The How Things Grow Podcast

How Things Grow will take a break for now. As the more perceptive of you might have noticed, a lot of our energy has recently shifted from How Things Grow to our other podcast The Mobile User Acquisition Show. While the longer form profiles that we got to do in How Things Grow were very fun and satisfying, it's just been hard to run two shows while we run the business that pays our bills. For now, How Things Grow will take a break - and we aren't sure when we'll be back (although of course, all past episodes will continue to stay online). I'm super super thankful for those of you who listened, those of you who wrote in with comments and feedback - and of course our fabulous guests. Thank you for making my first foray into podcasting fun! Of course, the party will go on - our podcast Mobile User Acquisition Show has had some very fun and fascinating episodes, and we hope you'll come check us out on mobileuseracquisitionshow.com, on iTunes, Overcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasting fix.

My guest today is Liam Martin - and this is a conversation about a topic that is near & dear to my heart - remote work. Liam is one of the world's foremost experts on remote work, having started a remote-only company more than a decade before it became cool to do so. He founded Time Doctor and Staff.com, doing some tremendously impactful work around productivity for remote work before founding the Running Remote conference, a real-life, non-remote conference about remote work. Liam has seen remote work up close from its earliest days - and has also seen nearly everything there is to be seen around remote work - be it culture, tracking, productivity and growth - and this is a conversation that I'm very excited to have.Key Highlights:How remote work was referred to 15 years ago - and how it's changing.Why Liam chose remote work as a model for his business - and how he solved problems that are currently solved by tools like Zoom and Slack.What Liam recommends as the first step for a small company that is considering going remote - and the resources he recommends. Why measurement is crucial for a remote company.How Liam recommends setting up a remote culture for a team that is new to itHow Liam recommends approaching hiring in a remote context - and what he screens and filters for.How a remote team's infrastructure & processes have to change as a team grows.The HR process that Liam's team has built to ensure retention. The different compensation policies that are available to remote companies.What inspired the Running Remote conference - and how Liam attracted speakers and attendees for its first edition. Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/the-rise-of-remote-work-with-liam-martin-co-founder-of-timedoctor-co-organizer-in-running-remote/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Hila Qu. Hila is the former VP of growth at Acorns - and there are very many reasons I've so admired her work. Hila had a background in biology - and with nothing in her background that was relevant to growth, she started work at GrowthHackers, where she not only picked up the methodology of growth from Sean Ellis but also became very very proficient at experiment-driven growth. She wrote the series of articles ‘A growth practitioner's 90 day plan', which she herself used for her job search after GrowthHackers. She began working on experiments and retention at Acorns - and in a few years grew to be the VP of growth. In this interview, Hila talks not only about the pivotal moments in her career but also breaks down how she's followed her curiosity and sought out challenges - and how this has always helped her break into spaces or positions where she's started off being almost an outsider.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat inspired Hila to start working at GrowthHackers.com – and what they saw in her.Some of the things Hila learnt about growth that were essentially life principles. How Hila developed a mental model for career growth from working with Sean Ellis. What inspired Hila's article “A growth practitioner's first 90-day plan.”How Hila evaluated Acorns to see if they would be open to growth ideas and processes even though they didn't have any.How Hila started introducing her ideas – and went after early wins. The two directions Hila recommends thinking around for getting early wins. What Hila's learning plan looked like.What Hila's day is structured like – at GrowthHackers and Acorns.How Hila accessed leadership positions at Acorns. How Hila learnt the 'science' of leadership.How Hila picked KPIs around her personal OKR of being 20% tougher.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-to-trigger-massive-career-shifts-by-following-your-curiosity-with-hila-quformer-vp-of-growth-at-acorns/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Noah Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of Narratively. Narratively is a publication that I've both written for - and have been very very impressed by for some of the pioneering work they've done. Narratively very much defined a niche for themselves in pioneering long-form human interest journalism in an age of diminishing attention spans. They not only continued to bring out original long-form stories - but also developed a unique monetization model of a content studio that has helped them thrive in an age when many journalism outlets are facing existential challenges. In this interview we dive into Noah's journey from being a journalist to a journalism platform creator, talk about how he validated and launched Narratively, what drives audience growth for long-form articles, how Narratively's unique monetization model has helped both keep it ad-free and allowed its writers to make good money. This interview presents lessons that apply for far beyond long-form journalism - and I'm excited to share this with you today.KEY HIGHLIGHTSNoah's early career as a journalist – and how he was drawn to larger human interest stories & underreported themes during his work in Queens and in South Africa.The sort of market research that Noah did to validate his idea of a human interest publication – and the response they got to Narratively on Kickstarter.How Narratively transitioned from being a New York focused publication to being global.How Narratively planned to use the $53k that it had raised in its Kickstarter campaign.Why Narratively didn't adopt the subscription model or an ad supported model.How Narratively's partnership with Warner Brothers materialized.How Narratively thinks about the relationship between its branded content side and its editorial side.How stories on Narratively.com get traffic.Why Narratively had challenges raising funding.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-to-launch-a-long-form-journalism-publication-in-an-era-of-diminishing-attention-spans-with-noah-rosenberg-ceo-at-narratively/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Jabari Johnson, the founder of COLORS Worldwide, a live events company that produces parties and music events across 45 cities in the United States. This is a fascinating conversation - both for Jabari's personal story as well as for his insights on scaling a live event and filling up rooms and halls - at scale. From his earliest days when he hustled to interview stars like Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber before they became famous to how he thoughtfully considers pricing and marketing decisions for COLORS and R&B Only, Jabari's work provides a fascinating window into how it's absolutely possible to run top-notch fun events - at scale.KEY HIGHLIGHTSHow Jabari's Youtube videos got him his first job.How Jabari would spread the word about his Youtube videos on his college campus, and how he made some of these videos viral.How Jabari's experiences on the road led to his first business COLORS – and what his first parties were like.How Jabari filled up the room with 200-300 people by using TwitPic to build social proof for their event's pics.Why Jabari wasn't charging money for his early events.How it became evident to Jabari that these parties and events could be a scaled business – and how he learned to delegate & grow his team.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-to-blow-up-a-party-with-jabari-johnson-founder-at-colors-worldwide/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Jon Hook, the CRO of Homa Games, the publishers behind hit hypercasual games like Tower Color, Tiny Cars, Balls vs. Lasers - and more. Jon has held a myriad of roles in mobile marketing before Homa - including being a co-founder of the mobile marketing agency Odyssey Mobile, the Head of Mobile & Digital Investment at MediaCom - and VP EMEA for Brand and Agencies at AdColony. In today's interview, we dive into the fascinating world of hypercasual games. If you've even casually followed the appstores over the last few years, you'll have seen seemingly simplistic games like Helix Jump, Tiny Cars - and others at the top of the appstore charts. What is as astounding as these games' ascent is their staying power. In this interview, Jon talks about the rise of the hypercasual phenomenon, the drivers & forces powering it, what lies ahead - and offers some fascinating insights into one of the more unexpected occupants of the appstores today.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat are some of the characteristics of hyper-casual and what the hit recipe for hyper-casual games is.What factors have accelerated the emergence of hyper-casual games in recent years.How Jon started paying attention to the hypercasual space – and when he realized this wasn't a fad.Why user acquisition and monetization are run by the same teams in hyper-casual games.What some of the common mistakes made by hypercasual developers are – and what some of the easy fixes are.What some of the challenges with using programmatic for hyper-casual games are.Why hypercasual can be a mass marketing channel.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-hyper-casual-games-took-over-the-app-stores-with-jon-hookcro-at-homa-games/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Brian Balfour - and there could be no one better than Brian to kick off the third season of How Things Grow. Brian is seen as one of the most influential people in growth today - he has to his credit some truly astounding accomplishments in growth. He started his career building a social networking site for college students. He then founded a digital goods company & subsequently an ed-tech company. After this, he became the VP of Growth at Hubspot, overseeing & systematizing some tremendous growth that had been driven, astonishingly, by content. It was during this phase that he started writing his very popular blog. He started what was then a side project called ‘Silicon Valley Business Review' with Andrew Chen. The Silicon Valley Business Review has since grown into Reforge, which is now a definitive source of education around growth for experienced professionals. In this fascinating conversation, Brian not only talks about his own experiences but also dives into how Reforge is changing how education around growth is imparted today, and is redefining many traditional paradigms of executive education. What I find truly astounding is how Brian applies growth frameworks and loops to Reforge's business. He breaks down how these growth loops are applicable to Reforge - in a section that I find very very instructive. This is very much a masterclass on growth - one taught by the very best in the business. KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhy getting an external unbiased coach was the most important thing that Brian did in his career.What Brian's experience was as a founder of an early social network – and subsequently as a founder of a digital goods company & then of an ed-tech company.Why Brian began to write – and the benefits he got from his own writingHow Hubspot's content strategy was one of the key drivers behind their IPOThe gap that Brian noticed when doing 1:1s for his team and having to look up recommendations for professional development – and the side project it inspired – the 'Silicon Valley Business Review'.Is Reforge a 'service' company or a ‘product' company? Are its live experiences antithetical to scale?How Reforge selects people for ‘fit', even if it means saying no to short term revenue.How growth loops apply to Reforge's business. Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-to-grow-a-growth-education-business-with-brian-balfour/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

I'm very excited to present to you the third season of How Things Grow! Thank you so much for the kind words, ratings and reviews for the episodes so far. As you perhaps know, each episode is a labor of love - and every rating and review matters a ton.If you're new here, How Things Grow tells the stories of the people who help companies, technologies and economic systems take off.  Each episode features an interview with one of the leading growth practitioners, entrepreneurs, or experts or historians in the world.   In this season, you'll hear the story of how this growth leader applied growth principles to advanced career education, the story of how a company hosting parties grew dramatically, about how hyper casual games are taking over our phone screens, how a long form journalism startup carved out a niche for itself in an age of diminishing attention spans - and so many other stories that are coming up in the new season of How Things Grow. If you get any joy and pleasure from these episodes, please subscribe to How Things Grow on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast - or wherever else you get your podcast fix. Please also consider leaving a review, for this is very much a labor of love. I hope you enjoy listening to the show as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. I look forward to presenting to you the first episode of the coming season of How Things Grow next Monday!  **Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Hi everyone -   Welcome to How Things Grow. I've been very stoked to present some amazing stories as a part of season 2 of How Things Grow.   As all good things do, this season has run its course. I'm taking a step back to reorient, readjust - and come back with a whole new season of how things grow. We're already begun preparing for the next season. We have some amazing speakers lined up - and I can't wait to get this out to you.   Stay tuned - we're going to be back very very soon for season 3 of How Things Grow.**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Sahil Lavingia, and this is an incredibly powerful, honest & inspiring episode. Sahil is today the founder & CEO of Gumroad, a platform that helps creators get paid for the work they do. What is significantly more impressive though is Sahil's journey to where he is today. Sahil was in many ways a prodigy as a teenager, working on apps & websites - and making $100k by age 15. He joined the University of Southern California, only to drop out after a semester to join the then fledgling platform Pinterest to build their iOS app as employee #2. Within a year, he left Pinterest - before his shares vested - to found the company that he hoped would be his magnum opus, what he announced on Twitter as a ‘billion dollar company idea' before he launched it. This was Gumroad - and for a while he seemed to be a man who, at age 19, could do no wrong. Until things started to go wrong. Growth began to stall. Sahil and his team put their soul into the business - and they couldn't do what it took to hit the targets they need to hit to make it a venture-scaleable business. In what was a wrenching time, he had to lay off three fourths of his company - and find his own path forward. This is Sahil's story - about how things don't always grow, and how sometimes that's ok - but only if you make your peace with it.KEY HIGHLIGHTSSahil's early work in design and development as a teenager that led him to make his first $100,000 and become financially independent.The path that led Sahil to be described as the most interesting teenager in Silicon Valley and the #2 employee at Pinterest, less than two years after he started learning to code. Why Sahil left Pinterest less than a year after joining, before his stocks vested  and what about Gumroad inspired him to keep working on it.Why Sahil decided to go deep on Gumroad rather than seek out his next new project. How writing and painting helped him cultivate the patience that let him do this.Sahil's cold email strategy of acquiring his first few customers – and why it was effective for him.Why Sahil was obsessed with becoming a billionaire from early on.How Sahil coped with the fact that Gumroad would never become a venture-bankable billion dollar company.How Sahil thought about ‘front loading his retirement' why ‘diversifying his identity' was crucial.What inspired Sahil to write the Medium piece about his journey.The reframing of impact that was crucial to Sahil's coping with the change in circumstances for his business.The difference in lifestyle in Provo, Utah, compared to San Francisco.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-things-dont-grow-reflections-on-not-being-a-billionaire-with-sahil-lavingiaceo-at-gumroad/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Victoria Repa. Victoria is the founder and CEO of BetterMe, a fitness app based out of Ukraine. I'm very excited to have Victoria on the show because she has such an incredibly unconventional background and story that I find very very inspiring. In this interview, we talk about Victoria's early upbringing in a tiny village in the east of Ukraine, how she educated herself early on, her move to Kyiv, her transition from working on transportation logistics to technology, her work on viral content - and how that led her to building a company with global ambitions from Kyiv. We also explore her personal life and systems - which I find incredibly inspiring and intimidating for how she not only makes time and space for contemplation, but also finds this introspection essential to her work. What's also incredibly inspiring is that she's just 26 - and she brings to her life and work an intentionality that I find incredibly rare. I'm very excited to welcome Victoria Repa to How Things Grow.KEY HIGHLIGHTSVictoria's path from having zero experience in tech, to being CEO of a company behind the most-downloaded fitness and health appsHow Victoria learned to craft viral content for one of the biggest content companies in the world. How Victoria leveraged Facebook insights to discover niche topics and launch BetterMe.How Victoria and her team ‘test-drove' the early versions of the app by trying out the practices on themselves.Why BetterMe has 6 different health and fitness related apps in the appstores.Victoria's self-care and self-improvement practices – and why she says business is a “spiritual game”. Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-viral-content-can-trigger-habit-change-at-scale-with-victoria-repa-founder-ceo-betterme/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is one of the leading experts in the world on games and growth in games. He's a man who who has helped launch & grow many many hit mobile games. He started his gaming career at Playdom, where he helped the game Social City get to 5 million installs in the first week of launch. He was the founding product manager at Scopely, where he helped grow the daily actives for Dice With Buddies 30x. Yes, you heard that right - 30x. Subsequently he moved to Zynga, where he served as the Franchise Lead and Head of Product for the whole Games With Friends portfolio. Right now he's the VP & Commercial Leader at Blizzard Entertainment.  I had a chance to meet Josh when I was at Zynga not too long ago. I found him incredibly generous with his time and knowledge - and always eager to see people around him succeed. Today's conversation is a master-class on games, and about what happens behind the scenes that makes games such enjoyable experiences. If you've wondered about why hundreds of millions of players love Candy Crush, Farmville or Words With Friends and spend many many hours on these games, this interview has some answers. We talk about the early days of social gaming, the elements that make games habit-forming experiences and how Josh thinks about making, growing and learning about games. We also talk about how the same elements that make for great games also make services like, say, Spotify compelling. I always learn so much every time I listen to Josh - and I'm thrilled for this conversation. KEY HIGHLIGHTSThe secret to unlocking virality of games as a growth product manager, even as the bar for sharing content on social platforms has gotten higherHow Josh and his team found opportunities to improve upon an established game like Words With Friends 2How Words With Friends 2 was intentional about making it to the top of iTunes charts.How the concept of “core loop design” increases user retention for digital products What sets the games that have survived the longest apart from othersJosh's strategy for gleaning research from new games without playing them allWhy Josh says you need a “two-legged stool” on your teamCheck out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/art-science-making-games-fun-with-josh-lu-vp-blizzard-entertainment/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Elena Verna. Elena is a growth advisor - she advises a number of companies - and helps scale businesses with marketing, product, analytics and growth. Elena joined SurveyMonkey as an analyst a year and a half out of college - and found herself trying to understand a growth trajectory that was incredible. Yet this was a growth trajectory that no one on the team had insight into. As an analyst, Elena wrote the queries that helped answer many of the fundamental questions underlying the business and what was driving its growth. Over the next 7 years, she grew to become the SVP of Growth. In her next role, she became the SVP of Growth, Marketing, Product & Design at the cybersecurity company MalwareBytes - and much like at SurveyMonkey, she helped drive an understanding of exactly what was driving growth in a business where there was very little understanding of this. In this interview, Elena talks about what she learnt as she grew with the business, how she learnt that not every problem could be solved through quantitative optimization, how she learnt to trust her team and lead, about the death of the person who inspired her the most, about how she breaks down & understands the drivers of growth - and much much more.KEY HIGHLIGHTSHow the SurveyMonkey team started to figure out where their early growth was coming from – and what were the things that surprised Elena.What it was like for Elena to understand the qualitative aspects of growth.How Elena and her team's focus changed as the company grew.Elena's professional role model, how this person inspired Elena – and what it was like when this person passed away.Why Elena used to create a SurveyMonkey account every day during her time at the company.The persona of the user that was pivotal to the early growth of Malwarebytes – and how Elena's team zeroed in on this persona.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/decoding-freemium-the-unlikely-drivers-of-cybersecurity-adoption-more-with-elena-vernagrowth-advisor-ex-svp-of-growth-marketing-product-design-at-malwarebytes-ex-svp-of-growth-at-surveymo/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

In today's episode, we take a very short break from regular programming - as I present to you my talk at my alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras last year. This is a talk called ‘The Unseen Forces Driving Mass Adoption Of Technologies' - featuring 8 key takeaways from season 1 of How Things Grow.    I spoke to some of the smartest engineering students in India - the Indian Institutes of Technology(the IITs) tend to be super-selective and have an acceptance rate of under 1%. Fun fact: in one of my favorite Dilbert strips, Asok says: “Luckily, I'm an IIT Graduate, superior to most people on earth, so I finished the project myself.” Dilbert asks him: “Are you tired?” Asok says: “I am trained to only sleep during national holidays.”(https://dilbert.com/strip/2003-09-15 ) These were the kind of kids I spoke to.   Anyway, while some of the effect is lost in podcast form because the actual talk was accompanied by a slide deck, I think you'll still find some of the takeaways & highlights from season 1 very interesting.   Without further ado, here you go on my talk: The unseen forces that drive mass-market adoption of technologies - 8 lessons from season 1 of How Things Grow.**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Mauria Finley. Mauria has lived in very interesting times - and worked on some industry-defining products. Her first job out of college was at Netscape, where she not only saw from close up the large scale adoption of the internet but also helped build utilities and products for it like email, chat and browser features. She then worked on mobile in the days before mobile apps, when mobile was primarily a work and productivity platform - before working with PayPal and eBay. She started her first business Citrus Lane in 2011, which was born of a spreadsheet that went viral. After selling it to Care.com, she started her current company Allume that provides personal styling powered by data.    In this wide-ranging conversation, we delve into so many topics - from how she approached building utilities during the early days of the internet, to building infrastructure for the early days of mobile, to starting an eCommerce company in the age of Amazon - and how she thinks about combining data and human judgment to build a personal styling business.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat about working at Netscape compelled Mauria.What Mauria tells the class at Stanford as to how they should pick their first company.Why Mauria thinks a recession is a great time to build a company.Why there was a debate at Paypal about the potential of mobile – and Mauria's argument that swayed the decision.How Mauria's first company was basically a productized version of a spreadsheet that went viral.How becoming a mom helped Mauria prioritize better.How Allume combines data and human judgment to help women make fashion choices.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/making-the-internet-work-building-an-ecommerce-business-in-the-age-of-amazon-and-more-with-mauria-finleyceo-of-allume/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Eric Seufert. Eric is the Head of Platform at N3twork, the founder of MobileDevMemo.com, author of the book ‘Freemium Economics' - and one of the foremost experts on mobile user acquisition today. Eric started his career as an analyst at Skype, and went on to work with gaming companies like Digital Chocolate, Grey Area and Wooga - before heading up user acquisition for Rovio, in which capacity he headed up much of the launch activity for Angry Birds 2, which launched with over 25 million installs in the first week after its launch. Eric has also consulted with over 30 app development companies on their growth - and developed the growth and user acquisition platform Agamemnon, which was acquired by N3twork in 2017. Eric has worked on an incredibly wide variety of apps - and he's seen it all, from the early days of mobile growth where you could basically buy bot installs to hit the top 10 ranks on iTunes to today's increasingly sophisticated world of automation and programmatic growth. Indeed, his site MobileDevMemo.com is one of the resources I learn so much from and recommend very often to folks. In this fascinating and in-depth conversation, we dive into not only the state of mobile growth over the years and the forces that defined the evolution of mobile growth - but also into Eric's fascinating career and work that has led him to develop an incredibly nuanced perspective on the past, present and future of growth on mobile.KEY HIGHLIGHTSHow Eric got his start in user acquisition & growth from following his curiosity about freemium.How Eric's fears about the possibility that his company would fail impelled him to start his blog – and how his blog got him his next job.The difference between mobile and desktop when it comes to user acquisition.Do you have be a big established company with a huge balance sheet to build a commercial successful app?The anxiety that Rovio had before Angry Birds 2 about living up to the original – and Eric's team's strategy for launch.Why programmatic is so hard to make work.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/a-brief-history-of-mobile-user-acquisition-with-eric-seuferthead-of-platform-at-n3twork-founder-at-mobiledevmemo/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Today's is a unique episode. I have two amazing guests to offer two different perspectives about a theme that I've always been very very fascinated by - influencer marketing, and the economics of internet fame. Sophia Yeh(aka Sophia Beatbox, or Sophia Kiddbeatz) is a YouTuber and influencer manager. Sophia literally grew up with Youtube. She started making videos in high school, and really took off on the Youtube platform as a teenager making these really cool beatboxing videos. After growing her presence on Youtube for a number of years, she moved over to the business side of influencer marketing - in helping influencers strike deals with brands. Adam Hadi is the VP of Marketing at Current, and is known as one of the foremost experts in the world at influencer marketing, particularly for mobile apps. Adam began his career as an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and made his way into mobile app marketing for The Topps Company, in which capacity he stumbled upon the wild world of influencer marketing. Since then, he's headed up marketing for leading apps such as Draft, Quidd and now Current - and advised a host of other apps on influencer marketing. Between them, Adam & Sophia bring very unique perspectives on influencer marketing - on what it's like to be an influencer, on what it takes to grow an audience as an influencer, on the unique and peculiar challenges of being a creator and a businessperson, on how deals are made on influencer marketing platforms - and so much more.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat inspired Sophia to make Youtube videos in high school - and the first results she saw on her first 4 videos.How Adam stumbled upon influencers while running campaigns for a soccer app.How influencers like MiniMinter & KSI evolved with the Youtube platform and expanded their brand from just FIFA related content to much broader themes.How Adam essentially hunted down his target influencers at the conference PAX East.The most important factor that contributes to an influencer's early growth - and why ignoring this caused Sophia's Youtube to die down for a bit. How this factor impacts Youtube's algorithms.What catalyzes influencers who grow really big - or expand their brand in dramatically different ways?What results Sophia saw when she tested videos that didn't show her beatboxingHow marketers evaluate a new channel for influencers who are present on it. Is there a minimum audience size at which a platform becomes interesting for marketers?Why influencer marketing can be intimidating for performance marketers - since they dont have a lot of raw data to base decisions off of. What Adam recommends doing to make these assessments when there is imperfect data.Why platforms such as Google have had some reluctance to embracing influencer marketingThe Adpocalypse - and how that hit influencers badly, and how Sophia reacted to the hit her channels were taking. Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/the-inner-workings-of-internet-fame-with-sophia-yehcmo-at-most-amazing-adam-hadivp-of-marketing-at-current/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Cameron Adams. Cameron is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva, the graphic design tool website that recently was valued at over $1 billion. In today's interview, we talk to Cameron about his long and checkered career. We talk about his work on Google Wave, which seemed to be a product way ahead of its time - and which gathered some incredible buzz but saw limited adoption. In his next startup Fluent, he seemed to have everything going for him with a huge surge of user interest - in spite of which he had to shut it down. Cameron was third time lucky with Canva, which has a steady start and growth before it really took off in the last couple of years. In today's conversation we talk about Canva's gradual rise and the forces behind it. We go into some of the key product decisions they've made in their pursuit of the mission of making design accessible to everyone.KEY HIGHLIGHTSThe promise of Google Wave to rethink email as it was reimagined for the modern age - and what the problem with this approach was.How the economics of Cameron's next startup Fluent didn't quite work out even though it had 80000 users on its waitlist.What inspired Canva's onboarding process to make the design process seem less intimidating to users.How the proliferation of visual media like Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest helped drive the adoption of Canva.How Canva built up relationships with bloggers & social media marketers to support its launch & post-launch growth.How Canva's growth after its early year 1 growth was a function of its growth marketing strategy that was intentional about bringing users in the door.What Canva learned about why people tended to go with low-quality imagery - and how this insight led Canva to pick the freemium model and to offer much lower prices than alternatives.What Cameron had to learn as he progressed from a creator to a manager of large teams as Canva scaled.What drove Canva's huge wave of growth in 2017 that converted its user growth into tangible revenue growth.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/making-design-accessible-to-the-world-with-cameron-adamsco-founder-cpo-at-canva/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Cat Lee. Cat Lee is the newest partner at Maveron, a $160MM consumer-tech fund, primarily focused on funding hyper-growth startups at the series A and seed rounds. Cat has had a long history of working on some groundbreaking growth projects - and taking huge leaps in her own career. She worked on the Facebook platform team starting in 2008, and helped drive the adoption of Open Graph, which drove some breakout growth for Facebook outside of its own platform. She then joined Pinterest in 2012 as the Head of Growth, and helped drive 3x growth in MAUs for the then fledgling platform - and set it on the path to scale & sustainability. After working on growth & marketing at Pinterest for over 4 years, she transitioned to being the Head of Culture at Pinterest, in which capacity she did some very interesting & tremendously impactful work, before she moved to being a VC at Maveron Partners earlier this year. In this fascinating & wide-ranging conversation, we talk not only about Cat's unconventional career choices but also explore the elements that made Facebook and Pinterest's growth machines as powerful as they were. We talk about the gender diversity problem in venture capital - and how Maveron's approach has yielded dramatic results. Cat has had so many dimensions to her work and career - and all of these make this a fascinating conversation.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat inspired Facebook's Open Graph. How Facebook's teams approached pitching Open Graph to publishers at a point when they didn't have a lot of leverage or clout.What inspired Cat to join Pinterest - and why Pinterest was invite only at first even when it had millions of users. How Pinterest's network effect was driven by content more than social interactions between users.How mobile traffic overtook web traffic in 24 hours of the launch of Pinterest's mobile apps. What inspired Cat to move to a head of culture role, even though this was a role whose success wasn't as objectively measurable as that of growth roles. How Cat assessed the possible impact she could have heading up culture - and how she approached changing the elements of the culture that she felt needed changing.What inspired Cat to move to the VC space - and her very elaborate research & learning process before making the move.Why the % of VC money going to women is so low(at about 2.2%). How the lack of diversity in the VC space impacts this. Why Maveron's leadership team's composition unusual in terms of diversity - and how this has changed their results compared to most VC firms(even though these results weren't something they tracked actively). What inspired Cat to go on a sabbatical after working on two high growth startups - and what her personal goals were during this sabbatical.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/facebook-pinterest-growth-cat-lee-maveron-vc-diversity/ **Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Lomit Patel, VP of Growth at IMVU. Prior to IMVU, Lomit managed growth at many early stage startups including Roku (IPO), TrustedID (acquired by Equifax), Texture (acquired. by Apple) and Earthlink. Lomit is a frequent speaker at different conferences and recognized as a Mobile Hero by Liftoff. In today's episode, we talk about one of the pivotal moments in Lomit's career - when he presented a one word strategic plan to kick off a massive transition within his company IMVU. We go into the circumstances that preceded his one word plan, his thinking behind it - and how he not only rallied his team to execute upon his one word plan, but also drove some massive impact as a result of executing this plan, which resulted in 50% year on year growth after years of flat growth numbers. In this episode, we go very deep in exploring the anatomy of a huge transition that originated in Lomit's one word strategic plan - and I find some of the details in here incredibly fascinating.KEY HIGHLIGHTSThe context in which Lomit joined IMVU - and in which he presented his one word plan. Lomit's team's shock when he presented his one word plan.IMVU had an established desktop product - and there was a lot of skepticism around whether to make the transition that Lomit proposed. What Lomit did to get people comfortable around the transition - and the tradeoffs that the team had to make in picking features.When there is a major change, the impetus has to come from the top.Lomit didnt have a lot of mobile gaming experience. What gave him the confidence that he could execute the transition that he proposed.How it was such a freeing experience to enjoy being a kid in Malawi. As Lomit grew up and went to college, what inspired him to look at internet businesses - and move to America.How IMVU onboards users by having them take a small step - and gradually advance within the from there as they become familiar with it.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/the-one-word-strategic-plan-with-lomit-patelvp-of-growth-at-imvu/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is the Zack Onisko, who is behind some incredible breakout growth stories. Zack was an early team member at Tickle, which is generally considered to have pioneered virality as we know it - and did this at a time before Facebook existed. He then worked with Branchout that mastered growth through virality on the Facebook platform, before he led growth for Creative Market and Hired, solving very unique growth problems. Zack today is the CEO of Dribbble, which has been described as LinkedIn for designers. Zack has thought deeply not only about growing but also doing so sustainably. In this fascinating conversation, we cover not just how Zack grew from being a designer to a growth-professional to CEO, but also about what led to the rise & fall of some hyperviral companies - as also some fascinating insights about how his company Dribbble has embraced a fully remote work culture. So much of what he has done is uniquely creative & interesting - and I'm excited to dive into it all with him.KEY HIGHLIGHTSThe origins of the word ‘virality' in the context of digital growth.How Zack advocated for an autonomous growth team at BranchOut - and how this team's work compounded and resulted in 25 to 30 million users in 30 days.Why Dribbble is a fully remote team. Dribbble's meeting policies that let is maximize productivity.Dribbble's ingenious way to finance a team trip by going into the conference business.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/from-hypervirality-to-sustainable-growth-with-zack-oniskoceo-at-dribbble/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is someone with a very unconventional background. Nick Allardice is the VP of Product & Design at Change.org. Nick started his career as an activist - about as far from the world of tech products as you can imagine. He joined Change.org because it was a tech enabled social platform that could have larger impact than the world of activism that he was in. He led Change.org's internationalization effort - and subsequently the campaigns team before heading up Change.org's product team. In today's very fascinating conversation, we talk about not just what truly drives social change and policy change, but also how growth strategies helped Change.org make a very dramatic transition in its business model. We dive into the mechanics of online activism and how technology & Change.org have fundamentally shifted the way we bring about social change. I'm very excited for this unique and unconventional perspective on growth & social change.KEY HIGHLIGHTSWhat inspired Nick to move from activism to a tech enabled social enterprise. the ambition and scale that comes from being a venture backed social enterprise that makes them more effective than non-profits.How public benefit companies sit at the intersection of for-purpose and for-profit - and how these can unlock exponentially more capital for doing good in the world than currently exists.There are numerous tools available to activists worldwide - protests, events, rallies, calling up politicians, lobbying the press - and more. Why Change.org focuses on petitions.Why Change.org's lead-generation model wasn't sustainable. What they found when they looked at their fundamentals and their competition. What their new revenue model was - and what strategies made a difference to their transition, and what were the key things they did to make sure the team's culture changed.The common characteristics of petitions that take off. Change.org's principle of ‘winning loudly' - and how that is a principle behind magnifying petitions.How Change.org prioritizes countries that are socially important but have low revenue. How Change.org changed its legal structure to handle these things - and how Change.org isn't a revenue maximizing entity even though it's for-profit.What drives policy change? How petitions catalyze a constellation of media & offline coverage that magnifies the impact of the campaign. Why targeting companies is more likely to lead to change than targeting politicians.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/how-to-drive-social-change-at-scale-with-nick-allardice-vp-of-product-design-at-change-org/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Wilson Kriegel - and he's going to tell us the story of a perfect storm that he lived through that in many ways shaped & pioneered the way we think about virality and breakout growth. Wilson is today the CEO at HrtBeat Audio, a wearable hardware and software company that could very well change the way we communicate and capture moments safely using handsfree devices. Wilson has been a leader in many companies in gaming and mobile since far before the first smartphones came on our radar. On today's episode, we will dive into the story of one of the earliest breakout hit games on mobile - OMGPOP's Draw Something, which Wilson was a huge part of. Draw Something was launched when its maker OMGPOP was less than a quarter away from running out of money. They'd let go of people - and were mentally gearing up to close shop when their new game Draw Something came out. Draw Something not only dragged its team back from the brink - but also saw some astronomical numbers and incredible viral growth that changed its team's fortunes literally overnight. Draw Something hit a million downloads 10 days after its launch in 2010, and 50 million downloads in the first 50 days after launch. Just as astonishingly, less than a month after Draw Something's launch, OMGPop was acquired for $210 million. In today's interview, we'll talk to Wilson about the early days of online games and mobile games, and go behind the scenes of the abrupt ascent of Draw Something & the flurry of activity and dealmaking that led to its acquisition less than a month after its launch. We go into incredible detail about what it was like to live inside the perfect storm that Draw Something found itself in the midst of back in 2012 - and this is an incredibly exciting episode that I'm very stoked to bring to you today.  KEY HIGHLIGHTSHow OMGPOP was on the verge of running out of cash when Draw Something's mobile version came along. How OMGPOP's CEO Dan Porter adjusted Draw Something's gameplay to be much less competitive than its earlier versions used to be. The analogy that he used to describe this casual competitiveness.How the OMGPOP team's focus on fundamentals and the foundational work for years was essential in supporting & amplifying Draw Something's growth when it did blow up.Users' having to set up a gamer tag to identify themselves was a friction point in their onboarding process. However, this also resulted in massive virality and discovery when users decided to share these gamer tags to find opponents.OMGPOP had hired bankers hired to salvage what they could of the company as they expected to run out of money. The bankers had to switch gears from thinking about a distress sale to maximizing a sale price - as they engaged potential buyers. The 5-day bidding war that eventually culminated in OMGPOP's acquisition.How a virtuous cycle of growth can also turn against a product whose growth begins to slow down. The lull in the social gaming space at the time that resulted in OMGPOP and Zynga bearing the brunt of the slowdown - even though Draw Something continued to show strong engagement & financials. How this lull culminated in the OMGPOP office being shut down. How this rise and fall is often a natural cycle in business and technology that affects many well-known companies.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/draw-something-zynga-50-million-wilson-kriegel-picsart/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

My guest today is Sean Ellis. Sean is widely regarded as the Godfather of Growth, and is credited with coining the phrase ‘growth hacking'. Where do I begin talking about him? Sean has held leadership roles with gaming platform Uproar and the remote desktop tool LogMeIn - and pioneered the cross functional approach to growing businesses that has since become known as ‘growth', ‘growth hacking' or ‘growth marketing'. All of that was before he worked on some of his biggest wins - most famously, he helped set up Dropbox's referral program. If you remember back in 2008, if you invited a friend to Dropbox, both you & your friend would get storage space for free from Dropbox. This was nothing short of revolutionary at the time. I remember this not only generating such incredible buzz at the time but also resulting in some breakout growth for Dropbox, laying the foundations for the unicorn that it's become today. Sean also founded Qualaroo, and advised many fast growing companies including Eventbrite & Lookout - and helped them grow faster. Today he runs GrowthHackers.com, a community focused around growth that organically resulted in a growth-focused SaaS product called NorthStar. Sean has also co-authored the books Growth Engines and Hacking Growth, which are considered definitive resources on growth.  In so many ways, Sean pioneered ideas about growth that were way ahead of their time - and he did this consistently over time. We'll talk about so many of these wins, and about the culture of growth & experimentation that he's both championed & helped drive the adoption of.  KEY HIGHLIGHTSSean was a salesperson early on in his career. The circumstances at his company Uproar that led him to shift his focus from selling to building the customer base via an approach that would subsequently become known as ‘growth' or ‘growth hacking'.What gave Sean the confidence that Dropbox was something special, even though it wasn't clear at the time that cloud storage could be a big market, and even though it looked like big competitors like Google & Microsoft could enter the market any time. What made Sean confident that referrals could be a strong growth engine for Dropbox(even though he'd been actually afraid to set up referrals at his previous company LogMeIn).What inspired the coining of the phrase ‘growth hacker' - a juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated words. How Sean feels about the way the phrase is used today - and why he has no regrets even though some people employ the phrase in ways it wasn't intended to be used.How GrowthHackers.com originated as a passion project that organically grew into a SaaS product.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/the-original-growth-hacker-and-inside-dropboxs-blockbuster-referral-loop-with-sean-ellis-from-growthhackers-com/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

The second season of How Things Grow will become available next Monday - and will include transcripts as well. As you may know, How Things Grow tells the stories of the people who help companies, technologies and economic systems take off.  Each episode features an interview with one of the leading growth practitioners, entrepreneurs, experts or historians in the world today.     In our first episode of season 2, we'll dive into the origin story of one of the original referral sensations. I interview Sean Ellis, the CEO of GrowthHackers.com - the man behind many many incredible growth stories - the best known of which is perhaps Dropbox's pioneering referral system that drove some unprecedented growth in a space that was very very nascent at the time. Sean's other big claim to fame is that he coined the phrase ‘growth hacking'. There are so many amazing stories that Sean has to share - and I'm excited to bring those to you! In our subsequent episodes, we cover topics as diverse as applying growth principles to a social enterprise. We look at the early days of a now massive online community. We'll look at the story of an app company that was about to go bankrupt that launched a new app that hit 50 million installs in its first 50 days. You'll never guess what happened next - as I might say if I had to write a clickbait headline. All these - and so many other stories are coming up in the new season of How Things Grow. If you get any joy and pleasure from these episodes, please subscribe to How Things Grow on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast - or wherever else you get your podcast fix. Please also consider leaving a review, for this is very much a labor of love. I hope you enjoy listening to the show as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. I look forward to presenting to you the first episode of the coming season of How Things Grow next Monday!  **Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Thank you so much for listening to How Things Grow! I've been truly humbled by the feedback and response that you guys have shared about the show and the episodes thus far.   The last 9 episodes have not only been a blast, but they've also been incredibly instructive learning experiences for me.    How Things Grow will take a short break, simply because each episode takes many many weeks to prepare and make.    I've already started working on the next season of episodes - and I have some amazing interviewees lined up. I'm truly excited to bring these new episodes to you very very soon.   I hope to see you guys around soon.**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

In this episode, we talk about the phenomenon of co-living, and how it's changing urban housing and community. We go behind the scenes of the tremendous growth of the co-living company Common. My guest today is Brad Hargreaves, the CEO and founder of Common and co-founder of General Assembly. Brad was separately recommended by two of the guests on How Things Grow - Jay Weintraub and Adam Lovallo. The more I researched Brad, the more fascinated I was by everything he's done in a wild variety of industries. Brad is perhaps among the very few people I've spoken to who've grown digital businesses as well as non-digital ones - and this is why I was keen on having him on the show. I certainly learnt a ton from his unique outlook on business & life. We talk about Brad's early beginnings in gaming to his experiences running a furniture business to challenges growing General Assembly to his current business that is changing the housing and rental industry. I'm particularly fascinated by Brad's thinking around Common, Brad's co-living business that recently raised a $40 million round of funding. We dive into how he thinks about growing a business that's firmly rooted in the offline world. I particularly love how he thinks about the 'real' world and the digital space as seamless experiences that influence each other - and how this worldview has indeed helped Common and co-living grow dramatically.  This episode gives you a peek into an emerging yet dramatically growing real world phenomenon - and I'm excited to bring this to you today.  Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/co-living-urban-housing-brad-hargreaves-common-general-assembly/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

This episode is the second part of a two part story - and it features the story of New York City - and how it went from a wilderness island in 1600 to the metropolis that we know it as today. If you havent yet listened to part 1, you can check out the interview I did with historian Russell Shorto on HowThingsGrow.co/episodes My guest today is Sam Roberts. Sam is a journalist who has written for the New York Times since 1983 - and is the host of the NY1 show The New York Times Close Up. Sam is considered one of the foremost authorities on the history of New York City. He is the author of four books - including ‘Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America' and ‘A History of New York in 101 Objects.' Sam was kind enough to host me in the fabled offices of the New York Times for this interview. In the last episode, we talked about New York's transformation from a wilderness to the trading town of New Amsterdam under the Dutch to the town of New York under the British. This episode picks up from where the last one left off - and talks about the city's history under the British and afterwards. We talk about the devastation New York experienced during the American revolution - and the big engineering project of the early 19th century that led New York to not only overtake Philadelphia, which was the leading city in America at the time, but also become a contender for one of the world's leading cities. We talk about how transportation and immigration fueled some dramatic growth for this city. We talk about New York's transformation from a trading city to an industrial manufacturing city - and then into a financial center and metropolis that it is today. Sam gives some remarkable insights into what drove these tremendous changes - and he manages to distill the key turning points from over 200 years of history in a 30 minute conversation.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/taking-over-world-a-metropolis-emergespart-1-2-the-new-york-story-with-sam-roberts-new-york-times/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Today's episode is a special one. Past episodes of How Things Grow have told the stories of how technologies and companies have taken off. Today's episode tells the improbable story of the rise of a physical ecosystem. This episode is the first of a two part story. This episode features the story of New York City - and how it went from a wilderness island in 1600 to the burgeoning trading town of New Amsterdam that was renamed New York. In our next episode, we'll talk about New York's story from the British rule in the 17th century to today. Before I moved from Bangalore, India to New York City for the first time, I knew nothing about this metropolis. As I Googled and poked around online about the city and its origins from a faraway land, one book kept showing up time and again. This book was ‘The island at the center of the world' - and the author Russell Shorto, is my guest for today. Russell is an author, historian and journalist. The NYT Books Review has said: “Masterly…. A new foundation myth….. Shorto writes at all times with passion, verve, nuance and considerable humor.” He's written six books. His most recent book ‘Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom' was released in 2017. This is the first of a two part series that covers the time period from before Manhattan's prehistory to its annexation by the British in 1664, the point when its name changed from New Amsterdam to New York. We talk about Henry Hudson's attempts to reach Japan through the center of North America. We talk about why the Dutch colonized this wilderness island to expand their trading empire, and how the Dutch West India Company's corporate failures led to the explosion of trade in New York City. We'll go into how power, money and geography prompted the British to capture the city from the Dutch. We'll conclude this episode in the late 18th century at the point of time when the British took over the city and changed its name from New Amsterdam to New York. We'll pick up New York's story from the British rule to the present day in next week's episode.  Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/from-a-wilderness-a-metropolis-emergespart-1-2-the-new-york-story-with-russell-shorto/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

In this episode, we talk about how technology & gamification have dramatically eased the process of language learning. We go behind the scenes of the meteoric growth of the language learning app Duolingo. My guest today is Gina Gotthilf, the VP of Growth at Duolingo.Duolingo has had a dramatic growth trajectory over the last few years. It's gone from 3 million installs to 200 million installs, doing very little paid marketing or advertising. Gina and her team drove much of this growth. Gina is, without doubt, one of the most engaging and smart people I've known. I recently introduced a friend to Gina. Immediately after my friend met Gina for coffee, my friend wrote me an email with the subject line ‘Gina is awesome.' In this episode, Gina talks about how she began her career as a philosophy major with almost no background in the hard sciences. We talk about Gina's very unconventional strategies for growing Tumblr and then Duolingo - by leveraging press and media coverage. We go into how she transitioned from working on PR and media outreach to working on the product and experimentation - and how she and her team engineered Duolingo so as to make language learning easy. This is not only an incredibly instructive episode, but also a very fun one that I'm excited to bring to you today.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/language-learning-growth-gamification-gina-gotthilf-duolingo-tumblr/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

In this episode of How Things Grow, we revisit the early days or ridesharing - and look at how bikesharing is beginning to evolve. My guest today is my good friend Dan Riaz. Dan's had a checkered career and an interesting life. Dan managed mobile acquisition at Zynga just when Zynga started to shift its business from web to mobile. He then joined Lyft when they were in just 4 cities to head up their mobile user acquisition. At Lyft, he saw from close up the ascension of the ridesharing industry - and its emergence as the widespread mass market phenomenon it is today. Subsequently, while he was at 500 startups, he worked with Grab Taxi in South East Asia, and catalysed the growth of ridesharing in South East Asia. Afterward, he worked with the bikesharing company Limebike, where he helped drive the early adoption of bikesharing.   Dan has been close to the action from the early days of ridesharing and bikesharing. He brings some amazing stories from the time ridesharing was practically at risk of being shut down by the law - to its rapid growth to being an integral part of our lives today. Dan brings a rare level of insight into the very many non-obvious forces that drive the economics of transportation that moves our world today. I'm very excited to bring to you this amazing interview with Dan!Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/early-days-ridesharing-dan-riazscaleup-labs-500-startups-ex-lyft-ex-zynga/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

    Welcome to this week's episode of How Things Grow! In this episode we explore the business of conferences, and of bringing people together. My guest today is Jay Weintraub, who is a true master of the art of the conference. Jay is a man who has started and grown 5 conferences in wildly different industries - mobile apps, call marketing, HR, lead generation and insurance. His conferences are such well-oiled machines and attended by thousands of people - and I've always wanted to sit down with him to ask him about what makes conference-businesses tick. Irrespective of whether you've attended conferences yourself - or merely passed by a trade show or a convention center and wondered why these halls seem packed to the gills, you'll learn what goes on behind the scenes in a business that is structured around bringing people together. More importantly, Jay will talk about his own journey from being a first-time conference organizer to his second act to where he is now, organizing 5 conferences a year. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Jay is also an angel investor with over 30 investments and 5 exits. Jay is indeed a man of many parts - and one big reason I brought him on was simply to showcase the clarity of his thinking and his inner monologue during some of his biggest inflection points.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/art-conference-jay-weintraubgrow-co-mobile-apps-unlocked-contact-io-insuretech-connect-feathr-hrtech-connect/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Welcome to this week's episode of How Things Grow! In this episode we dive into the mechanics of ‘invite a friend' flows - or referral marketing, testing ideas quickly and much much more. My guest today is the amazing Dominic 'DistroDom' Coryell. Dom founded his first company GarmentValet while he was still in college. He then founded the Talkable, which is one of the leading referral marketing companies in the world. He then became a partner at 500 startups, in which capacity he advised hundreds of startups on their growth. In his most recent role, he works as the VP Growth for the global shopping platform Grabr. Every time I meet him, he's working on multiple new ideas and projects. In today's episode, we talk about so much. We dive into how Dom recommends testing ideas quickly with minimal engineering effort. Dom gives some great examples, including one where he nonchalantly started a food delivery business over a weekend. We talk extensively about referral marketing - the ‘invite a friend' offers that you see all over the internet and on your phones. We explore why the ‘invite-a-friend' offers work, and how some of the smartest companies in the world structure their invite-a-friend referral programs so as to make a dramatic difference in their businesses. This is very much a masterclass on referrals - or invite-a-friend flows, which can often be innocuous yet very powerful parts of most digital businesses today.Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/invite-a-friend-flows-referral-marketing-dominic-distrodom-coryell/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

Welcome to this week's episode of How Things Grow! In this episode we dive into the nuances of how products go viral, about how companies and cultures are built for the long term - and much much more. My guest today is the amazing and wise Selina Tobaccowala, one of the most respected leaders in the Silicon Valley. She's had an uncanny knack of reinventing herself, starting over and succeeding time and again. Selina co-founded Evite right after she graduated from Stanford, which was acquired by IAC. She then worked as the SVP of Product & Technology at Ticketmaster Europe. In her next role she joined SurveyMonkey as President & CTO when it was a 20 person team - and helped grow its revenues over 10x in the next 5 years. She is now a co-founder at her most recent venture Gixo. In today's episode, we talk about it was like during the first internet boom when Selina started her first business Evite. We dive into the nuances of virality and freemium models. We also talk quite a bit about Dave Goldberg, the former CEO of SurveyMonkey who was a mentor to Selina. We go into health, the psychology of fitness - and how Selina's new startup Gixo leverages both consumer psychology and technology to help people get fit.  This is a wide-ranging, in-depth conversation that I'm excited to bring to you this week!Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/surveys-invites-surveymonkey-evite-selina-tobaccowala-gixo/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

  It's finally here! After months of procrastination and fantasizing - and many more months of eventual research, reachouts, edits and agonizing.... the first episode of the How Things Grow podcast is here! My guest today is a man whom I've admired for a long time. Adam Lovallo runs some of the best-attended conferences in the mobile apps space.But before Adam started his first conference, he cut his teeth in the whirlwind that was the daily deals space. He worked at LivingSocial, where he came in as an intern - and grew to be the Head of User Acquisition & Growth, managing 9 figure budgets and a team of 15 people. He saw the company grow from 4 people to 5000 people. He saw from close up the meteoric rise, slowdown, crash and steady-state settling of the daily deals space. We dive into so many things - including, surprisingly, the hyper-viral growth of early Facebook apps. Keep listening to find out why we go there. :).Check out the full transcript and show notes here:https://howthingsgrow.co/1-rise-decline-settling-daily-deals-adam-lovallo-grow-co-ex-livingsocial/**Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog

How Things Grow tells the stories of the people who help companies, technologies and economic systems take off.  Each episode features an interview with one of the leading growth practitioners, entrepreneurs, experts or historians in the world today.   How Things Grow is presented by Shamanth Rao, mobile growth leader and writer. Shamanth is the VP of Growth at FreshPlanet, and led or managed growth leading up to two acquisitions in the past. He also was the travel editor of Mint Lounge(formerly partner newspaper of Wall Street Journal in India) - and has produced many acclaimed feature-length pieces as a writer.  **Get more goodies here:http://MobileUserAcquisitionShow.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.comhttp://RocketShipHQ.com/blog