YouTube Transcript:
George Bonaci_ VP of Growth @Ramp: How Ramp Became the Fastest Growing SaaS Company Ever |E1264

I think the way that you find Alpha is
either by doing things that no one else
knows about I think another aspect is
probably doing things that everyone is
convinced will not work I think a good
leader needs to know how to do everyone
on their team's job but poorly and I
think the poorly part is important I
would always skew more Junior I think
hiring for potential especially early on
in the business is far more important
ready to go
[Music]
George I'm so excited for this dude ramp
is one of my favorite companies to
feature I've heard so many great things
about you so thank you so much for
joining me today no thank you so much
for having me now listen as we just said
I know a show is going to be great when
I actually have to do very little work
because you give me such great
suggestions you said to me before growth
is just science and most marketers are
bad at science I was always terrible at
science so you it doesn't bode well for
me what did you do you mean by that
statement the goal of growth is to
figure out how to grow the business and
usually like early on that's very top of
funnel Focus how do you figure out how
to get more leads how do you figure out
a channel that works and is repeatable
and has uh predictable outputs given
some inputs and the honest answer is
like no one really knows every business
is different so even if you understand
from past experience something that's
worked usually just taking like that one
Playbook or that one tactic and copy and
pasting it to a new company like
generally doesn't work and I think
that's the tendency of of a lot of
marketers so when I say that like growth
is mostly just science I mean that you
kind of have to come in with a blank
slate form a hypothesis and then run a
bunch of experiments and you'll be
surprised about what works you'll be
surprised at what doesn't work um but
ultimately if you if you run enough of
those experiments you'll you'll find
something uh and I think that's usually
lost on a lot of marketers because they
don't think in terms of experiments they
think in terms of like what do I know
and how can I apply it here is that
because of the profile of person that
they are that they don't think in that
way partially it's probably partly the
profile but it's also partly just like
how you think like I think the type of
person that would go and become a
chemist like me or an engineer it's
probably very different than someone
that's like hey I want to become a
writer or I want to get into comms or PR
like very valuable skills but very very
different from the way in thinking or
way of thinking that would make someone
successful like scoping an experiment
and thinking about like what my
hypothesis is and how I'm going to
measure results it's just like a
different part of your brain like i'
would be a terrible writer for example
you said about running experiments there
and running a number of them can I ask
in your mind is growth about increasing
performance by 1 or 2% in many different
areas or is it about needle moving
chapters of a company and being much
more pivotal in that respect the short
answer is it has to be both and what I
mean by that is if you're doing a good
job and it depends on the stage of the
company but in general if you're doing a
good job you're thinking in terms of
different time Horizons so you have to
have some like bucket of bets or
experiments that are going to be those
like big swing huge step changes and
impact but those are generally highrisk
High rewards you can't just do that
otherwise you're going to fail and miss
your number this quarter um at the same
time like you need to have some bets
where you have high confidence but
probably not going to move the needle a
ton but it'll help you get the 2 3 4 5%
Improvement like this quarter and then
you have everything in between so like
ideally you're being intentional with
how you're allocating your resources
across like everything from like the
very long term to the very short term
and how you make those bets and how you
allocate those resources is actually
like a conversation you should probably
have with Finance with leadership and
align it to the goals of the company but
that that's my way of thinking about it
you said there about bets and I often
think about growth very much like
Venture which is you place a number of
Investments SL bets and You observe and
then you wait to see what works and
double down do you agree with that
analogy how do you think about what is
enough bets and failure rate Associated
oh yes so it's absolutely a portfolio
but I think like an Investment Portfolio
it depends what you're optimizing for
and it depends on the stage of the
company so your risk tolerance is going
to depend on the stage of the company
it's going to depend on if you're
optimizing for growth or profitability
or whatever it might be so it is a
portfolio um I think that you should
assume if you're doing things right you
should assume the majority of your bets
are going to fail which is why I always
believe that velocity is probably more
important than getting things perfect uh
but it is a spectrum like you could do
some really well-controlled rigorous
experiments and it's going to be
incredibly academic and you're going to
learn something but it might take you
like a year to like say something
conclusive um or you can just run a
bunch of experiments at incredibly High
Velocity it's kind of sloppy and
similarly you might actually you might
not learn anything uh because you made a
bunch of mistakes or didn't fully think
through how you'd measure something so
you kind of have to balance it but in
general i' probably bias to run thing
run more things faster than run
something perfectly does philosopy
impact quality of conversion and what I
mean by that is if we're a little bit
sloppy but with very high velocity we
won't spend so much time on the visuals
for that campaign the graphics for this
it's velocity but it's not as good how
do you think about that tradeoff I think
if you had to choose velocity is more
important but there's there's a other
side of that coin which is if you're
just doing a bunch of sloppy things it
doesn't matter how many things you run
you're not going to actually learn
anything what did you do that was sloppy
that you wish wasn't
sloppy um I'm reminded of this one time
I won't say which company uh but we had
a web page and the web pages conversion
rate was trending down and it was
trending down for a long time and it was
our number one channel and it was like
hey what are we what are we going to do
to solve this and there were kind of two
paths there was one where we could run a
bunch of individual well-controlled
experiments and understand hey changing
this button or changing this H1 is like
what's going to improve the page and it
worked or it didn't or we could just run
everything at once kind of use our gut
kind of use our past experience and like
hope that it worked and we ended up
going that that lad route uh which was
definitely the sloppier route the less
rigorous experiment um it had ended up
work it did end up working uh so we did
end up like 3x in the webpage conversion
rate like over the course of a couple
weeks and helped us hit our number that
quarter I say that that was like a
mistake because we never actually knew
what did or didn't work and we had to go
back and undo a lot of the um changes
that we made once we did end up AB
testing them but I think that goes back
to like the portfolio that's like we
were operating on a very short time
Horizon so we had to like optimize for
velocity versus like rigor and then once
we were no longer under the gun we went
back and optimized for riger to
understand what worked and what actually
didn't how do you think about giving
something enough time to know if it
works we want high velocity and we need
to move on but also sometimes it takes a
little bit of time content in particular
honestly I would say 12 to 18 months
yeah how do you think about enough time
but not being slow it goes back to the
portfolio like if if you're going to
allocate 20 30% of your time to like
longer term bets that's fine be okay
with the fact that you're not going to
get results anytime soon um having said
that it would be great if you could
figure out what some leading indicators
are or scope down the experiment so you
could get some signal that like hey we
have confidence this Willer won't work I
think in general I've always tried to
prioritize experiments based on impact
and effort I think those are the obvious
ones but also confidence and time to
results like if you're really confident
something's going to work you should
just do it um if you're really
unconfident that something is going to
work but the time to results is really
fast you should do that as well and I
think usually those two dimensions are
lost when people are are prioritizing
they tend to just go for impact and
effort and not think about confidence or
time to results when you think about
impact you also said there the word
indicator I think it's really important
to understand what you're actually
trying to move what the core objective
is what's your biggest advice to
Founders and growth teams on how to set
the right metric that you want to move
that's where I think the experimental
design and the rigor of experiments
comes in uh you'll you'll have a
hypothesis and I think most marketers
tend to jump to let's go do something
let's go launch something but the
experimental design like understanding
what you're actually able to measure
what you will measure how long it'll
take to get that result if it's
statistically significant or not all of
that honestly like you either need to be
able to do that math yourself or go find
someone on a data team and go work with
them or acknowledge the fact that hey we
don't actually have a good way to think
about this or measure this and that's
okay we're going to go collect some
qualitative data and it means we might
be wrong I think we just need to be hon
folks need to be honest about that
upfront and Define that upfront is
probably how I would think about it so
we have this portfolio of bets okay and
then we see one that starts to work do
we immediately double down on it then
how do we know how much to double down
on do we set a benchmark of what good is
versus great how do we think about that
yeah yeah absolutely you should like
triple down on that uh I think that
another mistake most startups make is
they see something that works and
they're like okay great let's increase
our spend let's double it let's triple
it ideally if it's working you take that
channel to saturation as quickly as
possible like if you if you graph out
what the results are um over a long
period of time you're probably going to
see it approach an ASM toote you're
going to see the incrementality of those
results start to like Decay if you just
burn a shitload of cash though on a
channel super quickly say you're
spending I'm 10K and you're like it
works let's put 200k on it the 200k will
not be nearly as efficient as that 10K
would it not have been better to do 30
50 70 and gradually get up there than
just whack it as hard as possible I'm
naive so so yes but it depends so if
you're able to graph that response curve
going from 10K to 200k obviously you're
probably not going to be able to go to
10K to 200k overnight um if you were
that actually would probably be a good
problem to have uh but yes if you're
able to like graph that response curve
and see when something goes from linear
to start to decay in terms of response
that tells you it's like okay we're no
longer getting an expected output given
the input and then we have a
conversation on if the returns are worth
it so figuring out the ASM toote where
things start to actually Plateau is is
the most important thing and I think
most companies or most startups at least
they get to that ASM ASM toote too
slowly and they should really be scaling
much much faster if they find something
that works um having said that I think
like most things saturate probably more
slowly Than People expect um and so
going from 10K to 200k might not be as
insane as it sounds uh but it depends
you've got to watch it do CS get cheaper
over time as brand becomes better known
you become more branded in an ecosystem
or do they get more expensive as you
saturate the core target market and you
have to expand into maybe less directly
relevant icps the only right answer is
that like yes CS become more expensive
like as you get more and more market
share it makes sense that it's every
incremental acquisition is going to cost
more than previous um having said that I
think the reality is that's usually not
true usually you figure out new products
to sell that actually make the ltvs
improve you figure out new geographies
to break into you figure out new
channels that work you figure out maybe
that hey actually combining different
channels has a halo effect and you're
not fully capturing that and what the
customer acquisition cost is so the
reality is that no there's it takes a
really long time to get to the point
where like the macro effect of
saturation is hitting your CAC um but
that's how I think about it do you think
early stage Founders should look at LTV
often C to LTV is kind of the hailed
metric George you know as well as I do
it's so difficult to calculate LTV in
any product let alone early stage
products how do you think about LTV and
its utility value to early stage
Founders I think it's a reasonable
framework I think you have to have some
threshold that you agree on as a
business like this is what we're willing
to spend and this is what we think a
customer is worth but the reality is
it's like false Precision like you're
not going to know where your LTV is if
you've been in business for a year um or
6 months or whatever it might be so I
wouldn't over index on that false
Precision I would instead just
acknowledge that there's some threshold
we're going to be okay with uh in terms
of spending to acquire a customer and
what that customer is worth and that
should change over time as you learn
things and run experiments when you're
running experiments do you have culture
challenges in terms of maintaining moral
if you shut off someone's baby and what
I mean by that is someone's really been
working hard on the YouTube the
Instagram the SEO and you say George
it's 3 months we're not seeing the
returns needed cut it but they are very
attached to it how do you think about
that no one should be that attached to
the experiment that they're running like
I think that is a cultural problem I
think that they should acknowledge that
the vast majority of what they work on
is going to fail and that if they're not
failing like honestly they're probably
not doing their job well uh you need to
be running a bunch of stuff it needs to
be unique it needs to be creative and
that means that most is not going to
work if you're that attached to
something that's working you should be
very very high on the confidence aspect
of how we prioritized it and in that
case like maybe we were wrong we should
have that conversation but you
definitely no one should be that
attached to any experiment how do you
use post-mortems to effectively analyze
the success rate of different
experiments programs um I would say like
you should be doing premortem and
postmortem I think that's part of like
good experimental design like
understanding what are the different
failure modes for this and and
acknowledging like what the probability
of those failure modes are if when and
so you do a sorry just so I understand
because so many Founders get really
granular and like get notebooks out for
like pre morms this is right before
we're about to start we plot out the
three main things that could likely kill
this
project that's one way to do it uh I
would actually like get more specific
than that when you're planning the
experiments like why would this fail
it's like oh we're not going to have a
large enough sample size as we predicted
or like there's a million things you
should probably write out those million
things and then I think what's more
interesting is when you do a postm
if the experiment failed for something
that you didn't actually anticipate
something that you didn't like factor
into your your experimental design that
I think is an interesting conversation
but if it's something that you had kind
of anticipated and maybe the probability
was wrong or whatever it might be that
is less interesting and I probably
wouldn't even do a postmortem for that
how often is the premortem the reason
why something didn't work how often do
you get it right I would say for the
high probability high confidence bets
the things that you're doing to hit a
number this or even this year I I think
pretty high it's probably like 90% plus
um for the big swings there's always
like some Black Swan there's always
something that like you cannot
anticipate you had no idea and that's
where the postmortem actually I think is
valuable and trying to figure out what
you learned and how it might apply to
either other big swings or um maybe even
like higher confidence bets like that I
think is actually the much more
interesting and more valuable
conversation I think every growth team
is going well I couldn't predict
Co yeah that is very true that was a
tough one for us all um okay so we have
that as the premortem for the postmortem
how do we structure that who's invited
what does that look like so I think the
person that was ultimately like the drri
for an experiment the person that also
hopefully Scopes the experiment they
should write the postmortem and I think
they really need to be clear on number
one did we run the experiment well um or
did it fail for some reason that we
could have avoided uh I think like
outside of did we exper uh did we did we
scope the experiment well it's did learn
something that could be generalized to
other aspects of the business I think
that's an important aspect to have and
then I think like the third most
important component is just making sure
that the right cross functional
stakeholders are there so the folks that
can learn from it the folks that can
prevent the failure in the future um I
think that's maybe like the third most
important aspect of of a postmortem but
beyond that like the structure I don't
think actually matters that much it's
going to be very company dependent what
do you like to do is it a notion is it a
Google doc when do you send it out
because you want people to have time
with it but not too much time how do you
think about that yeah I'm a Google doc
person uh I think the per the drri
should write it up they should send it
out in advance at least like 24 hours in
advance so people have time to like
think about it um but ideally like I'm
more in favor of of a live conversation
rather than add some comments have a
conversation in the comments in the doc
and then like have a maybe more boring
live conversation so I'm I'm I'm big on
live I I really like one of the
suggestions which is like are there any
learnings that could be generalized to
other aspects of the business is there
an example of one in the past that you
could share just to illustrate that a
little bit I'll give you a really
tactical example um a really tactical
example was we were doing some very
basic AB testing on our homepage and we
saw that a red button by far
outperformed anything else now red is
like as a button is generally like a bad
idea it has a negative connotation it's
like something is wrong don't hit the
red button but we couldn't ever find
anything that outperformed on a pure AB
testing basis like that red button now
it turned out when you actually went and
looked at the data by segment although
it outperformed in general it's severely
underperformed for like the Enterprise
segment um it's like a great example of
like simpsons's Paradox when we took
that information and like removed that
from the web team and applied it to the
content team and applied to everyone
else that was using the red button as a
best practice that was like incredibly
valuable because most of the content we
were generating was for Enterprise most
of the webinars we were generating were
for Enterprise like most of the direct
mailers we were sending were for
Enterprise uh so what we were actually
doing by saying hey red is the best
button or or sorry the best practice was
actually like decreasing the performance
of all of these things we were doing
that were specific for the Enterprise
segment can I ask you does grow sit in
its own team or there are you in the
product team are you in the marketing
team where do you sit I think my
personal opinion is I think growth
should be independent I think like the
growth team's mandate should be to
figure out how to grow the business and
that should be more than just marketing
it should be more than just product it
should mean that like you have the
mandate to do whatever is the highest
leverage and to me that means you
probably should report report to I
honestly that's one of the reasons why I
love ramp is the growth team reports to
one of the co-founders um I think some
companies have Chief growth officers I
think other folks have growth
organizations that are more like SWAT
teams and kind of roam between different
parts of the business ultimately it does
depend on on the business but I think
they should be as independent as
possible youve said to me before about
Seeking Alpha in growth it was a
cliffhanger because I had no idea what
you quite meant by it what did you mean
by Seeking Alpha in growth yeah uh I was
that in terms of for I was I was
stealing Alpha from from investing
terminology like what's your unfair
Advantage is maybe a better way to put
it and I think like that is the key to
being a good growth team like you got to
figure out something that is not
saturated and that other people ideally
like are not doing and I think the way
that you find Alpha is either by doing
things that no one else knows about
either most likely because it's so new
uh like think about when Tik Tok first
came out I don't think any B2B Brands
were thinking about advertising on Tik
Tok I don't think there even was
advertising on Tik Tok when it first
came out but the folks that were really
ahead of the game they're like
eventually they will be advertising on
Tik Tok and it's going to be totally
saturated with consumer Brands to begin
with but eventually there will be a B2B
opportunity and when they were the first
ones to run those experiments they
probably had huge returns um so anyway
doing things that I think folks don't
know about is like one aspect I think
another aspect is probably doing things
that everyone is convinced will not work
uh I remember first suggesting we try
Direct Mail like years and years ago and
it was like why would Direct Mail work
like junk mail to people's homes like
that absolutely won't work and it became
like one of our most successful like
biggest channels after like a few
iterations so um I'm happy to chat about
where you find these things but you've
can we can we actually because it's it's
like it totally makes sense like do
things that people don't know do things
that people don't believe how do you
find them um I think this actually is is
a good segue into like how do you just
learn in general uh as a a member of the
growth team or someone at in a company
in general I would say that there's
three areas like you can learn
academically you can read a book and
learn what's worked for other companies
or other growth folks or uh companies in
the past even are great like aspects of
of being able to learn so learning
academically is one aspect um I think
you can also learn from your peers so
you can go and learn from Folks at other
companies growth people at other
companies I think that's a great like
area of of uh of finding Alpha um
granted probably not the the best unfair
advantage since someone else knows about
it but I actually think the most
interesting is to go and learn from
other niches so like other verticals
other geog Ries especially if they're
tangential to what you're doing uh a
great example is like WhatsApp like
WhatsApp as a marketing channel is not
huge for most brands uh or most
companies in the United States but it's
massive uh in a lot of like
International regions and I think like
great could we go try like WhatsApp
instead of sending emails um it'll
probably fail but again if you're doing
enough of these experiments you'll find
something that works that no one else is
doing my question you on the number one
academically is that not just learning
playbooks and do you worry that then
you'll speak to to your friend George
who will tell you what worked at Sam
Sara but ramps a totally different
business and so respectfully to your
point on playbooks earlier they're not
applicable often does academic learning
really work I think it does but it
depends how you look at it so yes there
are playbooks that you can just take and
copy and paste there are also playbooks
that you can look at and think
critically and adapt and then there are
playbooks you kind of come up with from
scratch I think a lot of academic
learning is taking a past Playbook and
adapting it and like the example of
always comes to mind for me is in in the
world of attribution in marketing so
like media mix marketing oh sorry media
mix modeling or marketing mix modeling
depending on who you talk to MMM like
everyone's talking about it now is the
best way to do attribution blah blah
blah uh that's a really old concept
that's like from the old like Mad Men
style advertising days in like the 1950s
and 60s so I think that's a good example
where hey you could actually go and look
at how did they measure the impact of
ads and literal newspapers before
anything was digital uh back in like the
1950 s or 60s and how do you actually
adapt that Playbook or that methodology
to modern day like digital advertising
or Modern Day digital marketing as a
whole um there's probably a million
examples like that actually Direct Mail
is probably another example of that
there are so much what did you see in
direct mail that no one else saw because
so many of your friends were like George
crushed it on direct mail and no one
thought this was a good idea so what did
you see that no one else so no one else
was doing it and it was incredibly
scalable like that was pretty much it
like the fact that no one else was doing
it it's like okay that's interesting we
should try it but the fact that if it
works it' be incredibly scalable and the
fact that you can run it with very large
sample sizes meant that we could run a
lot of experiments and parallel and
learn really really quickly like there's
very few channels where you can go like
hey tomorrow let's go reach like 200,000
people uh direct mail email those are
like kind of some of the only channels
that that would allow you to do
something at that scale and th run a lot
of experiments what is no one trying
today that you think is
interesting um I don't know if I can
give away my secrets but I think the
honest answer is like on the B b side
and I don't think this is super Cutting
Edge but influencer marketing um maybe
like a year or two ago this would have
been a little bit more Cutting Edge but
everyone's always thought of influencers
and and user generated content maybe uh
to get more specific as more of a b Toc
tactic that worked really well I would
argue that works just as well and maybe
even better in the B2B world like
especially if you're moving at Market
moving to Enterprise yeah there's
definitely unfair Advantage there but
it's a lot of work it's a lot of work um
how do you think about attribution and
challenge of capturing conversion you
know I'm interviewed Nick at revolute
and Antoine who's the head of growth at
revolute and their biggest mental shift
for both of them was the power of brand
marketing but both being aware of the
challenge of having no freaking idea
what it does to your revenues actually
how do you think about the importance of
knowing source of Revenue versus brand
marketing uh goes back to the portfolio
I I think that you have to be okay with
the fact that most brand marketing is a
long-term bet it's it's high risk it's
high reward uh at least that's how a
growth person would probably think about
is there a stage of company where it
becomes interesting I think if you if
you're seeing all of your core direct
response channels start to saturate then
it's something that you have to start
doing and the assumption is that like
investing in brand is going to do one of
a few things it's either going to make
folks that have a problem and are aware
they have a problem aware of you and I
think that's how probably most companies
start thinking about it but the more
interesting aspect is like true demand
generation it's like hey there are
people out there that don't realize they
have a problem and brand marketing like
instead of being like Hey try XYZ
product or try XYZ company it's like
this problem exists like there's
actually a better way and of course like
we're the better way but that I think is
like a much more interesting type of
brand marketing to open up like demand
for a new part of the market that that
you aren't able to reach with
traditional channels can I ask just on
the bets that we continuously go back to
how much is too much concentration when
you think about you know portfolio it's
like hey traditionally Adventure you
don't want to be
definitely not more than 10% in one
single investment how do you think about
too much concentration in a a growth
portfolio if you're doing things right
the concentration will change um it's
almost like when you find something that
works if you do a really good job of
saturating it as quickly as possible you
will be by almost definition like really
concentrated there at least for a period
of time it's really how quickly you can
diversify and stack different bets and
different wins so that you're not
concentrated for too long of a period of
time um but I I think concentration in
of itself is not a bad thing it means
that you're doing a good job maximizing
an area how do you think about
communicating growth goals to other
elements of the organization you're
sitting there in your independent growth
team say and you also have to work with
product and you also have to work with
marketing how do you work together most
efficiently to communicate this is what
I'm going after I think communicating
the way growth thinks about things is
probably like more important than like
what specifically they're doing as long
as everyone aligned that like the growth
team's job is actually aligned with
everyone else's in the company which is
like we need to be successful like
growth team's job is not to make anyone
happy it's to make the business
successful and that might mean like for
a period of time working really closely
with product or really working really
closely with product marketing or some
element other element of the business
but really they should recognize and
growth should be able to communicate
that we're bringing a unique skill set
and a unique point of view that
hopefully it's complimentary to their
skill set and their point of view But
ultimately the same goal of of making
the business successful um
so I know that's a little bit meta but
that's that's how I would describe it
you're an angel in my company George and
we're sitting down for a coffee and
we're we're going for some advice and
I'm at about a million in Revenue um
I've just raised a series a is now the
time to bring in a head of growth and
how do you advise me on when is the
right time to bring in someone for
growth and what type of person is it
senior or Junior I would always skew
more Junior I think hiring for potential
especially early on in the business is
far far more important I actually think
it would be a mistake to hire someone
more senior like if you're series a
hiring a really smart generalist that
can think in terms of first principles
and that can think logically in terms of
solving problems is probably more
important than anything what background
like solving problems and that kind of
generalist what background do you find
is best unless you're trying to solve a
very specific problem and you have a
really high confidence that this is the
right problem to solve I would not hire
a specialist or someone with a
traditional markeing background I think
hiring someone that has demonstrated
they can think logically and they can do
do math um is really really important
early in the early days so that might be
Engineers that might be X Finance folks
uh that might be an EXC consultant that
hated Consulting and like really wanted
to stick with something longterm and get
their hands dirty I think those make
generally the best first uh first growth
hires but really you should just be
trying to assess for potential which I
think is a combination of like can they
have Vision can they kind of see areas
where they can go like can they acquire
new skills really really rapidly um and
are they like internally motivated is
there any profile before we actually dig
into skills and skill detection is there
any profile where you're
like I don't love that background It's
just tough to be good at growth with
that background yeah if you've been at a
company especially a company that's an
order of magnitude or larger or bigger
for more than a few years it's it's just
really hard to then change your mindset
and go to a smaller startup and think
about like how hard you have to like get
your or how much you have to get your
hands dirty and how differently you need
to think about things like I think if
you've been at a much much larger
company you're going to tend to think
more in terms of playbooks and and rely
more on your past experience than on
what you can learn from others or what
you can learn from from maybe like other
geographies or other companies or other
peers uh so going from Playbook to first
principal thinking is generally
difficult to do so I would I would I've
personally like stayed away from that
type of profile h no I I totally
understand that perspective on the skill
detection how do you run an interview
process then again where you're advising
me I I have a number of applic and we
have a candidate pool how should I spend
the first meeting what questions should
I ask what should I try and uncover I
think if you're able to do some sort of
back Channel and some sort of test in
that first interview that is going to be
like the most valuable highest signal
thing you can do like when you say back
Channel or test what do you mean do you
mean like references or like physical
take-home test test I I both so exactly
both uh if you're like a series a
startup it's probably like finding the
best and hiring convincing the best
talent to join your company is generally
going to be really hard I assume most
people have probably never heard of most
series a startups um and in that case
yeah the best folks you're going to be
able to hire are going to be like
referrals warm intros that sort of thing
so getting some sort of back Channel
information from the person that is
hopefully connecting you is is I think
like actually the first step of the
interview process um I would argue the
second should be some sort of case study
or some sort of take-home test um you
could do the case study live in the
conversation with them just to see how
they think about things but I would not
be opposed or I don't think it would be
a bad idea to go from warm conversation
get to know you kind of selling you on
the opportunity in the business straight
to a take-home test so the first call
should probably be about selling uh and
then the second and hopefully you're
selling based on the referral that you
got just got the very strong referral
you just got and then the second stage
would be okay let's assess okay let's
assess take-home assignment what do you
like to give as a take-home assignment
and what advice would you give for me
yes uh make it as real as possible and
make it quantitative uh and actually
maybe the third thing I'd say is
understand what good looks like before
you send the test out so a great example
is I like to just take a Salesforce dump
or a dump of data and be like hey what's
the best campaign what worked best here
um what were the best leads whatever it
might be and if it's real world data
it's going to be really messy like
there's going to be a bunch of Tricks
they have to catch there's going to be a
bunch of mistakes they have to figure
out duplicate leads or um the dates
don't align or missing data whatever it
might be so I think like that itself is
like can they work with real world data
is I think a really interesting question
to answer then the other is like how
much of this did they think through what
was their thought process like how
quickly were they able to adapt how
quickly were they able even to like do
the tests did they ask questions about
it all of those I think are signals
before you even see the output uh to
understand like are they at least
thinking about things in the right way
but the real world is messy they should
they should work with real world data so
they work with real world data they come
back and you're impressed what happens
next do we go straight to an offer do we
have a hiring panel do we do any other
steps they should they should at least
meet some other members of the team like
ideally you want this to be a mutual fit
like both culturally but also they want
to work with the people on the team the
team wants to work with them so I think
there's still value in doing a panel but
it's almost more um culture fit and more
team fit more than anything but ideally
you are scoping that test that you send
them so you know if they can do the job
when you've got growth Talent wrong what
did you not see that you wish you had
seen when you hi them it's generally
been hiring a generalist that ultimately
hey this isn't for me I don't want to do
this after all um I've never done this
problem or I've never done this job
before now that I'm doing it I really
don't enjoy it I want to go and get back
into investing or I want to do like
XYZ honestly I I think it's difficult to
assess for that uh and you just have to
acknowledge that like no one even the
best person hiring is still going to
make a lot of mistakes and that's that's
okay I think probably what's most
important is just being as transparent
as possible both of in terms of the
opportunity and then in terms of how
you're being going to be assessed and
also just being transparent like if this
doesn't work that's F like we've all had
jobs before we're all going to have jobs
again like that's that's okay do you
agree that people are destined SL much
better suited for certain phases of a
company life I wouldn't say they were
destined but I think you can be suited
for it like if you spend the last five
jobs and 15 years in a certain stage of
company I think it's going to be
difficult to adapt your way of operating
way of thinking to a different stage of
company um having said that I mean I
don't think anyone in particular is like
destined for a certain stage I think
like if you're very very hungry and
you're a selfstarter and you love just
doing a little bit of everything it's
like okay you're probably going to do
better at like a seed or series a Stage
Company than like a 100,000 person
wellestablished business uh but that
might change over time uh that might
change as they gain more more experience
or do different things you need to
invest in your people right I mean
that's helps them to grow and develop
with scale and you said to me before
management is a skill that needs to be
invested in do you think it's currently
invested in by most companies by most
companies no I I don't I think that like
philosophically they're like yes we want
to invest in people's Learning and
Development I think and I think they
even believe that that's true but like
actually doing it is really difficult
like it takes time it takes resources
you have to be intentional it has to be
topped down um go how how how do you do
it then help me I I think Sam SAR
actually had like a great model for this
the CEO and founder like he was very big
on learning and very big on reading and
I remember like one time
uh he was hanging out in like the
cafeteria and like what do you like to
do in your free time like I like to read
books uh and so as a result you saw how
that permeated throughout the culture so
I remember they launched something when
I was there called leadership principles
and everyone that was a leader within
the company got a big box shipped to
their home and it had literally like 15
books in it and they're all business
books and the expectation was that you
read one of these books every single
month and then rejoin a conversation
with other other peers and this is all
organized to discuss like one of the
principles in these books that samsara
wanted you to embody uh and then there
was like an element where you actually
then have to go put it into practice and
demonstrate you're putting into practice
like to me that is a great example being
very intentional about hey we value
Learning and Development here and we're
going to add a structure and we're going
to add accountability to it to make sure
that you are not just learning things
but putting it into practice that took
time that took a lot of investment uh
that took really it coming from the
founders um and I think like a lot of
companies maybe sometimes get caught up
in the day-to-day and they say hey we
value learning but go figure it out on
your own rather than coming up with like
a holistic program or holistic mechanism
like that how do you think about the
effectiveness of that I read Howard
schulz's book on Starbucks and
Leadership Lessons From Starbucks I run
a Media company in a world of
Tik Tok and deep seek I mean it's
completely different to the point on
playbooks the leadership principles
probably don't align most leadership
books written 20 years ago do not take
account for a postco millennial
generation how do we think think about
applicability and actually the lessons
we teach being wrong I don't think
business has actually changed that much
tactically sure maybe it has the
channels Tik Tok didn't exist 30 years
ago but I don't actually think business
and being a good manager in particular
has changed that much or the skills
necessary to be a good manager have
Chang that much a great example is like
the book The Goal like I I'm a big fan
of that book I have some recency bias
because we reread it recently but one of
the key Concepts in that is like the
theory of constraints and now this this
doesn't have anything to do with
management but the concept of the theory
of constraints existed 40 years ago and
it still exists today like every team is
operating with some bottleneck in their
process and being able to identify that
bottleneck and remove it is a very
valuable skill for anyone but it's
especially valuable for a manager uh
that's how you get the most out of
people that's one of the core jobs of
being a manager so that's just one
example like I would argue that most
business books as long as you're vetting
them well and as long as like you are
being intentional on what is the
principle you want to pull out of this
and have your team put into practice
there's probably something that can be
learned from from almost any book regard
L of how old it is what is the biggest
bottleneck in your role today at ramp
that if removed would be the biggest
game changer the the biggest bottleneck
is probably the velocity of
experimentation like there are so many
opportunities we don't have enough time
we don't have enough resources that's
probably like at the if you zoom out far
enough that's probably the constraint
for most businesses okay what would what
would you like to do but because of time
or lack of resources you're not able to
do number one there are a lot of things
I would just like to get off the ground
faster when you're on external parties
either like external vendors or external
lead sources or other legal teams to
review your terms and services things
just go much more much more slowly um I
wish that there was a way to speed all
of that up um I think that ramp actually
does a really good job of saying like
let's optimize for Speed just accept
those legal terms maybe not necessarily
but let's let's figure out a way to move
as quickly as possible and just like
launch it and test it and then we can
figure out the details if we're going to
actually scale it up we spoke about
investing in in people becoming manages
and developing I spoke to so many of
your former you colleagues and they all
said one of your biggest strengths is
the willingness to roll up your seves
and do the work yourself my question to
you is ironically how willing should a
manager be to do IC work versus that
actually just being a plaster to not
having great ic's it's a great question
I think a good a good leader I would't
even say just manager I think a good
leader needs to know how to do everyone
on their team's job but poorly and I
think the poorly part is important they
should know how to do the job so they
can step in if they need to or so that
they're dangerous enough to to ask the
right questions but if they know how to
do the job better than the people
they've hired then they didn't hire the
right people and it's going to lead to
micromanagement it's going to lead to to
your point filling in gaps that are not
the most effective use of their time um
so being able to number one either learn
enough of what your team does so that
you can do it poorly or number two hire
people that can do what you need them to
do better than you know uh I think is is
kind of the key okay so you hired me
I've joined your team I'm I'm a junior
you you hired very Junior with this one
George sorry um but uh what is that
onboarding look like what do you expect
from your new growth hires in the first
30 days first 30 days it's learn the
business it's learn the team it's learn
like your your area of of domain I I
would expect in the first three days you
know how to do your job uh and that's
pretty much it and you understand how
the company operates and how the company
makes money like I think a strong
Foundation is actually understanding how
the business works what do I do as what
do I do as a leader to give you those
best 30 days do I just say just Shadow
the out of me do I say go sit in
support do where do you go great
question I think this again goes back to
to the investing in learning I think the
leader needs to be incredibly detailed
in what those first 30 60 90-day plans
look like who you're meeting what you're
doing with your time like actually this
was something I learned from from
samsara as well like I remember my first
30 days were written out in excruciating
detail I think the first two weeks were
completely scheduled out like to the
minute for me uh and as a result it was
also very clear to understand if someone
was learning and picking things up and
it was very easy to compare folks if
they were given the same like structured
onboarding um so I firmly believe like
the first 30 days is like you learn the
business and you learn the job now
Beyond those 30 days like you should be
able to start showing like some sort of
Step change impact start having some
ideas start making things your own and
then by 90 days you should be starting
to actually like show the fruits of
those new ideas and the fruits of like
that new experience that you're bringing
or New Perspective that you're bringing
should you always go for early wins just
to get points on the board if you see
the opportunity yes and there should be
the opportunity um if you were you you
were ideally hired because you have some
skill set or some um unique perspective
uh or there's some Gap in the business
that you're feeling so there should be
some early points on the board you can
put up having said that if someone is
not able to put up points on the board
you should understand why uh and if they
were set up for success and if they were
not you should move that as quickly as
possible but there are some roles and
there are some problems that do just
take time to solve and that's where the
okay how can we scope this down and run
an experiment to validate uh are we at
least on the right track is important
but there are some aspects or some times
where it is difficult to put early
points on the board George how fast do
you know if someone you hir isn't good
enough I think you generally have
inklings in the first couple weeks but
you should give some people the benefit
of the doubt like you should run some
sort of Str and I guess this is why
structured onboarding is so important um
and this is why making sure people ship
things in their first week is so
important you actually can assess them
based on facts versus just Vibes or
feelings
um but you generally have some sort of
Viber feeling in the first week or two
do you know what I find really hard what
it's hard to get rid of someone after a
week it's like you haven't given it
enough time do you know what I mean it
looks like you're just cutting it
prematurely short so you know but you
keep them for three months because
you're like well at least now it looks
like I can say I've given them Fair try
yeah I think I think that's true I I
don't actually think that's wrong so
good what are the most common reasons
growth hires don't work I think like the
number one reason is it was it was on
the manager it was a mish hire uh they
didn't scope the role effectively or the
role changed the needs of the business
changed and they hired the wrong person
out the wrong profile I think generally
managers try to come up with like a
laundry list of skills that they want to
hire for and they try to find someone
that checks most of those boxes but
that's almost the easy way to do things
I think the much harder way is to get
really really C crystal clear on what is
the one thing that we need like what is
the one skill or trait or piece of
experience one problem we need to solve
then hiring someone that you have high
confidence can do that or fill that Gap
versus check a bunch of boxes so not
getting clear on that I think is the
number one reason why you would Mish
hire and that's mostly on the manager if
I'm being honest can ask how does AI
change the role of growth you know we
see some pretty futuristic things in
terms of here's my budget go spend it
across five channels and it will do it
in the optimal fashion for you is that
the future of growth and how do you
think about how your role changes with
an increasing prominence of AI it's in
that example I think it's hard to find
Alpha if you're just having a ai go find
the opportunities for you having said
that I think AI is tremendously changing
like the role of growth like it's is it
hard to find Alpha in that respect
because they'd have all of your
connected data history and so they could
look at all prior performance conversion
on every channel compare it like for
like Benchmark it against standards and
then do what's best for you not a
anonymized data set this is what you
should do it could be incredibly
personalized it could be personalized
but almost by definition that's just
going to give you incremental gains on
things you're already doing and things
that has data on uh I think like to get
real Advantage like how maybe we'll get
to this point at some point soon but I I
think it's hard have the AI go talk to
like 50 people in the industry and like
synthesize what they're doing and apply
what they think is going to be relevant
to your business model and your ICP and
like go apply that that sounds really
difficult to do at least at the state of
AI today but but maybe not in a year who
knows tooling wise does it change much
uh using AI yeah
yes 100% uh I remember like a few years
ago I was such a strong Advocate that
like everyone on the growth team needs
to be technical they need to like learn
SQL they need to Learn Python they need
to learn how to work with like a growth
engineering team like very very closely
I think like AI upended that like you
don't need to be nearly as technical as
as you used to like AI can help you
write the code it can tell you other
ways of doing things like it's even just
like in that element of like who I used
to like have a bias for hiring it's
totally changed in my mind you growth
people bluntly are either
performance-driven scientific or they
are creative driven artistic does a
world of AI make one likely to be more
successful than the other I think it is
a good it's a good co-pilot for lack of
a better term for for both of those
roles I think that like on the creative
side it can help you think about new
ideas and help you brainstorm on the
performance side it can help you analyze
the data and maybe be more efficient or
move more quickly you've got to choose
which one it helps more
so here here's my bias I am not super
creative at the end of the day I'm not a
creative-minded person so I think it
helps me a lot more I think you are
don't discredit yourself so you think it
helps creative people more I I think so
like or maybe it helps uncreative people
more is maybe what i' would say um the
number of times that I've had chat GPT
just be like or any type of AI really
I'm like how do I make this better how
do I add a joke in here what are some
other like visuals I can do what's a
good analogy for XYZ like I wouldn't
have been able to do that on my own I
would have had to go to someone on
product marketing or content be like hey
I need some help can I ask you how do
you advise Founders competing incredibly
intense competitive markets you know
ramp is in a very competitive market
across a number of different products
what's your biggest advice on competing
in very proliferated markets I think
it's like most things you just have to
have a better product and you have to
have some plan for distribution I think
that having a better product probably
solves like 80 90% of the battle uh but
you also need to think about how you're
going to distribute that that product
and like what your unfair Advantage is
in distribution and hopefully that's
where the growth team comes in and where
they can provide value but I do think
it's mostly on the product do you agree
with the suggestion build it and they
will come absolutely not no like I'm I'm
on I'm a marketer at the end of the day
and I'm a growth person like that is
that is antithetical to everything we
stand for there are some products sure
where like yes they it is so amazing and
the word of mouth was so strong that
like you could they did build it and
people did come I think that is so out
of the ordinary and leaves your fate so
much to chance that that's not a good
approach listen George I've Loved this
you are unbelievably concise with
answers I call it kind of word economy
which is like value per word and like
most people are fluffy and don't say
much but it takes a long time you're
unbelievably concise with very dense
value it it makes my life a joy to be
quite honest um I want to do a quick
fire with you so I say a short statement
you give me your immediate thoughts does
that sound okay sure let's do it okay so
number one what's the most common
expensive deadly irreversible mistake
you see Founders make hiring for
experience because they don't know any
better yeah like we don't know how to do
this we'll hire someone that
does and it should be we should hire
someone who doesn't it should be like we
should actually assess for hey how do we
determine what good looks like and how
do we test them for it and like could
someone figure this out could someone on
the team figure this out rather hiring
you think most Founders know what good
looks like that's the hard thing they
they got to figure it out like I think
that's where the learning comes in like
go talk to other go determine let's I'm
going to make this up like you're trying
to figure out how to do cold calling
maybe this will work for us maybe it
won't go identify 10 companies that do
cold calling really well go talk to the
people that built that infrastructure
and built that system etc etc do you
know what dude do you know why I started
these vertical shows because one of my
companies hired someone for growth that
was just obviously terrible to me and I
said this is clearly a mistake and they
said I don't know what good growth looks
like and I was like well if I spoke to
the 10 that I know and publish them
you'd have an idea that George is top
tier and that's what I should look for
in someone that I work with and so this
was meant to be a benchmarking of world
class quality in each vertical and
that's why we started them I love it I
think that's why I'm such a fan was very
kind um tell me what's the most
underappreciated a growth Channel today
uh it is probably honestly something on
the influencer side of things uh I don't
think most people think of it as a
growth Channel but influencers
absolutely is at least on the B2B side
can you do influencer at scale that's
the hard thing that is the fun problem
to solve I I think you can I think you
treat it almost as a outbound funnel
it's like go make a list of the 10,000
micro influencers or folks that could
become micro influencers and go do some
scaled outbound to them figure out a
process that works like you you could
solve almost any problem in that way uh
but short answer is yes what's the most
polluted Channel today or overrated paid
search I think everyone goes to paid
search because they have to but I think
like in the very very early days you
have nothing that works sure it's like
table Stakes but it saturates quickly
you're paying a tax to Google I think
paid search is like relatively
uninspiring of a growth channel that
will scale long term what growth tactic
have you done that with the benefit of
hindsight you're like oh I wish I hadn't
on
that oh man um I think like very very
early on it was event spons like at very
small companies it's event sponsorships
like go exhibit at dreamforce or
something like that like it feels like
something you have to do because
everyone else does it it's like just a
waste of money you're in a sea of other
companies and no one's paying attention
to you like your that money would be
better spent figuring out some gorilla
tactic to stand out or honestly probably
be better spent on paid outs we do a lot
on events I think we're we're at a very
different scale though um and we do
things a little bit differently it's not
just like go exhibit at event at an
event it's also like get a speaker slot
do some out of out of home advertising
around it make sure we do like outbound
emails immediately after it's it's more
than just like let's get a booth in a
corner of the conference hall because it
was all we could afford and let's hope
people come to us it's one of those ones
where it's like if you're in you need to
go all in and have the billboard outside
the conference the key cards for the
hotels as well the speaker slot and the
booth not just like a small Booth
exactly and and this and that's why I
think it changes in depending on size
like when you're a series a company like
most events depending upon your go to
Mark motion most events are not going to
be high Roi what growth channel did you
not take advantage of that with the
benefit of hindsight you're like H
George that was in plain sight it's a
good question I I think like direct
mailing gifting was one that we could
have actually even attempted even
earlier uh when we were at samsara in my
opinion I think that there's probably
unfair advantages to be gained in like
display advertising like display
advertising is so inexpensive right now
but it's not measured well and most
people think of it in terms of like
direct response like if someone no one
clicks these ads so like the response in
the ROI is not very good but the reality
is like figuring out how to serve imp
the right number of Impressions with the
right message into an account or into a
contact actually does have a halo effect
so there's definitely an advantage there
but solving and solving for that
Advantage is probably dependent on how
you measure it uh so I I would say
display advertising is an opportunity
what have you changed your mind on in
the last 12 months I I would say it's
very much brand advertising um I think
this is something that or brand
investment in general I think this is
something that gong did really really
well uh they were willing to invest in
things that elevated the brand even if
it was completely unmeasurable even if
it was something that like we would
never be able to measure um but you saw
that in the fact that like you saw that
in the inbound numbers um and how big of
like a channel like inbound was for gong
because they invested in their brand so
much and I think that like it doesn't
make sense when you're very early
startup and you don't have that type of
resource but once you reach a certain
size or scale like if you're not
investing in brand as part of like your
long-term horizon or long-term bucket of
bets then you're going to screw yourself
over in the future final one for you
George what growth strategy have you
been most impressed by in the last 12 24
recent times but which company were you
like that was smart it's it's usually
the non-traditional stuff so like cold
calling I think a lot of people thought
cold calling is said and like cold
calling is like a tremendous channel for
a lot of companies because it is hard to
do door too I think is something that's
really interesting and I've been
thinking about this for a while now like
the medical devices space is interesting
because a lot of their sales and a lot
of their their marketing or sales is
door too um and I think there's actually
now that folks are moving more back into
the office and working from offices
again I think there's probably an unfair
advantage to having a true field sales
team that goes door to door and brings
like a cake with them or whatever it
might be uh so that's that's something
I've been thinking about that any door
daor salesman that want to bring a cake
I love cake all in George as I said like
I love it when you get concision with
quality it's very hard to do but you've
been fantastic so thank you so much for
this I've loved having you and you've
been amazing no thank you I'm honestly
great questions I love the conversation
hopefully I wasn't too concise uh but no
it's been a fun time