Growth Led Podcast

Today, we're peeling back the layers on a concept that's crucial for early-stage startups but often flies under the radar: Founder Led Growth. For many of us in the startup world, the early days are a blend of excitement and uncertainty. It's a time when 'growth hacking' isn't just a buzzword—it's a survival tactic. Before the marketing budgets expand and the sales teams grow, there's a critical phase where the founder's touch turns the gears of progress. This topic hits close to home for me. It reminds me of the hustle, the late nights, and the relentless pursuit of that first batch of loyal customers. It's the story of how I, and many of you, began the journey to what our companies are today. In this episode, we're going to explore what Founder Led Growth really means, why it's indispensable, and how embracing it can set the foundation for all the growth that follows. So whether you're just starting out or looking to inject new life into your venture, stay with us as we uncover the essence of Founder Led Growth, inspired by insights from industry leaders and my own trenches of startup life. Now, let's set the scene and dive into the world of Founder Led Growth, where every small step counts and every effort can lead to that big break we're all striving for.Support the show

This week on the Growth led Podcast we revisit some of the best bits and clips from past episodes including special guests Jeanne L. Hopkins and Christian Brown. 00:09 - Clip from Activation Strategies with Craig Zingerline05:26 - Clip from Insights on Culture and Team Building with Christian Brown11:52 - Clips from Experimentation with Craig Zingerline18:03- Clip from Sharing the Wins and Losses of Growing Businesses with Jeanne L. Hopkins24:18 - Clip from Retention with Craig ZingerlineCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking about Experimentation, the six steps I follow when carrying out experiments and some case studies and examples. To access the materials referenced by Craig, please go to bit.ly/vgmodels.00:00 - Introduction00:33 - Episode Overview and Access to Materials01:06 - Examples of Experimentation04:27 - The Experimentation Framework09:39 - How do Experiments Work in Practice16:43 - Future Experiments and Next Steps Craig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking to Christian Brown,  Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Glewee and Forbes 30 under 30 2023. Glewee the easiest and fastest all-in-one influencer marketing platform that connects brands and creators through collaboration and paid social media brand deals. As a co-founder and leader of marketing, Brown worked closely with the CEO, Dylan Duke, to scale Glewee from its early days of sticky note ideas into the fully-fledged brand it is todayCentered around community, innovation and fluidity, Glewee's entire brand evolution and refinement have been the labor of love for Brown since the company's founding.00:00 - Introduction08:55 - What Inspired The Creation of Glewee: Influencer Marketing Platform12:10 - Christian Shares Difficulties and Importance of Teamwork16:15 - The Role of Team in Business Growth and Reflections26:52 - Team Culture and its Resilience: Dealing with Employee Turnover29:29 - Entrepreneurial Lessons: The Value of Customer Feedback and Embracing Failure31:12 - Reflecting on the Past vs Looking at the FutureCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast.This week I am talking about Product Market Fit.  Some key points I touch on are:Why understanding Product Market Fit is important How to know when you have itDeveloping, testing, Iterating and improving your product02:16 - Introduction to Product Market Fit03:57 - Understanding the Importance of Product Market Fit04:27 - Measuring Product Market Fit: Quantifying Your Success09:43 - Accelerating the Journey to Product Market Fit12:24 - The Power of Proxy Metrics15:00 - The Tough Reality of Product Market Fit16:10 - Common Causes of Failure in Achieving Product Market Fit19:09 - Key Indicators of Successful Product Market FitCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking to Jeanne L. Hopkins about times in her career where she experienced some lows and how she learned from them. Jeanne is the Founder of Salty Marketing Group, working as a fractional CRO and CMO, offering GTM planning for B2B tech companies.  In additional to many other roles, she served as CMO for spend management software company Lola.com, founded by Paul English and acquired by Capital One in 2021.00:56 - Introduction2:46 - AI and the Present Market5:41 - The Importance of Editing9:01 - Trusting Your Team10:17 - Conference Failures15:13 - Leveraging Team Expertise16:30 - Life & Career Struggles22:19 - Starting Fresh at a Startup23:21 - Campaign Failures & Lessons28:59 - Efficient Funnel Management33:12 - Why Customer Retention is Critical38.01 - Aligned Product & Marketing41:45 - Breaking Free from PerfectionCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast.This week I am talking about Activation Strategies.  I chat about what Activation is, why it is important for businesses as well as sharing real life successful activation strategies. I also discuss some common mistakes and how to avoid them. 00:28 - Introduction00:46 - Overview of Activation01:42 - Where Does the Activation Occur?03:04 - End-Point Acquisition Goal06:40 - Key Factors in Activation: Intent and Leverage10:00 - Product Led Growth: Can it be relied upon?11:10 - Common Activation Pitfalls14:08 - Miro: A Successful Activation ExampleCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking about Retention Strategies.  I discuss why retention is important for businesses, the common retention challenges as well as providing examples of businesses with proven retention strategies. 00:00 - Introduction00:49 - Definition of Retention01:26 - Retention Rate & Models02:28 - Core Metrics to keep customers from churning03.48 - Why is Retention So Important06.17 - How Do You Impact Retention08.34 - Having a Retention First Point of View09.49 - Ways You can to Influence Retention10.52 - The Most Common Challenges11:27 - Core and Proxy Retention Metrics15:34 - Retention Benchmarks Per Industry 16:37 - Plotting an Activation Curve18:41 - Easy Ways to Improve Your Retention23.32 - RecapCraig Zingerlinehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/@craigzingerlineSupport the show

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast, where we discuss entrepreneurship through the lens of growth and marketing. I'm your host Craig Zingerline, and today I'm going to discuss the art of the pivot - knowing when it's time to pivot, what leading indicators to look out for, and how to pivot. Stay tuned - this episode goes into the weeds of how we've approached pivoting ourselves at Velocity Growth.Support the show

Hi everyone! Exciting announcement here that I'll be back soon with new episodes of the Growth Led Podcast. But in the meantime, please check out my other podcast: Triggered.On Triggered, myself, Aoife Jacob and Jen Bryan from the Velocity Growth team discuss the things that trigger us from within the startup and marketing space. It's fresh, fun, and maybe just a bit over the top.Hope you enjoy!https://velocitygrowth.com/trigged/Support the show

In this solo episode, I outline what I think around the iOS 14.5 changes and if we're heading into "Advergeddon" with these changes or not, what the changes mean for advertisers, and...most importantly, why I think this is a huge opportunity for great marketers to up their game, work more closely with product managers, and use the product and activation strategies to do more post-click.Some resources to read include:https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/22/apple-expanding-its-app-store-ads-business-rolling-out-suggested-app-ads/https://www.cnet.com/how-to/ios-14-5-lets-you-stop-iphone-apps-from-tracking-you-and-it-takes-less-than-a-minute/https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/28/leaked-facebook-memo-reveals-how-advertisers-will-be-impacted-following-ios-14-5-release/Visit us at growthuniversity.io for upcoming programs and events!Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

Today I interview Hillary Weiss. Hillary is the Founder of Statement Piece Studios, is a Creative Director, Messaging Strategist, Coach and Speaker. The topics we discussed were:Working with small business owners on what makes them unique How to package your products and services to make more money, get invited to talk at conferences, and create & sell your own frameworks. Transitioning from being a tactician to strategy and coaching. Should entrepreneurs and CEOs build their own personal brands?How to build your personal brand?Should you close a business because you don’t enjoy it ?Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this interview, I spoke with Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop. Flikshop allows you to send photos delivered as postcards to any person in any prison instantly. It enables you to stay connected with your incarcerated loved one with no subscriptions and no hidden fees.This is an incredible story and journey that Marcus has been on. After spending eight years in prison, Marcus got out, started a painting company (that was wildly successful), and then found his calling helping families stay connected when a loved one is incarcerated via Flikshop.This is a highly personal story, and Marcus was an absolute pleasure to have on the show.Learn more about Marcus and Flikshop at https://www.flikshop.comSupport the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

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In this episode I interview Jay Woodard. Our main topic was one of overcoming failure as an operator and entrepreneur, learning how to rebound, and ensuring we don't make the same mistakes again. Jay's donut shop - Huckleberry donuts - in Ireland became so popular he had 400+ people waiting in lines around the block, and was selling out donuts within minutes.This demand was so great that it prompted scale, only to be met with countless challenges. Tune in to hear how Jay rebounded and is now building something great again.Jay has now gone on to found a brand & storytelling agency: https://www.ad32agency.com/Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this episode I interview Shane McCarthy. Shane is the Chief Marketing Officer at Sandboxx, and has been at the company since its earliest days - taking it from startup to scale. We discuss everything from chess (fun fact - Shane was an Irish champion as a child) to channel marketing and partnership marketing.We dive into what is stressing CMO's and other leaders at this point in time, and dive into community building and a whole lot more!Tune in for a really fun chat!Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In today's podcast I interviewed Angela Ferrante. Angela is the founder at Laudable - a startup that helps B2B companies remotely capture high quality video in the form of customer testimonials that drive growth through social proof.We discuss topics such as:The state of marketing going into 2021The race to try to capture attention, and the tradeoffs between content production and content distributionPersonal brands becoming the norm and also supporting companiesBrand authenticityHow to know what channels to market inLinkedIn becoming more crowded, and what we think may happenAnd so much moreLearn more about Laudable here.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

Apple IDFA is coming soon – what marketers need to know.View the video version of this episode here.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

What is Twitter and Snapchat doing to try to compete with the likes of Instagram and TikTok? Here's my quick take.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

Quick run through discussing content production vs distribution as we head into 2021.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this conversation with Xenia Muntean from Planable, we do a deep dive on content marketing & SEO, as well as talk about how Xenia built up Planable from idea to scale.She walks us through the strategies and tactics that Planable is using to reach new users, and how they are approach leveraging resources, downloads, and SEO for driving their key growth metrics.We cover a lot of ground, including topics such as:What's working and not working in the content marketing space?Are companies producing too much or too little content?To be a great content marketers, what channels do you have to be publishing on?Should companies be leveraging TikTok yet? Does every brand need to be there?What's the future of the workspace?And so much more!Learn more about Planable and save 30% off a 6-month plan using the promo code "growthled" if you'd like to give it a try.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this episode of the Growth Led Podcast, I interviewed Vassy Valchanova. Vassy is a digital marketer, trainer, and speaker. During her 15 years in business, she’s worked on almost any facet of marketing for e-commerce and SaaS. But her true focus lies in content marketing and conversion optimization. And the basis of all of this lies with knowing your audience and what works for them - which is why she spends a lot of time when starting a new project on customer development.We covered a lot of ground in this episode around customer development, including the jobs to be done framework, building personas, and a whole lot more. Topics include:What Vassy learned by starting her career in PR (hint - it wasn’t glamorous!)How Vassy reads a stunning 100+ articles per weekWhat is customer development?How do you measure the impact of customer development?Who owns persona development on a team?What is Jobs to be Done and how does it work?And a lot more around personas and customer development.You can learn more about Vassy and her work here.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this episode of the Growth Led Podcast, I interviewed Jessica and Foti from GrowthMentor. GrowthMentor is the industry leading marketplace that helps connect Growth mentors with mentees looking to get better at growth. In this episode we cover:How to manage your time when working with highly manual aspects of community managementHow GrowthMentor filters their applications to ensure the best talent gets into the networkWhy being open to changing your business model is key to future scaleHow and when does gamification actually work? How cross-network effects in a double sided marketplace help drive growthWhen to automate and when to be a humanHow mentors can provide the most value to mentees by focusing on a framework, not giving adviceWhat the most exciting part of the community is (hint...it’s a triggered action)What elements of community are very hard?How Zoom almost got me to purchase a plan after running out of time on this call!...and so much more!Check out https://growthmentor.com to learn more about the platform!Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this episode of the Growth Led Podcast I interviewed Kate Bradley Chernis. Kate is the CEO of Lately and a world renowned content strategist and messaging guru who also happens to be a former Rock and Roll DJ serving 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. After seeing Kate blow people’s minds on her views and experience with content and messaging - I knew I had to get her on the show.We cover themes like:Content and messaging and the relative importance of getting this right for your companyHow does user psychology and personas play into your messaging? What are some things that have worked really well?Why “checkout” is the absolute worst phrase you can possibly use in marketing and sales messaging. How experience in radio influenced Kate's marketing overallWhy it's important to have a human in the room when doing sales and marketing (hint: you can't automate everything!)and much, much more!Visit TryLately.com to learn moreSupport the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this interview I talk talked with Alex Mitchell. Alex and I have worked together at Upside Business Travel as well as at Bullseye Admissions. Alex is one of the leading voices in the product space, and I wanted to get him on to talk to us about how to leverage growth for product roadmapping so that the right features or products are built at the right time.Topics covered include:How much involvement do Product Managers have in growth?How do you know how much weight to give to experimentsExample of an experiment that became a key feature in a productHow PMs, Growth Teams, and companies handle growth as a team sportWhat percentage of features should be driven from Growth and Experiments?Much more!Tune in now!Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

Did you know that the annual spend of the Military audience is over $1 Trillion dollars per year?Do you know the nomenclature to ensure you’re on-brand when advertising to this audience?Do you know the ways to reach this audience outside of just the usual paid channels?In this interview, I sat down with Shane McCarthy to talk about these and many more questions around marketing to the military. Shane is the Chief Marketing Officer at Sandboxx, and has been with the company since its earliest days - taking it from startup to scale. Tune in if you're an advertiser or marketer looking for a deep dive on the Military audience. If you're looking to connect with Shane, Craig, or Sandboxx, click over to the Sandboxx website.Support the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

Visit Mastering Growth - the Growth Led CourseThis is part 2 of the interview I did with Seamus Leahy. If you didn't see the 1st part, check it out here.In this podcast, I talk to Seamus about how organizations run growth at scale. Going into this conversation I thought this would be more relevant to larger companies and teams, but even if you're just getting started with growth you should find some value in his insights.I hope you enjoy this interview!Visit Mastering Growth - the Growth Led CourseSupport the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)

In this interview, I talk to Seamus Leahy. Seamus's is one of the leading Growth Engineers in the country, having spent years as a Growth Engineer at companies like Twitter, Dropbox, Thumbtack & Votion. He's seen many different growth team formations, and walks us through how these companies operate growth at scale.Here's a favorite quote of his from this interview:"One thing I’ve learned about growth is that you have to have relationships with everybody across the company…every product…you are just so embedded in what they are doing”During this interview Seamus goes into specific setups and scenarios that help ensure maximum growth.I hope you enjoy this interview!Visit my free Growth 101 courseSupport the show (https://bit.ly/growth101-kaj1)