Duane Forrester

Founder/CEO

at UnboundAnswers.com

Duane Forrester is a seasoned growth strategist with over 25 years of experience at the forefront of search, content, and AI-driven marketing. As a former executive at Microsoft, he helped build and launch Bing Webmaster Tools, setting industry standards still in use today. He later led enterprise SEO and content strategy at Yext, and served as VP of Industry Insights at Bruce Clay Inc., advising Fortune 500 brands and scaling teams through major digital transformations. Today, as founder of UnboundAnswers, he works directly with early-stage companies to future-proof their marketing, product, and positioning strategies in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

Duane brings a unique mix of deep technical expertise and executive-level foresight. He has served on advisory boards for major platforms, contributed to standards-setting initiatives, and authored several books on search and digital strategy. He specializes in helping startups define go-to-market plans, craft machine-facing content strategies, and build sustainable competitive advantages by aligning marketing with modern search infrastructure — from GenAI retrieval systems to structured data and authority signals.

Startups working with Duane benefit not just from his strategic clarity, but from his hands-on approach to building repeatable, scalable systems. Whether refining product-market fit, advising on roadmap prioritization, or coaching teams through early traction milestones, he brings actionable insight with an operator’s mindset — and a deep understanding of what actually drives visibility and trust in today’s discovery landscape.

California

AI & Data Science, Consumer FinTech, CyberSecurity, DTC (Direct-to-Consumer), FinTech Enterprise, HealthTech & BioTech, HR Tech, Media & Entertainment, SaaS & B2B Marketplace, Social Media & Community Platforms

AI Content DetectionAI Content StrategyAI GovernanceAI IntermediariesAI Search OptimizationAI StrategyAuthoritativeness SignalsB2B MarketingBrand PositioningBusiness StrategyConsumer BehaviorContent DevelopmentContent StrategyCross-functional Team LeadershipCustomer AcquisitionData-driven MarketingDeveloper RelationsDeveloper-Facing DocumentationDigital MarketingDigital PRDigital TransformationEnterprise SearchEntity Optimizationexecutive communicationFractional CMOGenerative AIGlobal SEOGo-to-Market StrategyGrowth StrategyIndustry AnalystKnowledge GraphsleadershipLocal SEOMarket IntelligenceMartech StrategyMedia IntelligencePlatform StrategyProduct Marketingproduct strategyPublic SpeakingRetrieval-Augmented GenerationSaaS MarketingScalable Marketing SystemsSearch Engine EcosystemSearch Engine MarketingSearch InfrastructureSearch Trend AnalysisSearch UXSemantic SearchSEO StrategyStartup AdvisorStructured DataTechnical SEOThought LeadershipTrust SignalsUser Experience OptimizationVoice SearchWeb AnalyticsWebmaster ToolsZero-Click Search

Operating Expert Rating

Articles by Duane Forrester

How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Learn the 7 steps to product-led growth (PLG) to build a product that sells itself. Drive activation, boost conversions, and scale efficiently with Wes Bush from ProductLed....

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations

In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...