habits of high growth companies

Habits of High Growth Companies

@joannalord CMO, ClassPass

@joannalord : #c3ny

we’ve become obsessed with growth

@joannalord : #c3ny

chasing something pretty magical

@joannalord : #c3ny

meh. magic.

@joannalord : #c3ny

Sources http://bit.ly/1jnwpig & http://tcrn.ch/1l6CUXn

There are ~1,350,000 technology startups.

http://bit.ly/1jnwpig

http://tcrn.ch/1l6CUXn

Guess how many of those are unicorns?


There are 1,350,000 technology startups.



Guess how many of those are unicorns?


186

There are 1,350,000 technology startups.



Anatomy of a Unicorn

Source: http://tcrn.ch/1l6CUXn

Average # of years before a liquidity event

7

34Average age at

founding

SFTop city. NYC & LA are 2nd and 3rd.

3# of women founders

behind unicorns

2007Best year to start a

unicorn (27%).

4Number of unicorns

< 3 years old

8 of Top 10Are consumer companies,

(72% of overall list)

of co-founders have history together

85%


lets talk about something a little more relevant

@joannalord : #c3ny

Over 100,000,000 startups open every year.

@joannalord : #c3ny

Over 100,000,000 startups open every year.

Guess how many succeed?

@joannalord : #c3ny

Over 100,000,000 starts open every year.

Guess how many succeed?

1 out of 10

@joannalord : #c3ny

f&ck.** the & is a u. it spells fuck.

we should care about growth because we all want to be successful

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and growth is harder than it used to be.

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because so much has changed.

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1

: marketing

evolution: ownership

@joannalord : #c3ny

1

: marketing

: product & marketingevolution: ownership

@joannalord : #c3ny

1

: marketing

: product & marketing

: product & marketing & engineering & data

evolution: ownership

@joannalord : #c3ny

PRODUCT MARKETING

ENGINEERING DATA

GROWTH

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demands new organizational structure

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Example: LinkedIn Growth Team

SEO

Onboarding

Network Growth

Comms

PYMK, Virality, Connections

Engagement through email/push, Resurrection

SEO, Conversionoptimization, Public profile

Onboarding, Activation, Intent discovery

@joannalord : #c3ny

2

: creative

evolution: skills

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2

: creative

: creative & analyticalevolution: skills

@joannalord : #c3ny

2

: creative

: creative & analytical

: creative & analytical & intuition & technical

evolution: skills

@joannalord : #c3ny

demands new hires & investment

skills that fuel growth : t-shaped

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skills that fuel growth : t-shaped hires

Technical : Analytical : Creative : Product : Design Theory : Paid : Inbound : CRO : Content : Statistics: Modeling : Database/SQL : Psychology

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4

: hacks

evolution: platforms

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4

: hacks

: toolsevolution: platforms

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4

: hacks

: tools

: platforms

evolution: platforms

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demands curiosity & accelerated adoption

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demands new processes

tl;dr: Growth

advantages are shorter

lived.

EVOLUTION OF PLATFORMS

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what do you need for growth to happen?

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Pillars of a High Growth Company

Product Team Community X Factor

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but how can we get it?

there are patterns.

@joannalord : #c3ny

build breakthrough value propositions

@joannalord : #c3ny

Here's a common way startups die. They make something moderately appealing and have decent

initial growth. They raise their first round fairly easily because the founders seem smart and the idea sounds plausible. But because

the product is only moderately appealing, growth is ok but not great. The founders convince themselves that hiring a bunch of

people is the way to boost growth. Their investors agree. But (because the product is only moderately appealing) the growth never comes. Now they're rapidly running out of runway. They hope further investment will save them. But because they have

high expenses and slow growth, they're now unappealing to investors. They're unable to raise more, and the company dies.

- Paul Graham

create a rally point worthy of their time

@joannalord : #c3ny

simplify, grow, everyday

give people the power to share

make the world your home

be less busy




be less busy

why do you wake up every morning?

the world wants more of that.




be less busy

focus on more than acquisition

@joannalord : #c3ny

Three ways to grow your company.

Acquisition Monetization Retention

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Looked at 10,432 blog posts on growth.

snappity snap.

75%No wonder we’re so damn crazy about

acquisition.

acquisition isn’t the most effective channel for growth

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if we improve each lever the same, which lever causes the most growth?

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improving retention and monetization has 2 to 4X the growth impact of focusing on acquisition

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participate fully in the ecosystem

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invest in unscalable moments of delight

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@scottedwards, Director of Growth at Simple

simply put growth is:

creating value

getting in front of as many people

as possible

as often as possible

& &

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there are just a lot of distractions

don’t obsess over tactics other people say worked

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don’t go looking for that one silver bullet

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don’t forget revenue > growth

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don’t abandon what got you here

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we have a responsibility to grow our companies the right way.

@joannalord : #c3ny

product that offers value to this world. built by empowered teams. with and for communities. in authentic, innovative ways.

@joannalord : #c3ny

Thank You!@joannalord

CMO, ClassPass

habits of high growth companies

Marketing