1
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:10,700
Welcome to another edition of the Always Be Testing podcast with your 

2
00:00:10,700 --> 00:00:15,400
host, Ty De Grange. Get a guided tour of the world of growth, performance 

3
00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:20,000
marketing, customer acquisition, paid media, and affiliate marketing. 

4
00:00:20,500 --> 00:00:25,400
We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings in growth, 

5
00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:30,600
marketing, and life. Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door, and 

6
00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:35,100
have some fun talking about data driven growth and lessons learned. 

7
00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:41,300
Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the Always Be Testing podcast. I 

8
00:00:41,300 --> 00:00:45,800
am super excited to have Graham Hunter with us today. What's up, Graham? 

9
00:00:46,300 --> 00:00:50,200
Nothing much. Just, cranking away. 

10
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:56,000
I am at Segment currently and hope to run their startup program 

11
00:00:56,200 --> 00:01:01,000
and really excited to chat with you about learnings 

12
00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:06,000
and process and everything. We've known each other quite a while. I think it's 

13
00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,800
probably been seven years at this point. Yeah. 

14
00:01:10,900 --> 00:01:15,200
At least. Time flies. You were, I think, 

15
00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:20,700
your trade craft at the time, I was just rolling out round barn labs and 

16
00:01:21,100 --> 00:01:25,900
talking a lot about the growth stuff and all the emerging excitement around the topic of 

17
00:01:25,900 --> 00:01:30,800
growth. We were both in San Francisco at the time, the heyday of growth 

18
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:35,700
market pre pre COVID. Pre COVID. Awesome. Well, I'm 

19
00:01:35,700 --> 00:01:40,600
I'm excited so excited to have Graham here today. He is, a 

20
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:45,400
true growth person. He understands acquisition. He understands multichannel. 

21
00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:50,200
He understands teams. He's been featured in a number of 

22
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:55,100
interesting speaking engagements and pods in the past and leads the startup 

23
00:01:55,100 --> 00:01:59,800
program segment, like you said, and yeah, man, it's gonna be fun. Just for the 

24
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,400
audience out there, tell us a little bit about your background. I know people would be interested in 

25
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:09,000
it. You know, I started out knowing that I wanted to do startups. 

26
00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:14,500
And so I just kind of, like, showed up to Wharton 

27
00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:19,000
Venture program, and I was like, hey, guys, to do stuff. 

28
00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:24,400
And, you know, a bunch of social media marketing through, like, some little agencies and 

29
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:28,900
stuff like that. Found a company that, that was doing ecommerce 

30
00:02:29,100 --> 00:02:34,000
before direct to consumer was, like, really popular, just did whatever 

31
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:38,600
was required. I packed boxes for years and 

32
00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:43,500
before we got our full sort of, like, you know, shipping thing going, 

33
00:02:43,700 --> 00:02:48,300
learned so much about marketing, so much about ecommerce. And from there, I just sort of, 

34
00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:52,700
like, went into agencies or consulting 

35
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:58,600
one channel at a time. I started doing Google search. I then I 

36
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:03,600
moved to SEO, and then I moved to sort of, like, being a full stack 

37
00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:08,400
marketer. I joined some different startups along the way. I was a 

38
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:13,200
director of marketing at Patreon, like employee thirty eight or something like that. 

39
00:03:13,500 --> 00:03:18,500
I think now they're somewhere between five hundred and thousand people. Yeah. So that's 

40
00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:23,300
really, like, how I got my start, you know, sort of tackling one 

41
00:03:23,300 --> 00:03:28,200
channel at a time, educating myself, being able to execute, and 

42
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:33,000
then, like, moving to the next opportunity that sorta, like, opened things up. And then, you 

43
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,900
know, after a while, I kept joining larger and larger startups. And then I found Segment because 

44
00:03:37,900 --> 00:03:42,700
I had used it, and it really unlocked a lot of the 

45
00:03:42,700 --> 00:03:47,700
functionality for all the marketing tools that I used and things like that. 

46
00:03:47,700 --> 00:03:52,700
And then when I saw that they needed someone to sort of manage the startup program and 

47
00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:57,700
startup ecosystem stuff, I was like, perfect. This sort of helps 

48
00:03:57,700 --> 00:04:02,100
me keep my startup background. It's still marketing. 

49
00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:07,900
I don't know what program management is per se, but I don't think it's that 

50
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,900
challenging. And and so, you know, really, like, kept all my skills, brought a 

51
00:04:12,900 --> 00:04:17,700
little more work life balance from some of my early start up days now that I have kids and things like 

52
00:04:17,700 --> 00:04:22,300
that. And and, yeah, I couldn't be happier. Love the team at 

53
00:04:22,300 --> 00:04:27,200
Twilio and Segment and always excited each quarter to sorta, like, launch new 

54
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:32,100
stuff. And That's cool. What what is it about startups that you 

55
00:04:32,100 --> 00:04:37,000
think kind of, just, like, clicked for you? I think that 

56
00:04:37,100 --> 00:04:41,800
the piece where you are the owner 

57
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:46,200
of everything in this domain where it's like, yeah. Literally 

58
00:04:46,500 --> 00:04:51,200
anything that you wanna do, as long as it sounds like a good idea, I'm gonna say yes to 

59
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:56,200
it. You're in charge of, like, how you spend your time, because I don't 

60
00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,800
have time to, like, hear the details of every, you know, 

61
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:05,800
advertising or social idea that you have, understand 

62
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,000
those channels deeply. That's your thing. So you decide, justify, 

63
00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:16,200
sure, how you want to be spending your time and the outcome and the timelines and all that stuff. But 

64
00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:21,200
if you want to do something, do it. And I learned that from sort of, like, early on. You know, 

65
00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:26,000
I talked about packing boxes, and I was like, we shouldn't be me and this 

66
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,900
CEO and this CEO hacking boxes together. I was like, we should stop doing this, guys. We 

67
00:05:30,900 --> 00:05:35,900
should do other things, you know, like running this company. And so, you 

68
00:05:35,900 --> 00:05:40,900
know, I just outside of my function function, you know, I'm, like, employee 

69
00:05:40,900 --> 00:05:45,700
number one. Yeah. I basically was like, I need to learn about, like, 

70
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:50,700
three PO and drop shipping and Magento and its 

71
00:05:50,700 --> 00:05:55,400
integrations into, like, different shipping carriers and 

72
00:05:55,400 --> 00:06:00,300
that connect. And so, like, I did that. And then one day, by the time we, 

73
00:06:00,300 --> 00:06:04,900
like, implemented all this stuff, it's like we with, you know, like, 

74
00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:09,900
FBA, Fulfillment by Amazon, and everything just sort of worked, and we never packed a box 

75
00:06:09,900 --> 00:06:14,700
again. And I was like, this is cool. You know what I mean? People giving me 

76
00:06:14,700 --> 00:06:19,400
the opportunities that I feel like I would have to work years to get right 

77
00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:24,400
away. And, yeah, I messed up some big things. You know? Yeah. 

78
00:06:24,700 --> 00:06:29,600
Good learning opportunities. And sorta, like, lived and learned and and went from there. That's 

79
00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:34,600
awesome. Yeah. What a great emphasis on learnings, which is a huge part 

80
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:39,400
of the theme of the pod of testing and learning and kind of taking those learnings 

81
00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:44,400
and improve upon. So it makes a lot of sense. You obviously had an affinity for 

82
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:48,900
what segment was capable of doing. I've always been impressed and 

83
00:06:49,500 --> 00:06:54,400
very, look to them on a number of things, collaborate with 

84
00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:59,200
with you and your company. But maybe tell the folks listening about 

85
00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:04,200
Segment and maybe kind of the easy reader's digest version, and then we can kinda 

86
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:07,400
dive into some of the details. Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. 

87
00:07:09,700 --> 00:07:14,500
So Segment is a CDP, and a CDP 

88
00:07:14,700 --> 00:07:19,400
stands for customer data platform. And, basically, the 

89
00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:24,300
idea is when your data live for these various tools 

90
00:07:24,500 --> 00:07:29,300
and disparate places and data warehouses and things like 

91
00:07:29,300 --> 00:07:33,500
that, doing anything becomes more complicated. 

92
00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:39,200
You need to be writing some script that's you know, you need to be writing these SQL queries that are 

93
00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:44,100
gonna query your warehouse, and then pull that somehow in we'll use 

94
00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:49,100
Airflow and pull that into customer IO so that the traits are that 

95
00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:52,800
it's like, stop. You know what I mean? Like, you need 

96
00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:57,400
team members, whether they're data engineering, software engineers, 

97
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:10,000
stuff. And so that means that all of the data sources that you have, 

98
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:14,900
whether that's, oh, an opportunity was created in Salesforce or somebody 

99
00:08:14,900 --> 00:08:19,800
visited your website and they clicked on this. All of that, all those things are data 

100
00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:24,100
sources that are pulled into Segment. Now Segment's got the full view 

101
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:30,000
of what data related to your business exists and then can 

102
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:34,700
send all of that data to every downstream destination that 

103
00:08:34,700 --> 00:08:39,500
requires it. And so to give you an example, you know, email marketing is, 

104
00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:44,400
like, one of those things that seems kinda easy, and then you get 

105
00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:49,400
into it, and you're just like, I need to integrate this software. What does that mean? Okay. I need to 

106
00:08:49,700 --> 00:08:54,600
put little, you know, events everywhere on my website so that when someone 

107
00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:59,600
clicks add to cart, I know that I I can send them a cart abandonment email, whatever 

108
00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:04,400
it is. Right? But that integration process when you're on segment is 

109
00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:09,100
like, oh, customer. Io? Great. On. And then it starts sending 

110
00:09:09,300 --> 00:09:14,300
all of the data associated with your business to customer IO. And so now when I go in to 

111
00:09:14,300 --> 00:09:19,300
build workflows, which is their name for just campaigns, you know, things 

112
00:09:19,300 --> 00:09:24,100
like that, I can say, when somebody like, a d d and 

113
00:09:24,100 --> 00:09:29,100
it's at at to cart, and I'm like, that's the one. You know? And then just sort of go from 

114
00:09:29,100 --> 00:09:34,100
there. So all of the triggers Right. That all these sort of, like, campaigns 

115
00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:39,400
use to to drive all this personalization and, like, all 

116
00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:44,300
that stuff, it's just there from day one. And so you're just like, I get it. 

117
00:09:44,700 --> 00:09:49,600
This is valuable. Like, the most expensive things is time and technical 

118
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:54,600
people's time, and, like, this just eliminates that. I don't need to talk to engineering as a 

119
00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:59,500
marketer. And, you know, it also helps with with other things like data warehousing 

120
00:09:59,500 --> 00:10:04,400
and all of that stuff. You know? Just like, yeah. Send this into a data warehouse. The end. So, yeah, that 

121
00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:09,400
segment, that's the sort of, like, value prop, especially for startups. And, of course, as you 

122
00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:14,100
grow, having your data in one place, manage these, like, 

123
00:10:14,100 --> 00:10:18,600
managed data pipelines, you could call them, has other benefits. 

124
00:10:19,900 --> 00:10:24,600
Unification of profiles, just having a profile where you can look at a person. 

125
00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:29,800
Oh, this is a contact on an opportunity. They also visited the website. They also Yeah. You know, 

126
00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:34,800
did x y z, you know, like that. And you're like, oh, wow. The unification of that, 

127
00:10:35,300 --> 00:10:39,800
once you get into the, you know, mid market or enterprise space, 

128
00:10:40,300 --> 00:10:45,300
becomes really easy to, like, add that functionality on because all the data is in one 

129
00:10:45,300 --> 00:10:49,700
place. Yeah. And so from there, it becomes this really scalable 

130
00:10:49,900 --> 00:10:54,900
solution where you're like, oh, let's take our data to the next level. Click. You know? And then it's like, oh, 

131
00:10:54,900 --> 00:10:59,500
great. Nice. So you've seen, that's amazing. So just making the 

132
00:10:59,500 --> 00:11:04,100
complexity of customer data flows and relevancy 

133
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:09,600
super easy and, and kind of creating better experiences for users, it sounds like, ultimately. 

134
00:11:10,300 --> 00:11:15,300
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I mean, it has so many different, like, 

135
00:11:15,300 --> 00:11:20,000
value props. It's almost like you can do anything with it. Are you a marketer? Are you an 

136
00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:24,700
engineer? What are you trying to personalization, like, reducing processes 

137
00:11:24,900 --> 00:11:29,900
internally around data flow, data monitoring? It's like, what 

138
00:11:29,900 --> 00:11:34,800
happens when somebody somewhere in the company launches a landing page and then 

139
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:39,200
fires these events that have a typo in them or that, you know, like, 

140
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,600
red flag, someone's trying to fire an event called added to carp. 

141
00:11:46,700 --> 00:11:51,200
What is added to carp? And things like that from there? So just like there are 

142
00:11:51,500 --> 00:11:55,500
Yes. So depending on who you are, it just, like, unlocks all of these possibilities, 

143
00:11:56,300 --> 00:12:01,200
manages, like, the data quality and, all 

144
00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:05,900
that stuff. Got it. That's awesome. And then with the startup program that 

145
00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:10,800
you're managing, can you tell us a little bit about, like, how does that work? What do you typically look 

146
00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:15,800
for? What do you typically do? What kind of outcomes maybe you see? So the Segment startup 

147
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:20,700
program is meant to make Segment more affordable for startups. We give 

148
00:12:20,700 --> 00:12:25,500
one or two years of free product on the team plan, which is our sort of 

149
00:12:25,500 --> 00:12:30,500
self-service product for companies as long as they've raised less than five million dollars and 

150
00:12:30,500 --> 00:12:35,400
they're less than two years from founding. That's our early stage program, and 

151
00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:41,000
we've seen a lot of folks, you know, use that. I think that something 

152
00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:45,800
like fifty percent of YC companies use our program. We've had over twenty 

153
00:12:45,800 --> 00:12:50,800
thousand start ups that have come and used the program to get free 

154
00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:55,600
product. Awesome. What's the coolest use case? Like, I'm dying to know, like, 

155
00:12:55,800 --> 00:13:00,700
someone who's like integrated Segment in a way we're just like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is 

156
00:13:00,700 --> 00:13:05,700
such a great use case. I'd love to maybe learn a little bit more about the types of companies 

157
00:13:05,700 --> 00:13:10,700
or maybe a an anonymous case where it was like, oh my gosh, they just or a non anonymous 

158
00:13:10,700 --> 00:13:14,600
case of like, they nailed it. This is this is, like, the perfect usage. 

159
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:20,200
Yeah. I would say it's tough to have a, like, a perfect use case. But, 

160
00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:25,300
basically, like, the more sources and the more destinations you have, the more 

161
00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:30,100
integrated you are. Like, the worst use case is to just add a JavaScript 

162
00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:35,300
stores, which basically is like the website, and then send that data to 

163
00:13:35,300 --> 00:13:39,900
Google Analytics, and that's it. You know, like, that's like, why use 

164
00:13:39,900 --> 00:13:44,900
Segment if that's all you're gonna do? There's no value being created here. Just implement 

165
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:49,900
Google Analytics and sort of, like, be done with the thing. But so if 

166
00:13:49,900 --> 00:13:54,400
every place that data is created, which if you're a startup is primarily web 

167
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:59,200
marketing website, product, and then any other 

168
00:13:59,300 --> 00:14:04,000
tools where data is created. So, like, you know, I mentioned Salesforce, like, an opportunity 

169
00:14:04,100 --> 00:14:08,900
was created in Salesforce, and that's associated to this account. So we wanna know 

170
00:14:08,900 --> 00:14:13,900
that. So if you have all those and then all of the places that need that data, whether it 

171
00:14:13,900 --> 00:14:18,700
be a warehouse, warehouse, whether it be email marketing, you know, things like that. 

172
00:14:18,700 --> 00:14:23,600
That's what a good sort of implementation looks like. And, you 

173
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:28,500
know, I mean, people can from that setup, people can see almost all the 

174
00:14:28,500 --> 00:14:33,500
benefits that we talked about except for some of this profile unification stuff, which is like a thing 

175
00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:38,500
that you can, like, upgrade into after the program's over. See that they're 

176
00:14:38,500 --> 00:14:43,500
maybe lacking or needing most, Like from your experience, what are some of the things 

177
00:14:43,500 --> 00:14:48,400
that you've learned and kind of said, I've seen a lot of this and this is what I prescribe for 

178
00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:53,100
them to help them grow more effectively. Mhmm. Post product 

179
00:14:53,100 --> 00:14:58,100
market fit? Yeah. I mean, we could go both ways. Do you go let's go pre product market 

180
00:14:58,100 --> 00:15:03,100
fit. Here's the thing is that, like, product market fit is not, like, some sort 

181
00:15:03,100 --> 00:15:07,700
of, like, line in the sand where, like, they cross over and they're like, we're Sean and everybody. 

182
00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:14,600
It's more of this sort of, like, I think we've got it, and 

183
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:19,200
let's continue to, like, validate. And then before long, the 

184
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:23,900
customer profile that you thought was your sort of core 

185
00:15:23,900 --> 00:15:28,800
audience is like, do we need to expand from that? Do we have the product you and then 

186
00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:33,600
so suddenly you're like, okay. We should be selling not just to data engineers, but also to marketers. 

187
00:15:34,100 --> 00:15:39,000
Oh, okay. But do we have product market fit with them? Does our feature you know, like, it 

188
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,300
just gets, like, layered and layered. It's through the chest. You're chasing it. 

189
00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:47,400
Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So I would say the 

190
00:15:48,700 --> 00:15:53,500
the biggest thing is that people think that they have product market fit, 

191
00:15:53,500 --> 00:15:58,100
and that means they should hire they should, like, pour money into 

192
00:15:58,100 --> 00:16:03,100
marketing. And they hire a, like, pretty senior person and they 

193
00:16:03,100 --> 00:16:07,800
like that person is like, We should start advertising. And then they dedicate a big 

194
00:16:08,500 --> 00:16:13,400
piece of budget for advertising, which really highlights maybe 

195
00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:18,400
that they are having the right fit. So that is, like, what I see most of the 

196
00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:23,100
time is, like, we have product market fit. That means marketing, and marketing means 

197
00:16:23,100 --> 00:16:28,100
advertising. Boom. And then before they know it, it's like, woah. These human economics 

198
00:16:28,200 --> 00:16:33,100
aren't, like, really what we expected when you add every little step of the funnel of 

199
00:16:33,100 --> 00:16:38,000
added to cart and abandonment. I'm going in and out of, like, b to b SaaS and ecommerce and, like, 

200
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:42,800
some things like this, but you you get the idea. I love it. That's what I see most often. 

201
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:48,600
Now since there's been a bit of a recalibration in the venture market 

202
00:16:48,700 --> 00:16:53,100
in startup land, That's a whole nother topic we could talk about. 

203
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:58,300
Has the percentage of people that are overstating their 

204
00:16:58,300 --> 00:17:02,900
level of product product market fit gone down. Yeah. Really? 

205
00:17:03,300 --> 00:17:08,300
For sure. Yeah. People are better at it than ever. You know, I talked 

206
00:17:08,300 --> 00:17:12,800
to a fintech company the other day, and, like, you can just tell 

207
00:17:13,500 --> 00:17:18,100
the way they talk about it, and you're just like, wow. This guy 

208
00:17:18,100 --> 00:17:22,700
is good. Just customer obsession and focus, like, 

209
00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:28,500
expanding outside of that core persona a little bit to, like, see what it's 

210
00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:33,200
like out there. Is that a real fit for their product? And then they find it 

211
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:38,000
based on willingness to pay and revenue. They're like, we talked to a 

212
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:43,000
comptroller, and they were like, this is my biggest problem. And then we talked to 

213
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,900
twenty controllers, and that was all their biggest problem. And then we built the products for that problem, 

214
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:53,000
and they're like, take my money. And I'm just like, great job. Like, way 

215
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:58,000
to go. You know? It's just like that kind of thing. More and more people are better 

216
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:02,800
at that. And if you rewind the startup, if you rewind, like, all the founders that 

217
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:07,700
I've talked to and worked with and all that stuff, all of that information about what it 

218
00:18:07,700 --> 00:18:12,600
means to be customer focused and what it means to have product market fit was out there, and everyone 

219
00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:17,500
was consuming it. And then it almost felt like they were, like, not acting 

220
00:18:17,500 --> 00:18:22,100
accordingly. Like, they'd be like, what are you doing for social? We need to do it. I'm like, do we? 

221
00:18:23,300 --> 00:18:28,200
Oh, no. B to b and social, like, doesn't always just, like, go 

222
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:33,000
swimmingly. You know? Like, how many likes did you get on your last 

223
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,900
organic LinkedIn post? And, sure, we should do that eventually, and it it's just 

224
00:18:37,900 --> 00:18:42,900
not like this checklist of things that you need to be doing. Yeah. And b to c makes 

225
00:18:42,900 --> 00:18:47,900
it, like, much more complicated because of market sizing and and 

226
00:18:47,900 --> 00:18:52,900
things like that. Like, how many people with this exact problem are there out there? I don't know. And b to b 

227
00:18:52,900 --> 00:18:57,800
SaaS just makes it, like, so much easier, so much more playbook y 

228
00:18:58,100 --> 00:19:03,100
and things like that. So Yeah. What do you think are the factors that have kind of led 

229
00:19:03,100 --> 00:19:07,700
I mean, I talked about kind of that reset that's happened in the last couple of years, but 

230
00:19:08,100 --> 00:19:12,900
to maybe open up the conversation, like, what factors do you think are the reason 

231
00:19:12,900 --> 00:19:17,700
for the increase in founder IQ or acumen 

232
00:19:17,700 --> 00:19:22,600
around growth, if you will. Mhmm. I mean, I think that, like, the education piece is just, 

233
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:27,400
like, better and better all. Yeah. Well, I see YouTube channel. Like, that didn't 

234
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:32,100
exist. When I see startup school for folks that aren't in the batches, You've 

235
00:19:32,100 --> 00:19:37,000
got, like, Reforge. You've got, like, just all these things from 

236
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:41,100
these people who have really done and put the work in 

237
00:19:42,100 --> 00:19:47,100
and thought in to be like, sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Here are 

238
00:19:47,100 --> 00:19:52,100
the set of circumstances in which that is true. Sometimes you do need to create something from 

239
00:19:52,100 --> 00:19:56,700
scratch. Here are the set of you know? So education is better. Mentorship is better than 

240
00:19:56,700 --> 00:20:00,600
ever. And then in combination with 

241
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:06,000
more sort of diligence for venture 

242
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:10,600
funding, it becomes like, oh, they're gonna be really analytical 

243
00:20:10,700 --> 00:20:15,700
and stringing about, like, what traction is and what that means 

244
00:20:15,700 --> 00:20:20,600
in our mindset and, like, things like that. I think all that sort of just, like, 

245
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:25,200
makes people better at at building companies. I feel like they've 

246
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:30,200
also learned the harder lessons and gotten punched in the face a few times over the years in 

247
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:35,000
different phases, and I think that's also contributed to it to your point. Right? Mhmm. 

248
00:20:36,100 --> 00:20:41,000
Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. So, you know, the concept of growth and and 

249
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:42,200
start up growth Like, 

250
00:20:45,700 --> 00:20:50,700
kind Like, 

251
00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:55,600
kind of similar line of thinking. Like, how has that changed? I mean, yeah, maybe 

252
00:20:55,600 --> 00:21:00,400
there's more information out there. Maybe it's gotten more sophisticated, but, like, to the types of people 

253
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:05,300
that land growth roles, has that changed significantly? Is it the same? 

254
00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:10,300
Like what are you kind of seeing from the startups that you interact with? The 

255
00:21:10,300 --> 00:21:15,000
types of people that are successful has not changed. And it's 

256
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:19,800
basically, in my opinion, And I do think that there are more and more 

257
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:24,800
people who were in marketing, and then they were like, why would I be in marketing when 

258
00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:29,800
I can be, like, in growth? You know, because that's hot. And, you know, there 

259
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:34,500
definitely was a little bit of everyone saying they're in growth even though they're in marketing. 

260
00:21:34,500 --> 00:21:39,200
And to be quite frank, like, I have always been more of a marketer 

261
00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:44,200
than a growth person. I've run Appreciate 

262
00:21:44,300 --> 00:21:49,200
your honesty. Yeah. I've run, like, landing page experiments, AB tests, you 

263
00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:54,100
know, but I I'm not always in the product doing those AB tests 

264
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:59,000
to try and optimize, you know, like, at Patreon, we had Tal Raviv, who 

265
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:03,800
is pretty much the best growth 

266
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:09,600
person I have personally worked with. And I think that there are a couple of things 

267
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:14,100
that make him and people like him successful. One is just this engineer's mindset, 

268
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,500
and another is, like, no boundaries. Like marketing 

269
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:24,500
is advertising plus content plus channels plus 

270
00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:29,300
whatever like that. And growth is almost like growth is 

271
00:22:29,500 --> 00:22:34,500
the out is the inputs that drive the outcome. It knows no bounds. 

272
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:39,600
You know what I mean? You don't have any, like, guardrails telling you this is included, but that's not. 

273
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:44,800
Yeah. And, occasionally, you step on people's toes, and, like, that is bound to happen. But 

274
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:49,000
take them alone for the ride, and they're, like, happy to do it. And so 

275
00:22:50,100 --> 00:22:54,700
I think that you can read a lot about the you know, from 

276
00:22:54,700 --> 00:22:59,700
somebody like Tal about the the Patreon onboarding experience, and Adam Fishman's newsletter 

277
00:22:59,700 --> 00:23:04,700
is a great place to look for or blog post with Reforge and things is 

278
00:23:04,700 --> 00:23:09,700
a great place to look for that kind of content as well, where they're like, people don't 

279
00:23:09,700 --> 00:23:14,700
know what this is. Is it Kickstarter but monthly? When I 

280
00:23:14,700 --> 00:23:19,600
joined Patreon, Kickstarter but monthly was like the thing, you know, that people at 

281
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:24,500
Uber for X that people would use, they'll sort of like describe the product. And we sort of 

282
00:23:24,500 --> 00:23:29,500
like realized that like there needed to be this like education piece. Not all 

283
00:23:29,500 --> 00:23:33,900
creators thought of themselves as business people and didn't, like, 

284
00:23:34,300 --> 00:23:39,300
optimize and care about revenue in this neighborhood. I got walls into this big thing and 

285
00:23:39,300 --> 00:23:43,900
this onboarding experience that everyone went through. And when they came out, it was just 

286
00:23:43,900 --> 00:23:48,500
like night and day, the outcomes. What else made him a great 

287
00:23:48,500 --> 00:23:53,400
growth lead in your mind and like, at Patreon? What what else was kind of 

288
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:58,400
part of that besides the engineering mindset, the no boundaries mindset? I 

289
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:03,300
mean, customer centricity with that engineering mindset. Was he talking to 

290
00:24:03,300 --> 00:24:08,000
customers a lot? To be honest, like, I don't know, but I would be surprised if he wasn't. Things like 

291
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,900
that. You also asked a little bit about, like, has it changed over 

292
00:24:12,900 --> 00:24:17,200
time? And one of the main changes that 

293
00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:22,500
I've seen is and maybe this is just a seniority thing or an 

294
00:24:22,500 --> 00:24:27,500
experience thing, is that brainstorming, prioritization, and execution, 

295
00:24:28,300 --> 00:24:33,100
to me was the like well accepted formula for a long time, where it's 

296
00:24:33,100 --> 00:24:38,000
like, let's talk about the outcomes we want. What do you think an initiative could be that 

297
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:43,000
would drive those outcomes? And you're like this, that, this, that. Okay. Let's all get 

298
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:48,000
that into a big list, input, output, probability of outcome. You know what I mean? 

299
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:53,000
Where it's like, this is a a light a light lift with a potentially heavy outcome and 

300
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,800
a high probability of success. Let's do that. But I think now 

301
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:02,500
there is a little more, and that worked because it was easy for 

302
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:06,700
everyone to do. Anyone could get in a room, brainstorm, prioritize, 

303
00:25:07,300 --> 00:25:11,900
execute. And like at some place like Patreon, like, that's what we did, you 

304
00:25:11,900 --> 00:25:16,800
know? But now I feel like there's a little more, like, strategic rigor of, 

305
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:21,800
like, you can't just do all the things. You can't just sort light 

306
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:26,800
live by the ratio of, like, inputs to outputs and expect that to, like, take 

307
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:31,700
you to strategic success. There's a little more of, like, alright. Like, maybe 

308
00:25:31,700 --> 00:25:36,700
this program that takes a year to make, it's a heavy lift. 

309
00:25:36,900 --> 00:25:41,800
You know? Like, who knows what the probability of success is? You can look at examples, 

310
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:46,800
but, like, it isn't always one to one. And so I think there's just a little more rigor 

311
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,300
in the, like, prioritization and a lot more, like, storytelling 

312
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:57,300
around the initiatives that could lead to these 

313
00:25:57,300 --> 00:26:02,200
big wins that are outsized versus the, like, you know, little experiments 

314
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:06,800
that we can run or things like that. And so Storytelling internally? 

315
00:26:07,500 --> 00:26:12,300
Yeah. Yeah. Storytelling internally. Interesting. Yeah. Connecting it to, like, 

316
00:26:12,300 --> 00:26:17,300
customer problem statements, just saying something to the effect of, like, one of the 

317
00:26:17,300 --> 00:26:22,300
things we've noticed is that creators don't think of themselves 

318
00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:27,400
as business people. Like, that's a big problem for a company, you know, like that. 

319
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:32,400
And so you'd be like, what if we solved that problem this way? But if you were 

320
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:37,000
just like, how do we increase the number of 

321
00:26:37,700 --> 00:26:42,300
subscribers per creator? Or Yeah. You know, okay. We need to surface 

322
00:26:42,700 --> 00:26:47,400
we need to surface creators to the other people's fans. And, you know, it 

323
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:52,100
turns out that that somebody who joined a crochet channel doesn't 

324
00:26:52,100 --> 00:26:57,100
wanna know about anime. You know? It's Yeah. That cross pollination is challenging 

325
00:26:57,300 --> 00:27:02,100
and doesn't have that great of an outcome necessarily. And Would you summarize it by saying 

326
00:27:02,100 --> 00:27:06,700
that, like, the input output kind of pure math problem of of growth 

327
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:12,000
that was core to growth, maybe in its early stages, has evolved to 

328
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:16,600
become it's required and it's evolved into a more, like, 

329
00:27:16,900 --> 00:27:21,300
nuanced strategic understanding of the customer and the market? For sure. 

330
00:27:21,700 --> 00:27:26,600
Yeah. Said much better than than anything I could say. No. I mean, we 

331
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:31,400
were getting there together, man. It's a it's a really interesting it's a really fascinating concept, and I think 

332
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,200
you're right. I think the startup ecosystem has matured. The growth ecosystem 

333
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:41,000
has matured. The resources and talent has matured. Maybe a good 

334
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,600
segue for people that wanna be in growth or maybe people that wanna be in startups. 

335
00:27:46,300 --> 00:27:51,300
You're a veteran now. Like, what are you counseling people on that wanna get into it? What are 

336
00:27:51,300 --> 00:27:56,100
you seeing that works or doesn't work for those individuals? And and kind of, 

337
00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:01,600
and it seems like maybe it's an easy question because there is so much more than there used to be, but, like, what 

338
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:06,600
does a new up and comer need to be thinking about if they're looking into this market and trying to 

339
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:11,400
be successful in it? Yeah. I think that in the, 

340
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:16,300
like, early stages when you talked to, like, a Sean Ellis, 

341
00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:21,600
Dog and Beyondy, you know, whatever, those sort of, like, early thought leaders 

342
00:28:21,700 --> 00:28:26,700
of the growth function, Sean Ellis said, like, growth hacking and stuff like that. 

343
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:31,800
And that's, like, fallen out of fashion, you know Yeah. And it's all the same stuff. Yeah. I think 

344
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:36,700
it was, like, just start doing it, man. You know? Like, just find 

345
00:28:36,700 --> 00:28:41,300
someone who needs that and, like, you know, just do some experiments. And I think 

346
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,400
that now there's this sense of you don't need to, like, mess 

347
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:51,300
up someone's funnel and learn that mistake the hard way. You can learn that through 

348
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:56,300
education. You know? And so, like, you know, these, 

349
00:28:56,300 --> 00:29:01,000
like, playbooks, these, like, assets, these 

350
00:29:01,300 --> 00:29:06,200
things. It's like there are tried and true things. I think I think it's all about 

351
00:29:06,300 --> 00:29:11,000
education in the beginning for somebody. I would say one big piece of it is 

352
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:16,200
the mindset piece. And so, you know, like, you read all these books, like, 

353
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:21,600
to understand startups and businesses, zero to one or whatever it is. You know? Yeah. Good one. 

354
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:26,400
And then there are these, like, channel specifics where it's like, what are the it's 

355
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:31,000
almost like business case studies, but they're, like, just famous 

356
00:29:31,100 --> 00:29:35,700
examples of, like, conversion rate optimization, advertising. Yeah. All those all fit 

357
00:29:35,700 --> 00:29:40,500
together. So, like, learning about the, like, MarTech ecosystem, 

358
00:29:40,900 --> 00:29:45,000
you know, all that stuff is required. And I would say mindset, 

359
00:29:45,900 --> 00:29:50,700
channels, and then just sort of, like, putting it all together once you 

360
00:29:50,700 --> 00:29:55,300
have that sort of, like, conceptual framework using, in the 

361
00:29:55,300 --> 00:29:59,800
beginning, copying what people are doing because they've done it really well, 

362
00:30:00,100 --> 00:30:05,100
that's the way to start and not just, like, find someone who needs this and Yeah. Offer 

363
00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:09,900
your services, you know. Stand on stand on the shoulders of the giants. You 

364
00:30:09,900 --> 00:30:14,800
know, read your startup and growth history in the form of these case studies to 

365
00:30:15,100 --> 00:30:19,400
make your life a little easier. Mhmm. And if you talk to anyone 

366
00:30:19,900 --> 00:30:24,800
like Reforge, I think that that's that's what they'll tell you. That's the kind of 

367
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,500
content they're producing. It's just it's like, here's examples 

368
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,700
of what really worked and why it worked and what situations 

369
00:30:35,100 --> 00:30:39,900
you should use this playbook or template for. And then there's 

370
00:30:39,900 --> 00:30:44,500
also process. Right? So when I talk about mindset, channels, 

371
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:49,700
and and, you know, things that go with that that, and then process. Like, you know, process is 

372
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:54,800
is a lot of it, and that engineer's mind lives in 

373
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:59,700
this mindset plus process kind of camp, I think, and is 

374
00:30:59,700 --> 00:31:03,800
just sort of, like, really great. That's awesome. I have a thought on 

375
00:31:04,500 --> 00:31:09,500
we talked a little bit about folks wanting to get into growth. I want to know what your thoughts 

376
00:31:09,500 --> 00:31:14,100
are on kind of, and I think you touched on it previously, but misnomers in 

377
00:31:14,100 --> 00:31:19,100
growth. What are you kind of running into or what are you kind of seeing as maybe, are there 

378
00:31:19,100 --> 00:31:24,000
myths to debunk there or maybe in startups? What are some 

379
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,800
maybe myths that we can debunk on this conversation? I think that 

380
00:31:29,700 --> 00:31:34,400
acquisition as, like, a top priority is, 

381
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:39,400
like, pretty tough. Most people are, like, we we found 

382
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:44,200
product market fit. We need to acquire more people, more users, more 

383
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:49,000
customers, more ARR, whatever it is. I think a lot of times 

384
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,900
that means expanding the pool past this sort of perfect customer type of a 

385
00:31:53,900 --> 00:31:58,900
thing. I have always been a fan of and it doesn't 

386
00:31:58,900 --> 00:32:03,800
always work internally, organizationally, but I've always been a 

387
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:08,700
fan of, like, a qualification metric. Right? So acquiring 

388
00:32:08,700 --> 00:32:13,500
a customer that does something, you could call it activation or something like that, 

389
00:32:13,700 --> 00:32:18,400
that just kind of like a a very low bar that proves that they're kinda 

390
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:23,300
like an okay fit for what this is. And so a sign up isn't 

391
00:32:23,300 --> 00:32:28,300
that. You know what I mean? A sign up anyone can do when they're like, what is this thing? I'll sign up 

392
00:32:28,300 --> 00:32:33,100
and find out. And then they bail. It could be like, you know, if I were to to do 

393
00:32:33,900 --> 00:32:38,700
to talk about the segment startup program, in the beginning, we talked about 

394
00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:42,700
qualified startups. How many qualified startups are we reaching? Oh, what's qualification? 

395
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:48,100
Well, people generally get a hundred k, a hundred and twenty k when they go through, like, an 

396
00:32:48,100 --> 00:32:53,100
incubator or friends and family round or whatever. Let's 

397
00:32:53,100 --> 00:32:57,900
call that a qualified startup. Somebody who, like, has money, they're you know, like 

398
00:32:58,100 --> 00:33:03,100
and so that's just a minimum low bar that we can do. But then when you 

399
00:33:03,100 --> 00:33:07,900
talk internally about, like, the number of qualified customers that they're like, what's a qualified 

400
00:33:07,900 --> 00:33:12,600
customer? Like, this is the first time I'm hearing about it. And so it needs the socialization 

401
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:18,000
internally to, like, have everyone be on the same page, and that can be difficult, especially the larger the 

402
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,900
company gets. I love that. And that qualification can often be tied to 

403
00:33:22,900 --> 00:33:27,900
that persona that you've defined as, like, a really good customer. Because what happens is, like, 

404
00:33:27,900 --> 00:33:32,800
you start going outside of that, and these core customers are, like, in a 

405
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,800
way, subsidizing all these other customers that aren't going anywhere. And so 

406
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:42,800
suddenly, your cost per is going, like, a little higher and higher, and you're like, yeah. 

407
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:47,800
Diminishing marginal returns, man. That's just the name of the game, and it's all just a math formula to be 

408
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:52,700
solved. And then and then it doesn't really, like, pan out over 

409
00:33:52,700 --> 00:33:56,600
time. Yeah. That's what I'd say is, like, an overfocus 

410
00:33:57,300 --> 00:34:02,300
on hitting these growth numbers, which are about users. And I'm like 

411
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:07,500
Yeah. That's a fifteen years ago thing. Like Yeah. Just users. Has 

412
00:34:07,500 --> 00:34:12,400
there been a has been experience you've had where kind of educating internal stakeholders 

413
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:17,300
around establishing a cohesive quality metric or an 

414
00:34:17,300 --> 00:34:22,200
insulator metric that really helps help support the growth. What are some 

415
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:26,400
tricks that you've learned over the years to kind of have those internal conversations that are harder? 

416
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:31,700
Like, obviously, you have to just have them, but what have you kind of, is there anything in that that 

417
00:34:31,700 --> 00:34:36,700
you've maybe seen from your startups in your program or from 

418
00:34:36,700 --> 00:34:41,700
colleagues that have that are the folks that are struggling to kind of change minds 

419
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:46,700
internally around a topic or even externally. Yeah. If you see this with Figment. 

420
00:34:47,100 --> 00:34:52,100
I'm glad to tell you, like, my approach, but this isn't, like, the right fit for everybody necessarily. 

421
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,900
So my, like, way that I think about it 

422
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:02,600
is quick wins, socialization, and buy in. Right? 

423
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:07,100
And so, like, you know, I'm like, okay. Let me walk you through 

424
00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:12,500
you're talking to your manager or your manager's manager, whatever, but that in a start up that's 

425
00:35:12,500 --> 00:35:17,200
probably a CEO. And you're like, let me walk you through my philosophy and my process 

426
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:21,400
of already, I'm like, if I'm the manager, I'm like, 

427
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:26,700
okay. Like, what do I need to know about this? Like, what are you gonna do? What are 

428
00:35:26,700 --> 00:35:31,500
you gonna you know? And so it's too much, like, cart before the horse, like, theory before 

429
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:36,100
execution too much. You're trying to create too much buy in, and 

430
00:35:36,100 --> 00:35:41,000
managers will always give you runway to, like, run with your idea. And if they 

431
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:45,800
don't, they're not great, you know, asking questions and stuff like that. And then they'll 

432
00:35:46,300 --> 00:35:51,100
but it's almost like I'm trying to deliver too much Yeah. Too much buy 

433
00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:55,600
in activity before I've done anything. And so to me, like, 

434
00:35:55,700 --> 00:36:00,300
internally and when I say internally, I mean Get a win. My team. Yeah. Get a win 

435
00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:05,300
using your process. Yeah. Right? And then you go and you 

436
00:36:05,300 --> 00:36:10,200
say, let me tell you a little story about, you know, startups and, you know, 

437
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:15,100
let's use the segment startup program as an example. Yeah. You know, like, previously, we saw this 

438
00:36:15,100 --> 00:36:19,700
many startups. But if you actually look at x y z, that's why we're starting to 

439
00:36:19,700 --> 00:36:24,700
use this qualified startups metric. And then if you actually look at the number 

440
00:36:24,700 --> 00:36:29,500
of qualified startups that we've acquired over time, do do do do do, That is where the, you 

441
00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:34,500
know, like, real impact is coming from, and that's why we're scaling ARR at the rate that we are 

442
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,500
quarter over quarter for the last two quarters or something like that. And they're like, love this. 

443
00:36:39,500 --> 00:36:43,500
Yeah. And then when you tell them about your philosophy and your process, 

444
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:49,500
they're like, can you teach this to other people? Can you be doing but, you know, like that, 

445
00:36:49,500 --> 00:36:54,300
they're like, okay. Tell me Yeah. What it is that's working. Don't lead with 

446
00:36:54,300 --> 00:36:59,200
the philosophy and process. Lead with the, hey, impact, result, test. 

447
00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:04,400
Totally. And that's just so within a team, like, I have 

448
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:09,300
one direct debt segment. And me and him are super aligned on 

449
00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:14,100
process philosophy, what we're prioritizing and why. Sometimes it's because 

450
00:37:14,100 --> 00:37:18,900
of internal forces caring about, you know, like, no 

451
00:37:18,900 --> 00:37:23,600
unique logos versus, like, you know, whatever 

452
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:28,500
whatever the priorities of the org are sort of, like, becoming. So we can shift based on that, and 

453
00:37:28,500 --> 00:37:33,400
we are very aligned philosophically. We've talked about it. But outside of 

454
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:38,400
my team, I'm like, lead with quick wins and then go and then eventually, 

455
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:43,200
you've got, like, a cadence of enough wins that you're like, okay. Here's what we're gonna 

456
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:47,500
change. You know? I use, like, crawl, lock, run all the time. 

457
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:52,600
And my like, I don't know what your what your philosophy behind crawl, lock, run 

458
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:57,500
is, but or you can say beta, you know, like, 

459
00:37:58,100 --> 00:38:02,800
pre beta, beta, GA, whatever you wanna do for each thing. Right? 

460
00:38:03,100 --> 00:38:08,100
But, essentially, like, when I say crawl up, run, am I direct? They're like, okay. And I'm like, 

461
00:38:08,100 --> 00:38:13,100
in this quarter, I'm thinking we take this initiative from crawl to walk. It's like, done. 

462
00:38:13,100 --> 00:38:18,100
Yes. You know? And at this point, being here four years, when I say that to my 

463
00:38:18,100 --> 00:38:23,100
manager or my manager, they know what I mean. It's pretty understandable. You 

464
00:38:23,100 --> 00:38:27,900
know, and we think that the outputs that we have in the crawl stage 

465
00:38:27,900 --> 00:38:32,500
mean that we should take this to the next level, you know, like that type of a thing. And so 

466
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:37,800
that's something that when I started, I wouldn't really stay internally Yeah. And now 

467
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,400
is a part of our process, and people know it's a part of our 

468
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:47,400
process. I don't need to do as much buyer buy in education internally to, like, 

469
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:52,200
do stuff. They have enough track record that they're like, you wanna launch that thing? Great. Knock 

470
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:57,100
yourself out. You know? Love it. Congrats. That's a good feeling. Yeah. Thanks. There's 

471
00:38:57,100 --> 00:39:02,100
a lot of marketers and growth people out there that that know of you, who've been students 

472
00:39:02,100 --> 00:39:07,000
of yours, who's worked with you, who've been clients of yours. What do they not 

473
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:11,700
know about you? You've done some pretty cool random things. What are some fun facts 

474
00:39:11,900 --> 00:39:16,000
about Graham? Okay. Fun facts. Let's see. I've been 

475
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,800
doing swing dance for about twenty years, and, 

476
00:39:22,300 --> 00:39:27,000
learned in LA, and then I moved to Philadelphia. Helped to start the the 

477
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,700
Lindy Hop scene in Philadelphia and then sort of 

478
00:39:31,700 --> 00:39:36,700
traveled the country. I've been to probably, like, most every major American 

479
00:39:36,700 --> 00:39:41,400
city for Lindy Hop and done, like, 

480
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:46,400
teaching and competitions and stuff like that. I don't really tell people because I don't want them, like, looking 

481
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:51,400
up all these old videos of me, like, just really bad. You know, 

482
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:56,100
really bad damn thing. I love it. Do you still do it? No. I 

483
00:39:56,100 --> 00:40:00,900
don't. Yeah. Which is sad, but, you know, it's just like COVID sorta, 

484
00:40:00,900 --> 00:40:05,800
like, put a quash to so much dancing and and then having kids and 

485
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:10,800
then, you know, just like You have twins now. Yeah. Yeah. Twins. Yeah. What is it like to 

486
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,800
have twins? That sounds like, a lot. Yeah. I 

487
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:20,600
feel like it's like joining the military. You know? Like, you talk to a 

488
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:25,600
veteran, and they're like, oh my god. It made me into who I am, and it's the greatest thing ever. 

489
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:30,400
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 

490
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:35,000
that a person could ever experience. And I love them so much, and 

491
00:40:35,300 --> 00:40:40,100
it's really hard. My approach has been, like, very 

492
00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:44,800
process oriented where I'm like, we need to learn everything we can about baby led 

493
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,600
weaning and napping, and, like, we need to, like, structure a system and talk about roles and 

494
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:54,500
responsibilities and, like, keep each other accountable for it's very, like, anxiety 

495
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:59,500
inducing and, like, maybe other people do it in a super relaxed way, but, 

496
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:04,200
like, that does not work for us. So, like, here we are. Don't have 

497
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:09,000
twins if you can if you can help. But I'll try to avoid it. Yeah. Yeah. 

498
00:41:09,900 --> 00:41:14,800
That's amazing. How's life on the farm? Oh, life on the farm is, like, pretty great. 

499
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:19,600
We're at a perfect time right now where we've got raspberries, figs, 

500
00:41:20,300 --> 00:41:25,300
apples, and blackberries all, like, coming in simultaneously. You just walk around, and you're just like, 

501
00:41:25,300 --> 00:41:30,200
oh, really great. And it's just a good excuse to, like, get people over 

502
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,800
there, do some apple picking. You know? I mean, for us, it's like the apples are falling on the 

503
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:39,600
ground. Jesus, these freaking apples. You know? And everybody else is just like, I've 

504
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:44,600
never picked an apple off of a tree and eaten it, you know, from San Francisco. I 

505
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,500
may have to come check out the compound at some point. And, Oh, you'd for sure do. Yeah. 

506
00:41:49,500 --> 00:41:54,300
I I can't wait to see it. We have a little apartment. And so, like, if we're in between 

507
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:59,400
Airbnb, like, we'll we'll put you up with the kids in the apartment. I 

508
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:04,300
love it. It's been awesome chatting with you, Graham. You've got a wealth of knowledge, so many 

509
00:42:04,300 --> 00:42:09,300
great stories, and we could go probably another hour longer easily, but we're super grateful to 

510
00:42:09,300 --> 00:42:14,000
have you. And, it was a pleasure, man. So, so fun and so interesting. Appreciate you chatting today. 

511
00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:18,800
Thanks so much, Ty.