From Facebook to Instacart: Head of Growth Shares Her Big Career Change Insights

Episode 60 February 07, 2022 01:02:43
From Facebook to Instacart: Head of Growth Shares Her Big Career Change Insights
The Breakout Growth Podcast
From Facebook to Instacart: Head of Growth Shares Her Big Career Change Insights

Feb 07 2022 | 01:02:43

/

Show Notes

This week’s episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast is sponsored by Rise with SAP and features Garima Sinha, Instacart’s Head of Growth. Instacart makes it easy to get groceries conveniently delivered to your home, but that is just the beginning. The company is working to bring that same convenience to a wide range of products we use in our daily lives. Garima joined less than a year ago after serving in growth roles at Facebook, so we wanted to learn more about what drove her successful transition and how her experience can help other growth professionals. 

 

People are more mobile in their careers than ever before, but moving from one large fast-growing company to another, especially in a leadership role, can be difficult.  Garima explains that while it was not an easy decision to make the change in the first place, Instacart offered new challenges that she was hungry to embrace. When she says, “there was much to do,” you can hear just how excited she was to take on her new role.

 

Bringing her passion for both the challenges and the mission clearly have been key elements of her success at Instacart, but Garima also offers practical insights when making this kind of career change.  From building a team culture where individuals play a key role in the decision-making process to spending the time to dive into the levers she had less experience with, Garima shares a path that others can follow.

 

And of course, because she is specifically leading growth, this episode is full of actionable insights around data and experimentation as well. 

 

Please remember to check out this week’s sponsor, RISE with SAP S/4Hana Cloud. If you have ambitious goals, SAP is the technology partner you need to scale and drive innovation. Instead of relying on stitched together solutions to manage business finances, operations, and customer relations, leverage the flexibility of SAP’s cloud-based ERP solution to gain the insights that will help drive your breakout growth success. 

 

RISE with SAP Link: bit.ly/3u27Ay6

 

Please take a moment to rate and review The Breakout Growth Podcast wherever you listen. 



We discussed:



* Grappling with the decision to move from Facebook to Instacart (04:28) 



* Thinking of growth as the full funnel (13:47)



* What Garima did first when taking on this role (15:41)



* Conviction; why growth leaders shouldn’t give up easily on their first instincts (34:47)



* Deferring decisions to the teams (35:58)



And much, much, more . . .

View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to the breakout growth podcast, where Sean Ellis and Ethan Gar interview leaders from the world's fastest growing companies to get to the heart of what's really driving their growth. And now here are your hosts, Sean Ellis and Ethan Gar, Speaker 2 00:00:26 Right? And this week's episode of the breakout growth podcast, Ethan Gar and I chat with Garima Sienna who moved on from Facebook less than a year ago to start a new challenge leading growth at Instacart. So as we approach this discussion, we were really curious as to how Grima navigated, what seems like the daunting shift from one growth monster to another and learning what worked then, how she approached taking on this new challenge made for some really great conversation. So Ethan, what stood out to you as we dug in with green, Speaker 3 00:00:55 Two things really jumped out for me. One is that if you're going to be successful jumping onto a moving train, like Instacart, you really need to be passionate about the mission. And Grima really is. And secondly, you need to really plan your approach agreement and just take what worked at Facebook and walking into Instacart and make wholesale changes. She got her team involved in the decision-making processes. She looked to learn from them and really took the time to understand new levers that were now available to her, that she was less familiar with from her previous experience. Speaker 2 00:01:24 Right. I agree. And you know, when she told us how she describes Instacart to her mom as this almost magical service, where you can get any grocery you want at any time, without any hassle, even at the last minute, you can just feel how excited she is to lead Instacart's next chapter of growth, which by the way, is going to go well beyond groceries. Yeah. Being humble about what she knew and what she still had to learn to be successful, I think is really one of the key things that's going to make her successful in this position. And probably a good lesson for the rest of us, just to recognize that we don't have to know ever or look like we know everything act like we know everything to be an effective leader admitting what you know, and what you don't know and just be being humble as you approach building that knowledge is really key to being successful. Speaker 3 00:02:14 Yeah. I mean, walk in and be humble and, and know what, you know, know what you don't know and find out what she, you know, what you need to learn. Um, the people around you are going to respect you for that. I think, and I think our listeners are gonna appreciate that along with just these larger growth insights that Karena shared. Speaker 2 00:02:30 Yep. A hundred percent. Now she talks about following your convictions and learning from each experiment. It's just, it's just all really good stuff. Um, but before we jumped in, I want to invite our listeners to check out the sponsor for this week's episode rise with SAP S four HANA cloud hyper-growth companies get up and running quickly with this low cost, easy to implement cloud ERP solution. So if you are working to power breakout, grow success in your business, please check out SAP com slash high-growth. Speaker 3 00:03:01 Alright, Sean, and you probably want to remind our audience that the next go practice cohort starts this Wednesday, February 9th, Speaker 2 00:03:07 Right? Thank you for that. Yeah. So you can sign up or learn more echo practice.io. I'm really hoping to see a lot of people who listened to the podcast in, in the course, there's a lot of interaction back and forth and, uh, it's a, it's a really great program for learning growth, but for now let's jump in with Grima. Speaker 3 00:03:24 Yeah, this is a good one. Let's do it. Speaker 2 00:03:35 I agree in my welcome to the breakout growth podcast. Speaker 4 00:03:38 Hi, thank you for having me. Speaker 2 00:03:40 Yeah, we are so excited to, uh, to dive into growth with you and talk about Instacart and everything you're doing there, but also want to welcome my cohost, Ethan. Hey Ethan. How's it going? Good. How are you, Sean? Speaker 3 00:03:52 Hey, Grima good. Good to have you Speaker 4 00:03:53 On. Hi. Good to talk to you again. Speaker 2 00:03:56 Yeah, I'm I'm doing great as well to answer your question. Speaker 3 00:04:00 Sorry, I cut you off there. Speaker 2 00:04:02 Ask the question and then go straight on. So, uh, yeah. Give him a lesson. Let's just dive straight into it. You, you know, you're on Facebook, Facebook's, you know, one of the most respected growth organizations out there. Um, super sophisticated. So I imagine that, uh, it's, it's not an easy place to leave, but you, you obviously did for Instacart. So I'm curious what it was about Instacart that, uh, that attracted you to make the jump. Yeah. Speaker 4 00:04:28 Yeah. Um, that's a great question. And it's like something I grappled with for a while and before deciding to move to Instacart. But I think the thing that really excites me is how much growth can we drive and like the next week, there's a next three years. And that's like a really exciting challenge. And Instacart was like, at that perfect intersection of the company was seeing hypergrowth, but there is so much to do. And like, in some ways I felt like the company was kind of growing, just, you know, people were loving and staccato people like using Instacart, not once, but again, and then go would happen. And the company saw a lot of growth, but at the same time, um, you know, the way we surgically do growth and intentionally do growth that had so much Prudential, which was just so exciting. And so I felt like if I could apply everything I've learned in the last 10 years about growth to Instacart, it could be amazing. And it could be an amazing chatting for me. Um, but also just like Instacart has so much upside potential. Speaker 3 00:05:31 So, I mean, it sounds like you really dug into what the upside was. Maybe like looked at the risk. How did you, did you have friends at Instacart or like, how did you dig into that? How did you know what the upside was? And, uh, Speaker 4 00:05:45 Yeah, I mean, I think I had, I had some friends, I had people who had worked at Instacart in the past. I talked to, but I think beyond that as, as I am a user, I was actually one of the venue users of Instacart when they first started. Um, I used to live like a block from whole foods and stealing stuff every day. And knowing that, um, it's, I've been like a big, I've been a big fan, but I think that thing that is so fascinating to me about Instacart is like grocery industries is huge. Like everyone needs groceries end of the day. And online behavior is still pretty new. Like it's just 10% penetrated and we do think it will go up pretty significantly in next three to five years. And so I think that upside is pretty clear from grant Instacart could be. Speaker 4 00:06:28 And then if you look at other dimensions of growth, that's Instacart is not just groceries. It's best buy in itself and its means and convenience and whatnot. And it's actually our ability to expand and grow into tangential where goes is insane outside, whether you do it in a yard or five, the market access for us to do that. And in some ways in stuff that is so far ahead in the grocery business, that we know how to do it well. And so we are now kind of building on our strength and really applying it to different things and going through. Speaker 3 00:07:00 So you are, you aren't really concerned than that. Instacart was at a, you know, hitting a growth ceiling as you joined. You were thinking the sky's the limit. Speaker 4 00:07:08 I think this guy is the limit. I like even from just grocery growth perspective, like we have so much, we have not done in Vietnam and just like beginning to apply those principles to Instacart that is endless growth left. Speaker 3 00:07:22 It's interesting. Um, you know, before this conversation, Sean and I were chatting and I was thinking the, the challenge in the grocery business and we actually had a chat with another, um, eat grocery company a few weeks ago, not for the podcast, but, um, it just seems like it's so competitive and not only that, but it's for sort of the tangential, um, sort of companies like an Uber, it's really easy to, for them to kind of encroach in your business. But it's interesting from your perspective, it sounds like there's opportunities for you to encroach on other businesses as well and grow Instacart beyond the grocery business as well. So I guess that takes away some of the fear. Speaker 4 00:07:59 Um, I, yeah, I think like a lot of companies are trying to get into grocery business, but I would say it's not as easy to get in and win at it because it's hard to buy bananas and milk and eggs for someone else. Right. It's like, Speaker 2 00:08:15 I don't want them green. They last a few days or, Speaker 4 00:08:19 Oh yeah. Like multiple times a week. It's a very different business than, you know, picking up an item from place and taking it to point B like the logistics and the intention in one. And it is very different. Right. And so instead I had to actually through for the last like five plus years has been doing this and has really nailed how to get a good grocery shopping experience out there, which I think is like a big competitive advantage. And then even outside of that liquid, not just grocery delivery business, right? Like we, we work very closely with retailers and every dealer relationship, something that is, again, another advantage we have and it's something that we are really investing in. And we're not just thinking about grocery delivery. We are thinking about the grocery to Lang and every, every single take that cross industry users, how do we get that to you? How do we get that to all the CFAs and, um, the best buys of the wound. And I think that is just a completely different business to be in than just to go to the delivery business. Speaker 2 00:09:21 Yeah. Maybe we should take a little step back. And just for anyone who might not be familiar with Instacart, kind of, what's the, what's the simple explanation that maybe you would give your parents or, or, or someone who's, who's not in tech that, uh, helps describe what, what Instacart is all about? Speaker 4 00:09:38 Um, the way I described it to my mom is you can get any, any grocery item you wanted any point without any hazard. And it's literally that, right? Like sometimes I'm like, oh shit, I'm just like about to cook something in an hour, but I actually don't have eggs. What do I do? And you can actually just place an order and get it in the next two hours. Right. And so I do think that it's not just delivery of groceries, which of course it's very convenient, but it's also last minute. It's also as in when you need it without you needing to step out. And then from that, it's like now I advise on my cell phone and stuff on Instacart because why not? Right. And so I do think it's right now, it's the most convenient way to get groceries. I personally think in a couple of years, that would be the most convenient way to get anything. Yes. Speaker 2 00:10:27 It's kind of funny. The story you just started, that the example you just mentioned of your cooking, or you're an hour from cooking and you realize you don't have an ingredient. My wife was cooking this week, uh, some Hungarian food and, uh, and she said, oh no, we don't have any paprika, which is like the key ingredient and what she was cooking. And so obviously super, super convenient and easy to send me to the grocery store she's sending me. I was like, let me just look through the cupboard and make sure we don't have it. And of course I found some, so Total side note there that I guess before Instacart, it was a Sen send your spouse to the grocery store. So you're cooking. Speaker 4 00:11:10 Is it saying your style is for me, it's been send my brother for my mom. It's been said my S uh, you know, send her son to the grocery store and you hit it. I'm sure Sean you, Speaker 2 00:11:21 But I'm busy sitting on the couch doing nothing. Come on. Speaker 3 00:11:24 It turns out Shawn is the direct indirect competitor to Instacart success. But it's, it's, it is funny though, because I like, that's a really the mindset shift. I think people have gotten accustomed to the idea that, that yes, you can do online delivery of groceries. We do it, everyone. I know does it, but that idea that you can do it really in real time, um, is probably something that people aren't used to. I think, you know, there's a lot of like, oh, I'll order it today and I'll get it tomorrow in that. So it'll be interesting to see how your, how Instacart is able to change that perception over the course of time. Speaker 4 00:12:00 Yeah. And I think it's already, I mean, as someone who's been using Instagram from day one, like I can say it's already changed so much, you know, you had to order two days in advance to find a slot. And then it became like a day and now it's like, it's like literally an hour or two every single day, my place. And I have it. Right. And so I do think that in lenience and that's velocity has changed so much. And as like the company has optimized footprint and we've really gotten good at like knowing how to shop, how to batch orders, how to get them delivered really efficiently. Like the, the advantage of that is passing onto the consumers because they get, they get their stuff really fast. Speaker 3 00:12:41 So is that, uh, is that really a product of just the, um, just sort of the maturity of the business, in other words, the business growing to the point now where the, the marketplace, uh, the three-sided marketplace that you have is just so robust that you can give that sort of instant, um, result or instant value for the customer. Speaker 4 00:13:03 Um, I think scale is definitely an aspect of it. I think experience and muscle is the other aspect of it, because now we have shoppers strained up. Um, we have shoppers partnered with different retailers who who's just like constantly shopping and they know how to shop really fast. Um, and so I think, I think it's a mix of all of those things. And then the consumer behavior has shifted to like people now more and more one thing's really fast, the more you get faster, the faster you wandered. And so I think in some ways it's another, like it's just an user need that has become so pronounced in the business. Speaker 3 00:13:37 My, what I was curious too, about as director of product management, what's the scope of your, of that, of your responsibility and who do you report to in that role? Speaker 4 00:13:47 Um, so my scope is growth, and so that spans everything from acquisition retention, um, you know, resurrections, performance, marketing, SEO, audit incentives, all of those things combined. Um, so, and the way we think about growth is a lot of it is how we used to think about growth. Like, you know, I've learned about drugs at Facebook is also just like, what is the full growth engine? It's not one thing it's not just about acquiring users, because if you don't read in them, like they're not engaged in an ongoing basis, it's almost like a leaky bucket. Right. And so how we think about growth, like pretty much flow group, full funnel, full growth engine, but also like not just tactical growth in terms of like, how do we optimize certain flows, but actually what are the products we can build that to drive long-term growth? And so we think a lot about like gifting reference, like these are channels that are still efficient for acquisition, but there aren't actually a great way to experience Instacart the first time or make things around value, which is like, we know that people really get about the cost. Speaker 4 00:14:53 They have to pay to check out to get items. And so, like we recently shipped Dean stop with the hypothesis that it'll drive actually to attention because people can discover deals at savings on products, they buy all the time. And so we really think about growth, full funnel, but fluid products, you know, the one beyond technique, the tactical work and then SEO performance marketing and, you know, building out the tech for those things. Um, oh yeah. And then I, I do report to, I report to the VP of consumer who runs everything across like the ICI that includes payments. And that includes like the course storefront experience and reading our integrations, et cetera. Speaker 2 00:15:36 So you, so you joined the company how many months ago? Speaker 4 00:15:40 Six months Speaker 2 00:15:41 Ago. Okay. So yeah. So as you just described the scope of what you're working on, I mean, it's, it's everything basically. Now I got to assume that you've got, um, that there's, there's, there's a big team there there's, there's a history of, of processes and things that have been been done there for a long time. Um, I, I imagine as you, as you got started that trying to, um, try and trying to actually figure out what, what do I do first? What do I, what comes second? And, uh, you know, do, do I just like study everything and not break something? Or do I jump in and start trying to drive results? How did you, how did you sort through that and what did you actually do first? Speaker 4 00:16:25 Um, that's a, that's a great question. I think a part of me like, you know, someone who works on drones inside out, how do I get it back as fast as possible? And then how do we start seeing wins as fast as possibly, which is really daunting. Um, but the, the, the risky part about that is you might stumble upon things that you think are gonna work in the first place, but you don't know the business yet. You don't context yet. And it might actually just like waste time. And so a lot of my time in the early, like the first 60 days was just like, do things, understanding the business and product. And so we actually didn't make a full understand sprint for four weeks, which was just looking at every single fund, looking at all our channels. Where are people coming from? Who's retaining. Speaker 4 00:17:12 Who's not, how has every single screen on the product performing just like a full kind of sweep. It would deeply understand that performance of our products. And that was like one step that gave us actually a lot of insights that we had not talked about before. Um, and as the other aspect of it was just like understanding the organization and the people, and how are things working? Like, do people feel like they're set up for success? Do we have the right people working on the things they want to work on and vice versa? Um, do we have the right level of staffing on things that are actually really do? And like, what we found like in a couple of pockets was like everyone was working on too many things. And then, you know, that basically means everyone is Mindshare is stressed in. And while it looks like we are all working on this big thing, but actually nothing is moving forward because everyone is distracted. Speaker 4 00:18:03 Right. And so not if my word good John was like trying to understand really what are the most important focus areas and how do we kind of streamline our processes and Oregon teams in a way that people can find focus. Um, and it wasn't a big team. Like I think we think now we have like 70 or 80 engineers on the team. I have like a team of 10 to 15 BMS and marketers on my team. Um, and so it was a big deem. It was more about how do we set ourselves up so we can be more efficient and get the most impact weekend out of our work, um, and have theater outcomes. So like, it was both of those things. And I really had to resist the urge to say, let's go do this. There were areas that were like, oh, this is obvious. Let's try something to even to validate my instincts. But a lot of it was just understanding the product business and people, and kind of setting things up in a way that, you know, we could work really well or not next two months, but next year, the next week. Speaker 2 00:19:03 So, so obviously for, for you personally, that was, that was really helpful to get your head around everything. What about people who'd been on the team for a long time? Do you feel like they got, uh, fresh insights and new insights or was it just kind of, uh, for, for a lot of the people who've been there a long time, it was just reinforcing of things that they, that they felt pretty confident. They already knew. Speaker 4 00:19:24 Um, I think it was a mix there where there were aspects of it, which were like, you know, we've been doing these things, this works, this doesn't work. And like, it, it was kind of reinforcing that, okay, we are working on the right things. Um, in certain cases it was like even ways we did this X more, but we don't because we think we should do Y and that some of those exercises actually help us clarify where actually the opportunities are. And it was like, oh yeah, we taught that, but we never got, we never got to it. So like, it was an easier way to kind of switch focus. Um, one thing that I was lucky enough to do just in the timing and everything was like, I joined end of Q1. And so I got kind of reorient a bunch of things entering each tool. Speaker 4 00:20:06 So it's not disruptive for the teams. And we have the time to put together a plan. We have conviction in. Um, and so for a lot of people that was like, oh yeah, like this makes sense. We'd always wanted to do this, but we could never get to it. And I think it just gave us such a strong why and validation for things we should be working on and then like invest to make those investments and structured our teams around it. Uh, when it was really, it was really nice, but it was really nice for people because like I said, like a lot of people were very stressed and across different things. Speaker 3 00:20:36 I mean, you obviously did a really good job of sort of saying of doing that, taking a step back, doing the T taking the time to do the learning. Did you feel pressure external pressure to like jump in and make change, or maybe internal pressure? Like, I've gotta, I gotta start showcasing value right away, because I know in my previously I felt that joining new team. Speaker 4 00:20:57 Yeah, no, I think it's always oppression. And I actually feel it's even more so for growth people because everyone is like, oh, we have a growth version. We should start growing tomorrow. And they, and I think like, of course that there was a bit of that. There was a bit of that internally, there was like a bit of any less external, but of course, like, as we were hiring, even when like, okay, what has changed. Um, and I think we, I tried to find the balance of showing progress and still just like doing a lot more work on building a shared understanding or building, getting everyone on the same page or getting everyone on, like, you know, from a strategy perspective, it's really important. We focused more on retention, right? 'cause, you know, we, we are requiring all these people and there's a lot of upside left and retaining them, um, trying to understand even more core levels actually give people a shared language and on what to focus on. So like it's not just retention actually, it's second order. That's the most important thing. And so now you have, you know, a magic wand moment that people are going to orient themselves in on. So I think just people having more understanding of how Instacart growth works and what are our big levers to even having progress on that actually was really helpful. And it took away some anxiety or a tendency we're going to model it. Speaker 2 00:22:14 And I think that's, that's under appreciated by so many people like how, how important it is to get everyone on the same page. Because if, if, if you don't have kind of alignment and working together in a cohesive way, a big growth team can actually be probably like a negative because you get people kind of pulling in different directions. And, and, uh, so if you can start by getting everyone working from the same mental model of how the business grows, it's easier to, to then spot those opportunities and, and get people excited about aligning behind the bigger opportunities. Speaker 4 00:22:48 No, totally. And I think the other big shift we had to carry on and it's like a shift we were still going through is, you know, growth is not just small changes and it's not just like a hundred experiments in three months. Um, and we were doing a lot of them and we still do a lot of them on an ongoing basis. And there are wins from that. But at some point you reach a local Maxima and all these local maximize with each other don't necessarily prove as incremental as like what you might think in the beginning. So just like kind of shifting back model from being 80 or a hundred percent in that more to 30 to 50% of our investment should actually be more like longer than good, but that we'll actually do. Like is a very different mindset and it requires a very different kind of like discipline and patience. Speaker 4 00:23:35 It might not work in your first experiment and that's okay, let's try a different iteration of it in the second or the third iteration. Right. And it takes time. They sometimes you might think this is 10 X opportunity, but it takes six months to get there. And I think that mind shift and culture shift photograph target is so important because it's really easy for people in grow to be like, oh no, but we need to grow the model. So, you know, and so I think that like knowing that that's bled out what's needed for the business to not just drive towards in six months, but drive it for next three years, I think is different because it combined so much. Speaker 3 00:24:10 So for people who might be making a similar shift in growth, is there advice that you have for them sort of specific that, you know, from your experience making those changes, those shifts to avoid common mistakes? Speaker 4 00:24:22 Um, I think one thing I'd say is get as specific as possible on your levers. And so, you know, like, like an example I just shared was like, it's not just that we have to drive retention, but actually knowing your second audit is the most important thing for attention. Speaker 2 00:24:38 Um, what do you actually mean by that second order? Speaker 4 00:24:41 Um, like how quickly when someone faces that flourish and stuck on. Speaker 2 00:24:46 Okay. Gotcha. I thought it was more like this, like it's, it's not just retention. It's second order retention, like in a different dementia, Some growth lingo. I'm not familiar with Speaker 4 00:24:59 What, like the biggest indicative longer dumped retention is like how quickly you can place your second order, um, on the platform. And they similar for Facebook, like 10 years ago, it was like, how quickly can you find five friends? And if you can, in the next couple of days of signing up, you will be way more reading than anything, right. And for Monday years, and to a large degree, even now, like that's the thing, Facebook focuses the worst time to drive this. How quickly can we get your critical mass of friends until they find a suggestions? All of those projects came out of that one insight that that is the most critical level for driving user retention. And so I think for any such shift, I think it's important that people kind of start internalizing that the problem to be cracked is very specific. And that is the one thing that will drive growth. And it might not happen in a month. It might date, but you have to be very rigorous about it. Um, and I do think that helps because it's really easy to say, we have to improve retention, let's do this and let's do this and let's do this. Um, but it's really not all those hundred things. It's really probably one or two things that you really have to crack. Speaker 3 00:26:08 It's just, it's interesting to me. Um, you honed in on that, uh, time to second order, Sean and I had recently worked with, uh, with a team in the e-commerce space actually. And, uh, we're very, uh, we put as a, as a, as a group, we honed in on that as a really important, uh, growth lever. But, uh, I, I agree with like if you set something like that up as the key objective to work forward to, it can be very impactful and it gets everyone sort of aligned and looking at the same direction, you know, in the same direction as if we can accomplish this. That's how we'll grow. Speaker 2 00:26:43 I think it's actually speaking in the e-commerce space in general. I think it's so interesting how you have different sectors kind of go down the path of making some of the same mistakes and, and, uh, I, it's so easy to just look at aggregate transactions in the, in the e-commerce space and not thinking about it on a, on a human level, like you would with a Facebook or with, with kind of more traditional consumer brands where it's like, how do I, how do I create a, an, uh, a long-term user or customer on a product? And so when you start to shape a, um, a buyer journey to getting them to that state, you just, you think about an e-commerce business so differently, but it's, it's, it seems so natural as you're talking about it that way, but it's, it's been surprising to me to see how, how quickly, uh, e-commerce companies just focus on bulk transactions. Yeah, Speaker 4 00:27:41 I think they talk line is a very tempting graph, right? As long as the Duff line is going up, it looks great. But I think the question is the way I describe it sometimes to people is it's not that you're not growing. You're probably leaving a lot of growth on the table if you're not retaining people as well, that you could be in negative now, after having it quiet, 50 million users, 40 million, it's actually like vested growth. That was yes. Happening on the grass. Speaker 2 00:28:10 Am I actually be hard to get those users back because they didn't have a good enough experience to keep using it. And so, in a sense, you're, you're kind of like a, you're kind of, um, you have to reconvince them and Speaker 4 00:28:24 Then convincing the first time. Speaker 2 00:28:26 Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so if you, you know, obviously you've, you've learned a lot in the last six months in it, and I think it's probably a fairly unique experience of, of dropping into a company that's growing at the rate that Instacart has particularly like with, with probably some extra pandemic wind behind it. And so it's just really kind of an unprecedented journey that you went on, but now that you've been on that journey, if you could, if you could go back and do it again, is there anything that you would do differently? Speaker 4 00:28:58 I think I would probably spend a little bit more time on understanding levers that I've not experienced personally before in growth. And so like, performance marketing is actually a great example of that. Um, so like in companies like Facebook, Instagram, and messenger growth that I did for multiple years, um, most of the growth and, and back gums from like social loops, viral loops, flywheel in the product and so on. Right. And so then I joined, Instaguide like a lot of my focus was on that part of the, of the business and levels and understanding them, which is which I still think it's really important, but at a company like Facebook, like 90% of your growth might come from some stuff like that. Right. But in a company like Instacart and IZO make Uber and DoorDash and live, that is a big incentive and performance marketing aspect of the business that drives growth. Um, SEO is another one that like drives so much growth. And I wish I had spent more time early on in understanding that a little bit better and even bridging that to the product a little bit better. Um, even as I joined in late, you know, we want to talk about the things that separate, we say, oh, performance marketing, and we say product, but then actually the same thing, because unless you can make it work together, you're not going to get the most impact out Speaker 2 00:30:20 Of it, but the performance on the marketing side. Speaker 4 00:30:24 Right. And so I think, and even just like getting creative, if you're building new products like these dive, and we know these and values are so useful for people, why not performance market that become apartments, markedly, you know, get delivery, grocery delivery to today. And so I think it's like I raced, I was like a bot. I had exploded sooner, um, and faster. And I think it was like a lot of, it was like a lot of my instinct was in the product growth area. Um, and I think that's like probably my biggest learning is like the non-social apps or products of the word. the word? Speaker 2 00:31:03 This week's breakout growth podcast episode is sponsored by SAP SAP helps businesses increase productivity and achieve real-time transparency with the power and flexibility of rise with SAP S four HANA cloud. If you have ambitious goals and are working to lead markets and industries, then you probably already know how important it is to align with a technology partner who will scale and drive innovation with your business with grow by SAP future industry leaders like yourself, don't have to rely on stitch together solutions that don't talk to each other to manage business finances, operations, and customer relations. Instead leveraging the flexibility of SAP's cloud based solution. You can power all these in one place and gain unprecedented insights into the performance of your business from end to end, whether you're on the brink of, or have already achieved breakout growth, success, learn more by visiting sap.com/high growth. Speaker 2 00:32:04 Do you think that's probably pretty generically applicable to almost anyone in a growth role who kind of, they, they, they, they come in with a set of experiences and they, and they just, they look at things through that lens of their previous experiences. And, um, yeah, it's like, so it's probably the same thing you're saying I've, I've, I've done the same thing. And I've heard a lot of others where it's just like, oh, I'm gonna, this growth engine would be really similar to the last one. And then over time you start to discover the differences Speaker 4 00:32:35 It's not. And like every company's growth engine is so different from the other one, um, that it's, it's just really fascinating to see how different it is. But I think like, um, I might, I might be drawing and I might utilize this in three years from now, but I think one though, is that like a lot of consumer products and social products like Facebook and Instagram messenger Snapchat, they just, I would think they do have a lot more growth from make five wheels built into their products, like viral loops and social loops and like, you know, use that to use the probe, um, gum pair to like a more service day product or like a gig economy type product. And I think it's not just in Chicago, it's like even for that matter Shopify and others, um, but a lot more of it actually starts leaning into performance marketing, brand marketing awareness plays, which are just, you have to kind of have a different way of feeling it when you don't have a hundred million users, whoever like doing wait another 10 million users, you know? Um, so I do think that that split is probably very consistent across the two industries, Speaker 2 00:33:45 But it seems that your desire to go in and spend your time understanding the situation, whether it's understanding what works, understanding the customers who loves it most, why they love it, understanding the team and where the strengths are and where people are focused like that, that a desire to get your head around things before, before leaning into the temptation of, uh, of driving results in doing stuff. Um, probably probably, you know, as you kind of say, what did you do differently? It sounds like you probably did a lot of the right stuff. Speaker 4 00:34:21 I was just saying, doing more. I think the most important thing I have learned as like, the things that I've stuck with for longer is things I had extreme conviction in, right. Even though the first experiment or first gen experiments, I'm not finding out it's still like, no, I've looked at every single data point or user journey in every possible way. And I have conviction, this is going to work. You Speaker 2 00:34:44 Just can't be the optimal result. Speaker 4 00:34:47 You just have to make it work and it takes longer. And that's okay. But like, I think that's actually the biggest pitfall that people have is like, they'll have the right instinct and they'll try something and it won't work and it'd be like, oh, it didn't work. Let's move on. And I think knowing when to not move on is as important as knowing when to move on, because otherwise you might just leave. Something's really magical on the table that would have done X, but it just didn't because we didn't stick with it for another two months. Speaker 2 00:35:15 I think that's probably the, a little bit of the difference on a, um, kind of individual contributor versus versus a leader. Like if, as an individual contributor, it's easy to say I have the conviction. I mean, it's going to keep focusing here, but, um, when you have so much you're responsible for, in such a big team that you want to have, uh, B be productive and effective, how do you, how do you transfer your conviction onto the team and keep them excited and focused about something or staying receptive and, and maybe someone else's excited about something else. And how do you know if your instinct is right versus their instinct? Uh, any, any guidance on sort of the leadership side there? Speaker 4 00:35:58 I think, I mean, I try to definitely, I don't a lot of decisions to the teams because I do think ultimately teams need to feel empowered and responsible for driving impact, but at the same time, it's like, how do you find that balance of guiding in the right direction? Um, and you know, I try to do a lot of like open, like working sessions, kinds of conversations with my teams, which have less, like, these are not reviews. These are not like telling me what happened with this experiment and what to do next, but it's more like let's debate it out. And then it's more like when in more fluid in the terms of like, let's really debate it. Like I want to hear it, why you think this is wrong? I want to talk about why I think this is right or what is Marissa, but like, let's have that conversation. Speaker 4 00:36:42 Um, and I think, I know one thing I do do is like, I try to get in the weeds with the Dean, but in ways where like, let's, let's problem solve it together. So if it's like, let me put some data or let me look at experiments myself. And I do a lot of that. So like, um, I tried to make sure that people, I work with feel like I know what's going on and I want it with them versus that feeling of like, oh, you're so far removed. You actually don't know what, this is Speaker 2 00:37:08 Really hard to have credibility, asking people to focus on things when it looks like you're disconnected. Speaker 4 00:37:12 Um, and so I think like I tried to do one nod of that and four areas. Um, well I have more conviction in like often things that people ask is like, but what happens if you fail? And I think it's really on leaders to be like, that's okay. It's okay. Like, you know, if be, feel in three months or six months, but, and realize it's actually the wrong idea and now it's time to move on. That's okay. Like you learn something out of it. And that's actually as important, um, you know, getting over and out of it. Um, and I think as leaders creating that safe space for people to learn and fail is really important because otherwise we're always going to be conservative and the biggest growth winds come from not being as, or whatever it comes from taking like big swings that people think you are insane. And then as you know, I, haven't gone in saying that's going to work just like give me three months, you know? Speaker 2 00:38:04 And again, that's, but that's part of the credibility of when you first start there, that, that, that trust is earned over time. And you, you want to, you want to have that trust and, and, and belief right away. But Speaker 4 00:38:18 Oh, so jealous, like, you know, maybe like one thing I often think of is like, what are my most predicted investments that even if everyone is like, no, I'm going to protect it. And so it's like, you know, you have like two people on the side thing and you don't need to talk about it until it works. Um, what would you just say kind of keep protected and not create like the pressure of deliberate goal in like a month. Um, but I think, I think Edwards, I always had, like, I dunno, even as an IC, like I've been an ICF Facebook for a very long time. Like since 20 12, 13, I would always have these like two things that I'm working on with engineers. And I'm like, you know, you, if it works, um, and if people don't like, you guys are just wasting time and you're like, no, no, we make, we are doing the stuff you want us to do. Um, and I think that's like, it's not as good to have those because I think once you do three of those tours, you, you build that conviction and intuition. I feel that's like really important because as, as important as data is, I don't think it does either full story everyday. Speaker 3 00:39:22 Sure. I want to move on to sort of our next topic area, but I have one quick question I wanted to ask you before we do that. Um, you mentioned the importance of referrals in, at Instacart, and I'm curious if coming from the social media background that you have with Facebook, is that like a, does that give you like a super power as you approach, uh, trying to drive by reality and referrals for Instacart? Speaker 4 00:39:44 Um, I think so, it's like so much of the patterns around invites, Andrea for those are like industry standards at this point. And a lot of it driven by Facebook and messenger and whatnot. It's like, oh, you know, we don't need to do these 12 different things. Just like, if we just did this, like one or two, it'll be good enough for us. And so I think that there's definitely some efficiency and ROI that has so many of us, whoever from Facebook I'm getting stuck on right now. Um, do just like we have the instincts nailed down on that one. Speaker 3 00:40:17 So, uh, we noticed that the new, a new CEO joined Instacart a few months ago from Facebook. Um, I guess following you, uh, saying I've got to keep working with Karina Grima, um, Sean, I always believed that CEO plays a really important role in growth. Has it been helpful to have CEO who shares your background from Facebook? Um, yeah, it's probably the most sophisticated company in the world when it comes to growth out there. Speaker 4 00:40:41 Um, I think, I think so, like, I think the biggest reason Facebook was so good at drought. It was like the leadership really understood growth and not everyone understands growth and the way Facebook leadership did. And I think like having, um, a CEO from Facebook who's seen growth for the last 10, 12 years at Facebook is amazing because if anything, she's like a credit type partner and why she's like, you know, she wasn't having to like get growth in a month. She was like, build your capabilities, build your growth engine, build things that compound over time. And that's just like having that kind of, um, indention and support system with the CEO of the company, understanding growth is amazing and they should she'd push us even more so like, and she understands the ad side of the business and the performance marketing side of the business she's been in ads and videos and consumer and make all of that at Facebook. And so it's really, it's really interesting to see how she thinks about growth and like how she thinks about growth is not just all team doing growth. It's everyone doing growth. Um, is this, is this really amazing to work with that kind of thing? Speaker 2 00:41:49 Yeah. It's funny that you, uh, you, you talk about like the having that CEO sorta understands flywheels and compounding growth over time. And I, uh, I remember in one of my earlier roles where I kind of moved beyond the very top of funnel, spend a dollar, what's my ROI and kind of that's my, that's my safe area, stay in that safe area to where I started collaborating with the head of product. And together we really mapped out like, this is actually how growth works in this business. We have this really high referral rate. We get people to this point, if we get them there where they're retained, it kicks off this referral. The, the, the, all the referrals helped to average down the acquisition cost. And so we've built out this pretty sophisticated diagram of, of how growth works and, um, and then I brought it to the CEO and I was just so excited about it. Speaker 2 00:42:44 And, uh, and he told me, what the hell is this? He's like, never bring this into a board meeting. I don't want to call out that CEO specifically beyond just kind of telling that story, because it's a CEO who, who was so effective in so many ways, but, um, you know, and, and, and I got so embarrassed afterwards that, like, I kind of like put that away and like buried it somewhere. And I wish I still have the diagram, but I kind of lost it. But interestingly, the approach that I had advocated was the approach that we ended up using Dropbox, who was targeting a very similar customer with a very similar value proposition. And we reached millions of users faster as a business with almost no marketing, you know, most, almost no dollar spent on direct customer acquisition, but looking at that holistic growth engine. Speaker 2 00:43:39 And so, um, you know, and, and, and what was good was, you know, day one sitting down with drew and, and, and kind of having that shared thought of like growth is, is much more than just how you acquire customers. And if we can leverage our existing user base to grow that it can be so much more sustainable over time. So we, we went in with this kind of aligned viewpoint in the early days, and just so powerful when, when that happens. And so I think the challenge is how do you, how do you get CEOs so that they understand growth enough where they can be, uh, an ally and an asset versus a, um, kind of an anchor that, that maybe makes your life a little more difficult, but the best way is to just recruit them out of Facebook. Speaker 4 00:44:24 I was many nervous about that. Like just not just surveillance to guy, but even as I thought about leaving Facebook, it's like, can I go find a company that actually, if I decided to grow it, do I find a company that actually really understands and appreciates growth? Because it's not always easy. It's not like you come on board and, you know, numbers go up to model. Um, and at the same day you like are like, you know, I've done a lot of work at the intersection of social and cloud. And so it's like find a company that kind of understands that style, um, and framework of operating from a growth mindset. And I think like it's been, it's been really helpful to have like, and it's Fiji. Um, you know, she's done all of this before. And so it's easy to have that. And I think it's like, really, I'm really grateful to have that. Speaker 4 00:45:08 I didn't see that coming. I was taking this role when I took the no, like, you know, even my first few weeks, just like, kind of explaining to people like what growth has it's, you know, people are like, oh, you just do copy changes. No, no, no, we didn't know coffee Tinder as it likely to your product. Right. And so like, oh, do you just do performance marketing? Why do you need to touch code base for the product? And you're like, no, we do need to go to and spend the Friday, like we need the, does this idea that growth should be able to operate at every part of the product and every, every screen in the product in some way. And like the gold team has to be bred with that mindset, right? Like the engineers and the PM's and data science, they have to be familiar with not just like locked out landing page, but everything in the product, they have to be able to write code across the board. So how do you build a team like that? How do you train them to be able to do that? Speaker 2 00:46:01 How do you find an organization that's receptive to allowing them to do that? Speaker 4 00:46:06 Uh, and I think that was a really big part of my first three months at Instacart, because honestly they coming from Facebook, I'm like, what do you mean? Like growth cannot, right. Gordon, like, go grab like we, and like, it was just, it was something I had almost taken for granted to be honest, because it was like, I'd never seen growth operate any other way. Like we write code on wherever we want to write code across the, all the other Facebook apps. Um, and so I think it's been like a really interesting journey to like, help people understand the difference and like, oh, you have to win. So I think one thing I did was like, I did take on just like a couple of new beds, which were hardcore product based like, you know, launching gifting, which is very much a social acquisition gen and launching Dean staff, which is very much a retention play, but it was like a good way to kind of experiment and position the team to be like, growth can do resilient one word, and we can work across the app. And I think that was really helpful because now we started bending that trust in the OD again, I'll be like, oh, okay, now you can do this three other things. Um, it's, it's been exciting and it's been fascinating to see that. Speaker 2 00:47:12 Yeah, no, I'm, um, I, interestingly our next interview, uh, we're doing this interview on a Friday. Our next interview is going to be on Monday with Morgan brown, who you worked with in the same area of, of, uh, Facebook. Who's now at Shopify working with another former colleague, Luke Leva skew. And, um, it's just, they're such amazing. Some of the people I respect most in growth stands um, also in measure one of the first people that I met in growth that blew my mind probably 10 years ago. Um, I, you know, I th that DNA, I think has, has kind of permeated so many different companies and, um, and it's exciting to see it spread. And I think, I think there's there's parts that are maybe not even even recognized of, of what Facebook contributes. Like, for example, I, after we publish the book, I kept, uh, I kept coming up across like just the, the whole cross-functional piece and that it's just so hard to work cross-functionally and, you know, trying to do as much deep dive studying into like cross-functional stuff as I could, or reading Harvard business, school papers and everything, everything I could could to try to figure out like the cross-functional challenge. Speaker 2 00:48:25 And then I come across this article that says, mark Zuckerberg, the management genius has figured out cross-functional by essentially reinforcing company mission, every opportunity he has, and then, uh, having a metric that's tied to that mission with the north star metric. And, um, and that, that gives context to everyone in the organization on what it is that they're trying to accomplish and helps to drive alignment across the organization. And so it, uh, it is really interesting to hear how you went from that transition and you maybe experienced some of those challenges when it's, when it's in a different organization. And, um, I'm glad that your life has gotten, um, not, and I'm not surprised that your life has gotten better when someone who kind of has that same background comes into, into the organization at the top to help to drive that kind of company-wide culture of growth and shared understanding of how it works. Yeah, Speaker 4 00:49:21 No, totally. I think the other thing, like the cross-functional piece that I think Facebook has nailed is like, it's not like PMs working together and working together, DS working together on every problem. You are a unit of BMH design, data science and product drug functions, and you kind of like collectively solving a problem, which I think it just creates already different incentive system for the teams to actually solve a problem and understand them together. Um, but also snake so much more efficient because everything you do has all these different perspectives and it's data points and information kind of bend into a proposal on a plan you are coming up with, and everyone is far more like tied in and incentivized to work on accomplishing those goals together. And so I think like everything adds up beautifully, all the metrics like goals and everything, like either multiply together or add together to form your filler level goal and so on. And then everyone is equally accountable, which I think is amazing because then you're really solving a problem, right? Speaker 2 00:50:21 I've, I've, I've always been shocked at how much creative energy gets wasted on just trying to convince people that we should approach the business this way, where if you can have the alignment upfront, then, then it's good to have some debate around what are the best opportunities. And what's what are the right experiments against those opportunities. But if, if you are debating, whether experimentation is good or not, and you know, that that customer journeys matter, then, then it's just, it's a, such a, such a broken framework that, um, it's really hard for grit to succeed in that. Speaker 4 00:50:57 And even like scaling growth ideas, right? Like, you know, it's not a BM led yes, the ans lead, but it's not a PM's are the only function that, that should come up with ideas for growth. If you could create a culture where every function can come up with ideas for growth and be like, Hey, I noticed this, this is bad. What if we run an experiment, we'll fix it. You know, then you start really compounding the impact of people you have big. And then like, that's a very interesting cultural shift to do. And we saw some of that and it's checked out, but it's like, oh, PM's have to tell me what you do. And then it's like, what? You're really smiling. What do you think they should do? Trying to do a lot of like, and then the thing is when you give people the space and forums to express that they'll come up with amazing ideas. Right? And so I think getting to a place where engineers feel empowered to just start an experiment, because they think it's impactful and same for other functions. I think it just multiplies what you can do as a team. And we're doing a lot of that too. Just like process and culture building and team activities to be like, this is a photo where everyone brings pitches and then anyone can bring ideas. Every function has to bring ideas and then they'll give a box, but it can take ideas and stuff like that. And like it's. Speaker 2 00:52:12 Yeah, I think that's awesome. So you're like viewing culture transformation and in front of you, sorry, go ahead either. Speaker 3 00:52:18 I was just gonna say, I think it's a good point when your engineer starts suggesting, or even just jumping in with experiments. It's a good sign that you're starting to really get your, your growth, uh, system working, working well together. I want to shift gears just slightly. One of the things that Shawn Sean Knight, we keep hearing, uh, as we, as we, uh, speak to different different leaders and in growth, uh, is this idea of community led growth. We spoke to Karen Flanagan from HubSpot and they're just on fire. And he said, community is, is the future for us. Obviously you come from Facebook, which is built on community, but as you do you see opportunities for community led growth at Instacart? Speaker 4 00:52:57 Um, we do, it's something that I'm pretty actively thinking about. And there's so much with like community influencers, recipes, like cooking shows on Dick doc or Instagram and Snapchat and whatnot. Um, there's definitely a part of it, which is how do you bridge inspiration and content and people doing that, like communities that are coming together behind these ideas to shopping on Instacart. And there's a lot of work around that that we're about. So I definitely think that it's something, there there's something that could be huge for us. It's not something we've done much else yet. Um, but I do think like that's where the industry is going. And like, you already see that with clear data economy across the board and, you know, Tik TOK influencers and affiliate marketing. It's like really blowing up across the board right now. Speaker 2 00:53:46 Yeah. Um, so I, I'm actually just getting into reading this book by Andrew Chan. I'm not sure if you've, you've heard about it, but the, the cold start problem, he sent me a good, a preview copy of it. But one of the things that I came across, um, the, in, in the last day or so in reading is that, uh, he talks about all networks, have an easy side and a hard side to the network. Um, I know you guys, you guys are kind of like a three-sided networks, so maybe easy side order side, and then a really harder four sides. You can explain what those are, but then maybe you can let us know which, which parts of the, the easiest of those parts. And is there one that's a lot harder than the others? Speaker 4 00:54:28 Um, Speaker 2 00:54:30 Or do you even agree with that idea that most networks have an easy and a hard side? Speaker 4 00:54:35 Um, I do think, I do think they have, because, you know, you'll see that, I mean, at this like Uber and Lyft had to deal with this a lot, right? Like, so much of that growth was actually not about you as a drug, but about a driver to growth. And every single time they could find sufficient drivers in an area usable, which is go up. Right. And so it was like, that was the hardest problem for them to crack more so than the consumer demand side of the problem. And I do think that kind of place that's across, like, even for us, it's like user shopper ads and retailers. So we actually have like a, Speaker 2 00:55:11 In the ads part. Speaker 4 00:55:14 Um, and I think that's like really all of this has to kind of work in conjunction with each other. Um, but I do think there are aspects of it, which are harder than others. And I think for us, you know, skinning outs, business, retailer business, I've two sites where the more we can plot those problems, the more growth gets transferred to consumers automatically because you just have more selection, you have more retailers, you have more ads and better deals on the platform. And I think even just like, you know, discounts that, uh, to Bonnie might run on Instacart on a daily basis, the more you can scale out those things, those are really hard marketplace problems to solve for us right now. And then it does transport into using Botox automatically. So I mean, I, my instinct is I have, that is always a part of the network that's really hard to crack. Speaker 4 00:56:06 Um, and I think like once you do it though, again, it's one of those like big swing growth levers that just like drives everything together. And I think that's one, I think on the user side and the one thing that we haven't cracked yet. And I, I really hope we do as the, like the user to user networks, like reference and gifting is one thing and we are still to be there, but, um, even just like shared guards and family guards, like, what does that mean? That should I be a redo shop with my partner? And th th is that actually step out. Like, I don't know. Speaker 3 00:56:39 So it sounds like that might be the community led side of things in the future, Speaker 4 00:56:44 Uh, and like planning, like you're planning a party. How does everyone buy things together? And so I think that like a couple of those network products that could drive growth, it's not clear to the degree to which they went right now. And so we just need to, we need to figure out how to crack it. Speaker 2 00:57:00 Yeah. It's interesting. Just as, as you say that I'm thinking like, you know, so many of the online flower services, for example, huge markup when you order them online, versus if you just go and buy fresh flowers somewhere, and then it seems like that, that you guys could play a really good role in disrupting that and that there's some network effect there and that, you know, what, where are those categories that are, um, that are already tapping into online to, to, to have one person give something to someone else? And then hopefully obviously introducing a service through that as the other part of how you actually turn them into Speaker 4 00:57:37 Jamie just launched. We just launched gifting, I think a couple of like two weeks ago on Instacart and me for the first time. And I'm so I'm so excited. It's very early. It's not like it's not on my diabetic and other laundry right now. It's really early, but I'm really excited about the potential even like as hard as combat armed, right? It's like, you forgot to order to get for your parents, just buy a last minute gift from Sephora or best buy. And they often have amazing beans running on Instacart. And so just like trying to get into this mode of user, to user like social acquisition as I call it, um, I think it's really going to be fascinating because if I send you a great game today or like, you know, last minute or from best buy, and then you make, oh, I like this what's Instacart. Let me get it. I think that's amazing. Speaker 2 00:58:23 Yeah. But even like food can be great gifts. You know, someone who's just had a surgery, something like that. Being able to like, it feels like there's a social component there that, that Speaker 4 00:58:33 Do you see it, like with cake cakes and muffins and, you know, even like, just like the recipe bags or soup, if you're second bone broths and whatnot. And so, I mean, food is the thing that people give the most to each other when it's not a foreign one thing. And so I actually think it's a more ongoing use case where It's like the mother's days and the Valentine's days would only happen, like, you know, maybe 10 events a year, but everything else, like people you care about, you give them food. Like it's very personal. Right. Speaker 3 00:59:04 I know, I know we could probably go on forever on this, but I want to be respectful of your time. And I sort of want Sean to not miss his flight. So, one last question, before we wrap up, what do you feel like you understand about growth now that you didn't understand as well? A couple of years ago Speaker 4 00:59:20 It takes time. Um, it takes time. It's not, it's not, I can grow as much as the island grows. Love saying that it is hiking, but it takes time. Speaker 2 00:59:32 Yeah. It's, uh, it's about, it's about cranking a flywheel more than more than just one Speaker 4 00:59:37 And you will have to be so patient and so disciplined about it and doing it the right way. And to really keep pushing that flywheel. Um, is that because nanny, you know, even the first time we did messenger growth, like back in the day, all about like pushes, but at the end, reachability, if you could push those two numbers above a certain pressure or you in that country, but that wasn't like, oh, you can just do it. Like, it took so much time to do it surgically for every single country, one after the other. And, you know, I think that's my biggest learning and, you know, back then I would like, oh, I know what to do. I'll go do it, we'll have it back. It will be great. And I'm like, no, it's going to take a day. It's Speaker 3 01:00:17 I think that's probably the, one of the key things for me that I took from this conversation. And thanks again so much for joining us. But, uh, you mentioned that, you know, it's a real pitfall when you have conviction for something too, you know, you jump into it, you run an experiment and it fails. So you, you feel like you, you have to move on to something else. I think you're right. Growth takes time. And you have to kind of really know when to, uh, dig in and say, I believe in this, let's keep going and see what we can find. Speaker 2 01:00:45 Yeah. And, and particularly that, and that's the other big takeaway is just, uh, for, for me, is just like cranking up understanding the growth engine and then cranking up that growth engine. It's about sustainable improvement over time. And not just, not just blips of improvement, that's not going to get you anywhere. And so everything that you've kind of taken us through really tells a story of, of building a sustainably accelerating growth engine that, that ultimately is going to lead to a lot more value than, uh, than, you know, just those little one-offs that might, might, uh, might feel good. You get little adrenaline endorphin rush every time that you get a little win. But, um, but yeah, if you, if you can just keep patiently cranking that up, that uh, that's, that's super powerful. Um, thank you so much. Yeah, go ahead. Speaker 3 01:01:32 Just one last thing, it sounds like Grima, your team is growing fast and I'm guessing a lot of people in our audience would love to be part of that. Are there any specific roles or anything that you're looking to fill right now that our audience should, uh, reach out about? Speaker 4 01:01:46 Um, we have one journey of what enjoy, and we are looking to further as the performance marketing you the draw. Okay. Um, and it's like a BM leader who would look over all our acquisition channels and look through like, you know, social and Instagram and YouTube and all of that fun stuff and really unlock those. Um, so if anyone is interested, feel free to reach out to me. Speaker 2 01:02:07 Awesome. I'm sure you'll have lots of takers. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Um, super insightful for me personally, and I'm sure our listeners are going to love it too. So for everyone tuning Speaker 0 01:02:18 In, thanks for tuning in . Speaker 5 01:02:29 Thanks for listening to the breakout growth podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and while you're at it subscribe. So you never miss a show until next week.

Other Episodes

Episode 2

October 22, 2019 00:51:19
Episode Cover

TransferWise VP Growth, Nilan Peiris, shares how they've used customer advocacy to grow from 40 to over 1700 employees.

In this episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean Ellis is joined by guest host Matt Lerner, formerly marketing director at PayPal. Together, they...

Listen

Episode 47

May 03, 2021 00:46:59
Episode Cover

How Notarize overcame legal barriers to drive 600% growth in 2020

In this episode of the Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean and Ethan have a learning-packed discussion with Pat Kinsel, Notarize’s Founder and CEO. Notarize provides...

Listen

Episode 45

March 31, 2021 00:59:42
Episode Cover

Tips for Building a Rocketship from Canva’s Former Head of Product

Looking back after you have stepped away from something is often a great way to gain valuable insights, and in this episode of The...

Listen