati, etc. but have been in Boston for the past 20+ years.
How did you get started as an entrepreneur?
I did not plan on starting a company. I always wanted to go work for a large multinational business and be a Fortune 500 CEO. When I was a student I looked at leaders like Meg Whitman & Ursula Burns as my role models. I started my career on Wall Street in the 80s and had a successful career in Corporate America at companies like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and worked at 3 different startups as the head of marketing, all had positive exits. I became an entrepreneur and took the leap right after 9/11 when the company I worked for cut their marketing. I had nothing to lose. I knew I had made it when Harvard wrote 2 case studies on my business a few years after I started it, we were very early to pioneer sharing resources on the marketing front (before my company it was really only done with HR, legal, and accounting/finance).
What is one business lesson you would tell a startup founder?
You do not exist today if you cannot be found online. If we learned anything during Covid it is that your online presence is only growing in importance. Being invisible online is a terrible strategy so making sure your site is keyword rich/mobile-friendly/loads quickly/produces meaningful content today is the price of entry. That also happens to be a great, cost-efficient foundation for effective SEO in my experience.
