The Tech Veteran Championing Marketers: Talgat Mussin on Measurement, Mindfulness, and Meaningful Work

The entrepreneurial journey often begins with a moment of clarity, and in this week's Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're diving deep with Talgat Mussin, the insightful founder of Incrementality Insider. Drawing from his impressive background at tech giants like Google, Amazon, and TikTok, Talgat has positioned himself as a trusted advisor who helps marketing leaders bridge the gap between creative strategies and measurable business outcomes. Through his newsletter, courses, and training programs, he's empowering marketers to defend their investments and eliminate wasted ad spend by translating marketing intuition into business language everyone understands. Get ready to explore the mindset of someone who recognized the challenges in AdTech and chose to stand alongside advertisers rather than platforms.

Hi, Talgat! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

Incrementality Insider helps marketing leaders prove how their creative strategies impact business results. I serve marketing executives who struggle to balance short-term performance metrics with long-term brand building.

My clients are marketers who understand the value of their creative work but find it difficult to defend these investments when facing pressure for immediate results. Drawing from my experience at Google, Amazon, and TikTok, I provide straightforward frameworks that translate marketing intuition into business language everyone can understand.

I serve my community through a weekly newsletter, online courses, a paid community of practice, and corporate training programs. These resources help marketers identify what truly works in their campaigns, eliminate wasted ad spend, and have more productive budget conversations.

The impact is clear: marketing leaders gain confidence in measurement discussions, develop better relationships with finance and technical teams, and secure the evidence they need to protect investments that drive long-term business growth.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

If I'm being brutally honest, I'm still in the process of becoming a true entrepreneur. While I've secured several rewarding consulting and advisory roles thanks to my specialized expertise in marketing measurement, I believe entrepreneurship is about creating scalable value rather than just selling your time.

For me, the transition will be complete when I've established a system that delivers value beyond my direct involvement. I'm actively building this now through my content, courses, and community offerings.

Each client engagement teaches me something new about the problems marketers face, which I'm incorporating into scalable solutions. I see entrepreneurship as a journey rather than a destination, and I'm embracing each step of the process while remaining focused on my mission to help marketers prove their value.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

The decision to make my entrepreneurial leap came after years of working in BigTech, where I gradually felt disconnected from my purpose. Despite the impressive titles and good pay at companies like Google, Amazon, and TikTok, I found myself questioning if I was driving meaningful change while feeling like a cog in a corporate machine.

The breaking point came when I realized I was sacrificing my personal life and well-being for a career that gave me limited control over bureaucracy and top-down decisions. After a period of reflection, I understood what truly energized me: connecting with people, solving business problems using statistical methods, and helping advertisers succeed.

What ultimately pushed me to take action was recognizing the systemic challenges in the AdTech industry, particularly the unequal power dynamics between platforms and advertisers that lead to ineffective ad spend and wasted marketing budgets. I saw an opportunity to use my insider knowledge to stand alongside advertisers instead of platforms.

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

My most powerful business tool isn't software—it's meditation and self-coaching. This daily practice has transformed how I approach entrepreneurship.

Meditation gives me mental clarity when making strategic decisions, helping me separate signal from noise and focus my limited resources on what truly matters.

Self-coaching helps me identify and overcome limiting beliefs that inevitably arise. When thoughts like "I'm not ready" or "the market is too crowded" emerge, I can reframe them into constructive action steps.

The impact on my business has been profound. I make better decisions, maintain focus during challenges, and approach client relationships with greater presence. Most importantly, it keeps me aligned with my mission even when the entrepreneurial journey gets difficult. This practice costs nothing but time, yet delivers returns that expensive software never could.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

My pivotal moment came during my time at TikTok, when the disconnect between my values and corporate expectations reached its peak. What looked impressive on paper—a career trajectory through Google, Amazon, and TikTok—felt increasingly hollow in reality.
I found myself caught in an environment where strategic behavior overshadowed genuine collaboration. My natural inclination to help peers, even at personal cost, didn't align with how corporate success was measured. These collaborative moments energized me, but the formal review systems rewarded different behaviors entirely.

The breaking point came amid constant pressure, endless meetings, and the feeling that I was drifting further from meaningful work. I decided to step back and prioritize my mental health—something I'd neglected in pursuit of conventional success.

This break became an awakening. Away from the daily grind, I could finally hear myself think. The tech salary and structured career path felt safe, especially for someone who had started from zero as an immigrant. But this safety came at the cost of feeling increasingly alienated from my work and myself.

Through intensive reflection, I began dismantling ingrained corporate mindsets and limiting beliefs about success. I discovered that the very qualities making me feel out of place in big tech—my passion for solving real measurement problems and helping others succeed—could be strengths on a different path.

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

I took an unconventional path by positioning myself as a premium service provider from day one. Rather than following the typical entrepreneurial advice to start small, build a reputation, and gradually increase rates, I leveraged my specialized knowledge from working at Google, Amazon, and TikTok to immediately offer high-value consulting services.

This approach allowed me to skip the traditional traction-building phase that most new entrepreneurs face. By positioning my offerings around solving complex measurement challenges for marketing leaders—problems I had a unique insider perspective on—I attracted serious clients who valued expertise over entrepreneurial tenure.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

I'm really only qualified to advise those following a similar path to mine—specialists transitioning from BigTech to entrepreneurship. For this specific group, the biggest challenge is the expert curse.

When you've spent years surrounded by peers with similar expertise, you develop a skewed perception of what's "common knowledge." What seems basic to you is actually valuable specialized knowledge in the broader market.
My advice: Get out of your expert bubble immediately. Establish fast feedback loops with potential clients outside your tech circle to calibrate your value properly. I was surprised to discover how much people valued perspectives I considered routine, which helped me price my services appropriately from the start.

The sooner you expose your knowledge to the broader market, the faster you'll recognize your true worth and position your offerings accordingly.

Want to dive deeper into Talgat's work? Use the links below!

• Visit Incrementality's website incrementality.net
• Connect with Talgat on LinkedIn: Talgat Mussin 🧮
• Follow Talgat on Instagram @Talgat.Mussin
• Find Talgat on X @talgatmussin
• Subscribe to Talgat's YouTube channel