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.
Operating Expert Rating
Articles by Duane Forrester
Finance 101 for Early Stage Startup Founders with Debbie Rosler
In this Mucker Growth Session, Debbie Rosler from Burkland dives into the fundamental financial best practices and infrastructure early -stage startups need to put in place. Finance 101: Why Should...
Engineering Customer & Product Feedback Loops with Holden Munson & Sofia Maravich
In this Mucker Growth session, Holden Munson and Sofia Maravich from Rethink Labs, explore how to develop a useful system of collecting customer data and integrating it into your team....
How Startups Can Win More Enterprise Deals Through Value Selling with Mike Genstil
In this Mucker Growth session, Mike Genstil with ValueCore delves into the concept of value selling and its application in enterprise sales. Delivering value at every touchpoint of...
How to Keep Your Emails Landing in the Inbox with Google’s Updated Spam Policies with Daniel-wise Ojaide
In this Mucker Growth session, Daniel-wise Ojaide from Warmbox.ai delves into the changes to Google and Yahoo’s updated spam policies and how to ensure your emails and outbound campaigns are...
Best Customers, Best Results: Unlocking Retention-Driven B2C Growth with Julius Lai
In this Mucker Growth session, Julius Lai from ArtShare discusses customer retention, which is often overlooked but essential for startups facing growth challenges. The following content will provide practical recaps...
Leveraging a Financial Model for Fundraising Success with Steven Plappert
In this Mucker Growth Session, Steven Plappert, CEO and co-founder of Forecastr, tackles how to use your financial model to the best capacity when fundraising. Your financial model can be...