It was snowing. A lot. Boston was in the midst of a blizzard, receiving the most snow ever in recorded history. Kyle and Jessica Waring were stranded in their apartment, racking their brains for something to do. Then, they landed on an idea. What if they sold the snow outside their apartment and shipped it to anyone in the country?
When Payal Kadakia quit her job at Warner Music Group, she didn't have a backup plan. She knew she wasn't happy in her job, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to do next. After a few weeks of soul-searching, she decided on her next move: She was going to start a fitness search engine to help people uncover new classes in their area. Three years and several pivots later, Payal's landed on a business model that works.
Most people would agree: Luck is an integral ingredient to success. The tough part is, getting lucky is all up to chance. You can't predict it. You can't manufacture it. Or can you? In this special episode of The Growth Show, we hear stories from three of our past guests (Chris Savage of Wistia, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff of Mozilla, and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood) about a time they got lucky in business - and find out if getting lucky really comes down to chance.
When was the last time you held back valuable feedback for fear of being mean? We've all done this before. We think we're being kind. But, we aren't. Turns out, this behavior can have drastic consequences when you do this at work - especially when you're a manager.
We all want to be the one to uncover the next big thing - the next big app, the next big trend, the next big growth strategy. We take big bets. We tell our boss that surely this is the thing that's going to take off. If we don't pay attention now, we could be left behind. The truth is, uncovering the next big thing can be very difficult - but it's a necessary skill when you're tasked with growing a company. So how do you go about figuring out which trends are about to take off, and which ones wi...
Everlane isn't like many other contemporary fashion brands. While others drive profits by discretely marking up low-cost goods, Everlane discloses the line-by-line costs for producing their products - and how much money they make on each transaction. While others obscure details about their supply chain, Everlane devotes a whole section of their website to photos and information about their factories. How'd the company build such a transparent and nimble brand?
When you're up against companies with household names and centuries of experience, how do you win market share? It's simple: Find out what they don't do well ... and then do that thing very well. That philosophy is what has made Robinhood a fierce competitor in their space. They created a mobile app that makes it easy to buy and sell stocks - for free. In an industry where people typically pay $10 per transaction, Robinhood is quickly gaining traction with both brand new and experienced investor...
In the beginning, Wistia had just a few guys working out of an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It took them a year to make their first dollar, and then another year to sign on 10 customers. But the folks at Wistia never gave up. Nearly 10 years later, the company's persistence has paid off in spades: They have 200,000 customers using their video marketing platform, and they've hired more than 60 people to grow the company even more.
Pink mustaches. Fist bumps. A seat up front. These quirks help differentiate Lyft as the friendly, human option in an uber-competitive industry. And it's working. Today, the company is one of the fastest-growing ride-sharing apps on the market. We chat with Lyft CMO Kira Wampler about surviving (and thriving) in a competitive industry, scaling non-scalable parts of a company, and hiring the best people for a high-growth team.
Ah, company culture. It's the management buzzword du jour. And it's often the overlooked, compartmentalized, and misunderstood element to building a hyper-growth company. How should you actually go about building a company culture people love? To find an answer, we spoke with Zappos' Jon Wolske. Listen to this episode to learn about the company's unique approach to management, organizational structure, and most importantly, culture.
Kai Kight's background is anything but typical. When he was three, he began learning the violin, later going on to perform in places like the White House and the Great Wall of China. Then, he went on to earn an engineering degree from Stanford University's d. school where he was entrenched in the entrepreneurship community of Silicon Valley.
It began as a bet in a bar. A group of friends got together and decided to see who could grow the coolest mustache. Over a decade later, this bet has blossomed into a global movement called Movember. Each November, millions of men all over the world grow mustaches to raise awareness and funds for men's health initiatives.
Visual content: Everyone knows they need it, but many people lack the skills or tools to do it well. That is, until Canva entered the picture in 2013. The company created an easy-to-use design platform to help the average person create beautiful content. Two years later, it's acquired nearly 7 million users and secured famous investors like Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson. How'd Canva grow so darn fast?
Would you ever start a company that competed with Google? Back in 2007, that's exactly what Gabriel Weinberg did. He created DuckDuckGo, an alternative search engine to Google, and has been chipping away at Google's massive market share ever since. In the past two years, DuckDuckGo has grown nearly 600% and even reached profitability. How does DuckDuckGo successfully compete against one of the biggest and most recognizable companies in the world?
In a world where attention spans are shortening and there's more and more content than ever, how should a company grow its brand online? Enter Medium. Part platform and part publisher, the company's out to change the way people create and discover content on the web. This week, we chat with Sophie Moura, the head of B2B partnerships at Medium, to get tips for leaders on building a content strategy on the platform.
Technology has completely changed the way people work -- especially leaders at high-growth companies. How should managers approach hiring, growth, and management today? This week, we sit down with Charlene Li, Founder and CEO of Altimeter Group, to chat about her philosophy on these top leadership concerns.
It all started with an email from a friend, mentioning this thing called a "blog." Darren Rowse learned of this new trend taking the internet by storm - and he wanted to try it to build a business. Thirteen years later, Darren Rowse has built two extremely successful blogs - Problogger and Digital Photography School - that amass over 5 million visitors each month.
It's natural to be afraid of doubt - especially when you're leading a team. You want to be the calm, cool, and collected leader ... but inside you're freaking out. Turns out, some of the best leaders and innovators are those who embrace doubt. In this episode of The Growth Show, Kevin Eyres, an executive coach for hyper-growth companies and former executive at LinkedIn, joins us to talk about the power of doubt, and how it can make you a more innovative leader.
Ever wonder why Google is so successful? According to Todd Rowe, Managing Director at Google, it all comes down to placing big bets on smart people - and giving them the space to achieve those bets. In this special episode of The Growth Show that was recorded live at INBOUND 2015, Todd gives us a great overview of Google’s philosophy on growth.
The year was 2006. Sophia Amoruso was sitting in her apartment in a bathrobe and selling vintage clothes on eBay. She was the “one man band” behind Nasty Gal: She found the vintage clothes, styled the outfits, modeled them for product pictures, shipped her products to eager customers, and collected feedback along the way. Years later, Nasty Gal has become one of the hottest fashion brands for young women.
On this live-recorded episode from INBOUND 2015, Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed & The Huffington Post, joins us to chat about BuzzFeed's insane growth and how viral content spreads.
Comedian and podcaster Marc Maron joins us on this episode of The Growth Show -- the first in a series of live interview's from INBOUND 2015.
The founders of Clif Bar could have sold the company for $120M in 2000. Most people would have taken that offer, but instead, Clif Bar wanted to build a brand that would last well beyond their founders -- a brand that would matter for current employees, future employees and their kids. Fast forward to 2015 and that’s exactly what Clif Bar has done.
Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of Basecamp, the co-author of Getting Real, Remote, and The New York Times Bestseller REWORK. He’s a frequent speaker on management, leadership and is always challenging the status quo in a quest to change the way we work.
Scott Meyer is the CEO of Ghostery, a technology company that allows consumers and businesses to create safer, faster, and more trusted digital experiences. Prior to Ghostery, Scott was President and CEO of About.com and held a senior management role at the New York Times. He joins Dave this week to talk about transparency, why he still makes the time to interview every new hire, how he runs meetings with his direct reports and more.
John and Jen Kimmich are the owners of the Alchemist Brewery. Their most popular beer, Heady Topper, has become a sensation up and down the East Coast. It’s been called liquid gold, sacred beer and the greatest IPA people have ever tasted, and craft beer lovers today go to crazy lengths just to get their hands on a case of it. The thing that makes Heady Topper’s popularity even crazier, is that the beer is only sold within a 20-mile radius near Stow, Vermont.
Sue Heilbronner is the CEO and Co-Founder of MergeLane, a startup accelerator in Boulder, CO that discovers, accelerates and invests in exceptional women and the companies they run. We talk about MergeLane and why she started an accelerator focused on women, how she re-invented herself in the middle of her career (she’s gone from Federal Prosecutor to CMO to CEO to investor), and what makes a great leader (based on her work with the Conscious Leadership Group).
Last year, former This American Life producer and Planet Money co-host Alex Blumberg launched a business of his own: Gimlet Media. Today, Gimlet has 20 full-time employees, $2M in revenue, and three shows (including StartUp) that are routinely in the top 30 on iTunes, attracting an audience of over four million people each month.
Jeff Raider is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Harry’s. Harry’s is on a mission to make the shaving process easier: all you have to do is enter the number of blades you want and how often you want to get them, and Harry's will send razors right to your door. Before starting Harry’s, Jeff was one of the co-founders of Warby Parker, and many are now calling Harry’s "The Warby Parker of shaving."
James Freeman is the founder and CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee, a coffee roaster and retailer headquartered in Oakland, California.Best known for their long lines of customers who wait for individually brewed cups of coffee, Blue Bottle has caught the eye of Silicon Valley’s top investors, including Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Google Ventures, Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder) and Tony Hawk.
