#184 - Disruptive Technology, Adaptation and Hyper‑Growth with Caitlin Allen, SVP of Market and Chair at Simbe Robotics

B2B technology is shifting at an unprecedented pace. As traditional sectors grapple with supply chain pressures, shifting workforces, and the demand for personalisation, new frontiers like hardware-as-a-service and physical AI are moving from peripheral concepts to essential infrastructure. For marketers, the challenge is clear: how do you build a category and drive adoption for a disruptive technology that fundamentally changes how the world works? In this episode of the FINITE Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Caitlin Allen to unpack the mechanics of category creation and how marketers can spot market signals, tipping points, and growth opportunities within emerging tech. They explore the nuances of marketing robotics, how to structure a team to create FOMO (fear of missing out) while helping buyers overcome their fear of messing up, and the structural forces reshaping B2B go-to-market motions. Caitlin Allen is a seasoned marketing leader who has spent two decades building markets for transformative technologies before they are part of a P&L. She has helped scale category-defining companies across venture capital, deep tech, and consumer platforms—including serving on the executive teams that led Lyft through its IPO and Happy Returns to its acquisition by PayPal, as well as advising ambitious startups as a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. She is currently the SVP of Market and Chair at Simbe, where she is pioneering Physical AI and bringing "Store Intelligence" to the $28T physical retail economy. Caitlin shares her refined methodology for taking complex, multi-threaded sales cycles to market. She discusses how she conquered narrative homogeny in the robotics space, the five questions every buyer needs to answer during a paradigm shift, and how she integrates an intricate network of AI agents into her team’s daily operations - from persona-specific bots and Reddit monitors to leadership coaching agents. If you want to understand how to position disruptive technology and orchestrate a category-defining marketing strategy, this conversation is a must-listen.

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