I help startups scale faster by making their copy resonate with their target audience

There are 2 groups of founders: those who believe that you can sprinkle ✨copy magic✨ on a website and get conversions.

And those who know that converting copy is the end result of understanding your customers, their struggles and their aspirations.

I work with the startups that are Team Customer Research.

Conversion copy based on research, not hunches

Things to know about me:

I go by Sam, so you don’t need to look up how to pronounce ‘Ekaterina’
Outside of work, I’m into bike camping and lindy hop
I’ve recently directed a Zoom play (all those years of online meetings have finally paid off!)

Experiences I bring to the table:

Dozens of copywriting and research projects in B2B SaaS space
Curiosity that translates into running interviews that get us closer to voice-of-customer insights
Custom approach to every project — because every startup is unique, and best practices only work up to a point

Here’s what I believe:

Voice-of-customer research >> “power words”
Customer research >> best practices
“It depends” >> growth hacks

My fave projects with growing startups

From getting to the “How do we describe our solution to our target audience” to improving website conversions:

Guest posts and publications

Nerdy stuff, from troubleshooting your 1-page website for barriers to conversions to applying conversion copy principles to content at:

Mentoring early-stage startups

I mentor early-stage startup founders over at GrowthMentor*:

Copy review and workshopping
CRO ideas and tips on execution
Building out customer research loops and interview guides

*This is my referral link — if you end up signing up, I’ll get a commission

Podcasts and conferences

I was a speaker at a MicroConf Remote conference and at Hotjar’s HOTSAUCE. You can also hear me talk about copy over at:

“Working with Ekaterina was very easy — she took responsibility for the whole process. Working with her saved me a lot of time and allowed us to meet our deadlines. Ekaterina is very competent and gets the job done to a high standard.”
- Bowen Moody, CEO & Co-founder, Wonderwerk
“I was looking for someone available to help with interviews for a project and with the skillset required to interview well. I’d describe working with Ekaterina as seamless, easy, and professional. The best part of working with Ekaterina was not having to worry at all about the quality of the interviews!”
- Adrienne Barnes, Founder Best Buyer Persona | Content Strategy | Marketing Researcher
“Warmly has a big launch coming up, and Ekaterina helped us create good content to publish during the launch! She’s easy to work with, communicative, proactive, and understands the busyness of a founder.”
-Maximus Greenwald, co-founder & CEO at Warmly | YC S20 | xGoogle
"I knew that Ekaterina knew copy stuff! Super helpful and knowledgeable about the conversion copywriting process, Ekaterina’s work was legit.
Working with Ekaterina is smoother than peanut butter. Insanely responsive (and fast!), kept me updated at all times, and had a super thorough process that left me feeling 100% confident."
- Diane Wiredu, Conversion Copywriter + Brand Message Strategist, Lion Words
“We needed a neutral third party to validate messaging for our website update, and I knew that Ekaterina gets stuff done.
Ekaterina fit in nicely as a virtual extension for the project, used our tool stack to do the outreach and the interview analysis, and did what she said she would.”
- Ron Carson, Chief Marketing Officer, Advisor, Investor, and Entrepreneur
"Ekaterina is thorough, systematic, asks good questions, does what she says she will do when she says she will do it, is lovely to work with and also willing to give a little more than was included…which I appreciate and I know the client does too. Would recommend working with her 100%!!”
- Sarah MacKinnon, B2B Buyer Enablement Content, Sarah MacKinnon Writes