Startup Boston Week Speaker Sneak Peek: Cara Hogan on Positioning, Messaging and Marketing That Converts

Cara Hogan has always been passionate about science, the outdoors, and storytelling - a combination that’s shaped her career. 

The avid rock climber and surfer found her calling in climate tech. Cara started out as a journalist for The Boston Globe, eventually transitioning into marketing roles for various tech companies. After a career inflection point, Cara moved into the role of fractional CMO in the climate tech space. 

Cara is speaking on a panel titled “Positioning, Messaging, or Distribution: A Live Startup Teardown,” at Startup Boston Week 2026. But before she takes the stage, Cara spoke with Startup Boston about how she became a fractional CMO, what she’s looking forward to chatting about during her panel, what she hopes founders take away from the week, and more.

Startup Boston (SB): Walk me through how you got to where you are today. 

Cara Hogan (CH): I kept having these moments of inflection in my career. I think you have to check in with yourself and say: ‘Am I happy with what I'm doing? Is this the right thing? Or am I just rolling along?’ 

I was working in B2B SaaS, and I wanted to move on to a new role. I was talking to a few different companies and thinking about what I wanted to do next.

I talked to Tomorrow.io, a weather and climate resilience company that has now launched 11 satellites into Low Earth Orbit to improve global weather forecasting and climate adaptation.

I really wanted to work at a company where I was excited about the mission. I care about the climate crisis and wanted to make an impact. I just had my first child at that time and I wanted to be proud when I told her: this is what I do. I’m trying to help solve real problems in the world.

I had a great experience working at Tomorrow and learned a ton. I ended up going from director to VP of Enterprise Marketing, managing a team of 12 people. I was lucky to work with super-smart people like Dan Slagen, then the CMO, and Georgina Campbell Flatter, who's now the CEO at Greentown.

At that point, I started advising some early-stage startups. One of my advisory clients said, ‘You have to come work with us full time.’

I had never worked at a Series A startup before; I had always worked at growth-stage companies. I wanted to see if I could work at a smaller company, be VP of Marketing, run the strategy, report to the CEO, and do all of it. It was a great opportunity, and I took it.

Again, I learned so much. They went live with the product when I essentially joined. I built it to a couple million in ARR, built the marketing team, and did all of the things you do at an early-stage startup.

SB: Why did you decide to make the transition to become a fractional CMO? 

CH: While I loved the experience in that role, I wanted to go back to working with mission-driven organizations. At that point, I had built some amazing relationships with board members and VCs. I reached out to my network and said, ‘If I wanted to do fractional work with earlier-stage climate startups, do you have some companies that you could maybe refer to me?’ That's how I got my first couple of clients. That was two years ago. 

My hypothesis was: what if I only work with companies that are climate-focused? I think at the time there were a lot of people who questioned if it was possible for me to be that specific. But it's really paid off for me. I've been able to build close relationships with people in the climate world and use my existing network to find clients in the space.

SB: Why climate tech — was that always a passion for you? 

CH: When I was a child, I wanted to be a writer and tell interesting stories. I think that’s been true for me my whole life.

As a journalist, and now as a marketer, I love interviewing someone who's an expert in a very specific niche and translating their expertise to a more general audience. I have always been interested in science, and I worked with meteorologists and atmospheric PhDs at Tomorrow. A lot of my clients now are incredibly brilliant scientists making this first-of-its-kind technology in some way, but the buyer is not always a scientist. Their buyer is maybe in operations or logistics.

They need that scientific detail translated to the buyer, and that’s something that I'm very good at. I’m able to take my storytelling skills and help tell the story of their technology and how it helps them do their job. And also, how it helps the larger climate mission.

SB: As a fractional CMO, how are you supporting startups? What are some of the benefits? Challenges?

CH: I worked in-house at startups for my whole career until just a few years ago, and I saw a lot of ups and downs. I really love the energy and the excitement of the early stage. As a fractional CMO, I’m able to help a lot of startups grow. My goal is to prevent some early-stage pitfalls that I think a lot of founders fall into with marketing – prevent mistakes from being made and money from being wasted. 

Right now, I have four different clients. I’m working on an in-window heat pump, an agtech platform, a weather operations platform, and a wildfire detection system. I love the variety of different things that I get to learn about and work on.

I think the challenge is making sure that I stay organized. I make sure I'm managing my time for each client, communicating clearly, etc. When you're in-house, you don't have to think about that as much. You can focus on one business problem, whereas I'm constantly switching between things. It’s hard, but to me it's worth it. 

SB: Switching gears a bit, you are going to be part of the panel, “Positioning, Messaging and Distribution: A Live Startup Tear Down”. I was wondering if you can give a sneak peek about this discussion. 

CH: I'm going to do a short version of what I do for my clients, which is talking about their go-to-market strategy. We’ll be digging into how they position their company today, and based on that, give some tactical marketing and strategy suggestions. I think it will be really fun. We're going to talk through a few ideas and hopefully give people real tactics they can take away from the panel. 

SB: For your part, is there a specific topic you hope to discuss?

CH: Something that I’ve been talking with a lot of people about is how and when to use AI. I think it's really useful for some things and not for others.

You can't take a blanket approach to how you're using AI, but it can be useful and helpful to an early-stage founder who is trying to do DIY marketing. However, I don't recommend that you use it for your messaging, because it almost always becomes generic. AI is not specific enough to your buyer, how they talk, and what they think.

You can spin up a website in 5 minutes, and it looks decent. The copy sounds pretty good. But if you read it carefully, you realize the website doesn’t actually say much. And no one is going to convert on something so generic.

I always ask people to start from step one: Who are you selling to? Who is your buyer? What are their interests? What do they care about? How do they talk? Do the research and talk to them. From there, you're building out your messaging. I always take an empathy-first approach to marketing, where you're thinking about what the buyer cares about and what their needs are, first and foremost.

SUB: I looked and I noticed you've spoken at SUB Week in 2020, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Why do you keep coming back?

CH: I didn't realize it until you said to me how many times I've done it! That's great. I love Stephanie, I want to support her and the whole SUP organization. 

Even though the Boston ecosystem has a lot of different things going on, there's not as much community for people who are getting started in startup land. I find that Startup Boston is the most open and welcoming to everybody who is trying to figure things out.

I think it's important to be part of the community to help build the ecosystem for Boston. There's been an interesting conversation going on lately about why Boston doesn’t have a strong startup community. I just don't think that's true. 

I think it’s sometimes hard for people to break into it because New Englanders, in general, can be a little standoffish at first. But I think once you get into it, go to events, and meet people, people are great, welcoming, and friendly.

SUB: So last question. What do you hope founders and others walk away from Startup Boston Week? Any advice you could share with them? 

CH: I hope they walk away with a renewed focus. That's a hard thing for a lot of founders because there are infinite options and ideas. 

You can't do everything every day. You have finite time, energy, and resources — especially if you're an early-stage startup. You have to be realistic about what you can do and what you can accomplish. But that doesn't mean you can't do a lot. So I hope that they get inspired, but also find focus.

See You at Startup Boston Week This September 14–18

Cara is one of over 250 speakers you’ll find at the 10th annual Startup Boston Week. Whether you’re a founder, operator, just startup curious, you’ll walk away from their powerhouse sessions with practical insights, new ideas, and the possibility of what comes next. 

Want to learn from and meet them? Join us September 14–18 at Suffolk University. Grab your free ticket here and be part of five days that offer endless opportunities to learn, connect, and become part of Greater Boston’s startup ecosystem. 

About the author: Kathleen Ohlson is a Boston-based content writer with a background as a high-tech writer and storyteller. With a passion for creating content that resonates with audiences, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.