Podcast appearances and mentions of matt lerner

Today, we're sharing a special episode from our friends at the Webby Awards-honored CRAFTED. podcast. In this conversation, Dan Blumberg interviews growth expert, SYSTM founder, and former PayPal leader Matt Lerner about his book 'Growth Levers,' offering actionable strategies for startups to identify the 10% of efforts that drive 90% of growth. They discuss common startup pitfalls, the mindset shift to customer-centric thinking, JTBD-style interviewing, and the importance of rapid experimentation. For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/af10e152-f30a-403e-805f-d234eb40109a — Check out Dan Blumberg's CRAFTED. where he interviews founders of high growth startups, including from Lattice, Gusto, Moov, Monte Carlo, Customer.io and our own Sasha Orloff! Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crafted-the-tech-podcast-for-founders-makers/id1649355311 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xtU2V1jRP89aI1ULRN2GI?si=b5753bd5be14494c — SPONSOR:

Think you need to create a whole new category to win? Think again. In this episode of the SaaSiest Podcast we had a chat with Matt Lerner, the founder & CEO of SYSTM and a seasoned tech and venture capital expert, who reveals why focusing on growth levers beats the allure of creating new categories. Matt dives into his personal productivity hacks, from his morning routine to daily goal setting, and shares how his time at PayPal shaped his growth philosophy. He stresses the power of experimentation in finding a scalable go-to-market strategy and the critical role of understanding your customers' needs, not just building for the sake of it. Here are a few key takeaways from the episode: Why morning routines can turbocharge productivity. How startups can avoid the trap of unnecessary category creation. The Jobs to Be Done methodology for uncovering what your customers really want. The magic of strategic messaging transformations that boost conversion rates. Insights on managing investor expectations and staying laser-focused on growth. Whether you're a founder or part of a scaling startup, Matt's no-nonsense approach will leave you inspired to prioritize your customers and experiment your way to success. Don't miss this one!

Matt Lerner is the Founder and CEO at SYSTM, a startup coaching consultancy that helps high-potential companies grow their business. Matt also authored the book “Growth Levers”, which shares his framework that's helped over 200 seed-stage startups grow as much as 100x. Previously, Matt was on the early growth team at PayPal, a partner at 500 Startups, and a guest lecturer at Stanford Business School. - In today's episode, we discuss: Understanding the key drivers of startup success Applying the Growth Lever framework Several case studies Customer-centric growth tactics Adapting growth levers for different business models - Referenced: Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/ Bold Commerce: https://boldcommerce.com/ Calm: https://www.calm.com/ Caribou: https://www.usecaribou.com/ eBay: https://www.ebay.com/ FATMAP: https://fatmap.com/ Growth Levers and How to Find Them: https://www.systm.co/growth-levers-matt-lerner-book PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ Peter Karpas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkarpas/ Popsa: https://popsa.com/ Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/ Sonic Jobs: https://www.sonicjobs.com/ SYSTM: https://www.systm.co/ - Where to find Matt Lerner: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewlerner/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/matthlerner - Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson - Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast - Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:11) The hidden truth about startup success (05:10) Popsa's journey: A case study in growth (07:31) Breaking down the growth lever framework (11:30) Understanding the customer's journey (14:14) The art of customer interviews (18:07) Unlocking growth through customer insights (24:23) The triple threat: Founder failure modes (27:32) The power of founder-led growth strategies (32:42) Unlocking growth bottlenecks (36:40) Timing and implementation of growth strategies (39:43) Founder red flags (41:32) Crafting effective growth experiments (43:14) Why customer mindset is the ultimate growth driver (46:19) The power law of business (48:59) Why startups don't need paid marketing (50:47) Growth levers for sales-driven companies (53:43) Matt's own application of growth principles (55:39) Growth levers in B2B sales (57:05) Finding customer "locksmith moments" (64:08) The mentor who shaped Matt's thinking

Matt Lerner is one of the OGs of growth having spent 11 years leading growth teams at PayPal. Post PayPal, Matt led the growth marketing program at 500 Startups. He is also the bestselling author of Growth Levers and How to Find Them. Today, Matt is the Co-Founder and CEO of SYSTM, an accelerator program helping startups find their growth drivers.  In Today's Episode with Matt Lerner We Discuss: From Philosophy Student to PayPal Growth Leader: How did Matt make his way into the world of growth? What were Matt's biggest lessons from 11 years at PayPal? What did Matt know now that he wished he'd known when he entered the world of growth? How to Master Growth in a World of AI: What is growth to Matt? What is it not? Why does Matt think growth is more science than art? Does Matt Agee with Adam Gross @ Vimeo that paid acquisition below $100M ARR isn't PLG? How does Matt think AI will change the world of growth today? What does Matt think are the most common growth mistakes founders make? Optimizing Growth Channels: Dos & Don'ts Why does Matt believe there are only six types of growth channels? What is the “locksmith moment" & how do startups find channels that work for them? How does Matt pick a Northstar metric?  What are the most common mistakes founders make when picking North Star metrics? When is the right time to change them? How does Matt approach horizontal product messaging? What works? What doesn't work? How to Hire & Manage Growth Teams What does Matt look for in the first head of growth hire? What questions does Matt ask when interviewing? What were Matt's biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn? Why does Matt think the best growth hires have no marketing experience? What are Matt's two steps to master onboarding? What are the 3 most common patterns in leaders according to Matt?  

“So if you take any great startup and look backwards, you'll see that 90 percent of their growth came from like 10 percent of the stuff that they tried. So how do you find that 10 percent as quickly as possible?”Matt Lerner has advised hundreds of startups on how to grow. Now, the CEO of SYSTM has written a book called Growth Levers and How to Find Them where he shares his approach. This episode of CRAFTED. is full of actionable advice on how you can grow your products and companies. Matt will tell us about the mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their products to thinking about their customers needs. We'll talk about jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) style interviewing and why it's such a powerful approach, but also why at first Matt was put off by some of the overly academic language that often goes with jobs. And we'll talk about how you can get new customers to that aha moment as quickly as possible, so they stick with your product. Plus, lots of real talk about founders and the mistakes they make. Welcome to CRAFTED., a show about great products and the people who make them. CRAFTED. brings you stories of founders, makers, and innovators that reveal how they've built game changing products and how you can too.—Key Moments:[0:00] Intro[2:20] 90 percent of growth comes 10 percent of the stuff you try[3:53] Over-thinkers, under-thinkers, and delegators: the 3 types of founders and the mistakes they make[7:40] Why the pace of learning is so important[9:51] Great examples of companies that learn quickly[10:52] The “locksmith moment” and why you need to find yours[12:45] Jobs-to-be-Done style interviewing and why it's so effective[14:07] How to do a JTBD interview[16:05] The mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their product to thinking about the customers' needs – and why it's so hard for them to do so[21:24] Growth Sprints and how to set them up for success[25:07] Retention and customer activation: still (!) overlooked by most and why it's so critical[29:00] Matt writes a blog post on the spot about how working at an oil refinery taught him about startups[31:36] Writing a book is not an agile process! And the fantastic reception for Growth Levers—CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where host Dan Blumberg also advises companies on product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more and sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter at modernproductminds.com —CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai—More on Matt Lerner:His company: SYSTMThe book: Growth Levers and How to Find Them

Growth. The one thing every brand wants. The one thing most brands get wrong. For this episode of the podcast, Paul sits down in conversation with Matt Lerner (Growth Specialist and Founder @ SYSTM) to uncover the secret sauce to massive brand growth.  With a unique approach rooted in deep customer insights, fast iteration, and quantitative analysis, Matt shares tactical advice for driving true brand success through growth marketing. Delve into this dynamic world as Matt discusses: Uncovering Growth Levers: Matt shares insightful stories and strategies, including finding PayPal's growth levers, and emphasizes the importance of understanding your business – inside and out – to find your own. Matt's ‘Growth Model': Explore Matt's Growth Model, which focuses on finding and unblocking bottlenecks to surprise and delight customers, turning them into Advocates.  Agile Marketing: Explore Matt's approach to in-the-moment marketing plans, and gain valuable strategies for fast iteration and continuous improvement. Collaborative Leadership: Discover the importance of this in driving organizational success, and learn how to empower your team to achieve remarkable results. Listen to gain insights into top-tier growth, marketing, and Advocacy strategies. Use them to help your brand grow.  Rate & review Building Brand Advocacy: Apple Podcasts Spotify Connect with Matt: Matt's LinkedIn SYSTM's Website

Andrew Allison is the CEO of Libation Labs, a company focusing on user acquisition within the wine industry through their app called Cuvée. His background is a blend of wine heritage and a robust startup and digital advertising career.    In this episode, we discuss: Using performance marketing to help wineries acquire customers through the Cuvée app Purchasing and optimizing a hot air balloon company as a strategic move to acquire high-quality consumers  Businesses need to remain focused on the fundamentals of customer onboarding Successful fundraising hinges on presenting investors with a clear narrative and a believable, scalable business model The importance of customer interviews, especially focusing on reasons behind a customer's choices rather than product features Chapters: (0:00:05) Introduction to the podcast and guest Andrew Allison (0:00:48) Andrew's background and experience (0:01:18) Explanation of W set, too and its significance in the wine industry (0:02:54) Discussion about bar-hopping app and its acquisition by Young's (0:04:15) Andrew Allison's experience at Vungle and the growth of the company (0:06:05) Lessons for scaling a B2B company and the importance of focusing on the end user (0:08:56) Andrew Allison's role in M&A scouting for Deca Games (0:10:43) Introduction to Libation Labs and its purpose in the market (0:11:37) Overview of Libation Labs and its future goals (0:11:37) Introduction to Libation Labs and Cuvée app (0:12:39) Business model and user acquisition for wineries (0:14:05) Challenges in the wine industry and need for Libation Labs (0:15:44) Fragmented nature of wine tours and need for itinerary planning (0:18:10) Buying a hot air balloon business to acquire customers (0:19:18) Thinking outside the box for customer acquisition (0:20:36) Benefits of acquiring a hot air balloon business (0:21:53) Using the hot air balloon business to drive users to the app (0:22:32) Results and success of the hot air balloon acquisition (0:23:14) Similar audience between hot air balloon riders and wine tasters (0:23:41) The potential for expanding a hot air balloon ride business into other experiences (0:24:54) Importance of pre-qualifying consumers in a post iOS 14 environment (0:26:09) The need to focus on intuitive fundamentals of online and offline on-ramping (0:27:25) Marketers should consider the consumer's story and narrative (0:28:58) The importance of talking to customers and understanding their motivations (0:29:37) Recommendation for the book "Growth Levers" by Matt Lerner (0:31:55) The importance of conducting customer interviews properly (0:32:59) Avoiding feature-focused discussions in growth marketing (0:33:47) The importance of a clear narrative and belief in the founders when securing funding (0:35:16) Tailoring fundraising approach to the individual investor (0:36:05) Andrew Allison's ambitions for Libation Labs (0:36:36) Fundraising is a full-time job (0:37:45) Conclusion and thanks for tuning in. Read the transcript

Is there anything harder in business than growing your company? Probably not and that's why we're speaking to one of the best in the growth game - Matt Lerner. He explains how to find the 10% of things that will actually grow your startup, how to hire growth people, how to prioritise growth experiments (it's not the usual way) and lots of other things that can change your company's future. -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Personio - all in one HR platform: https://personio.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/. You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes.

In this episode, the hosts discuss how to effectively use LinkedIn for business growth. They highlight the challenges faced by many users, such as not using LinkedIn to its full potential and not posting regularly. The conversation is divided into several chapters, covering topics such as establishing consistency and thought leadership, creating engaging content, hacks and tips for success, going viral on LinkedIn, and converting the LinkedIn audience into leads. The hosts also provide examples of successful LinkedIn strategies used by Jason Lemkin, Matt Lerner, and Alan Frei. Takeaways: Consistency is key on LinkedIn. Posting at least once a week and being active on the platform helps establish thought leadership and reach the target audience. Creating engaging content is crucial. Posts should address the audience's problems, share stories, and provide valuable insights. Hacks and tips for success on LinkedIn include using personal profiles instead of company pages, starting posts with an attention-grabbing teaser, and engaging with other posts before publishing your own. Going viral on LinkedIn requires a mix of personal and work-related stories, great copywriting, and riding the wave of trending posts. Converting the LinkedIn audience into leads can be done by being proactive in reaching out to those who engage with your posts and starting conversations. Examples of successful LinkedIn strategies include content repurposing, leveraging newsletters and LinkedIn posts, and using engaging and storytelling approaches. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: The Challenges of Using LinkedIn for Business Growth 03:08 Chapter 1: Establishing Consistency and Thought Leadership on LinkedIn 06:32 Chapter 2: Creating Engaging Content on LinkedIn 13:31 Chapter 3: Hacks and Tips for LinkedIn Success 19:16 Chapter 4: Going Viral on LinkedIn 21:27 Chapter 5: Converting LinkedIn Audience into Leads 23:27 Example 1: Jason Lemkin's Content Repurposing Strategy 24:21 Example 2: Matt Lerner's Newsletter and LinkedIn Posts 25:09 Example 3: Alan Frey's Engaging and Storytelling Approach 26:07 Conclusion --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/b2b-marketing-automators/message

Matt Lerner is the CEO of a consulting business named SYSTM, which helps early-stage startups grow. In this episode, we explore how fast-paced environments like startups can find the right talent and what pitfalls to avoid. Max Armbruster, the host of the Recruitment Hackers podcast, interviews Matt Lerner. Matt previously supported Max and his company Talkpush through an investment with 500 startups. Matt has since transitioned to be the CEO of a consulting business named SYSTM, which helps early-stage startups grow. Matt's recent activity on LinkedIn has centered around recruiting for fast-paced environments and startups.In their discussion, Max is keen to explore how startups can find the right talent and what pitfalls to avoid. One particular focus is on "defensive candidates." Matt emphasizes that defensiveness in a startup environment can be detrimental. He mentions that he has seen teams become unproductive due to individuals who are not open to feedback or reconsidering their strategies.Matt also speaks about the difference between hiring from big-name brands versus hiring based on skillsets and fit for the startup environment. He advises caution when hiring based solely on the prestige of a company listed on a candidate's resume. Matt believes that while individuals might excel in a corporate environment, they may not necessarily thrive or bring value in a startup setting.Toward the end, Matt shares his favorite interview question which centers around understanding a candidate's mindset, openness to feedback, and willingness to admit and learn from mistakes.

Success is all about mindset, and in this episode, we're joined by Matt Lerner, an expert in growth mindset and startup growth strategies, as we explore how adopting a growth mindset can transform your life and business.Discover how Matt's unique approach to business and life revolves around making predictions, running experiments, and embracing your weaknesses to fuel personal and professional growth.From his experience at PayPal where he offers valuable insights into the world of e-commerce, finance, and customer behaviour to being a founder of a consultancy focused on fixing business growth problems, Matt has a proven track record of helping companies identify and overcome challenges in scaling their operations.Join us as we explore how to predict your path to success, experiment fearlessly, and overcome fixed mindsets. Matt's insights will inspire you to tackle challenges head-on, learn from failures, and ultimately achieve your goals.- - -Sponsor - AcornsThe Growth Mindset podcast is sponsored by Acorns. Invest spare change, invest while you bank, earn bonus investments, grow your knowledge and more.Get a $5 bonus when you start saving & investing with Acornshttps://www.acorns.com/growth/- - -On the growth mindset podcast with Sam Webster Harris, we explore the psychology of happiness, satisfaction, purpose, and growth through the lens of self-improvement. Success and happiness is a state of mind unique to ourselves and is our responsibility to create.Through a process of honest self-reflection of what is holding us back and what is driving us forward, we can lose the ego and build awareness of how to be the best we can be.- - -Connect with Sam Webster Harris

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Discounts in cost-effectiveness analyses [Founders Pledge], published by Rosie Bettle on August 16, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Replicability and Generalisability This report aims to provide guidelines for producing discounts within cost-effectiveness analyses; how to take an effect size from an RCT and apply discounts to best predict the real-world effect of an intervention. The goal is to have guidelines that produce accurate estimates, and are practical for researchers to use. These guidelines are likely to be updated further, and I especially invite suggestions and criticism for the purpose of further improvement. A google docs version of this report is available here. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Matt Lerner, Filip Murár, David Reinstein and James Snowden for helpful comments on this report. I would also like to thank the rest of the FP research team for helpful comments during a presentation on this report. Summary This document provides guidelines for estimating the discounts that we (Founders Pledge) apply to RCTs in our cost-effectiveness analyses for global health and development charities. To skip directly to these guidelines, go to the 'Guidance for researchers' sections (here, here and here; separated by each type of discount). I think that we should separate out discounts into internal reliability and external validity adjustments, because these components have different causes (see Fig 1.) For internal reliability (degree to which the study accurately assesses the intervention in the specific context of the study- aka if an exact replication of the study was carried out, would we see the same effect?); All RCTs will need a Type M adjustment; an adjustment that corrects for potential inflation of effect size (Type M error). The RCTs that are likely to have the most inflated effect sizes are those that are low powered (where the statistical test used has only a small chance of successfully detecting an effect, see more info here), especially if they are providing some of the first evidence for the effect. Factors to account for include publication bias, researcher bias (e.g. motivated reasoning to find an exciting result; running a variety of statistical tests and only reporting the ones that reach statistical significance would be an example of this), and methodological errors (e.g. inadequate randomisation of test trial subjects). See here for guidelines, and here to assess power. Many RCTs are likely to need a 50-60% Type M discount, but there is a lot of variation here; table 1 can help to sense-check Type M adjustments. A small number (

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Are education interventions as cost effective as the top health interventions? Five separate lines of evidence for the income effects of better education [Founders Pledge], published by Vadim Albinsky on July 13, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I would like to thank Lant Pritchett, David Roodman and Matt Lerner for their invaluable comments. You can follow these links to comments from Lant Pritchett and David Roodman. This post argues that if we look at a broad enough evidence base for the long term outcomes of education interventions we can conclude that the best ones are as cost effective as top GiveWell grants. I briefly present one such charity. A number of EA forum posts (1, 2) have pointed out that effective altruism has not been interested in education interventions, whether that is measured by funding from GiveWell or Open Philanthropy, or writing by 80,000 hours. Based on brief conversations with people who have explored education at EA organizations and reading GiveWell's report on the topic, I believe most of the reason for this comes down to two concerns about the existing evidence that drive very steep discounts to expected income effects of most interventions. The first of these is skepticism about the potential for years of schooling to drive income gains because the quasi-experimental evidence for these effects is not very robust. The second is the lack of RCT evidence linking specific interventions in low and middle income countries (LMICs) to income gains. I believe the first concern can be addressed by focusing on the evidence for the income gains from interventions that boost student achievement rather than the weaker evidence around interventions that increase years of schooling. The second concern can be addressed in the same way that GiveWell has addressed less-than-ideal evidence for income effects for their other interventions: looking broadly for evidence across the academic literature, and then applying a discount to the expected result based on the strength of the evidence. In this case that means including relevant studies outside of the LMIC context and those that examine country-level effects. I identify five separate lines of evidence that all find similar long-term income impacts of education interventions that boost test scores. None of these lines of evidence is strong on its own, with some suffering from weak evidence for causality, others from contexts different from those where the most cost-effective charities operate, and yet others from small sample sizes or the possibility of negative effects on non-program participants. However, by converging on similar estimates from a broader range of evidence than EA organizations have considered, the evidence becomes compelling. I will argue that the combined evidence for the income impacts of interventions that boost test scores is much stronger than the evidence GiveWell has used to value the income effects of fighting malaria, deworming, or making vaccines, vitamin A, and iodine more available. Even after applying very conservative discounts to expected effect sizes to account for the applicability of the evidence to potential funding opportunities, we find the best education interventions to be in the same range of cost-effectiveness as GiveWell's top charities.The argument proceeds as follows: I. There are five separate lines of academic literature all pointing to income gains that are surprisingly clustered around the average value of 19% per standard deviation (SD) increase in test scores. They come to these estimates using widely varying levels of analysis and techniques, and between them address all of the major alternative explanations. A. The most direct evidence for the likely impact of charities that boost learning comes from experimental and quasi-experimental studies...

I would like to thank Lant Pritchett, David Roodman and Matt Lerner for their invaluable comments.You can follow these links to comments from Lant Pritchett and David Roodman.A number of EA forum posts (1, 2) have pointed out that effective altruism has not been interested in education interventions, whether that is measured by funding from GiveWell or Open Philanthropy, or writing by 80,000 hours. Based on brief conversations with people who have explored education at EA organizations and reading GiveWell's report on the topic, I believe most of the reason for this comes down to two concerns about the existing evidence that drive very steep discounts to expected income effects of most interventions. The first of these is skepticism about the potential for years of schooling to drive income gains because the quasi-experimental evidence for these effects is not very robust. The second is the lack of RCT evidence linking specific interventions in low and middle income countries (LMICs) to income gains.I believe the first concern can be addressed by focusing on the evidence for the income gains from interventions that boost student achievement rather than the weaker evidence around interventions that increase years of schooling. The second concern can be addressed in the same way that GiveWell has addressed less-than-ideal evidence for income effects for their other interventions: looking broadly for evidence across the academic literature, and then applying a discount to the expected result based on the strength of the evidence. In this case that means including relevant studies outside of the LMIC context and those that examine country-level effects. I identify five separate lines of evidence that all find similar long-term income impacts of education interventions that boost test scores. None of these lines of evidence is strong on its own, with some suffering from weak evidence for causality, others from contexts different from those where the most cost-effective charities operate, and yet others from small sample sizes or the possibility of negative effects on non-program participants. However, by converging on similar estimates from a broader range of evidence than EA organizations have considered, the evidence becomes compelling. I will argue that the combined evidence for the income impacts of interventions that boost test scores is much stronger than the evidence GiveWell has used to value the income effects of fighting malaria, deworming, or making vaccines, vitamin A, and iodine more available. Even after applying very conservative discounts to expected effect sizes to account for the applicability of the evidence to potential funding opportunities, we find the best education interventions to be in the same range of cost-effectiveness as GiveWell's top charities.The argument proceeds as follows:I. There are five separate lines of academic literature all pointing to income gains that are surprisingly clustered around the average value of 19% per standard deviation (SD) increase in test scores. They come to these estimates using widely varying levels of analysis and techniques, and between them address all of the major alternative explanations.       A. The most direct evidence for the likely impact of charities that [...]The original text contained 17 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.--- First published: July 13th, 2023 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8qXrou57tMGz8cWCL/are-education-interventions-as-cost-effective-as-the-top --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. Share feedback on this narration.

Everywhere you look, vendors are offering insights on audience personas. Using personas offers the promise of finding that target client or approaching customers to meet their individual challenges. On this podcast, Josh and John discuss Matt Lerner's post on persona research at Paypal. Listen in as they discuss the uses or lack thereof for persona […] The post Episode 156 | Persona Marketing appeared first on Marketing Money Podcast.

What is wellbeing and how should we measure it? Representatives (Barry Grimes, Olivia Larsen, Michael Plant, Katrina Sill, Jason Schukraft, Matt Lerner) from a range of organisations (Happier Lives Institute, GiveWell, Innovations for Poverty Action, Open Philanthropy, Founders Pledge) who use different health, wealth, and subjective wellbeing metrics to determine impact, discuss the nature of wellbeing and its measurement.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why I don't agree with HLI's estimate of household spillovers from therapy, published by JamesSnowden on February 24, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Summary In its cost-effectiveness estimate of StrongMinds, Happier Lives Institute (HLI) estimates that most of the benefits accrue not to the women who receive therapy, but to household members. According to HLI's estimates, each household member benefits from the intervention ~50% as much as the person receiving therapy. Because there are ~5 non-recipient household members per treated person, this estimate increases the cost-effectiveness estimate by ~250%. i.e. ~70-80% of the benefits of therapy accrue to household members, rather than the program participant. I don't think the existing evidence justifies HLI's estimate of 50% household spillovers. My main disagreements are: Two of the three RCTs HLI relies on to estimate spillovers are on interventions specifically intended to benefit household members (unlike StrongMinds' program, which targets women and adolescents living with depression). Those RCTs only measure the wellbeing of a subset of household members most likely to benefit from the intervention. The results of the third RCT are inconsistent with HLI's estimate. I'd guess the spillover benefit to other household members is more likely to be in the 5-25% range (though this is speculative). That reduces the estimated cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds from 9x to 3-6x cash transfers, which would be below GiveWell's funding bar of 10x. Caveat in footnote. I think I also disagree with other parts of HLI's analysis (including how worried to be about reporting bias; the costs of StrongMinds' program; and the point on a life satisfaction scale that's morally equivalent to death). I'd guess, though I'm not certain, that more careful consideration of each of these would reduce StrongMinds' cost-effectiveness estimate further relative to other opportunities. But I'm going to focus on spillovers in this post because I think it makes the most difference to the bottom line, represents the clearest issue to me, and has received relatively little attention in other critiques. For context: I wrote the first version of Founders Pledge's mental health report in 2017 and gave feedback on an early draft of HLI's report on household spillovers. I've spent 5-10 hours digging into the question of household spillovers from therapy specifically. I work at Open Philanthropy but wrote this post in a personal capacity. I'm reasonably confident the main critiques in this post are right, but much less confident in what the true magnitude of household spillovers is. I admire the work StrongMinds is doing and I'm grateful to HLI for their expansive literature reviews and analysis on this question. Thank you to Joel McGuire, Akhil Bansal, Isabel Arjmand, Alex Cohen, Sjir Hoeijmakers, Josh Rosenberg, and Matt Lerner for their insightful comments. They don't necessarily endorse the conclusions of this post. 0. How HLI estimates the household spillover rate of therapy HLI estimates household spillovers of therapy on the basis of the three RCTs on therapy which collected data on the subjective wellbeing of some of the household members of program participants: Mutamba et al. (2018), Swartz et al. (2008), Kemp et al. (2009). Combining those RCTs in a meta-analysis, HLI estimates household spillover rates of 53% (see the forest plot below; 53% comes from dividing the average household member effect (0.35) by the average recipient effect (0.66)). HLI assumes StrongMinds' intervention will have a similar effect on household members. But, I don't think these three RCTs can be used to generate a reliable estimate for the spillovers of StrongMinds' program for three reasons. 1. Two of the three RCTs HLI relies on to estimate spillovers are on in...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Philanthropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge], published by christian.r on February 14, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Background and Acknowledgements: This write-up represents part of an ongoing Founders Pledge research project to understand the landscape of nuclear risk and philanthropic support of nuclear risk reduction measures. It is in some respects a work in progress and can be viewed as a Google Document here and on Founders Pledge's website here. With thanks to James Acton, Conor Barnes, Tom Barnes, Patty-Jane Geller, Matthew Gentzel, Matt Lerner, Jeffrey Lewis, Ankit Panda, Andrew Reddie, and Carl Robichaud for reviewing this document and for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. “The Nuclear Equivalent of Mosquito Nets” In philanthropy, the term “impact multipliers” refers to features of the world that make one funding opportunity relatively more effective than another. Stacking these multipliers makes effectiveness a “conjunction of multipliers;” understanding this conjunction can in turn help guide philanthropists seeking to maximize impact under high uncertainty. Not all impact multipliers are created equal, however. To systematically engage in effective giving, philanthropists must understand the largest impact multipliers — “critical multipliers” — those features that most dramatically cleave more effective interventions from less effective interventions. In global health and development, for example, one critical multiplier is simply to focus on the world's poorest people. Because of large inequalities in wealth and the decreasing marginal utility of money, helping people living in extreme poverty rather than people in the Global North is a critical multiplier that winnows the field of possible interventions more than many other possible multipliers. Additional considerations — the prevalence of mosquito-borne illnesses, the low cost and scalability of bednet distribution, and more — ultimately point philanthropists in global health and development to one of the most effective interventions to reduce suffering in the near term: funding the distribution of insecticide-treated bednets. This write-up represents an attempt to identify a defensible critical multiplier in nuclear philanthropy, and potentially to move one step closer to finding “the nuclear equivalent of mosquito nets.” Impact Multipliers in Nuclear Philanthropy There are many potential impact multipliers in nuclear philanthropy. For example, focusing on states with large nuclear arsenals may be more impactful than focusing on nuclear terrorism. Nuclear terrorism would be horrific and a single attack in a city (e.g. with a dirty bomb) could kill thousands of people, injure many more, and cause long-lasting damage to the physical and mental health of millions. All-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia, however, would be many times worse. Hundreds of millions of people would likely die from the direct effects of a war. If we believe nuclear winter modeling, moreover, there may be many more deaths from climate effects and famine. In the worst case, civilization could collapse. Simplifying these effects, suppose for the sake of argument that a nuclear terrorist attack could kill 100,000 people, and an all-out nuclear war could kill 1 billion people. All else equal, in this scenario it would be 10,000 times more effective to focus on preventing all-out war than it is to focus on nuclear terrorism. Generalizing this pattern, philanthropists ought to prioritize the largest nuclear wars (again, all else equal) when thinking about additional resources at the margin. This can be operationalized with real numbers — nuclear arsenal size, military spending, and other measures can serve as proxy variables for the severity of nuclear war, yielding rough multipliers. This w...

On this episode of SaaS Open Mic:Two common pricing mistakes founders makeHow to apply the Jobs to Be Done framework to pricing strategyPricing experiments to test for price sensitivity90% of growth comes from 10% of the activitiesMatt has worked with dozens of startups and scaleups in his time at 500 Startups and Startup Core Strengths. A challenge that every company must face at some point is optimizing pricing or setting a price for a new product or feature. Matt shares his perspective on establishing and optimizing pricing using the Jobs to Be Done framework.  

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catastrophic Risk [Founders Pledge], published by christian.r on January 24, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This post summarizes a Founders Pledge shallow investigation on direct communications links (DCLs or "hotlines") between states as global catastrophic risks interventions. As a shallow investigation, it is a rough attempt at understanding an issue, and is in some respects a work in progress. Summary Crisis-communication links or “hotlines” between states are a subset of crisis management tools intended to help leaders defuse the worst possible crises and to limit or terminate war (especially nuclear war) when it does break out. Despite a clear theory of change, however, there is high uncertainty about their effectiveness and little empirical evidence. The most important dyadic adversarial relationships (e.g., U.S.-China, U.S.-Russia, Pakistan-India, India-China) already have existing hotlines between them, and forming new hotlines is an unlikely candidate for effective philanthropy. Along with high uncertainty about hotline effectiveness in crisis management, the highest stakes application of hotlines (i.e., WMD conflict limitation and termination) remains untested, and dedicated crisis-communications channels may have an important fail-safe role in the event of conflict. War limitation- and termination-enabling hotlines have high expected value even with very low probability of success, because of the distribution of fatalities in WMD-related conflicts. Importantly, it appears that existing hotlines — cobbled together from legacy Cold-War systems and modern technology — are not resilient to the very conflicts they are supposed to control, and may fail in the event of nuclear war, electro-magnetic pulse, cyber operations and some natural catastrophic risks, like solar flares. Additionally, there are political and institutional obstacles to hotline use, including China's repeated failure to answer in crisis situations. Philanthropists interested in crisis management tools like hotlines could pursue a number of interventions, including: Funding work and dialogues to establish new hotlines; Funding work and dialogues on hotline resilience (including technical work on hotlines in communications-denied environments); Funding more rigorous studies of hotline effectiveness; Funding track II dialogues between the U.S. and China (and potentially other powerful states) focused on hotlines to understand different conceptions of crisis communication. We believe that the marginal value of establishing new hotlines is likely to be low. The other interventions likely need to be sequenced — before investing in hotline resilience, we ought to better understand whether hotlines work, and what political and institutional issues affect their function. Crucially for avoiding great power conflict, we recommend investing in understanding why China does not “pick up” crisis communications channels in times of crisis. Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Tom Barnes, Linton Brooks, Matt Lerner, Peter Rautenbach, David Santoro, Shaan Shaikh, and Sarah Weiler for helpful input on this project. Background Thomas Schelling first suggested the idea of a direct communications link between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1958, and the idea was popularized in outlets like Parade magazine. Although early attempts were made at implementing such a link (e.g. in early 1962), the need for such a dedicated communications channel between the United States and Soviet Union became pressingly clear during the Cuban Missile crisis, when Kennedy and Krushchev communicated through “clumsy” and slow traditional communications channels. Officials at the Soviet embassy in Washington later recalled that even their own communications with Moscow used slow an...

Excerpt:At EA Global: San Francisco 2022, the following organisations held a joint session to discuss their different approaches to measuring ‘good': GiveWellOpen PhilanthropyHappier Lives InstituteFounders PledgeInnovations for Poverty ActionA representative from each organisation gave a five-minute lightning talk summarising their approach before the audience broke out into table discussions. Original article:https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8whqn2GrJfvTjhov6/measuring-good-better-1Edited for the Effective Altruism Forum by TYPE III AUDIO.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Cost-effectiveness of operations management in high-impact organisations, published by Vasco Grilo on November 27, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Summary Following up on the challenge to quantify the impact of 80,000 hours' top career paths introduced by Nuño Sempere, I have estimated the cost-effectiveness of operations management in high-impact organisations (OM), which arguably include 80,000 Hours' top-recommended organisations. The results for the mean cost-effectiveness of various metrics in bp/G$ in terms of existential risk reduction are summarised in the table below for my preferred method. I present all results with 3 digits, but I think their resilience is such that they only represent order of magnitude estimates (i.e. they may well be wrong by a factor of 10^0.5 = 3). Mean cost-effectiveness (bp/G$) of.Global health and developmentLongtermism and catastrophic risk preventionAnimal welfareEffective altruism infrastructureThe effective altruism communityOperations management in high-impact organisations Method 3 with truncation 0.431 3.95 1.62 3.20 1.55 7.01 Acknowledgements Thanks to Abraham Rowe, Dan Hendrycks, Luke Freeman, Matt Lerner, Nuño Sempere, Sawyer Bernath, Stien van der Ploeg, and Tamay Besiroglu. Methods I estimated the cost-effectiveness from the product between: The cost-effectiveness of the high-impact organisations, which I assumed equal to that of the effective altruism community. The multiplier of OM, which I defined as the ratio between the cost-effectiveness of OM and the high-impact organisations. This method assumes the cost-effectiveness distribution of the high-impact organisations is represented by the one theorised for the effective altruism community in the next section. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness estimates are only accurate to the extent that future opportunities are as valuable as recent ones. The calculations are in this Colab. Cost-effectiveness of the effective altruism community I calculated the cost-effectiveness of the effective altruism community from the mean cost-effectiveness weighted by cumulative spending between 1 January 2020 and 15 August 2022 of 4 cause areas: Global health and development. Longtermism and catastrophic risk prevention. Animal welfare. Effective altruism infrastructure. These are the areas for which Tyler Maule collected data here (see EA Forum post here). I adjusted the 2020 and 2021 values for inflation using the calculator from in2013dollars. I computed the cost-effectiveness of each area using 3 methods. All rely on distributions which are either truncated to the 99 % confidence interval (CI) or not truncated, in order to understand the effect of outliers. The parameters of the pre-truncation distributions, which are the final distributions for the non-truncation cases, are provided below. Method 1 I defined the cost-effectiveness of longtermism and catastrophic risk prevention as a truncated lognormal distribution with pre-truncation 5th and 95th percentiles equal to 1 and 10 bp/G$ in terms of existential risk reduction. These are the lower and upper bounds proposed here by Linchuan Zhang. I assumed the ratio between the cost-effectiveness of i) longtermism and catastrophic risk prevention and ii) global health and development to be a truncated lognormal distribution with pre-truncation 5th and 95th percentiles equal to 10 and 100. These are the lower and upper bounds guessed here by Benjamin Todd for the ratio between the cost-effectiveness of the Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF) and Global Health and Development Fund (search for “10-100x more cost-effective”). I considered the ratio between the cost-effectiveness of i) animal welfare and ii) global health and development to be a truncated lognormal distribution with pre-truncation 5th and 95th percentiles equal to 270 μ and 211....

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Does Economic Growth Meaningfully Improve Well-being? An Optimistic Re-Analysis of Easterlin's Research: Founders Pledge, published by Vadim Albinsky on September 27, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Michael Plant, Matt Lerner and Rosie Bettle for their helpful comments and advice. Summary Understanding the relationship between wellbeing and economic growth is a topic that is of key importance to Effective Altruism (e.g. see Hillebrandt and Hallstead, Clare and Goth). In particular, a key disagreement regards the Easterlin Paradox; the finding that happiness[1] varies with income across countries and between individuals, but does not seem to vary significantly with a country's income as it changes over time. Michael Plant recently wrote an excellent post summarizing this research. He ends up mostly agreeing with Richard Easterlin's latest paper arguing that the Easterlin Paradox still holds; suggesting that we should look to approaches other than economic growth to boost happiness. I agree with Michael Plant that life satisfaction is a valid and reliable measure, that it should be a key goal of policy and philanthropy, and that boosting income does not increase it as much as we might naively expect. In fact, we at Founders Pledge highly value and regularly use Michael Plant's and Happier Lives Institute's (HLI) research; and we believe income is only a small part of what interventions should aim at. However, my interpretation of the practical implications of Easterlin's research differ from Easterlin's in three ways which I argue in this post: Easterlin finds small coefficients in his preferred regressions of changes in countries' happiness on changes in GDP. He concludes that these coefficients have low “economic significance” and that increasing economic growth is not a good way to make people happier. However, even if we take these coefficients at face value, they still represent a very meaningful increase in wellbeing within the effective altruism framework, consistent with the impacts of unconditional cash transfers on individuals. The benefits become very large when aggregated across all the people in a country for many years. We also have reason to doubt Easterlin's results, in that they are highly sensitive to small changes in methodology. We perform two variations on his regression that fully accept his methodology of only including “full cycle” countries, but update it slightly, reversing the result. If we replicate his results counting one more country as a “transition” economy, the Easterlin paradox largely disappears. If we repeat his analysis with new data from 2020 instead of 2019, the paradox also seems to largely disappear. It may be difficult to find things we can influence whose change over time will have a higher correlation to a country's change in happiness than changes in GDP. Even if we accept that boosting GDP does not meaningfully increase happiness, other potential means of boosting national happiness may increase it even less. If we rerun Easterlin's analysis using three interventions Easterlin and Plant suggest (health, pollution, and a comprehensive welfare state), their implied impacts on national happiness are much smaller than the impacts for GDP or negative. However, I have low confidence in this conclusion, and think it is a very valuable project to identify the interventions that are most likely to have an impact on happiness. 1. Taking Easterlin's results at face value and estimating impact Easterlin and O'Connor (2022) rely on two regressions for their conclusions, both comparing annual changes in a country's happiness to annual changes in per capita GDP. The first measures happiness using a “life satisfaction” survey question on a smaller set of countries from 1981-2019 and the second u...

In this episode we talk to Matt Lerner, Founder & CEO of Startup Core Strengths, about business innovation challenges when it comes to growth. He shares his thoughts about the similarities he notices between his business ventures and those of his prior experiences at large corporations. He also provides practical insights on methods and tools for successfully growing new ventures. Towards the end of this episode, we discuss with Matt metrics successful innovation projects should be using and we ask him what advice he would give to his younger self.  Get in touch with Matt: Startup Core Strengths: https://www.startupcorestrengths.com/ Matt publishes a two minute weekly newsletter every Tuesday morning, read past issues and subscribe here: https://startupcorestrengths.com/blog More about Bosch Innovation Consulting: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bosch-innovation-consulting/ https://www.bosch-innovation-consulting.com/

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Longterm cost-effectiveness of Founders Pledge's Climate Change Fund, published by Vasco Grilo on September 14, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Summary This analysis estimates the cost-effectiveness of reducing existential risk via the Climate Change Fund (CCF) of Founders Pledge (FP) (see Methodology). The results were obtained with this Colab, and the key ones are summarised in the table below (for more, see Results and Discussion). Comments about how to interpret them are welcome. The cost-effectiveness bar for reducing existential risk (8 kt/$) is estimated to be 3 times as high as (an overestimate for?) the cost-effectiveness of CCF (2 kt/$) (see Discussion). This suggests the best interventions to fight climate change are not amongst the most effective ways of reducing existential risk. ResultMeanExistential risk due to climate change (bp)1.00Cumulative GHG emissions between 2020 and 2100 (Tt)3.76Existential risk reduction caused by removing GHG emissions (bp/Tt)0.273Cost-effectiveness of removing GHG emissions via CCF (t/$)2.34 kCost-effectiveness of CCF (bp/G$)0.640Cost-effectiveness bar for reducing existentiat risk (bp/G$)2.17Cost-effectiveness bar for removing GHG emissions (t/$)7.94 k Acknowledgements Thanks to Alexey Turchin, Anonymous, David Denkenberger, Johannes Ackva, Luke Kemp, and Nuño Sempere. Introduction Removing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreases heat-related deaths: Bressler 2021 estimated the 2020 mortality cost of carbon to be 2.2610^-4 life/t. However, most of the benefits of reducing GHG emissions respect the decrease in existential risk due to climate change. This analysis estimates the existential risk reduction caused by removing GHG emissions, and the cost-effectiveness of CCF, which is compared with an estimate for the cost-effectiveness bar for reducing existential risk. Nonetheless, it should be noted that, according to this comment from Johannes Ackva: The goal of the Climate [Change] Fund is to optimize spending that is not cause-neutral, to have as big as possible a positive impact given constraints, it is not intended or marketed as "the top bet on reducing existential risk" and we are careful to not crowd in resources that would otherwise go to areas we think of as higher marginal priority. I encourage the readers to check this comment from Matt Lerner, FP's research director, to better understand FP's mission: To be absolutely clear, FP's goal is to do the maximum possible amount of good, and to do so in a cause-neutral way. Methodology The (marginal) cost-effectiveness of CCF was estimated from the product between: The existential risk reduction caused by removing GHG emissions, which was estimated from the ratio between: The existential risk due to climate change. The cumulative GHG emissions between 2020 and 2100 assuming current climate policies. The cost-effectiveness of removing GHG emissions via CCF, which was estimated from: The reciprocal of the cost to remove GHG emissions via CCF. The assumption regarding the cumulative GHG emissions is consistent with the current Metaculus' cummunity prediction of 2.6 ºC for how much greater (in ˚C) will the average global temperature in 2100 be than the average global temperature in 1880. According to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), current climate policies are predicted to result in a global warming between 2.5 ºC and 2.9 ºC (interval which contains 2.6 ºC). The modelling of the cumulative GHG emissions would ideally consider more scenarios. Existential risk due to climate change The existential risk due to climate change was modelled as a beta distribution with: Mean equal to 0.01 %, which was determined from the geometric mean between: The 0.1 % guessed by Toby Ord in The Precipice for the next 100 years (2021 to 2120). The upper bound of 0.01 % guessed by 80,000 ...

Matt Lerner spent 15 years in Silicon Valley - including a decade leading the growth of PayPal - before becoming a venture capitalist with legendary investors 500 Startups. He's now CEO of Startup Core Strengths, which helps early-stage startups boost growth. Listen in as we discover how Matt leverages his addiction to learning - from often painful failure - to create rapid growth in business. In this episode you'll learn the importance of focusing on one thing and how you get what you measure. Understand what “mentor whiplash” is, and how to avoid it. How growth is everyone's job. And the power of the “1-inch punch”. Why learning is a journey that never ends and how a startup is - in effect - a race to learn faster than anyone else. So much good stuff!---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------▷ We're now in the top 2.5% of global podcasts - heard in 44 countries! ▷ Big thanks to The Tech Dept - my business - for sponsoring all of this. We build tech products for impact startups www.thetechdept.com▷ Please reach out to me with a DM on LinkedIn ▷ Check out Dan's top three interviews from season 1: How To Turn Your Worst Day Into Your Biggest Breakthrough with Dan Sullivan From Public Speaker To Prison Cell with Peter Sage The Power of F*ck You with Debbie Wosskow, OBE

In this Marketing Over Coffee: In this episode learn about Language Market Fit with Matt Lerner Direct Link to File Brought to you by our sponsors: BlueShift and LinkedIn PayPal, 500 Startups with Dave McClure Having more impact in the startup environment 5:21 – 6:22 Blueshift’s SmartHub CDP delivers personalized, omnichannel experiences that improve customer […] The post Talking Startups and Language with Matt Lerner appeared first on Marketing Over Coffee Marketing Podcast.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Climate Recommendations in EA: Giving Green and Founders Pledge, published by Kim Huynh on January 18, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Who we are At Giving Green, we use an effective altruism-informed approach to recommend the best giving opportunities for fighting climate change. Why we're posting To clarify differences in strategy – There are two primary climate change charity recommenders in the effective altruism community: Giving Green and Founders Pledge. We would like to explain (in our opinion) where our approaches overlap and where they diverge to demonstrate our respective strengths. To encourage discussion and sharpen our thinking – We hope that our writing here will lead to feedback on our work, which we may use to update our approach. Ultimately, we believe that both our organizations are filling essential niches within the EA climate space. We would like to thank Johannes Ackva and Matt Lerner at Founders Pledge for comments and clarifications on our initial draft. Giving Green's approach to recommending climate organizations Giving Green's priority areas At Giving Green, we measure impact in terms of reduced levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere and seek opportunities that are highly impactful at the margin. To that end, we believe that the most impactful organizations are working to enact systemic policy change. As part of our philanthropic strategy, we support the following priority areas: Policy advocacy for emissions reduction – Policy organizations can apply pressure on policymakers to implement legislation, executive orders, and/or regulations designed to drive down emissions. This pressure can be highly impactful in influencing policy scope and government funding. Technology innovation – Increased funding for research and development (R&D) of neglected technologies (e.g., nuclear energy and direct air capture) and support for their deployment can potentially improve their capabilities and reduce costs in the future. If successful, this could improve their ability to scale and lower levels of GHGs in the atmosphere over the long run. Additionally, benefits from technology innovation are not limited by country borders. Namely, innovation can influence technological change in other countries (technological diffusion) and lead to global GHG reductions. Note that there is considerable overlap with policy advocacy, as we believe that policy advocacy can be a crucial lever to push technology forward. Giving Green also guides non-philanthropic actors, such as businesses trying to meet net-zero goals and investors looking to help the climate. Our guidance includes research into carbon offsets and removals, impact investing, and Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) funds. Where Giving Green works At Giving Green, we believe there are potentially high-impact donation opportunities in many countries, and at the international and sub-national levels. We currently focus our policy efforts on the US and Australia and have developed recommendations for the two countries. We selected these specific countries for a few reasons: US – The US is a global leader in R&D and contributes a significant amount to global CO2 emissions. As a small US-based team, starting with US policy played to our comparative advantage. Australia – Australia is a top coal exporter, so pushing for more ambitious policy here is arguably a key piece in the global fight against climate change. Our decision to work on Australian policy is also influenced by donor preference, as a sizable Australian organization asked us to provide recommendations for the Australian market. We plan on expanding our work to include organizations in other countries and subnational organizations. Founders Pledge's approach to recommending climate organizations Founders Pledge's ...

In 2015, when Matt Lerner jumped from Director at PayPal to early-stage VC and advisor, Clayton Christensen's ideas flipped from being interesting theories to essential daily practices. Matt has now worked with over 100 startups, helping them to find product market fit and scale. He runs Startup Core Strengths and helps companies use Jobs interviews to speed growth, even with startup budgets. In this episode, Matt joins host Katie Zandbergen to discuss the five tactics that drove 90% of PayPal's hyper-growth; failure rates and patterns from 500 Startups' portfolio of 1,800 investments; the root causes of why most venture-backed startups fail; how two startups used their Jobs lessons to disrupt crowded markets and grow immensely; and the danger zone right after a fundraise when founders' overconfidence can bias crucial decisions, to name but a few examples. This episode is a master class for anyone looking to harness the power of the Jobs To Be Done framework to build and grow a young company! 

Matt Lerner is an angel investor, founder of Startup Core Strengths, and tech industry legend. In this episode we delve into what he's learned from helping to build some of the biggest names in the game (Paypal being one), mentoring countless companies scale during his time at 500 startups, and investing in many others.

Matt Lerner, Founder & CEO of Startup Core Strengths, is this week's guest on the SaaS Revolution Show to discuss product market fit. Want to join a private community of ambitious SaaS founders? Apply now to become a Founder Member and scale faster together: https://cutt.ly/FbSDVmX

Matt Lerner Before becoming a VC, Matt has spent 15 years as a “growth marketer” in Silicon Valley, including 10 years at PayPal. As a Partner at 500 Startups, Matt led 35 early-stage investments, and he developed and led the “Distro Dojo” growth program, where he helped startups achieve average growth of 250% in 12 months. Matt also help founders skip expensive mistakes, focus on the impactful work, and build high-growth startups. After watching hundreds of startups waste investors’ money on bad marketing hires and expensive non-scalable tactics, Matt founded Startup Core Strengths to help startups learn the foundational mindset and habits to drive sustainable growth. Matt's mission is to enable every startup in Europe to get much better at customer acquisition. When not hacking growth, Matt occasionally lectures on Startup Marketing at Imperial College and Stanford Business School. Also, he is obsessed with optimizing his own health, “biohacking,” fasting and measuring anything that isn’t nailed down. Books Try a free Audible trial of any book here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Free-Trial-Digital-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?tag=samharris48%E2%80%9321) The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mom-Test-Customers-Business-Everyone/dp/B07RL4DRNQ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+mom+test&qid=1618285278&s=audible&sr=1-1) The One Thing You Need To Know...About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-About-Managing-Leading-Sustained-Individual/dp/B002SQ69PO/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+one+thing+you+need+to+know&qid=1618285332&s=audible&sr=1-1) Subscribe! If you enjoyed the podcast please subscribe and rate it. And of course, share with your friends! Special Guest: Matt Lerner.

Choosing the wrong metrics can lead to the wrong strategy, or worse, no strategy at all. (For example, learn why revenue is a dangerous target.) In this talk from BoS USA Online, Matt shares some of the lessons he's learned in growing companies, large and small, that will help you choose the right metrics to target in your organisation. Recorded online via Zoom at Business of Software Conference USA Online, September 2020. For more great talks, sign up for the newsletter at businessofsoftware.org/update --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message

What's it like to go from 50 to 100 employees? Meet Chris Edson, CEO of Second Nature, an online weight loss plan that helps people make healthy lifestyle changes. In this episode, Chris explains why reaching 100 employees feels like 'going through startup puberty', what made his $10M Series A easier than his seed round, and how brutal honesty won over an experienced US investor. We also talk frankly about why it's difficult for founders that love building to step out of daily operations. Key links: Second Nature website: https://www.secondnature.io/ Open job positions: https://apply.workable.com/secondnature/ Chris Edson profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-edson/ Key timestamps: [01:48] Tell us the story of Second Nature. [06:50] What's it like to go from a 50- to 100-person company? [15:57] How much did you prepare for your pitches and how much was your success down to this preparation? [20:56] How did your Series A compare to your seed round? [32:29] What mistakes have you made along the way and what did you learn from them? [36:29] What advice would you give to someone pushing back against the CEO? [43:27] What's your favourite part of your leadership meeting? [44:32] What's something challenging about being a CEO that you've never told anyone before? A very big thank you (in no particular order) to Megan Kiely, Lorena Morais, Tamzin Foster, Vladimir Banovcanin, Fred Destin, Harry Stebbings, Rory Stirling, Sitar Teli, Matt Lerner, Tom Wakeling, Mike Gibbs, Carlo Bellini, and of course, Chris Edson for making this first episode happen. Got feedback? Email us on podcast@foundercoach.co. And don't forget to hit follow/subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes.

In this episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean Ellis is joined by guest host Matt Lerner, formerly marketing director at PayPal. Together, they interviewed Nilan Peiris, the VP of Growth at TransferWise. Nilan has led growth at Transferwise from around 40 employees to a company that is now over 1700 employees. The goal of this interview is to deconstruct what is truly driving this breakout growth success for TransferWise. TransferWise’s growth starts with strong product/market fit. The founders identified an opportunity in the high costs that banks charge for international money transfers. Their solution makes it instant, convenient, transparent and significantly cheaper to transfer money abroad. One of the key growth challenges that Nilan and his team have faced with TransferWise is that most people don’t realize that they are overpaying for money transfers. Getting the word out and building a trusted brand via advertising would be a very expensive feat, so instead, Transferwise has worked hard to build customer advocates. But to maintain strong word of mouth, the team needs to delight customers with every touchpoint. This has proven challenging given their unprecedented growth rate. Still, Nilan and his team have closely monitored their Net Promoter Score and have quickly worked to address the inevitable operations challenges that come from a rapidly scaling business. This requires Nilan and his team to work closely with other executives and even the board of directors to effectively manage their rapid expansion. Another reason that a strong referral loop is important is that TransferWise is generally an infrequent use case. So rather than focusing on building a strong engagement loop, Nilan and his team focus on the referral loop. Another recent addition to their approach is identifying a more frequent use case for international money transfers, the b2b market. Some of the other topics discussed are: Forecasting growth in early-stage startups vs rapidly scaling companies Managing your growth and marketing career in an expanding company Building trust with executives and board of directors The role of mission in driving sustainable growth Listen to the full podcast for more details on how Nilan and his team at TransferWise are driving breakout growth. Learn more about Nilan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilanpeiris And learn more about TransferWise here: www.TransferWise.com

In this episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean Ellis is joined by guest host Matt Lerner, formerly marketing director at PayPal. Together, they interviewed Nilan Peiris, the VP of Growth at TransferWise. Nilan has led growth at Transferwise from around 40 employees to a company that is now over 1700 employees. The goal of this interview is to deconstruct what is truly driving this breakout growth success for TransferWise. TransferWise’s growth starts with strong product/market fit. The founders identified an opportunity in the high costs that banks charge for international money transfers. Their solution makes it instant, convenient, transparent and significantly cheaper to transfer money abroad. One of the key growth challenges that Nilan and his team have faced with TransferWise is that most people don’t realize that they are overpaying for money transfers. Getting the word out and building a trusted brand via advertising would be a very expensive feat, so instead, Transferwise has worked hard to build customer advocates. But to maintain strong word of mouth, the team needs to delight customers with every touchpoint. This has proven challenging given their unprecedented growth rate. Still, Nilan and his team have closely monitored their Net Promoter Score and have quickly worked to address the inevitable operations challenges that come from a rapidly scaling business. This requires Nilan and his team to work closely with other executives and even the board of directors to effectively manage their rapid expansion. Another reason that a strong referral loop is important is that TransferWise is generally an infrequent use case. So rather than focusing on building a strong engagement loop, Nilan and his team focus on the referral loop. Another recent addition to their approach is identifying a more frequent use case for international money transfers, the b2b market. Some of the other topics discussed are: Forecasting growth in early-stage startups vs rapidly scaling companies Managing your growth and marketing career in an expanding company Building trust with executives and board of directors The role of mission in driving sustainable growth Listen to the full podcast for more details on how Nilan and his team at TransferWise are driving breakout growth. Learn more about Nilan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilanpeiris And learn more about TransferWise here: www.TransferWise.com

Hiring a head of growth and paying for Facebook ads isn't enough to scale growth. Growth is a mindset that needs to filter from the top down. On this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Matt Lerner, founder and CEO of Startup Core Strengths, joins Carlos in the studio. Prior to founding Startup Core Strengths, Matt was the London-based partner for 500 Startups, where he initiated the ‘Distro Dojo’ seed-stage growth program for the funds’ portfolio companies. Matt also had an 11-year run at PayPal where he lived through the company’s 15x hyper growth phase from progressive startup to Finch giant, culminating in him leading b2b marketing for PayPal UK. Join Carlos and Matt as they delve into the nitty gritty of why growth marketing has a negative legacy when contrasted with growth hacking for product teams, why overthinking metrics is a dangerous game to play for early stage founders and whether Eric Ries’s lean methodology of ‘build, measure, learn’ is in fact a relevant playbook for marketing teams. Matt also details the reasons behind founders mistakenly assuming they have product market fit, the key proxy metrics that pre-revenue startups should use to determine what areas to focus on and why the determinant of growth success is based on the five core pillars of - Message, Metrics Focus, Process and Team. Download a free copy of Matt's e-book 'Growth Hacking for Founders' at: https://startupcorestrengths.com/GH4F Links: Matt Lerner - twitter.com/matthlerner 500 Startups - twitter.com/500startups Startup Core Strengths - startupcorestrengths.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - seedcamp.com

Today I’m joined by Matt Lerner, who is the founder and CEO of Startup Core Strengths. Matt has a long history of growth marketing, most prominently at Paypal and 500 Startups. Matt created and lead PayPal’s first website marketing team driving over 85% of PayPal’s small business acquisition and generating $67M over three years. Matt then became a partner at 500 Startups where he invested in 35 seed-stage companies and also set up and ran the "Distro Dojo" growth marketing program for their portfolio companies. In this episode we discuss the 5 core strengths a company needs to have and focus on to successfully grow their business based on Matts broad experience at 500 Startups.

Today we are joined by /u/kaisermatias, who is a flaired user on AskHistorians on 20th c. Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Hockey.  kaisermatias is better known to his friends and family as Matt Lerner, and he is here today to talk to us about the history of hockey! We talk about the history of hockey--it's rules, equipment, styles. Then we talk about hockey's important role in Canadian culture and history before turning to the 1972 Summit Series between the USSR and Canada--the first Miracle on Ice--and what it meant then and still means today. Finally, we conclude with the strangest and wildest thing about hockey--the Stanley Cup. Discussion thread here.   © 2019 Brian M. Watson

Airbnb property management and concierge service… Matt Lerner, Founder/CEO of MetroButler, (a front desk, concierge and cleaning service rolled into one for shared homes like Airbnb that eliminates all the logistical burdens of short-term renting by providing services customized to your home) – (bio), joins Pavan Bahl , Samantha Shankman and John Matson at the MouthMedia Network studio at Voyager HQ.Business model, expansion, and competition Lerner discusses how hosts come to MetroButler, which takes over a property and does everything necessary to make the rental successful, whatever is related, and MetroButler gets 25% of the fee of bookings, the host has to do nothing. Typical host demographics, advertising in NYC, expanding in other cities and some pilot cities, how it takes a lot of time to work out quirks of other properties, and lead gen is largely inbound. A fragmented market with a lot of competitors, defending against companies that perform a lot of services that might want to pivot into this space, how customers interface with the MetroBulter team directly, and why Airbnb won’t likely get into this business. Liability, privacy and security, company origins, and innovation Dealing with liability, which is one of the biggest expenses and a big selling point, protecting privacy, how butlers photograph every room, furniture, every piece of electronics, and then do it again when they leave. Security protection and concerns about key exchanges. How hosts get increased business from the service, complexities of larger and more expensive properties, the most expensive property they have had in portfolio, the genesis of the company, and how it started with the team doing the work themselves. How MetroButler is leveraging innovation and new technology to get the job done and using it to go to the next level.Off the Beaten Path The best Airbnb ever, New Orleans, Barcelona, beating up your brothers, and how important travel is.      References: One Fine Stay    

MetroButler is a property manager and short term rental concierge for people that are looking to rent their properties on services like Air BNB’s, Craigslist, and many more. MetroButler will help facilitate ALL of the logistics. #Timestamp 00:50- Ice Cream and Cookies, Especially a Chip-Which 01:50- Introduction 03:20- Where Did It All Begin 05:10- What Kind of Kid Were You? 05:50- What is MetroButler? 06:50- Where Did The Idea Came From? 07:50- What Were Some of The Early Struggles OF The Business 10:00- Failures in Business 11:17 - 13:59- INVESTOR SECTION What Point Should You Look For Funding 14:00- Basketball, Drinks, and Friends 16:20- Different Forms of Technology 18:00- Get Your Administrative Stuff Figured Out, Trust Your Gut, and Once You Commit, You Have To Go Quickly Get Your Administrative Stuff Figured Out Working at a coworking space has helped us significantly. They help with all of the admin stuff, such as; wifi. printing, packaging, and more… As the CEO, I don’t want to waste time and our employees time doing these simple tasks.” Trust Your Gut “It’s easy to go to Barnes and Noble and read books to learn about business, but at the end of the day you have to believe in what you’re doing. You can go out and read books by Tim Ferris, but you may be miserable with the outcome. There is no single way to grow a business, every startup has grown in a different way. Some of them have been successful and some of them haven’t, just go out, do your own thing, and trust your gut.” Once You Commit, You Have To Go Quickly “You learn a lot from launching something too early, but you can die by not waiting. I would never say launch something out thats not good, but there is nothing wrong with putting something out as a beta and fixing it over time. Use the feedback instead of trying to be a perfectionists. Matt Learner Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-lerner-1a225312 Website: http://www.metrobutler.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroButler/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metrobutler/ __________ Techie, Millennial Author, WWE Fan, Podcaster. Philadelphia native, Johnathan Grzybowski started his career at 14 mowing lawns. Over 5 businesses later, Johnathan has a deep passion on bettering the lives of millennials and helping them execute their ideas into profitable businesses. It’s never been easier to start a business, but how do you make it successful? Constantly millennials are claiming to be entrepreneurs, but may not truly know what it takes to either become one or last long enough to succeed at being one. By listening/viewing The Blind Entrepreneur, we are determined to help those who are “blind” see the true struggles of business, successes, and the grind it took these millennials to succeed. #LINKS Email: Johnathan@wearedino.com Podcast: http://theblindentrepreneur.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jgrzybowski Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/grzybowskij Instagram: http://instagram.com/grzybowskij Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/grzybowskij #SUBSCRIBE iTunes: http://bit.ly/TBEPodcast #PS. I wear startup t-shirts while recording and give shoutouts to the company’s tee I am wearing. If you’d like your startup to be featured on the podcast and allow me the opportunity to wear your swag, I wear a large t-shirt!

Matt Lerner, London Distro Parnter of world's largest VC fund- 500 Startups- talks us through his experiences on learning how to manage people. Highlighted topics we discuss: 1) The secrets to becoming a great manager 2) What’s a more effective way to guide your business- by human feeling or by numbers 3) The types of people he invests in Enjoy the episode!

Matt Lerner is a Distro Partner with 500 Startups, and runs their London office. He specializes in conversion optimization, analytics, engagement and retention. As a member of the in-house growth (AKA “Distro”) team, he partners with 500 portfolio companies to help them build growth engines and scale. Previously, as a 500 Startups Mentor, Matt helped over 40 companies develop and execute growth strategies. Prior to joining 500 Startups, he worked as a Marketing Director at PayPal, where he built and managed three growth teams that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue across the funnel. Here are some of Matt's amazing growth hacking slide decks: 10 Growth Hacking Tools To Disrupt Your Competitors Growth Hacking 101 For your chance to win a signed copy of Brad Feld's amazing Venture Deals, all you have to do is click the click to tweet link here: http://ctt.ec/C61w6 and you will be entered into the competition. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Matt made his move from Paypal to VC with 500Startups? 2.) What is the mission at 500 in London with the Distro? What is the investment thesis? Preferred round? Sector? What process do you take the companies through when they are with you in the Dojo? 3.) What does growth hacking really mean? Is it not another BS new techie term? 4.) What has Matt found to be some of the most effective growth hacks and why? What are the biggest mistakes companies make with regards to growth? How can they avoid them? 5.) When does Matt think a company should start to focus on growth? 6.) Who does Matt personally admire and think has been extremely effective and why? What campaigns or pieces of work have led him to this conclusion? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Matt's Recent Investments: Tom Beverly: Fy, Tamatem Matt's Fave Book: Do You Talk Funny: The Guide To Public Speaking, The One Thing You Need To Know Matt's Fave Newsletter: Doug Scott, Susan Su: Distro Snack, Tim Ferriss Podcast Matt's Growth Hacking Idols: Dave McClure: Pirate Metrics Talk, Sean Ellis: Inventor of Growth Hacking Term, Andy Johns @ WealthFront, As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Matt and 500 Startups on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! We would like to say a special thank you to our partner for this very special 500 Startups Feature Week, LawTrades, the go to place for startups and VCs to get their legal work done. For all 20VC listeners LawTrades are offering a special $150 off your first piece of legal work when you mention 'The Twenty Minute VC'. You can follow them on Twitter here!

What’s your Walk Score? Thats a question that has become increasingly popular among urbanists since the founding of Walk Score seven years ago. Now real estate agents prominently display the number on their listings, knowing the value it adds to properties. Matt Lerner is a co-founder of Walk Score and its original chief technology officer, and is now vice president of local engineering at Redfin, the company that purchased Walk Score in October. He is our guest this week on 'Knight Cities.' Email me via: Coletta (at) knightfoundation.org.

Matt Lerner, co-founder of walkscore.com bikes to the grocey store with his son Cyrus.