The Growth Equation

In one of our favorite episodes to date we had the pleasure of bringing on Erik Severinghaus a multiple time founder and current VP of strategy and development at Conexiom. Erik also has successfully scaled and climbed Mount Everest and talks about how that was easier then building a company! Erik shares the stories of entrepreneurship that no one talks about. He is very transparent on the challenges of being a founder and how hard it is mentality and physically to be successfully. It is why in many cases, founders deal with depression and talks about how to create a better support system. He shares the things he has learned that has lead him to launch his book, Be your own Everest: How to be a Resilient Entrepreneur, where he talks about these challenges and the best way to cope and keep driving your business forward. A super refreshing conversation that no one is talking about that I am sure people will enjoy. In Today's Episode you will learn: What are the biggest challenges of entrepreneurshipWhy climbing Everest was easier then building a company The dark side of being a founder and how it leads to anxiety and depression How to create a more "real" founder ecosystem His stories of climbing Mount Everest

In Today's episode of The Growth Equation we got to bring on Peter Zhi, The first growth hire at AllyO. Peter got to share his perspective of what life is like being the first growth hire and what growth means when you go from seed stage to all the way to being acquired. He had a very unique perspective on what growth teams should be focused at a very early stage and how they need to be focused on trying to experiment to learn and don't worry if something can scale. If you are looking to learn the purpose of a growth team in the early days then this is your episode. What is covered in this episode: What a growth team does in early stage How to drive growth with non scalable solutions What AllyO did well when it came to growth 

Have you ever wonder what it is like to scale a fast growing company in an industry that is getting disrupted? Well in today's episode of the Growth Equation we got to bring on Steph, CEO of Tealbook. Steph is a two time entrepreneur who successfully built her own consulting company and then made the jump to starting her own tech company. Tealbook is disrupting the procurement space and growing at a rapid rate. Steph got to share her story as a solo female founder on the keys to leading and building a team that you don't get to hear many founders share. In today's episode we will cover: What it is like leading Tealbook The keys to building a high performing team How to create an environment that has more female founders  The toughest thing when scaling a tech company 

In today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure to bring on Ralph Sadowski, Senior  Biz Ops Manager at Shopify. Ralph got to share his expertise of what biz ops does , how they can be a more strategic function and what is needed to be a high performing team. Ralph is a big believer on why biz ops is  the mix of strategy and execution and why it becomes a catch all and how this function will change as it becomes more mature. He got to share his experience both at Uber, Neo Financial and Shopify some of the leading business operations functions. This Episode will cover: What  is the Biz Ops Function How Biz Ops is changing over time How Biz Ops is one of the key elements of growth What Biz Ops teams are accountable on 

How you ever wondered what goes into bootstrapping a start-up and when it is time to start your next one while you  run your first one? Well in today's episode we got to bring on Diana Goodwin Founder & CEO of Marketbox & Aquamobile. Diana got to share her story of how she scaled and bootstrapped her marketplace company, Aquamobile.  We get to hear her story of scaling up her first company and when she made the decision to then launch her second company a SAAS business, Marketbox. Diana shares her amazing insights on what it takes to scale a bootstrap company and the keys of why building a marketplace company is so hard. We then here what motivated her to start her second company and what the difference is when building a SAAS business vs. a marketplace business.  In today's episode we cover: The keys of scaling a bootstrap start-up The challenges of building a marketplace  business The differences of scaling a marketplace to a SAAS business How to start another company while still running your first 

Scaling a business is hard but building a healthy high performing culture is even harder. People always talk how culture is so important no one knows what are the keys to building a culture that people can do the best work of their lives. Well in today's episode of The Growth Equation we got to bring on Larry Zolob and expert in building cultures. We had a great discussion on what makes a good work culture but also the right things  to focus when scaling a business. In today's episode we covered: - When to start building culture - Larry's 5 step framework of building culture - The areas of focus when scaling work culture - How to handle the changes to culture during COVID  

Building and leading a scale-up is hard but leading a company during turbulent times like COVID is even more challenging. In today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Naveed Ahmad, CEO of Heart Health Institute and leader of scale-ups. Naveed got to share his perspective of his key fundamentals of leading companies and what tech companies need to do a better when it comes to scaling. We got to hear his formula of what he thinks is important when building a company with sustainable growth and what he thinks is the negative consequences of growth at all costs. Finally he got to go into detail of how to navigate through turbulent times like COVID and how he thinks companies need to adapt. In today's episode we will cover: The keys to building a high performing team His formula of sustainable growth How to navigate through challenge times like COVID How companies can be accommodating to creating a remote work environment   

Marketplace are some of the toughest businesses to scale but what makes it so tough? Should you be supply or demand led when scaling? The jury is still out if marketplaces can ever be profitable and if you wonder wonder if these businesses can build sustainable growth then today is a can't miss episode. In today's episode we got to bring on Blake Connnoy, Founder of Hurrahome a consumer marketplace. Blake has dedicated years of his life within the marketplace space and shares his perspective on the keys and challenges of scaling these types of businesses. In this episode you will learn from Blake the following: The right unit economics to focus on when scaling If you should be supply or demand led marketplace business Why marketplaces are so tough to scale What will happen with marketplaces in a post COVID world 

Have you ever wondered how to create growth within your product? As channels become more and more expensive to acquire customers and people's willingness to pay go down, you need to think of new ways to drive growth of your company.  Well on episode #7 of The Growth Equation, we talk to Wes Bush, founder of Product Led Growth Institute and a massive advocate of Product Led Growth frameworks.     We had a great discussion on: Attempt to define what product led growth is Talk about why some companies who have a free-trial are still not taking a product led growth approach Why product qualified leads are so much more qualified than marketing qualified leads How to increase your freeium or free trial conversion Some of the biggest mistakes when implementing product led growth frameworks 

In Today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Jesse Abrams, the CEO and Founder of Homewise. Jesse brought in an amazing perspective of someone who is a serial entrepreneur and has started his second company, first time in tech industry. He shared some of the untold stories inside a mind of a founder trying to scale a hyper growth business with radical transparency. You will not want to miss this episode to here a raw and transparent interview into the life as a founder and what they focus on to scale a start-up. In Today's Episode: - Jesse talks about how he started Homewise from scratch - What he looks for when building teams & culture - He shares the untold stories of the struggles of being an entrepreneur    - Why he is excited with the problem Homewise is solving for  

In today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Anthony Milto head of Product Marketing & Business Strategy at Intuit. With our conversation we got to cover what is product marketing and how you can create a strategic arm for your business if done right and talked about how to build sustainable businesses. Anthony is one of the thought leaders when it comes to how to build a successful product marketing org. If you ever ask the question what is product marketing, how can it be effective and how can I build a sustainable business? Then this is your episode! In today's episode we cover: - What is Product Marketing - The keys to building a strategic Product Marketing Team - The fundamentals of building sustainable businesses   - What metrics really matter when building businesses

In today's episode of The Growth Equation Greg and Rahul had a discussion and shared their thoughts of what does this post COVID world look like for the tech industry. It was a honest and raw conversation about how the entire industry will change forever. We had a chance to go in depth about what companies will be focused on post COVID, what industries will thrive and which ones will struggle and so much more. This has to one of our most in depth conversations we have had on the podcast.  What we covered: - What does the VC landscape look like after this - The focus areas for companies over the next 12 months - What industries and companies will form from this pandemic 

In today's episode of The Growth Equation we are excited to bring on Dan Gray, Director of Growth at Kotn. Dan brings on a very unique perspective of working for early stage companies and helping to build growth engines. We go in depth of how you go about testing different channels, what KPIs matter the most, how having a strong brand can help you scale & what he really thinks of paid channels. In this episode we cover: How to test channel at a rapid rate What metrics really matter when it comes to growth The pitfalls of relying too heavily on paid channels What he looks for when building out a growth team   

In today's episode of the Growth Equation we got to bring on Cristian Contreras, Product Operations at Shopify. Cristian brings an unique perspective of working for Shopify and providing his perspective on how to build proper ecommerce unit economics to scale a business. He also bring's a whole wealth of experience of some of his other past start-up/scale-up experiences on the keys for success. What we cover: How to build strong ecommerce unit economics The keys to build a platform The challenges of growth in the start-up community     

In Today's episode of the Growth Equation we got to bring on Andrew Michael who leads Business Intelligence for Hotjar and runs a successful podcast on churn called Churn.fm. Andrew gets to talk about the challenges businesses struggle with churn and some of the most important fundamentals of retention. We get the pleasure of talking more in depth of all of the insights he has collected through his podcast and talk more about some of the things Hotjar is doing and how is leading their business intelligence team too.   What we cover: Why not enough businesses talk about churn How to know when you have a retention & churn problem How to implement a Churn model that drives growth What team owns retention & churn 

In today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure to bring on Sylvia Ng, General Manager, Start Product Line at Shopify. Sylvia had one of the most interesting perspectives of having a very experienced tech career doing a ton of different roles. She is a fundamental believer in building sustainable businesses then the growth at all cost mentality. We get to go at the leadership leader of an organization and how everything starts within a culture and how to build high performing teams. Really one of our best conversations yet!     This episode will cover:  Sylvia's interesting background & career journey The key metrics to building growth that is built in the right way The issues with the growth at all cost mentality How to build a high performing team 

In Today's Episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Roger Figueiredo VP of marketing at #Paid. Roger had some amazing insights to share when it comes to demand generation and how to take a much more strategic approach when building a marketing growth engine. You will get to hear his perspective on how you first need to focus on who your is customer, work on the right positioning & then find the distribution based on the customer & your message. What we cover: Roger's unique approach to building a demand generation engine How to build the right channel diversification How to balance paid vs organic marketing channels when it comes to growth  What he looks for when hiring for marketers 

On Today's episode of the growth equation we got to bring on Lachlan Kirkwood, Growth advisor for fast growing start-up companies. An interesting fact about Lachlan is that he is based in Australia (our first guest from there). Lachlan has a great perspective since much of Australia's tech scene is based on more bootstrapping then VC funded companies. This means that many companies need to focus on the fundamentals of proper unit economics to drive profitability when trying to acquire customers. In the episode we cover: How to create channel diversification The keys to building out a marketing growth engine How to balance organic & paid channels The metrics to sustainable business fundamentals  Insight into the growing Australia tech community 

In today's episode of the growth equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Connor Bradley from Jobber who leads up the growth team. We really went deep to understand how you build a growth team and how the team adds value at Jobber. He also goes into to define where a growth team sits in the org and how they build their experimentation plan. In this episode we will cover: How to build growth teamsWhat the growth team does at jobberWhat the metrics they are focused on  Balancing between optimizing and being bold in your experiments How to lay down the fountain to establish a growth team  

In today's episode of the growth equation we got  to switch things up an interview our co-host Greg Leach, experienced tech growth leader. Greg explains his career and how he ended up becoming a growth leader and talks a lot about building sustainable growth and where companies get it wrong when it comes to growth & why. What we cover:His background and the core fundamentals he focuses on to be a growth leader How to create sustainable growth within companies and why "growth at all costs" is the wrong framework to applyThe things to focus on to have a career when becoming a growth leader How to build a strong tech ecoystem within a community What are growth teams and what do they do 

In today's episode of the growth equation we got to switch things up an interview our co-host Rahul Goel, founder of Pheedloop.  Rahul takes us inside the mind of a founder building a fast growing bootstrapped company.  He has a very interesting perspective about scaling and building a company from the ground up.  We will cover: How Rahul thinks about building culture within PheedLoop How important it is to be customer focused The story of how PheedLoop came to be The first steps of bootstrapping a company 

Have you ever wondered how organizations disrupt themselves and create digital transformation? Well In Today's episode of the Growth Equation we had the pleasure of bringing on Pansy Lee, Director of Product & Design at Maple Leaf Sport & Entertainment's Digital Labs. Pansy talks about how MLSE is leading the way in digital transformation within the sports & entertainment industry. She goes deep on how you make the customer the center of everything you do and focus on the problem and not the solution.  So of the other things we covered: Understand how and what MLSE is doing to transform their fan experience How do you create a customer focused culture As a tech community how can we be more inclusive 

Growth is fundamental to a company's survival. To compete in today's crowded business environment, it is vital for companies to implement powerful strategies that drive healthy and sustainable growth. Successful growth strategies start with a framework tailored to your product and target audience that will increase your user base & activation rate. In today's episode of The Growth Equation we are joined by growth SAAS expert, Ramli John. Ramli is a growth expert focusing on helping start-ups scale.  He discussed a wide variety of topics such as, what is growth, The concept of product led growth, How to build the right growth framework, What he sees some start-ups do well and where they need to improve, etc. If you want to hear from am experienced growth expert then this episode is for you.  

Building a successfully marketing engine is key to scaling any company. People tend to only think paid marketing is the key to generating traffic to your product. Products are built for channels and if you don't do this in the right way then you become to reliant on paid marketing channels, which are increasing getting more and more expensive.  That is why it is becoming more and more important to find a channel that is cost effective for you to have proper unit economics as you scale your business.   In this episode you will learn from Vedran Rasic the CMO of AutokloseHow you find the right marketing channels early on to scale How to build up your content strategy in a really fast way How to build a remote first company 

Many people wonder what is the process like for founders to lead a company from inception to becoming acquired as part of a bigger company and really what it takes to get to the next step.....  In today's episode of the growth equation we talk to Shums who is the Co-Founder of Hatchways. Shums is someone who started his first company that was acquired by Kik & become part of the team there for a while.  He is now starting his second venture and is in the middle of scaling where he has just return from SF from the famous Y Combinator! Listen to story of what it is like starting a company from scratch from someone that is going through it himself and what tech life is like from SF compared to Toronto! On top of that he can explain what life is like after his first company got acquired and what post acquisition life is like.        

Leveraging partnerships tends to be the last channel as part of your marketing mix but why is that? In some cases it can unlock massive growth opportunity not just to immediately drive customer growth but to also build a brand.  In today's episode of the Growth Equation we have brought on Sebastian Hayto who is the brand partnership lead at Harry's.  Sebastian brings a unique perspective of how to partner and work with the right brands that scale organizations.  He has also had a chance to help be part of Harry's hyper grow from their early stages and now part of their exit as it goes into the next phase of growth.  This is an amazing episode to learn the right way to build brand partnerships for both the short & long-term. 

Growth is fundamental to a company's survival. To complete in today's business environment, it is vital for companies to implement powerful strategies that drive healthy sustainable growth.  Successful growth strategies start with a methodical framework tailored to your product and target audience that will drive both users & revenue.  What does growth actually mean in 2019? Is growth something that is driven in marketing, product or sales? In this episode of the growth equation we bring in Sammy Halabi, Growth Manager at Wave Financial where he talks about the following: - What is growth? - How do you build growth teams?  - How do you think about implementing the experimentation process within your company? -  How do you prioritize experiments? - What is the key to successful of driving growth for an organization? - What metrics are the most important for growth?