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Adam Grenier: The Inside Story to Uber’s Hypergrowth; How We Spent $1B/mo in China | E989

Adam Grenier is an OG of the growth world. His first role in growth, was none other than Uber where he was Head of Growth Marketing and Innovation building the global marketing growth infrastructure and team from the ground up. He then enjoyed successful spells at Lambda School and Masterclass as VP Growth and VP of Marketing, respectively. If that was not enough, Adam is also a prolific angel having made investments in Superhuman, Table22, and FitXR to name a few. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Intro :43 Adam’s Origin Story 3:01 Biggest Challenge at Hotel Tonight 4:27 Biggest Challenge at Uber 5:28 Biggest Challenge at Lamda 6:40 Biggest Challenge at MasterClass 7:41 How MasterClass Acquires Customers 8:54 What is the role of Head of Growth? 12:11 Where does a Growth team fit within an org? 16:30 Hiring Tips for Growth 27:13 How to Choose a North Star Metric 31:49 Marketplaces: Fragmented vs Concentrated Supply 35:35 Failed Experiments at Uber 37:49 How to Market to Horizontal Customer Bases 42:16 How to Define a “Retained User” 45:26 When To Do Post-Mortems 47:54 Why Uber Employees Used Personal Credit Cards to Run FB Ads 50:19 The Right Ratio of Paid to Organic 52:09 How Uber Spent $1B/mo on Marketing 52:47 How DiDi Got Access to All Uber’s Data 55:16 Is CAC:LTV a BS metric? 58:08 How has investing changed your mindset towards Growth? 59:32 Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Adam Grenier We Discuss: 1.) Entry into the World of Growth with Uber: How did Adam make his way into the world of growth with Uber and Ed Baker? What are the single biggest takeaways from his time at Uber, Lambda and Masterclass? What does Adam know now that he wishes he had known when he started in growth? 2.) Growth: What it is? Why You Do Not Need a Team for it? How does Adam define the term “growth” today? What is the role of “Head of Growth”? Why does Adam believe that you do not need a growth team? How can leaders infuse growth principles, mindsets and metrics into existing teams? What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when thinking about growth?\ 3.) Hiring Growth Mindsets: How to Ask the Right Question: What are the clearest signs to Adam that someone has a growth mindset? What are the right questions to ask to see how they think? How does Adam use tests and case studies to determine the growth mindset of a person? What did Uber teach Adam about the best practices to hire for growth? 4.) Uber: Scaling a Monster and Spending $1BN on Ads: What are some of Adam’s biggest lessons from spending $1BN on advertising at Uber? Why at anytime were there 200 people paying for ads with their personal credit cards? Why does Adam believe China was “the wild-west”? How did all of their competitors in China have Uber data? How do growth mechanics, channels and disciplines compare between US vs China? -------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Adam Grenier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AKGrenier Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vc_reels Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com ---------------------------------------------- #AdamGrenier #Uber #HarryStebbings #20vc #growthmarketing

Adam GrenierguestHarry Stebbingshost
Mar 14, 20231h 3mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Inside Uber’s Hypergrowth: Real Growth Is Mindset, Not Headcount

  1. Adam Grenier, former growth leader at Uber, HotelTonight, Lambda School, and MasterClass, explains why growth is fundamentally a blend of human psychology (art) and rigorous experimentation and data (science).
  2. He argues most startups do not need a standalone growth team or a ‘growth CMO’; instead, growth thinking and tooling should be infused across product, marketing, data, and operations once product‑market fit exists.
  3. Using detailed stories from Uber (including spending $1B/month in China), Lambda, and MasterClass, he breaks down marketplace dynamics, north star metrics, cohort retention, paid vs organic mix, and how to structure growth hiring and experimentation.
  4. He also shares specific hiring frameworks, interview questions, and red flags for evaluating growth talent, plus nuanced views on CAC/LTV, horizontal segmentation, and why many founders misdiagnose a product problem as a growth problem.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Do not hire a head of growth before product‑market fit.

Founders often treat a growth leader as a silver bullet for weak traction; Grenier argues slow growth usually reflects product issues, not missing channels, so investing in growth headcount too early wastes time and money.

Growth should be a mindset embedded in core teams, not always a standalone org.

He describes how Uber’s centralized growth team was created only after strong product‑market fit, later dissolved back into product, marketing, and data once systems were built—most companies can house growth responsibilities inside existing functions.

Hire growth people who ‘wield data’ and understand customers, not channel operators.

The best early growth hires are deeply data‑minded, fluent in experimentation, and able to reason from first principles about customer behavior and business models, instead of copying playbooks from their last company.

Pick a North Star metric that reflects customer value and involves both sides of the business.

At Uber, ‘trips’ worked because a trip requires both rider and driver, forces the org to interrogate supply and demand, and ties directly to the core customer problem—he cautions against generic DAU/MAU when the use case is not truly daily or monthly.

Use simple growth loops and cohorting before complex models.

Grenier advises founders to sketch a basic loop (acquire → value‑creating action → sharing or signal → new customer) and ensure each step truly connects, then use cohorts and behavior‑based segmentation to define retention and trigger interventions.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Most companies don’t need a growth team.

— Adam Grenier

If you’re not growing fast enough, it’s usually because you don’t have product‑market fit, not because you’re missing a head of growth.

— Adam Grenier

A growth CMO is really just a full‑stack CMO who uses data, experimentation, and product thinking across everything from performance to brand.

— Adam Grenier

You want paid to be a tool, not a crutch.

— Adam Grenier

It’s impossible to fully attribute all of your channels. CAC is still useful, but it’s bullshit as a perfect metric.

— Adam Grenier

Definition of growth as a discipline: art (customer psychology) + science (data, experimentation, systems)When and whether to build a dedicated growth team versus embedding growth across functionsMarketplace dynamics and hypergrowth lessons from Uber, including driver/rider acquisition and ChinaGrowth hiring: scoping roles, interview frameworks, what to look for and red flagsNorth Star metrics, growth models, and retention/cohort analysis tied to actual user behaviorPaid vs organic growth mix, limits of CAC/LTV, and channel testing/creative strategyCustomer research, segmentation, and messaging for complex, horizontal user bases

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