Author: Keirra Woodard

MORE FROM MAZE

Maze helps you create truly customer-centric products by empowering your entire product team to collect actionable insights anytime, anywhere.Learn more at maze.co

GUEST BACKGROUND

Bozena is the VP of Marketing at Maze and previously led Product Marketing at Typeform and TravelPerk. She enjoys the ups and downs of working at a high-growth startup — from building strategy and collaborating cross-functionally to scaling a fully remote team. She’s currently based in Barcelona but considers herself a world nomad.

MAIN INSIGHT

Building an advisory council no matter what level you’re in can help you mitigate your blindspots, be confident in decision-making, and fast-track your learnings.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. An advisor can help you identify if your strategy is working and if you need to tweak your strategy
2. Advisors will not tell you the exact answer but they will give you another point of view and another lens so you can come up with a conclusion
3. Advisors affect your decision-making, tactics, prioritization, strategy and team growth
4. Find the right advisors that fit your culture

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Identify the challenges you’re facing
2. Go to your networks, such as your investors or other executives to find advisors
3. Qualify the advisor to ensure it’s the right fit
4. Prepare a list of questions and documents before jumping into the meeting
5. Filter all the guidance and advise as you see fit for your company

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Do a self-assessment to identify where you lack experience and areas you’re truly confident to make decisions before getting an advisor
2. Seek conversation with people in your field and learn from their approach, experience and previous results

MORE FROM OTTER

Otter empowers your team with real-time, accurate notes that are stored in one central, secure, and searchable place so you can be more engaged, collaborative, and productive.

Learn more at otter.ai

Reach out to Chang at linkedin.com/in/ccchangchen/

GUEST BACKGROUND

Chang built and led the team at Otter.ai for both B2C and B2B growth & marketing. She scaled the ARR from tens of thousands to double-digit millions and grew the individual user base from 20k to several million in 10 months.

MAIN INSIGHT

Prioritize the native growth loops in the product before investing in external marketing channels. That way, your customer will promote your product and increase retention.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Optimize your growth loops before doing traditional marketing (paid ads, content marketing, etc.)
2. If you do traditional marketing without enhancing your growth loops, you’ll end up with a leak in your funnel that will make you lose customers
3. Identify the type of users that will likely promote your product to other people
4. The users should be able to build and contribute to more networks and users

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Stay focused on improving your product and optimizing growth loops before going to other marketing tactics such as paid ads, content marketing, etc.
2. Look into the product and see how you can design the growth loops to be embedded into the users’ flow while retaining enough friction to encourage them to upgrade their plan to a paid plan
3. Add more growth loops, such as:
   1. Not interrupting the user to keep the user’s trust
   2. Give them the NEED to share your product
   3. Identify the “AHA” moments of your users and make sure that they get and share those benefits
4. After optimizing your growth loops, it’s time to accelerate and get more traffic using traditional marketing

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Understand user behavior and how you can give enough value without interfering with the existing user behavior while maintaining a proper amount of friction so users upgrade their plan
2. Give before you ask

MORE FROM FONS

Fons help small businesses grow by streamlining scheduling and billing, putting your administrative tasks on autopilot. Learn more at fons.com

Connect with Eric at linkedin.com/in/eric-branner-6a113b13

MAIN INSIGHT

Building a community is a grind when you’re just starting out, but if you continue to provide value, your customers will be your best salespeople.

GUEST BACKGROUND

Eric Branner found himself spending upwards of ten hours a week on administration alone which cut into his earning potential. He knew there had to be a better way – so he built Fons.

Fons simplifies and automates two things that every business owner needs – scheduling and payments. It helps business owners earn over 20+ million dollars and is still quickly growing. On average, professionals who use Fons earn up to 25% more each month because their busy work has been totally eliminated.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Happiness can only be found once it’s rooted outside yourself
2. Customers are your best salespeople
3. A marketer should be motivated by a customer’s success using the product
4. Create a product that will solve a problem
5. The goal of building a community is to get people to believe in your product or idea 

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Research your target audience or people
   1. Do an interview and ask them what keeps them up at night
2. Choose a platform where you can find your audience
3. Identify the key metrics on that platform
4. Focus on building your community on one platform before moving to another one 

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Invest in your success
2. Promote positivity in your community and not competition
3. Focus on one marketing platform or channel before moving to another

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MORE FROM ROWS

Rows is the first true spreadsheet with built-in integrations and a slick sharing experience. Learn more at Rows.com

Reach out to Henrique at twitter.com/henrm_cruz

GUEST BACKGROUND

Henrique is the Head of Growth at Rows, the spreadsheet with superpowers. Henrique loves to read books, and he shares his review at betaglyph.com. Occasionally, he also loves to share about tech, climate, and other things at henriquecruz.substack.com.

MAIN INSIGHT

Targeting successful users with high retention rates leads to more sales and growth.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Transparency of metrics to every department is critical for improvement
2. Position your product and focus your marketing budget on a segment of customers that has a high retention rate
3. Retention is the foundation of growth
4. The more customers you acquire, the better your product should be

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Target the successful users or users that have a higher retention rate
2. Understand that users and break it down in terms of demographics and firmographics
3. Identify the activation (AHA) moment and the difference between the user journey of that specific type of user
4. Run a test and validate if it correlates with retention
5. Figure out how the users can reach the activation moment faster

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Create additional qualifying data for the user
2. Focus on improving and making the account activation moment faster – the point of user’s experience where they will be a long-term customer
3. Identify what areas have the most impact on your growth model
4. Assign a team member that is dedicated to looking at the KPIs

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GUEST BIO

Lucas James is the founder and CEO of the digital marketing agency Twiz.io. After rapidly scaling his agency beyond 7 figures, he converted it into a SaaS product. He also recently founded AgencyGo, a platform that helps agency owners connect and form partnerships to grow their businesses.

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MORE FROM MARCH HEALTH

www.march.health

GUEST BIO

Mark Amouzgar is CEO and Founder of March Health. After seeing his wife suffer from a severe level of menstrual pain every month, Mark started March Health with the aim to help women with the process of managing menstrual pain. With an app and a wearable device that emits low wave electrical impulses and a heating pad, March Health aims to reduce the physical pain suffered during menstruation and the emotional and psychological effects that may come with it.

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MORE FROM PROCESS STREET

Process Street is a simple, free and powerful way to manage your team’s recurring checklists and procedures. Learn more at process.st

Reach out to Vinay at twitter.com/vinayp10

GUEST BACKGROUND

Vinay Patankar is the CEO of Process Street. Manage employee onboarding, workflow automation, checklists, the team’s handbook & more with Process Street’s modern management platform.

MAIN INSIGHT

Continuously learn and evolve as your company grows and scales by strategically adding on new marketing channels. 

TOPICS WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE

• Early days of entrepreneurship and how he founded Process Street
• Why does your marketing strategy need to evolve along with your company
• When to find the next channel or marketing strategy
• Common signs of a declining channel
• How to encourage a learning culture in your team
• What to do to a deteriorating channel
• Common pitfalls in finding a new marketing channel and strategy
• How to avoid burning money when it comes to finding a new marketing channel 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Systems and processes are key pieces of building and scaling a business
2. Processes and systems need to be deployed once a business needs to scale
3. Do not overestimate the scalability of a particular channel or strategy
4. Invest early in testing new marketing channels and strategy
5. All marketing channels will eventually deteriorate
6. Two ways to grow your customer:
   1. Unlock new channels to drive more people
   2. Improve the customer journey to drive growth 

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Analyze customer journey
2. Find the low-hanging fruit and the most efficient channel
3. Find a new channel to run experiments and only do micro testing
4. Create a good system for analyzing experiments
5. Execute the campaign properly 

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Do micro tests to limit risks
2. Encourage proactive learning in your team

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MORE FROM KAIKU

Kaiku is a smart matchmaking platform for early stage venture funds. They work with 100s of venture funds globally focussing on supporting technology enabled Seed to Series A start-ups raise funding. Learn more at kaiku.co

Reach out to Alex at alex -at- kaiku.co or www.linkedin.com/in/alexbalderstone

GUEST BACKGROUND

Alex Balderstone is the co-founder and CEO of Kaiku, a platform that provides smart, data-driven matchmaking between venture funds and startups.

He is also the Venture Director at the Birmingham Enterprise Community (BEC) and the Founder of Warwick Congress.

MAIN INSIGHT

Grow your business by building and maintaining a network of referral partnerships by understanding the community and what incentives could work for them.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Build a solution to a problem that already exists as opposed to a problem that doesn’t exist
2. Always create an opportunity to be present in your community or network
   1. Stay relevant to your network to the point that they’ll mention you if there are questions or news about your industry or niche
3. Go to events and speaking opportunities and create content to grow your network
4. Follow the right people on social media and interact or engage with them to build a solid presence
5. Two pitfalls of networking
   1. Quality of Network – making sure that you’re targeting the right people
   2. Maintaining and keeping a strong presence on your network through attending events, conferences, etc.

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Get your message out there, whether on LinkedIn, at events, or at conferences
2. Leverage other platforms such as lunchclub.ai – an ai networking platform to get clients or referrals
3. Create a segmentation of your partners and clients and create unique incentives and referral programs for each segment
4. Maintain your relationship and presence with your network
   1. Give them updates about your product, service, team, position, etc., to stay relevant.
   2. Connect with people and create content
   3. Get them on your list

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Don’t be afraid to get your message out there
2. Spend an hour each day on LinkedIn or Twitter to be relevant to your network
   1. Create content
   2. Share highlights and news on your industry
3. Understand the community and what incentives would work for them

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MORE FROM CALQULATE

Calqulate connects startups, investors, banks and lenders with financial data to speed up fundraising processes and lending decisions.

Learn more at calqulate.io

Reach out to Cameron at linkedin.com/in/cameronomurchu

GUEST BACKGROUND

Cameron is the Head of Growth at Calqulate, a financial analytics software startup. He has worked mainly in the finance vertical and his degree in science has given him a unique perspective on the business world, especially since A/B testing has become all the rage.

MAIN INSIGHT

New customers or new users do not mean growth all the time for the company. Growth also comes by stopping the acquisition of unprofitable customers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Growth can be an increase in the price of your service or product
2. The marketing and finance department meet at customer acquisition cost
3. The marketing department burns money to make more money
4. The ratio of customer acquisition cost (CAC) to customer lifetime value (LTV) is typically around 1:3 (For every dollar spent on CAC you get three dollars in return)
5. Growth only comes when you can measure it

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Reduce rather than add – take a look at the things that you can take away before looking to grow your customers
2. Identify if you want to grow or scale
   1. Growth – You’re going to put more money but you’ll get the same results
   2. Scale – Scaling is being efficient. You’re going to put in the same money but you’ll get better results.
3. Start A/B testing the strategies
4. Once you gather enough data, analyze which one is working by looking at the CAC to LTV ratio

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. See if you can increase your product or service price
2. Focus on sustainable growth
3. As a marketer, it’s a great thing to be aware of the financial factors of the company so you can see if your efforts are bringing revenue to the company

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MORE FROM ZESTY

Zesty is the first cloud management platform that leverages AI-driven automation to increase efficiency and reduce AWS spend by over 50%. The platform automatically adjusts computing and storage resources to match real-time application needs, with no human input. Learn more at zesty.co

Reach out to Ido at linkedin.com/in/ido-assaf

GUEST BACKGROUND

Ido Assaf is the Marketing Director at Zesty, an autonomous cloud management solution that helps businesses maximize efficiency, reduce costs, and free up engineering resources.

His philosophy is centered more on the buyer rather than on “classic” marketing tactics. His use of an ingenuitive branding campaign brought in thousands of leads for Zesty.

MAIN INSIGHT

Innovating best marketing practices and using creative and unique methods to stand out from others is the best way to win in the long run.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Marketing approaches should rely on data
2. A company needs to have subject matter experts
3. Marketing and branding should be balanced
4. The best way to win in the long run is to reinvent yourself
5. Different is better than better
6. Too much creativity can make you drift away
7. The marketing strategy should come to a point where you can trust your customer to buy your product 

PRACTICAL STEPS

1. Assume you know nothing
2. Identify the subject matter experts in your company
3. Understand your buyer by doing research and doing interviews
4. Run a test and validate 

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes
2. Understand that people buy from people
3. Rely a bit on your gut instinct but always validate with data