Welcome to another edition of the Always Be Testing podcast with your
host, Ty De Grange. Get a guided tour of the world of growth, performance
marketing, customer acquisition, paid media, and affiliate marketing.
We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings in growth,
marketing, and life. Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door, and
have some fun talking about data driven growth and lessons learned.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the Always Be Testing podcast. I
am super excited to have Graham Hunter with us today. What's up, Graham?
Nothing much. Just, cranking away.
I am at Segment currently and hope to run their startup program
and really excited to chat with you about learnings
and process and everything. We've known each other quite a while. I think it's
probably been seven years at this point. Yeah.
At least. Time flies. You were, I think,
your trade craft at the time, I was just rolling out round barn labs and
talking a lot about the growth stuff and all the emerging excitement around the topic of
growth. We were both in San Francisco at the time, the heyday of growth
market pre pre COVID. Pre COVID. Awesome. Well, I'm
I'm excited so excited to have Graham here today. He is, a
true growth person. He understands acquisition. He understands multichannel.
He understands teams. He's been featured in a number of
interesting speaking engagements and pods in the past and leads the startup
program segment, like you said, and yeah, man, it's gonna be fun. Just for the
audience out there, tell us a little bit about your background. I know people would be interested in
it. You know, I started out knowing that I wanted to do startups.
And so I just kind of, like, showed up to Wharton
Venture program, and I was like, hey, guys, to do stuff.
And, you know, a bunch of social media marketing through, like, some little agencies and
stuff like that. Found a company that, that was doing ecommerce
before direct to consumer was, like, really popular, just did whatever
was required. I packed boxes for years and
before we got our full sort of, like, you know, shipping thing going,
learned so much about marketing, so much about ecommerce. And from there, I just sort of,
like, went into agencies or consulting
one channel at a time. I started doing Google search. I then I
moved to SEO, and then I moved to sort of, like, being a full stack
marketer. I joined some different startups along the way. I was a
director of marketing at Patreon, like employee thirty eight or something like that.
I think now they're somewhere between five hundred and thousand people. Yeah. So that's
really, like, how I got my start, you know, sort of tackling one
channel at a time, educating myself, being able to execute, and
then, like, moving to the next opportunity that sorta, like, opened things up. And then, you
know, after a while, I kept joining larger and larger startups. And then I found Segment because
I had used it, and it really unlocked a lot of the
functionality for all the marketing tools that I used and things like that.
And then when I saw that they needed someone to sort of manage the startup program and
startup ecosystem stuff, I was like, perfect. This sort of helps
me keep my startup background. It's still marketing.
I don't know what program management is per se, but I don't think it's that
challenging. And and so, you know, really, like, kept all my skills, brought a
little more work life balance from some of my early start up days now that I have kids and things like
that. And and, yeah, I couldn't be happier. Love the team at
Twilio and Segment and always excited each quarter to sorta, like, launch new
stuff. And That's cool. What what is it about startups that you
think kind of, just, like, clicked for you? I think that
the piece where you are the owner
of everything in this domain where it's like, yeah. Literally
anything that you wanna do, as long as it sounds like a good idea, I'm gonna say yes to
it. You're in charge of, like, how you spend your time, because I don't
have time to, like, hear the details of every, you know,
advertising or social idea that you have, understand
those channels deeply. That's your thing. So you decide, justify,
sure, how you want to be spending your time and the outcome and the timelines and all that stuff. But
if you want to do something, do it. And I learned that from sort of, like, early on. You know,
I talked about packing boxes, and I was like, we shouldn't be me and this
CEO and this CEO hacking boxes together. I was like, we should stop doing this, guys. We
should do other things, you know, like running this company. And so, you
know, I just outside of my function function, you know, I'm, like, employee
number one. Yeah. I basically was like, I need to learn about, like,
three PO and drop shipping and Magento and its
integrations into, like, different shipping carriers and
that connect. And so, like, I did that. And then one day, by the time we,
like, implemented all this stuff, it's like we with, you know, like,
FBA, Fulfillment by Amazon, and everything just sort of worked, and we never packed a box
again. And I was like, this is cool. You know what I mean? People giving me
the opportunities that I feel like I would have to work years to get right
away. And, yeah, I messed up some big things. You know? Yeah.
Good learning opportunities. And sorta, like, lived and learned and and went from there. That's
awesome. Yeah. What a great emphasis on learnings, which is a huge part
of the theme of the pod of testing and learning and kind of taking those learnings
and improve upon. So it makes a lot of sense. You obviously had an affinity for
what segment was capable of doing. I've always been impressed and
very, look to them on a number of things, collaborate with
with you and your company. But maybe tell the folks listening about
Segment and maybe kind of the easy reader's digest version, and then we can kinda
dive into some of the details. Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
So Segment is a CDP, and a CDP
stands for customer data platform. And, basically, the
idea is when your data live for these various tools
and disparate places and data warehouses and things like
that, doing anything becomes more complicated.
You need to be writing some script that's you know, you need to be writing these SQL queries that are
gonna query your warehouse, and then pull that somehow in we'll use
Airflow and pull that into customer IO so that the traits are that
it's like, stop. You know what I mean? Like, you need
team members, whether they're data engineering, software engineers,
stuff. And so that means that all of the data sources that you have,
whether that's, oh, an opportunity was created in Salesforce or somebody
visited your website and they clicked on this. All of that, all those things are data
sources that are pulled into Segment. Now Segment's got the full view
of what data related to your business exists and then can
send all of that data to every downstream destination that
requires it. And so to give you an example, you know, email marketing is,
like, one of those things that seems kinda easy, and then you get
into it, and you're just like, I need to integrate this software. What does that mean? Okay. I need to
put little, you know, events everywhere on my website so that when someone
clicks add to cart, I know that I I can send them a cart abandonment email, whatever
it is. Right? But that integration process when you're on segment is
like, oh, customer. Io? Great. On. And then it starts sending
all of the data associated with your business to customer IO. And so now when I go in to
build workflows, which is their name for just campaigns, you know, things
like that, I can say, when somebody like, a d d and
it's at at to cart, and I'm like, that's the one. You know? And then just sort of go from
there. So all of the triggers Right. That all these sort of, like, campaigns
use to to drive all this personalization and, like, all
that stuff, it's just there from day one. And so you're just like, I get it.
This is valuable. Like, the most expensive things is time and technical
people's time, and, like, this just eliminates that. I don't need to talk to engineering as a
marketer. And, you know, it also helps with with other things like data warehousing
and all of that stuff. You know? Just like, yeah. Send this into a data warehouse. The end. So, yeah, that
segment, that's the sort of, like, value prop, especially for startups. And, of course, as you
grow, having your data in one place, manage these, like,
managed data pipelines, you could call them, has other benefits.
Unification of profiles, just having a profile where you can look at a person.
Oh, this is a contact on an opportunity. They also visited the website. They also Yeah. You know,
did x y z, you know, like that. And you're like, oh, wow. The unification of that,
once you get into the, you know, mid market or enterprise space,
becomes really easy to, like, add that functionality on because all the data is in one
place. Yeah. And so from there, it becomes this really scalable
solution where you're like, oh, let's take our data to the next level. Click. You know? And then it's like, oh,
great. Nice. So you've seen, that's amazing. So just making the
complexity of customer data flows and relevancy
super easy and, and kind of creating better experiences for users, it sounds like, ultimately.
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I mean, it has so many different, like,
value props. It's almost like you can do anything with it. Are you a marketer? Are you an
engineer? What are you trying to personalization, like, reducing processes
internally around data flow, data monitoring? It's like, what
happens when somebody somewhere in the company launches a landing page and then
fires these events that have a typo in them or that, you know, like,
red flag, someone's trying to fire an event called added to carp.
What is added to carp? And things like that from there? So just like there are
Yes. So depending on who you are, it just, like, unlocks all of these possibilities,
manages, like, the data quality and, all
that stuff. Got it. That's awesome. And then with the startup program that
you're managing, can you tell us a little bit about, like, how does that work? What do you typically look
for? What do you typically do? What kind of outcomes maybe you see? So the Segment startup
program is meant to make Segment more affordable for startups. We give
one or two years of free product on the team plan, which is our sort of
self-service product for companies as long as they've raised less than five million dollars and
they're less than two years from founding. That's our early stage program, and
we've seen a lot of folks, you know, use that. I think that something
like fifty percent of YC companies use our program. We've had over twenty
thousand start ups that have come and used the program to get free
product. Awesome. What's the coolest use case? Like, I'm dying to know, like,
someone who's like integrated Segment in a way we're just like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is
such a great use case. I'd love to maybe learn a little bit more about the types of companies
or maybe a an anonymous case where it was like, oh my gosh, they just or a non anonymous
case of like, they nailed it. This is this is, like, the perfect usage.
Yeah. I would say it's tough to have a, like, a perfect use case. But,
basically, like, the more sources and the more destinations you have, the more
integrated you are. Like, the worst use case is to just add a JavaScript
stores, which basically is like the website, and then send that data to
Google Analytics, and that's it. You know, like, that's like, why use
Segment if that's all you're gonna do? There's no value being created here. Just implement
Google Analytics and sort of, like, be done with the thing. But so if
every place that data is created, which if you're a startup is primarily web
marketing website, product, and then any other
tools where data is created. So, like, you know, I mentioned Salesforce, like, an opportunity
was created in Salesforce, and that's associated to this account. So we wanna know
that. So if you have all those and then all of the places that need that data, whether it
be a warehouse, warehouse, whether it be email marketing, you know, things like that.
That's what a good sort of implementation looks like. And, you
know, I mean, people can from that setup, people can see almost all the
benefits that we talked about except for some of this profile unification stuff, which is like a thing
that you can, like, upgrade into after the program's over. See that they're
maybe lacking or needing most, Like from your experience, what are some of the things
that you've learned and kind of said, I've seen a lot of this and this is what I prescribe for
them to help them grow more effectively. Mhmm. Post product
market fit? Yeah. I mean, we could go both ways. Do you go let's go pre product market
fit. Here's the thing is that, like, product market fit is not, like, some sort
of, like, line in the sand where, like, they cross over and they're like, we're Sean and everybody.
It's more of this sort of, like, I think we've got it, and
let's continue to, like, validate. And then before long, the
customer profile that you thought was your sort of core
audience is like, do we need to expand from that? Do we have the product you and then
so suddenly you're like, okay. We should be selling not just to data engineers, but also to marketers.
Oh, okay. But do we have product market fit with them? Does our feature you know, like, it
just gets, like, layered and layered. It's through the chest. You're chasing it.
Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So I would say the
the biggest thing is that people think that they have product market fit,
and that means they should hire they should, like, pour money into
marketing. And they hire a, like, pretty senior person and they
like that person is like, We should start advertising. And then they dedicate a big
piece of budget for advertising, which really highlights maybe
that they are having the right fit. So that is, like, what I see most of the
time is, like, we have product market fit. That means marketing, and marketing means
advertising. Boom. And then before they know it, it's like, woah. These human economics
aren't, like, really what we expected when you add every little step of the funnel of
added to cart and abandonment. I'm going in and out of, like, b to b SaaS and ecommerce and, like,
some things like this, but you you get the idea. I love it. That's what I see most often.
Now since there's been a bit of a recalibration in the venture market
in startup land, That's a whole nother topic we could talk about.
Has the percentage of people that are overstating their
level of product product market fit gone down. Yeah. Really?
For sure. Yeah. People are better at it than ever. You know, I talked
to a fintech company the other day, and, like, you can just tell
the way they talk about it, and you're just like, wow. This guy
is good. Just customer obsession and focus, like,
expanding outside of that core persona a little bit to, like, see what it's
like out there. Is that a real fit for their product? And then they find it
based on willingness to pay and revenue. They're like, we talked to a
comptroller, and they were like, this is my biggest problem. And then we talked to
twenty controllers, and that was all their biggest problem. And then we built the products for that problem,
and they're like, take my money. And I'm just like, great job. Like, way
to go. You know? It's just like that kind of thing. More and more people are better
at that. And if you rewind the startup, if you rewind, like, all the founders that
I've talked to and worked with and all that stuff, all of that information about what it
means to be customer focused and what it means to have product market fit was out there, and everyone
was consuming it. And then it almost felt like they were, like, not acting
accordingly. Like, they'd be like, what are you doing for social? We need to do it. I'm like, do we?
Oh, no. B to b and social, like, doesn't always just, like, go
swimmingly. You know? Like, how many likes did you get on your last
organic LinkedIn post? And, sure, we should do that eventually, and it it's just
not like this checklist of things that you need to be doing. Yeah. And b to c makes
it, like, much more complicated because of market sizing and and
things like that. Like, how many people with this exact problem are there out there? I don't know. And b to b
SaaS just makes it, like, so much easier, so much more playbook y
and things like that. So Yeah. What do you think are the factors that have kind of led
I mean, I talked about kind of that reset that's happened in the last couple of years, but
to maybe open up the conversation, like, what factors do you think are the reason
for the increase in founder IQ or acumen
around growth, if you will. Mhmm. I mean, I think that, like, the education piece is just,
like, better and better all. Yeah. Well, I see YouTube channel. Like, that didn't
exist. When I see startup school for folks that aren't in the batches, You've
got, like, Reforge. You've got, like, just all these things from
these people who have really done and put the work in
and thought in to be like, sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Here are
the set of circumstances in which that is true. Sometimes you do need to create something from
scratch. Here are the set of you know? So education is better. Mentorship is better than
ever. And then in combination with
more sort of diligence for venture
funding, it becomes like, oh, they're gonna be really analytical
and stringing about, like, what traction is and what that means
in our mindset and, like, things like that. I think all that sort of just, like,
makes people better at at building companies. I feel like they've
also learned the harder lessons and gotten punched in the face a few times over the years in
different phases, and I think that's also contributed to it to your point. Right? Mhmm.
Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. So, you know, the concept of growth and and
start up growth Like,
kind Like,
kind of similar line of thinking. Like, how has that changed? I mean, yeah, maybe
there's more information out there. Maybe it's gotten more sophisticated, but, like, to the types of people
that land growth roles, has that changed significantly? Is it the same?
Like what are you kind of seeing from the startups that you interact with? The
types of people that are successful has not changed. And it's
basically, in my opinion, And I do think that there are more and more
people who were in marketing, and then they were like, why would I be in marketing when
I can be, like, in growth? You know, because that's hot. And, you know, there
definitely was a little bit of everyone saying they're in growth even though they're in marketing.
And to be quite frank, like, I have always been more of a marketer
than a growth person. I've run Appreciate
your honesty. Yeah. I've run, like, landing page experiments, AB tests, you
know, but I I'm not always in the product doing those AB tests
to try and optimize, you know, like, at Patreon, we had Tal Raviv, who
is pretty much the best growth
person I have personally worked with. And I think that there are a couple of things
that make him and people like him successful. One is just this engineer's mindset,
and another is, like, no boundaries. Like marketing
is advertising plus content plus channels plus
whatever like that. And growth is almost like growth is
the out is the inputs that drive the outcome. It knows no bounds.
You know what I mean? You don't have any, like, guardrails telling you this is included, but that's not.
Yeah. And, occasionally, you step on people's toes, and, like, that is bound to happen. But
take them alone for the ride, and they're, like, happy to do it. And so
I think that you can read a lot about the you know, from
somebody like Tal about the the Patreon onboarding experience, and Adam Fishman's newsletter
is a great place to look for or blog post with Reforge and things is
a great place to look for that kind of content as well, where they're like, people don't
know what this is. Is it Kickstarter but monthly? When I
joined Patreon, Kickstarter but monthly was like the thing, you know, that people at
Uber for X that people would use, they'll sort of like describe the product. And we sort of
like realized that like there needed to be this like education piece. Not all
creators thought of themselves as business people and didn't, like,
optimize and care about revenue in this neighborhood. I got walls into this big thing and
this onboarding experience that everyone went through. And when they came out, it was just
like night and day, the outcomes. What else made him a great
growth lead in your mind and like, at Patreon? What what else was kind of
part of that besides the engineering mindset, the no boundaries mindset? I
mean, customer centricity with that engineering mindset. Was he talking to
customers a lot? To be honest, like, I don't know, but I would be surprised if he wasn't. Things like
that. You also asked a little bit about, like, has it changed over
time? And one of the main changes that
I've seen is and maybe this is just a seniority thing or an
experience thing, is that brainstorming, prioritization, and execution,
to me was the like well accepted formula for a long time, where it's
like, let's talk about the outcomes we want. What do you think an initiative could be that
would drive those outcomes? And you're like this, that, this, that. Okay. Let's all get
that into a big list, input, output, probability of outcome. You know what I mean?
Where it's like, this is a a light a light lift with a potentially heavy outcome and
a high probability of success. Let's do that. But I think now
there is a little more, and that worked because it was easy for
everyone to do. Anyone could get in a room, brainstorm, prioritize,
execute. And like at some place like Patreon, like, that's what we did, you
know? But now I feel like there's a little more, like, strategic rigor of,
like, you can't just do all the things. You can't just sort light
live by the ratio of, like, inputs to outputs and expect that to, like, take
you to strategic success. There's a little more of, like, alright. Like, maybe
this program that takes a year to make, it's a heavy lift.
You know? Like, who knows what the probability of success is? You can look at examples,
but, like, it isn't always one to one. And so I think there's just a little more rigor
in the, like, prioritization and a lot more, like, storytelling
around the initiatives that could lead to these
big wins that are outsized versus the, like, you know, little experiments
that we can run or things like that. And so Storytelling internally?
Yeah. Yeah. Storytelling internally. Interesting. Yeah. Connecting it to, like,
customer problem statements, just saying something to the effect of, like, one of the
things we've noticed is that creators don't think of themselves
as business people. Like, that's a big problem for a company, you know, like that.
And so you'd be like, what if we solved that problem this way? But if you were
just like, how do we increase the number of
subscribers per creator? Or Yeah. You know, okay. We need to surface
we need to surface creators to the other people's fans. And, you know, it
turns out that that somebody who joined a crochet channel doesn't
wanna know about anime. You know? It's Yeah. That cross pollination is challenging
and doesn't have that great of an outcome necessarily. And Would you summarize it by saying
that, like, the input output kind of pure math problem of of growth
that was core to growth, maybe in its early stages, has evolved to
become it's required and it's evolved into a more, like,
nuanced strategic understanding of the customer and the market? For sure.
Yeah. Said much better than than anything I could say. No. I mean, we
were getting there together, man. It's a it's a really interesting it's a really fascinating concept, and I think
you're right. I think the startup ecosystem has matured. The growth ecosystem
has matured. The resources and talent has matured. Maybe a good
segue for people that wanna be in growth or maybe people that wanna be in startups.
You're a veteran now. Like, what are you counseling people on that wanna get into it? What are
you seeing that works or doesn't work for those individuals? And and kind of,
and it seems like maybe it's an easy question because there is so much more than there used to be, but, like, what
does a new up and comer need to be thinking about if they're looking into this market and trying to
be successful in it? Yeah. I think that in the,
like, early stages when you talked to, like, a Sean Ellis,
Dog and Beyondy, you know, whatever, those sort of, like, early thought leaders
of the growth function, Sean Ellis said, like, growth hacking and stuff like that.
And that's, like, fallen out of fashion, you know Yeah. And it's all the same stuff. Yeah. I think
it was, like, just start doing it, man. You know? Like, just find
someone who needs that and, like, you know, just do some experiments. And I think
that now there's this sense of you don't need to, like, mess
up someone's funnel and learn that mistake the hard way. You can learn that through
education. You know? And so, like, you know, these,
like, playbooks, these, like, assets, these
things. It's like there are tried and true things. I think I think it's all about
education in the beginning for somebody. I would say one big piece of it is
the mindset piece. And so, you know, like, you read all these books, like,
to understand startups and businesses, zero to one or whatever it is. You know? Yeah. Good one.
And then there are these, like, channel specifics where it's like, what are the it's
almost like business case studies, but they're, like, just famous
examples of, like, conversion rate optimization, advertising. Yeah. All those all fit
together. So, like, learning about the, like, MarTech ecosystem,
you know, all that stuff is required. And I would say mindset,
channels, and then just sort of, like, putting it all together once you
have that sort of, like, conceptual framework using, in the
beginning, copying what people are doing because they've done it really well,
that's the way to start and not just, like, find someone who needs this and Yeah. Offer
your services, you know. Stand on stand on the shoulders of the giants. You
know, read your startup and growth history in the form of these case studies to
make your life a little easier. Mhmm. And if you talk to anyone
like Reforge, I think that that's that's what they'll tell you. That's the kind of
content they're producing. It's just it's like, here's examples
of what really worked and why it worked and what situations
you should use this playbook or template for. And then there's
also process. Right? So when I talk about mindset, channels,
and and, you know, things that go with that that, and then process. Like, you know, process is
is a lot of it, and that engineer's mind lives in
this mindset plus process kind of camp, I think, and is
just sort of, like, really great. That's awesome. I have a thought on
we talked a little bit about folks wanting to get into growth. I want to know what your thoughts
are on kind of, and I think you touched on it previously, but misnomers in
growth. What are you kind of running into or what are you kind of seeing as maybe, are there
myths to debunk there or maybe in startups? What are some
maybe myths that we can debunk on this conversation? I think that
acquisition as, like, a top priority is,
like, pretty tough. Most people are, like, we we found
product market fit. We need to acquire more people, more users, more
customers, more ARR, whatever it is. I think a lot of times
that means expanding the pool past this sort of perfect customer type of a
thing. I have always been a fan of and it doesn't
always work internally, organizationally, but I've always been a
fan of, like, a qualification metric. Right? So acquiring
a customer that does something, you could call it activation or something like that,
that just kind of like a a very low bar that proves that they're kinda
like an okay fit for what this is. And so a sign up isn't
that. You know what I mean? A sign up anyone can do when they're like, what is this thing? I'll sign up
and find out. And then they bail. It could be like, you know, if I were to to do
to talk about the segment startup program, in the beginning, we talked about
qualified startups. How many qualified startups are we reaching? Oh, what's qualification?
Well, people generally get a hundred k, a hundred and twenty k when they go through, like, an
incubator or friends and family round or whatever. Let's
call that a qualified startup. Somebody who, like, has money, they're you know, like
and so that's just a minimum low bar that we can do. But then when you
talk internally about, like, the number of qualified customers that they're like, what's a qualified
customer? Like, this is the first time I'm hearing about it. And so it needs the socialization
internally to, like, have everyone be on the same page, and that can be difficult, especially the larger the
company gets. I love that. And that qualification can often be tied to
that persona that you've defined as, like, a really good customer. Because what happens is, like,
you start going outside of that, and these core customers are, like, in a
way, subsidizing all these other customers that aren't going anywhere. And so
suddenly, your cost per is going, like, a little higher and higher, and you're like, yeah.
Diminishing marginal returns, man. That's just the name of the game, and it's all just a math formula to be
solved. And then and then it doesn't really, like, pan out over
time. Yeah. That's what I'd say is, like, an overfocus
on hitting these growth numbers, which are about users. And I'm like
Yeah. That's a fifteen years ago thing. Like Yeah. Just users. Has
there been a has been experience you've had where kind of educating internal stakeholders
around establishing a cohesive quality metric or an
insulator metric that really helps help support the growth. What are some
tricks that you've learned over the years to kind of have those internal conversations that are harder?
Like, obviously, you have to just have them, but what have you kind of, is there anything in that that
you've maybe seen from your startups in your program or from
colleagues that have that are the folks that are struggling to kind of change minds
internally around a topic or even externally. Yeah. If you see this with Figment.
I'm glad to tell you, like, my approach, but this isn't, like, the right fit for everybody necessarily.
So my, like, way that I think about it
is quick wins, socialization, and buy in. Right?
And so, like, you know, I'm like, okay. Let me walk you through
you're talking to your manager or your manager's manager, whatever, but that in a start up that's
probably a CEO. And you're like, let me walk you through my philosophy and my process
of already, I'm like, if I'm the manager, I'm like,
okay. Like, what do I need to know about this? Like, what are you gonna do? What are
you gonna you know? And so it's too much, like, cart before the horse, like, theory before
execution too much. You're trying to create too much buy in, and
managers will always give you runway to, like, run with your idea. And if they
don't, they're not great, you know, asking questions and stuff like that. And then they'll
but it's almost like I'm trying to deliver too much Yeah. Too much buy
in activity before I've done anything. And so to me, like,
internally and when I say internally, I mean Get a win. My team. Yeah. Get a win
using your process. Yeah. Right? And then you go and you
say, let me tell you a little story about, you know, startups and, you know,
let's use the segment startup program as an example. Yeah. You know, like, previously, we saw this
many startups. But if you actually look at x y z, that's why we're starting to
use this qualified startups metric. And then if you actually look at the number
of qualified startups that we've acquired over time, do do do do do, That is where the, you
know, like, real impact is coming from, and that's why we're scaling ARR at the rate that we are
quarter over quarter for the last two quarters or something like that. And they're like, love this.
Yeah. And then when you tell them about your philosophy and your process,
they're like, can you teach this to other people? Can you be doing but, you know, like that,
they're like, okay. Tell me Yeah. What it is that's working. Don't lead with
the philosophy and process. Lead with the, hey, impact, result, test.
Totally. And that's just so within a team, like, I have
one direct debt segment. And me and him are super aligned on
process philosophy, what we're prioritizing and why. Sometimes it's because
of internal forces caring about, you know, like, no
unique logos versus, like, you know, whatever
whatever the priorities of the org are sort of, like, becoming. So we can shift based on that, and
we are very aligned philosophically. We've talked about it. But outside of
my team, I'm like, lead with quick wins and then go and then eventually,
you've got, like, a cadence of enough wins that you're like, okay. Here's what we're gonna
change. You know? I use, like, crawl, lock, run all the time.
And my like, I don't know what your what your philosophy behind crawl, lock, run
is, but or you can say beta, you know, like,
pre beta, beta, GA, whatever you wanna do for each thing. Right?
But, essentially, like, when I say crawl up, run, am I direct? They're like, okay. And I'm like,
in this quarter, I'm thinking we take this initiative from crawl to walk. It's like, done.
Yes. You know? And at this point, being here four years, when I say that to my
manager or my manager, they know what I mean. It's pretty understandable. You
know, and we think that the outputs that we have in the crawl stage
mean that we should take this to the next level, you know, like that type of a thing. And so
that's something that when I started, I wouldn't really stay internally Yeah. And now
is a part of our process, and people know it's a part of our
process. I don't need to do as much buyer buy in education internally to, like,
do stuff. They have enough track record that they're like, you wanna launch that thing? Great. Knock
yourself out. You know? Love it. Congrats. That's a good feeling. Yeah. Thanks. There's
a lot of marketers and growth people out there that that know of you, who've been students
of yours, who's worked with you, who've been clients of yours. What do they not
know about you? You've done some pretty cool random things. What are some fun facts
about Graham? Okay. Fun facts. Let's see. I've been
doing swing dance for about twenty years, and,
learned in LA, and then I moved to Philadelphia. Helped to start the the
Lindy Hop scene in Philadelphia and then sort of
traveled the country. I've been to probably, like, most every major American
city for Lindy Hop and done, like,
teaching and competitions and stuff like that. I don't really tell people because I don't want them, like, looking
up all these old videos of me, like, just really bad. You know,
really bad damn thing. I love it. Do you still do it? No. I
don't. Yeah. Which is sad, but, you know, it's just like COVID sorta,
like, put a quash to so much dancing and and then having kids and
then, you know, just like You have twins now. Yeah. Yeah. Twins. Yeah. What is it like to
have twins? That sounds like, a lot. Yeah. I
feel like it's like joining the military. You know? Like, you talk to a
veteran, and they're like, oh my god. It made me into who I am, and it's the greatest thing ever.
And I'm sure that I'll feel that way sometime. And as you're going through it, you're like, this is the worst thing
that a person could ever experience. And I love them so much, and
it's really hard. My approach has been, like, very
process oriented where I'm like, we need to learn everything we can about baby led
weaning and napping, and, like, we need to, like, structure a system and talk about roles and
responsibilities and, like, keep each other accountable for it's very, like, anxiety
inducing and, like, maybe other people do it in a super relaxed way, but,
like, that does not work for us. So, like, here we are. Don't have
twins if you can if you can help. But I'll try to avoid it. Yeah. Yeah.
That's amazing. How's life on the farm? Oh, life on the farm is, like, pretty great.
We're at a perfect time right now where we've got raspberries, figs,
apples, and blackberries all, like, coming in simultaneously. You just walk around, and you're just like,
oh, really great. And it's just a good excuse to, like, get people over
there, do some apple picking. You know? I mean, for us, it's like the apples are falling on the
ground. Jesus, these freaking apples. You know? And everybody else is just like, I've
never picked an apple off of a tree and eaten it, you know, from San Francisco. I
may have to come check out the compound at some point. And, Oh, you'd for sure do. Yeah.
I I can't wait to see it. We have a little apartment. And so, like, if we're in between
Airbnb, like, we'll we'll put you up with the kids in the apartment. I
love it. It's been awesome chatting with you, Graham. You've got a wealth of knowledge, so many
great stories, and we could go probably another hour longer easily, but we're super grateful to
have you. And, it was a pleasure, man. So, so fun and so interesting. Appreciate you chatting today.
Thanks so much, Ty.