Marketing Against the Grain
Marketing should be a disruptive force. Today, data has turned a lot of marketing into a rigid force. In this episode, we talk about how you can market against the grain.
Apr 05, 2022•12 min•Ep. 180
The GrowthTLDR Podcast. Weekly Conversations on Business Growth.
The GrowthTLDR podcast is a weekly interview series with both leaders and practitioners who have real knowledge to share on what it takes to grow a business. Unlike most podcasts, we don't just focus on tips and tricks. We get to know the real story behind their success. And we try to have fun while doing it. Sick and tired of the same old boring business chat? Then listen to an episode of the GrowthTLDR, you won't regret it. If you're interested in being on the show, e-mail kieran@growthtldr.com.
Episodes
How to Grow a Company and Avoid Common Mistakes with Dennis Kelly of Postalytics #EP179
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Dennis Kelly, the CEO of Postalytics. Postalytics is making direct mail part of the marketing automation playbook. We talk to Dennis about why his previous company Boingnet pivoted to become Postalytics and how he knew it was time to make that change. We asked Dennis about the common mistakes founders make, how he hires executives onto his leadership team, and the hardest part of growing a SaaS company.
Feb 09, 2021•39 min•Ep. 179
How Unbundling & Rise of Digital Communities will impact B2B Growth #EP178
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk about how the unbundling of platforms like Craigslist, Reddit, and LinkedIn presents opportunities for digital communities to serve the needs of their audience better. We go through the famous example of Craigslist and how its unbundling resulted in a series of billion-dollar startups. We give examples of how the same thing is happening to Reddit and LinkedIn. But what does this mean for B2B? We go through how you should think about unbundling and the r...
Feb 04, 2021•45 min•Ep. 178
Customer Acquisition and Onboarding for Products with Horizontal Markets #EP177
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we get into how you do customer acquisition and onboarding for companies with horizontal markets. That means their product serves the needs of many customers. Examples of fast-growing products with horizontal markets are the likes of Loom, Calendly, and Miro. We talk about the challenges of building a great onboarding flow with such a broad set of customers, why all products have some customer persona in mind, and examples of tactics used by product-led compani...
Jan 28, 2021•26 min•Ep. 177
How do the best companies pick winning markets #EP176
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we cover a common question, how do the best companies pick winning markets. We use Strava, the social network for athletes, and ask how they would pick who to build their go-to-market around. We cover how they might access a market's profitability, what market they should build product features for, and how they should think about building a plan for audience growth. Happy Growing!
Jan 26, 2021•27 min•Ep. 176
Great Inputs Matter, Intentional Meetings, Rising CAC - #TheOneThing EP175
It's the "One Thing" on the GrowthTLDR where the hosts (Kieran Flanagan, Nicholas Holland, and Scott Tousley) cover an idea or observation they feel is worth sharing with the podcast listeners. Each week we scour all of the information we've consumed for the best lessons and bring them to our audience. They get all of the information without needing to do any of the research. What you'll learn on this weeks episode: - Why all great outputs in media need great inputs. We cover a recent interview ...
Jan 21, 2021•41 min•Ep. 175
Building a 12 Month Growth Plan as CMO of a Fast-Growing Company with Paul Cowan of Freshbooks #EP174
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Paul Cowan , the CMO of Freshbooks. By listening to this show, you'll learn: - How to think about building a 12 to 18-month plan as a new CMO of a fast-growth company. - Understand how to test brand messaging by focusing on specific cities - What channels to prioritize for growth - With the cost to acquire a customer increasing across all marketing channels, what it means for the future of marketing. Make sure you subscribe to hear future shows. Happ...
Jan 19, 2021•38 min•Ep. 174
EP173: How Docket is Revolutionizing Meetings Through a Product-Led Model
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Darin Brown, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Docket, a company looking to revolutionize meetings through a product-led model. Docket is currently at 15,000 users growing through SEO and product-led virality. We talk to Darin about why he started Docket, how they measure user activation, and what's it like growing through the Zoom marketplace.
Jan 15, 2021•34 min•Ep. 173
EP172: How to be a Successful Marketing & Growth Leader
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we discuss five critical skills you need to be a successful marketing and growth leader. We talk about the importance of forecasting, why great leaders prioritize, how great leaders have great teams, how every problem is an opportunity, and ownership.
Jan 12, 2021•14 min•Ep. 172
EP171: Six of the Best Lessons from GrowthTLDR 2020
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we run down our top six lessons from 2020. We talk about the evolution of content marketing, recap some great lessons on creating a growth OS for your company, and discuss some of the interviews we had with companies who went from sales-led models to product-led. We'll be back in January 2021; until then, Happy Growing!
Dec 08, 2020•38 min•Ep. 171
EP170: How Companies use M&A for Growth
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we're going to cover four examples of how companies use M&A deals to find both growth and leverage. We get into some of the latest M&A deals in SaaS and go through four examples of how companies have acquired media sites and software to fuel their growth and gain leverage. Happy Growing!
Dec 03, 2020•14 min•Ep. 170
EP169: How Freemium Helped Planable Grow to 700 Customers
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Xenia Muntean, the CEO, and co-founder of Planable. Planable is a four-year-old company based in London with 20 employees and 700 customers. They provide a tool that helps social media managers better collaborate. We talk to Xenia about their journey to 700 customers. We get into why they went from a free plan to a free trial and back to a free plan. We talk about some of the biggest hurdles Xeina had as CEO in growing planable and how they different...
Dec 01, 2020•31 min•Ep. 169
EP168: How Growth Helped Companies Like Uber and Lambda School to be Successful
In this episode, we talk to Adam Grenier who has done growth at companies like Hotel Tonight, Uber, and Lambda School. We get into Adam's wild ride at Uber, where during his four years the company went from 300 employees to 20,000. We ask what did growth do at Uber, how was it structured, and why it was disbanded after three years. We get into Adam's journey at Lambda School, and how the growth team was tasked with optimizing a very unique customer journey, with some examples of the work they di...
Nov 24, 2020•41 min•Ep. 168
EP167: The Four Things Marketers Can Learn from Growth
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk about the four things marketers can learn from growth. We talk about the importance of understanding the problem your product solves, and how that should translate to goals. We talk about the value of opportunity sizing and creating a culture of experimentation on your team. Happy Growing!
Nov 19, 2020•13 min
EP166: The Marketing Leadership Playbook for Scale-Ups
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Mark Fiske , who has lead teams at Ancestry and CreditKarma. We talk to Mark about all of the things you need to master to lead marketing at a successful scale-up company. We get into how you should prioritize and understand where you should invest your resources, time, and budget. We talk about how to do customer acquisition at scale and what happens when your main channels start to plateau. We talk about the importance of hiring and why the chief p...
Nov 17, 2020•31 min•Ep. 166
EP165: How to Build a Customer Acquisition Model
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk about some of the latest tech stories, including Loom updating their pricing and Notion launching jobs to be done guides. We then get into how you can build a customer acquisition model for 2021 to ensure you'll hit your revenue goals. We get into creating targets via a bottom-up exercise, how you can decide what channels are worth the investment, and how to build a growth scorecard for each channel. Happy Growing!
Nov 12, 2020•25 min•Ep. 165
EP164: The Growth OS Used by Companies Like Pinterest and Lyft
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Ludo Antonov , who founded the growth team at Pinterest and is now running growth engineering at Lyft. We get into how companies like Pinterest and Lyft excel at growth. We discuss the three most common goals growth teams have, how those growth teams manage a portfolio of investments across those goals, how they prioritize that work, and the experiment framework used by the best growth teams. Happy Growing!...
Nov 10, 2020•38 min•Ep. 164
A Quick Update on the GrowthTLDR - Nov 3rd
A quick update on the GrowthTLDR about upcoming shows, and our soon to be launched community.
Nov 03, 2020•3 min
EP163: How do you avoid hitting growth ceilings?
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we discuss one of the most common problems that most scale-ups encounter - hitting growth ceilings. Most companies who transition from start-up to scale-up do so because they manage to find a marketing channel that generates both repeatable and scalable growth. But, near all scale-ups at some point hit a growth ceiling on that channel, and then they panic. This episode discusses how growth ceilings occur in the first point and five ways to avoid them potentiall...
Oct 29, 2020•25 min•Ep. 163
EP162: How Course Hero Makes Every Users First Experience Memorable
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Tomas Pueyo , the VP of Growth at Course Hero, a platform that helps students answer their study questions. Tomas is managing the entire product and growth department that consists of 150 people. We talk to Tomas about how leaders can best set their teams up for success, how Course Hero defines their north star metric, and why Tomas feels team design is an essential part of leadership. We also get into the work Tomas has done in providing analysis ar...
Oct 27, 2020•42 min•Ep. 162
EP161: The 8 Steps to Build a Winning Content Formula
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we discuss the eight critical steps to building a winning content formula. We cover the three most popular categories of content, the best research methods to building your editorial calendar, how you grow an audience for your content, and how to cross-pollinate ideas across channels. Happy Growing!
Oct 22, 2020•21 min•Ep. 161
EP160: How GoSkills is Growing Through Bite-Sized Education
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Bhavneet Chahal , the CEO, and co-founder of GoSkills, about taking the company to 2 million in revenue. GoSkills is an online education company. They have 18 people who all work remotely. We talk to Bhavneet about how she started GoSkills are working at Groupon and seeing how successful promotions for courses were. We get into how Bhav differentiated her courses from competitors and what channels she pivoted to for growth after Groupon's reach began...
Oct 20, 2020•32 min•Ep. 160
EP159: How to Be a Successful Leader at a Scale-Up
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk about what great leaders at scale-ups excel in. We discuss the importance of both hiring and retaining talent, including tips from people who've built great teams. We talk about team design and how great leaders use it as a growth lever. And finally, we talk about forecasting and why it's pivotal great leaders can build great plans. Happy Growing!
Oct 15, 2020•29 min•Ep. 159
EP158: How the Best Growth Teams Size up Opportunities
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Yousuf Bhaijee , the ex VP of Growth at Eaze. We talk to Yousuf about his time running growth at Eaze, an eCommerce company for on-demand Cannabis delivery. In that role, Yousuf was responsible for increasing revenue growth by 10% month on month. We discuss why the best growth teams always do a sizing exercise before committing to work on a specific opportunity. We get into the prioritization framework Yousuf used to stack rank the growth teams proje...
Oct 13, 2020•30 min•Ep. 158
EP157: How the Best Brands Use 3 Categories of Paid Advertising to Grow
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Shane Murphy-Reuter, who heads up marketing for Intercom. Shane leads a marketing team of +70 people at Intercom, helping the company to move upmarket. We talk to Shane about paid advertising and how companies can more effectively split their budget across direct and brand advertising. We get into how most B2B brands don't do brand advertising well and give examples of companies who excel in that area. We then discuss the three categories of paid adv...
Oct 06, 2020•35 min
EP156: How Chargebee are Growing 100% Annually
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Krish Subramanian , the CEO, and co-founder of Chargebee. Chargebee offers subscription and billing software; they process over 3 billion dollars in annual transactions. Krish and his co-founders bootstrapped the company for the first two years, and since then have raised $40 million. We talk to Krish about how Chargebee found product-market fit, how founders should think about segmenting customers as they grow, what advice Krish would share with oth...
Oct 01, 2020•37 min•Ep. 156
EP155: How Reddit Gets 430 Million Active Users Every Month
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Vaibhav Sahgal , the head of growth at Reddit. Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet, with 430 million monthly active users. During Vaibhav's time as head of growth, he has seen the team grow from 5 to 60 people. We talk to Vaibhav about the structure of the growth team and the metrics they're accountable too. We get into the first big win the growth team had at Reddit, how the team grew to over 60 people, and Vaibhav walks us th...
Sep 29, 2020•38 min•Ep. 155
EP154: Why Hull is building a successful business for the mid-market
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Romain Dardour, the CEO and Co-Founder of Hull. Hull solves the problem of making data accessible across all marketing, sales, and customer support tools. It aggregates all of your data together into one unified profile. We talk to Romain about what customer acquisition channels are working for Hull, how Hull started life as an internal tool at a gaming company, and how Romain wants to build Hull for the mid-market. Happy Growing!...
Sep 24, 2020•33 min•Ep. 154
EP153: How to Build a Product-Led Go-To-Market
In this episode, we talk to Elena Verna, a growth advisor to many great companies and a Reforge lecturer. We talk to Elena about how most founders struggle to set up a growth function within the company. We get into the most common reasons companies build a self-serve model, how to turn more of your self-serve business into enterprise revenue, and why your product champions are a critical part of selling into large companies. Happy Growing!
Sep 22, 2020•34 min•Ep. 153
EP152: The Four Ways Product-Led is Changing Companies Go-To-Market
In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk about how product-led growth is changing how companies go-to-market. We cover four areas where product-led is changing how companies grow. We get into how b22 marketing teams need to shift from acquiring decision-makers to end-users. We get into how product teams are gaining more responsibility for companies' business metrics. We also get into how product-led is starting to make the website obsolete and what that means for marketing teams. And we discus...
Sep 17, 2020•22 min•Ep. 152