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

1. 0:00 – 3:01

   Intro

   1. AGAdam Grenier0:00

      It became very clear that everyone had all our data. DiDi knew everything we were doing, uh, whereas, like, Lyft and Uber always knew what each other were doing 'cause we were watching each other, we're friends, things like that. But, like, we never had each other's data. Like, China, like, they definitely had our data. Like, 100%. We were just like, "Eh, the Chinese government has it, DiDi has it." Like, everybody that wants to compete with us has it. It's, like, available readily in the market.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:24

      Adam, I am so excited for this. I heard so many good things from our wonderful mutual friend, Josh Alman, who said you'd be the best guest. So first-

   3. AGAdam Grenier0:30

      Oh, no. (laughs)

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:30

      ... thank you so much for joining me today.

   5. AGAdam Grenier0:33

      Absolutely. Excited to be here.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings0:35

      Uh, I would love to start, growth is this new discipline and you've been in growth orgs in some incredible companies. We have Uber, HotelTonight, MasterClass. What was the entry into growth for you, Adam?

   7. AGAdam Grenier0:46

      I mean, so I, I was in really digital marketing very early on, so almost 20 years ago. Uh, my first client ever was Sun Microsystems. And so we were doing, uh, you know, we were requiring Java developers to make apps for phones, uh, that looked like candy bars at the time. Not, not iPhones and things like that. And so, uh, really kinda grew up in this world of very data-centric marketing, where everything that we did could be measured and thought about. And inevitably, like, my kinda path became this emerging media path, where I helped clients understand, like, how do you leverage new technologies like social and mobile and video? And for a lot of those traditional clients, so Budweiser, JCPenney, et cetera, it was not just thinking about marketing, it was also thinking about the product. Like, what does- how does the product need to evolve and be different? You can't just take what you had on your website and throw it on a mobile device or put it on Facebook, or things like that. And so that, to me, is like- feels a lot like what I do as growth now, or, uh, like, a precursor of it. But Uber was really the first place that we called it growth, right? I w- I was hired by Ed Baker. He, he brought over the kind of Facebook structure that, uh, they'd built, uh, at Facebook. And so that was the first time I had a, a title and thought of myself as part of a growth team instead of just a marketing team or a, uh, you know, part of the business.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings2:05

      Incredibly unfair start to the show, but I'm too interested. Growth. Is it an-

   9. AGAdam Grenier2:10

      (laughs)

   10. HSHarry Stebbings2:11

       ... art or is it a science? You said there about data. I'm constantly erring between the two. How do you sit?

   11. AGAdam Grenier2:17

       Yeah, I think it's, it's absolutely a mix of the two, right? Like, the core of growth really dives into user psychology and understanding customers, and making sure that you're actually connecting with people when the perceived value of your, your product or your offering is at its ultimate highest. And then building technology and building systems around that to, you know, soak it up and actually be able to manipulate it and, uh, do it over and over and over and over and over again. So to me, that's the, like, the art is the people and the science is the data and machines and systems.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings2:47

       So we normally finish with a quick fire, but you have this incredible array of experiences from so many different companies that I was like, "Well, fuck it. Let's start at the beginning with a quick fire too."

   13. AGAdam Grenier2:57

       Let's do it. (laughs)

   14. HSHarry Stebbings2:58

       Why not? Let's be wild. Um, so if we start chronologically,

2. 3:01 – 4:27

   Biggest Challenge at Hotel Tonight

   1. HSHarry Stebbings3:01

      your first growth role was Ho- HotelTonight.

   2. AGAdam Grenier3:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings3:04

      What was the biggest challenge and how did that experience impact your mindset?

   4. AGAdam Grenier3:09

      Yeah, so HotelTonight, you know, was a mobile-only travel app. And the relationship that we had with our hotels was one that you, the, the rates that we were marketing could only be done on mobile devices. It was a, a kind of a rule left out of a lot of the early paperwork with Expedia and, and the big traditional players. And that meant that we couldn't leverage SCO, and that's really how, like, most travel companies had grown up and to that point. And so that really forced us to be at the forefront of anything mobile growth, right? Like, uh, we were doing a lot of incentivized ads to, to jump up into the App Store. We were doing a lot of the, you know, early versions of mobile referral programs with contact lists. It really just kind of honed in my ability to understand and think about, like, new channels. And so, you know, one of my, like, happy moments to look back on is that I, I was working with the Facebook product team and was the fi- first customer to use mobile ads on, on Facebook. Uh, and so actually being, like, at that forefront. And the only reason we were able to do it is 'cause we had a good brand and we weren't a mobile game, and so Facebook wanted, like, a different example other than games kind of in that mix. And so, uh, yeah, that, that kind of new channel ability and, and thinking outside of the SCO box for hotels was, was a really big opportunity for us.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings4:21

      Next we have Uber, and I am being clinical on this.

   6. AGAdam Grenier4:24

      (laughs)

   7. HSHarry Stebbings4:24

      Uh, normally, normally I converse in some manner, but we're being clinical.

3. 4:27 – 5:28

   Biggest Challenge at Uber

   1. HSHarry Stebbings4:27

      Next we have Uber. What was the biggest challenge and how did that impact your mindset towards growth?

   2. AGAdam Grenier4:33

      Yeah, so, you know, I joined Uber, we had about a dozen cities. And when I left, we had probably a thousand plus cities, or, you know, it, the, the idea of cities kind of disappeared at some point. Really thinking about and driving growth, where growth really impacted both sides of the marketplace, and having to do it where the marketplace is hyper local and changes immediately, like every moment, like, the marketplace has a different dynamic. Uh, I, I think that just became, like, a master class, a, a, like, an, an MBA in marketplaces, and really understanding the dynamics of like, okay, we're not just thinking about, like, customer acquisition. We have to think about how the relationship between the rider and driver, or the, the restaurant and the, the rider, or the trucker and the shipping company, and, like, really thinking about marketplaces, like, was just a hardcore element of, of helping to grow Uber.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings5:23

      I mean, Lambda. Lambda is an interesting one. (laughs)

   4. AGAdam Grenier5:27

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings5:27

      Um, uh,

4. 5:28 – 6:40

   Biggest Challenge at Lamda

   1. HSHarry Stebbings5:28

      biggest challenge in, in the growth role at Lambda and how did that change your mindset?

   2. AGAdam Grenier5:32

      Yeah, so actually similar to Uber, where I started and, like, literally halfway through my interview, it was about, "How do we get more riders?" Travis came in and was like, "Wait a minute. What about drivers?" I had to, like, shift and think about it very differently. Lambda school is similar, where it was like, "Hey, how do we get more students into our school?" And then we quickly realized that, like, Lambda lives and breathes on getting people jobs, not getting people into a school. And so we shifted all of our product and marketing work to the, like, the job placement side. And it was just this, like, unique moment where...... you've got all of these different customers using the exact same product. You have students, you have teachers, like getting them into that point, you have student coaches, you have salespeople, and you have the hiring managers. And so that, like, uh, building product and growth around like a r- just an hugely instrumental part of the company's success and, like, a complex moment was really enjoyable.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings6:22

      I think it's so important, actually, as you said that. I think so few people can isolate what is the single most important metric that defines their business. Like, for me, it's the supply of high quality guests that I have on the show. It drives everything else.

   4. AGAdam Grenier6:34

      Mm-hmm.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings6:35

      For you and Lambda there, it was, you know, placements and jobs. I think so few founders can actually articulate that. Final

5. 6:40 – 7:41

   Biggest Challenge at MasterClass

   1. HSHarry Stebbings6:40

      one, biggest challenge in the role at MasterClass and how did that impact your mindset?

   2. AGAdam Grenier6:45

      Yeah. So I was at MasterClass, you know, right after a couple big things hit. So one, uh, Apple really kinda cut Facebook's knees off and made, you know, h- hyper-targeting ads really difficult suddenly, and that was really the bread and butter of how MasterClass grew for a long time. People started going outside again post-COVID and MasterClass kind of hit this inflection point where a single instructor was no longer this like, "Oh, wow, that's crazy. You've got that instructor on there," anymore because all of the instructors they had were that. And so we had to shift from, "Hey, how do we take a single instructor and market them and leverage them to get somebody in and using our product?" to really thinking about the value of the portfolio of MasterClass and the entire subscription. And so MasterClass just became this, like, r- hardcore element of, "How do we think about engagement and how do we think of, like, the portfolio value of our product?" and really shifting that awareness of our product to the customer that we're working with.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:40

      I'm t- too interested.

6. 7:41 – 8:54

   How MasterClass Acquires Customers

   1. HSHarry Stebbings7:41

      I always think with MasterClass, they must just grow insanely because of the distribution channels of the talent, whether it's Serena Williams or Gordon Ramsay. To what extent do new customers come or f- from when you were there, from those distribution channels of the talent versus the company and the product?

   2. AGAdam Grenier7:57

      It was pretty mixed. I would say the majority still comes from MasterClass first.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings8:02

      Hmm.

   4. AGAdam Grenier8:02

      The, th- the kickoff moment, I actually, I, I think a lot about launching a class at MasterClass similar to, like, trying to get on the New York Times bestseller list, where you, you use the leverage of that talent to hit that spark right out of the gate to get the biggest audience in, like, one fell swoop. Um, and so that's where that talent's network would really come in, in handy. We also had the ability to do, like, white labeling and things like that, right, where we're able to leverage Gordon Ramsay's Facebook page to do marketing and that type of stuff, which was definitely, uh, an advantage that a lot of companies don't have. But I, I would say the, like, that, that burst at the beginning was valuable, but, but you still got a lot more value over the course of time from an individual class than just that, that moment at launch.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings8:45

      Fascinating. Perception and reality, baby. Um, listen, I wanna dive into definition, because growth is such an overused term and so confused.

7. 8:54 – 12:11

   What is the role of Head of Growth?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings8:54

      What does the role of head of growth and growth CMO mean to you, Adam?

   2. AGAdam Grenier8:59

      Yeah. So th- uh, two very different things in my mind. I, I'm on a bit of a high horse right now about the- this idea of a growth CMO. And so, uh, let's just talk marketing for a second. So w- when we think about marketing and building marketing teams, I find so many companies get stuck in this trap of, "Do I want, like, a performance-driven CMO or do I want a brand-driven CMO?" And what I, I believe that that does is infuse this idea that you actually have to think about those two things, like, wildly different. Where when I think about growth, whether it's a head of growth or a growth CMO or whatever, it's more about, you know, the, the art of understanding how to leverage all of the data, all of the flexibility of, like, the real world economics of our world that we live in now, uh, and technology and actually be able to implement that. And to me, that's not only valuable for paid ads, right, or SEO. It's also valuable for how you think about the design of your business and your brand and the story you're telling and the content you're creating. And so to me, a growth CMO is actually like a full-stack CMO, but actually leverages the idea of, hey, let's bring in data, experimentation, and product and engineering to help us drive the entire system, everything from your performance media to brand and PR on the other end of the spectrum.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings10:15

      So I, I totally agree with you. And again, this is where the joy of the show goes off schedule. But-

   4. AGAdam Grenier10:20

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings10:20

      ... and I was having this conversation with a founder the other day. The truth is, they are unicorns, those that get the brand, the story, the resonating with consumers, versus the data-centric, very analytical. They're very rare to come together. So is it even possible to have that growth CMO? And for founders, like, should they not just go for one or the other, bluntly?

   6. AGAdam Grenier10:42

      I, I think so. I think it's a matter of knowing where your strengths are and how you operationalize it, right? So I, I think having the value of a, uh, like a killer brand person on your team is, is incredibly high. Like, I don't disvalue brand. If anything, I, I, I, like... I'm a marketer, right? I, I studied marketing. I've been in advertising and marketing my whole life. And so, like, the idea of brand and th- th- the value of comms, l- uh, content, all of those things, is very high. But I think they are still operated in a very traditional model that was happening 20 years ago and should be operated more like a brand team is operating things, where you're driving with experimentation and data and building product to build your brand. And so to me, uh, just like with any, you know, any role, whether it's product or marketing or engineering, you tend to have a T. And I think, you know, finding that person that has, is going to have either a brand base, but can start to learn the breadth of growth or a performance base and understand how growth and performance can be applied to brand. They're never going to be, to your point, both of those things in one. And so yes, I, I agree that you're gonna have to hire somebody that has a base, but I believe that there's this fundamental, like, shift in mindset of, that doesn't mean you have to operate those sides of the business wildly different from one another.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings12:00

      I, I agree, especially in terms of that kind of intersection of the T. I, I... We're gonna get to, like, uncovering qualities, but in terms of, like, the structure itself, uh, where do you think about... Uh, how do you

8. 12:11 – 16:30

   Where does a Growth team fit within an org?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:11

      think about, sorry, where a growth team sits within an org, especially given that kind of holistic view of a CMO growth?

   2. AGAdam Grenier12:18

      Generally speaking, I actually don't think most companies need a growth team.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings12:22

      Huh.

   4. AGAdam Grenier12:22

      Um, like, gro- growth, again, should be infused throughout the business. So quick story in terms of Uber, right? I, I was hired by Ed. We, like, formed the growth team and we were already, you know... We'd just got funding from Google. We were already a $2 billion company, right? We had 300 employees. Most of those were ops people, like, at the, at the city level. But, so let's say it was, like, a 75 to 100 person kind of centralized engineering driven organization. But we had, like, massive product-market fit. It was very, very obvious at that point. We built this growth team because the core product team was, like, knee-deep in trying to figure out how to, like, grow our product, like the core product. We needed someone to be able to focus on growth.... that quickly evolved into two different growth teams with rider and driver, and then an international growth team, a China growth team, and then eventually it disappeared. So like, we actually, all of those functions within the growth team eventually actually merged back into the core business, to where by the time I left, we actually didn't have a centralized growth team anymore. And I think people assumed that like, well, Uber succeeded because they had a growth team, like, you know, s- pre-seed and like, built it out, and they still have it, and it's working magic and all this kind of stuff. It's like, no, most of the functions within growth for a normal growing company can actually just be built appropriately within their, uh, associated teams, within marketing, having performance marketing, within product, having people owning the top of the funnel acquisition, a- or activation, retention, engagement. So most companies, I actually don't think need a standalone growth team.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings13:54

      Okay.

   6. AGAdam Grenier13:55

      That being- Yeah, go ahead. (laughs)

   7. HSHarry Stebbings13:55

      Sorry, I'm just doing a trick. Do you not think, well, a- so I totally get you, but when you have marketing, when you have product, when you have all the different functions, their sole priority isn't always growth, or net new users, or whatever we wanna decide is our growth model. And it's actually a lot of other things. And so it actually gets deprioritized. I guess my question to you is, how do you infuse growth as a priority when you don't have a growth team?

   8. AGAdam Grenier14:21

      I've never actually been on a product or a marketing team that didn't care about growing their business-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings14:26

      (laughs)

   10. AGAdam Grenier14:26

       ... even if it didn't have the title growth. So I think this idea that there are teams and companies that don't, like, within companies that don't care about growing their business is a fallacy. I think the real risk is, it being deprioritized for, um, like noise, right? Or, or whatever the hottest thing in the market is right now, or, uh, something's broken, so we have to fix that. To me, I think that, like, building a growth d- so if you do build a growth team, right, I think there is this, the element of having a, like a strike team nature to it, a full stack team with product, with marketing, with design, with data, with engineering, that can go and dive deep into, like, whatever the core point of leverage for your business to grow right now. Maybe that's acquisition, but it's like, once you're done with that, like, it's not like you stop doing acquisition. Uh, or maybe it's activation, or maybe it's a referral program, or maybe it's whatever it could be. Like, anything that's good and worth it has to keep getting worked on. And the way you build a growth team is typically not the right DNA of people to just keep working on those things. And so I think the, like, this idea that like, you have to have a piece of the business carved out and that's only thinking about growth. To me, just I, I think that's where a lot of people get stuck and have trouble churning through heads of growth or being like, "Oh my gosh, where should this sit?" While the core product leader and marketing leader are like, "We're doing the work right now. Uh, why do you think we need another person?" Like, it feels very reactive to thinking you need growth rather than I think the best growth teams, like, standalone growth teams come from when you have hypergrowth, and you need to, like, control it and contain it and understand it. Like, that's when I think a, a, a focused growth team is like, "Hey, figure out what's happening here and how we can, like, productize this and keep it growing and make sure it does- it's not just, like, a flash in the pan."

   11. HSHarry Stebbings16:12

       Okay. So now, I mean, t- you've thrown my schedule into complete mayhem.

   12. AGAdam Grenier16:17

       (laughs) It, it's, it still works. I think, I think there's still value there, but I'll, I'll probably come back to that a, a couple times. Uh, I think-

   13. HSHarry Stebbings16:23

       Yeah.

   14. AGAdam Grenier16:24

       ... the, especially early stage companies thinking, "Oh my God, I need a head of growth," I think is a very, like, risky proposition.

9. 16:30 – 27:13

   Hiring Tips for Growth

   1. AGAdam Grenier16:30

   2. HSHarry Stebbings16:30

      Do you think hiring heads of growth too early is the biggest mistake founders make?

   3. AGAdam Grenier16:35

      Uh, yes. Yeah. I would say so. I, I-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings16:37

      Yeah.

   5. AGAdam Grenier16:37

      Because again, I think that founders are like, "We're not growing fast enough. I should hire a head of growth." And if you're not growing fast enough, it's usually because you don't have product market fit. And it's like, you actually need to improve your product first and like, yeah, still grow, but you're looking for hacky ways to grow your business that actually isn't working in the marketplace yet.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings16:57

      So let's take this, like, actually growth is a mindset. It may not be like a role or a function. It could be, but it may not be. If we think about hiring processes, Adam, you've, you hired many, many people and many great people. How do you structure hiring processes today? And if you were advising me, a hypothetical angel investment of yours, how would you advise me on how to structure a hiring process for someone with a growth mindset?

   7. AGAdam Grenier17:22

      Yeah. So I, I think scoping it is the first stage, right? So let's look at what, what team do you have right now? And let's say, what, what do we want the team to be, uh, say a year from now? What do we... If, if we grow the way we think we're gonna grow by hiring this person, like, what team and functions do we think we, we actually need? Um, so one of the, the challenges I see a lot of people do is they'll hire one growth person. And like, as I mentioned, like, when we built growth at Uber, like, we infused an entire team in one fell swoop, right? Like, Ed h- Ed was hired, and he hired myself, a head of product, a head of engineering, a head of design, a head of analytics. And like, so we each were, like, operating our own individual functions and able to grow as a group, not just, "Hey, Ed now has to go and, like, barter and trade to get resources from the rest of the organization." So I think that mapping of saying like, okay, let's say this, like, really works, and this is, we're making the investment in growth, uh, as a standalone thing. Like, w- what does it look like a year from now? And in that process, I think that's where people really often realize that like, oh, it's, what we actually need is someone to really think about our acquisition and activation funnel. And maybe that is really just a growth product person that sits within the product organization that is thinking about those elements of the team. And, and so I think that exercise of like, thinking through a year and scoping it out can help you really understand of like, do you really actually want this s- third party team, like, operating independently of your growth and marketing teams a year from now? Uh, and like, like what does that even look like? And that's where most people are like, "Oh, I'd actually rather this be embedded here and here." So maybe you still hire a growth person, but like, hire them, be like, "Hey, do this hacked together growth team for six months, but the goal is actually for you to land as one of our senior product managers on the product organization where you're gonna run this. And then by the time that happens, we're also gonna have a head of marketing, and so maybe that's where performance marketing will sit." Uh, like, uh, a- and again, all that could change in those six months. But those exercises to me help you actually, one, have a realistic conversation with yourself of what growth needs to do for your organization, and then scope it and have the right conversations with people when you actually go to market and start recruiting.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings19:32

      I had Mike Dubow on from Greylock recently, who was at- at growth at Stitch Fix, and he said-

   9. AGAdam Grenier19:38

      Mm-hmm.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings19:38

       ... that for the first growth hire or first growth mindset really kind of central person that you bring on with growth at the core, you want an analyst mind, someone who actually can create the foundations from data, um, in particular. When you think about the type of person that you want as that first growth mindset, they could be in product, they could be wherever in the org, what type of person do we want?

   11. AGAdam Grenier20:00

       Uh, I agree with that. I think having a very data-minded person is important. I don't think they have to be an analyst. Like, I think of myself as somebody that, like, wields data really, really, really well, but I'm not creating, like, media mix models and, uh, you know, like, like, hardcore modeling. But I know how to, like, dig into it and read it and understand it, ask the right questions, propose the right things to my- my teams or go find the right resources to build it. And so I- I agree wholeheartedly though that, like, the- the foundation of growth tends to be experimentation, and, like, really great experimentation takes a very data-driven mindset. And so I think having a- a very data-driven person's important. And- and then I think it's a matter of, like, what else do you have in the business? Like, if you have s- if you don't have anybody that, like, really understands customers, then I think having somebody maybe with a bit more of a marketing or, uh, like a product management experience is helpful. If you do but, like, you need to build a bunch of technology, then, like, somebody that's maybe more technical and has more of an engineering mindset to flavor that is valuable.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings21:00

       What are your favorite questions to ask to tease out whether I have that growth mindset? What questions really reveal that ability?

   13. AGAdam Grenier21:09

       Probably the two most common, so one is I- I have an exercise that is... like, came from Uber, which is, "How do you determine what you're willing to pay for a rider or a driver in any given market?" Which is, like, a very complex marketplace. Uh, yeah, go ahead. Answer it. Do you know the answer?

   14. HSHarry Stebbings21:25

       I would- I would answer, well, I would look at the existing cohorts, and then I would look at the LTVs on a per-rider basis, and that will tell me how much I'm willing to pay on a customer acquisition basis.

   15. AGAdam Grenier21:36

       So the challenge is that the LTV is usually based on the value of a trip, but that value of a trip has a shared, uh, relationship between the rider and the driver, and so you have to decide, like, the revenue that you get from that trip, if you're getting 20% revenue from a- a $10 trip, you're giving that $2 to calculate the lifetime value of the rider or the lifetime value of the driver?

   16. HSHarry Stebbings22:01

       Both? No, the rider. The rider.

   17. AGAdam Grenier22:04

       (laughs)

   18. HSHarry Stebbings22:04

       The driver's doing many, many trips, right, so they have a- a higher LTV, right?

   19. AGAdam Grenier22:08

       Exactly. So we- we could probably spend another 30 minutes going back and forth on this-

   20. HSHarry Stebbings22:12

       (laughs)

   21. AGAdam Grenier22:12

       ... but this j- it just becomes a very complicated que- like, answer, 'cause it is both, right? Like, you, at the... uh, ultimately have to decide when- when you're marketing to both of those customers, when I have to pay to go get a- a rider and I have to pay to go get a driver, I have to calculate both of their LTV, so I can't just give it to one side of the marketplace. But then you have a dynamic where, like, some markets you need more riders, some markets you need more drivers, so you may be willing to pull more of the value over to the rider or more of the value over to the driver, uh, and so it just gets, like, really complex. And there's, like, this is one of those challenges that, like, we've ha- we had, like, dozens of data scientists working with it, and we never got a great answer to it. Uh, but, like, just hearing how people think through that and, like, challenge and push, "Oh, okay, I see that," I think, to me, like, really highlights the ability, again, to wield data, to be able to think through, like, the complexities of it, not just take another model that you heard somewhere else and apply it to something you've never... like, most people haven't thought about that specific problem.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings23:08

       What- what was the other question?

   23. AGAdam Grenier23:10

       So the other question is in- I- I like to dive into engagement, 'cause a lot of people in growth like to think about acquisition, and so I- I typically give some type of product where I'm like, "Look, we've actually got, like, really good consistent engagement, but now we wanna grow engagement of these users, so I want you to think through examples of, you know, how could we get, you know, new customers engaged? How can we get m- like, more frequent engagement, and how can we get more quality engagement? Like, come up with examples or how you would test each of those." And then usually I go through kind of a, uh, let's think of this like a product manager, like, how would you prioritize those? How would you, like, pull in the resources to test? Like, how would you test those, and how would you pull in those resources? And so I- again, I find that that gets the- the double hit of how do you think about the real customer need, like, down funnel, not just at the top of the funnel, and how do you think about, like, actually operating, uh, these types of experiments that aren't just, like, running ads or running landing page tests?

   24. HSHarry Stebbings24:08

       With both of those questions, I think it's often for founders listening, it's quite helpful to know, like, the red flags, like the glaring, "Oh, shit, th- they shouldn't have said that," 'cause there's not always a particular right answer, but there is sometimes a wrong. What are the red flags that come with those?

   25. AGAdam Grenier24:23

       So the biggest one for me, and th- this is very much my marketing hat showing, is people that just don't talk about the customer and, like, what is the actual customer problem, and what i- like, how are we solving it, and what's the value of it, when they just are like, "All we're gonna think about is the data." Uh, th- and, like, uh, or, again, just pulling in, like, "Oh, here is how I did it exactly at this company," where it's, like, just copying and pasting what you did at a previous company, uh, is- is to me just, like, a red flag of, like, someone taught you how to do this rather than you actually having the framework in your head to go apply it to the unique nature of my business and my customer. And so those to me are just big red flags that I see, I- I run into a lot with people that I find to be inc- can be really great talent to have on a team, but are, uh, often more suited for, like, a very specific role, like, that has, like, a very actionable, like, go get this thing done, it's very directed to you, versus a growth role, which I think is, like, a very, like- like, pioneer, exploratory role.

   26. HSHarry Stebbings25:18

       Do you give them case studies or tests? And if you do give them tangible case studies or tests, do you make them do it, like, there and then, or do they have some time to go away with it?

   27. AGAdam Grenier25:27

       I'll usually start that, like the, the first example I gave you, I'll usually just kind of do live, because like I said, it's more about I wanna hear how you think through it than I want to see if you can get the right answer. Whereas the latter one is, is a case. So it's more of a, "Hey, here, uh, I really loved our phone conversation. Do this exercise, get back to me in a week, and then we'll, like, figure out next steps."

   28. HSHarry Stebbings25:48

       In terms of, like, packages, how do growth, like, minded packages for people with growth bi- I, I, it's, it's a weird (both laugh) ... I'm gonna use this. Fuck it, I'm British. Uh, anyway, uh, (laughs) it's a great excuse for anything. You're like, "Fuck it, I'm British."

   29. AGAdam Grenier26:03

       Right. (laughs)

   30. HSHarry Stebbings26:04

       Um, but like, do, do packages vary for these growth-centric roles?
10. 27:13 – 31:49

    How to Choose a North Star Metric

    1. HSHarry Stebbings27:13

       When you speak with founders and advise your founders today, how do you determine what North Star metric that a founder should choose? How, how do you advise them on what to choose and how they should decide it?

    2. AGAdam Grenier27:24

       I like to look for a couple things. So one is, like, what is something that can rally as much of the company as humanly possible, right? Like, so you could say something like, "Uh, new customers is our North Star," uh, but, you know, there's huge chunks of the business that really are like, "Whatever, we're gonna do our job whether we get 10X than- the same number of people or, like, we slow down. Like, the job is exactly the same in front of us." I also think that, you know, when you're dealing with marketplaces, like, having a metric that actually forces you to think through which side of the market needs more growth or more effort. So at, at Uber, I think you and I talked about this, a- around, like, the, like, trips was our metric. 'Cause it's like, okay, well we ... A trip can't happen without a rider and a driver. And so if trips slow down, it forces us to go into the weeds and say, like, "Well, why aren't they happening? Is it pricing? Is it the amount of riders on the, in the market? Is it the amount of drivers in the market? Is it where they're going?" Like, it just forces you to ask more thoughtful questions. And then the last thing I like to think of is, like, actually rooting it to the customer problem. A, a lot of Silicon Valley uses like DAUs or MAUs or things like that, but most people don't actually use those products. Like, the problem that their products solve doesn't happen daily or weekly or monthly, it actually has like a ev- once every three weeks or two times every six months. Like, MasterClass isn't ... Like, when you're in a class, it's maybe a daily active, but then you're maybe gonna take three classes a year, right? You're not gonna take another class the second you're done with the first class, and then the third class, then the fourth class. And so actually rooting it to, like, how is the customer ... Like, what are they coming here to solve? Uh, to me, that as a North Star metric, make sure that you're thinking about, like, the actual en- engagement and retention elements, uh, of your business appropriately as well.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings29:07

       I, I like that in terms of, like, what touches the most amount of people being that metric. I guess my question next is like, when we think about growth models aligned to North Star metrics, how do you define ... 'Cause growth models is kind of thrown around quite a lot. How do you define what really is a growth model, and whose job is it to make it, um, and what does ... Uh, how do you think about advising founders on constructing theirs?

    4. AGAdam Grenier29:29

       I think this is another one that can be a trap for some people in the sense of, I have to have a really, really crazy well-defined model and everything, uh, structured around it. Uh, primarily because, like, everything changes so quickly, especially for early-stage founders. Uh, that being said, like, what I typically like to do with my founders is create what I think of as, like, a vanilla model of just like, "Hey, are you gonna grow? Here, here's like the four-step process that you're gonna grow. You're going to get more customers, they're gonna create a piece of content, that content is something they're gonna share with a friend, uh, that friend, like, loves the content so much that they want to become a customer, so they share." So it's like, great, I've, I've created some, like, four-step loop and I- I like using that then as an anchor for two major things. So one is, do you actually connect the dots, right? Do they come back full circle? Do the things that your customers do on your platform give a reason...... for the next person to actually come, become a customer? If not, then like you're actua- you're, you're growing a linear business. Which is fine, and like, there are a lot of very successful linear businesses. Uh, but like, know that. Like that you actually are going to have to probably do more paid, or do more like really traditional top of funnel just getting cust- sales, motions, things like that. The other piece is it gives you like four like concrete elements that like every planning meeting you go into, every like, uh, prioritization meeting you have, you can be like, "Is this actually impacting one of those four things?" And if it's not, like this probably isn't helping our business right now. I'm, uh, you know, a hardcore user of Reforge and been an instructor there and things like that. So like I say all of this not because I don't think all of the modeling and building those tools and like going through those exercises aren't valuable. Uh, I, I think people can just go through it so much that they over-complicate themselves and actually miss just the most obvious actionable things that they could be doing. So if you wanna like get hardcore into growth models, go dig into the Reforge content. Like, th- uh, that'll explain how to create a model better than I am. But I think just a simple loop of your business to start, uh, is like a really great healthy way to anchor a- around like all of the efforts that you're doing and to make sure you actually know whether or not your business has an, a K-factor or not.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings31:47

       I, I have to ask this. I've been, I've been

11. 31:49 – 35:35

    Marketplaces: Fragmented vs Concentrated Supply

    1. HSHarry Stebbings31:49

       dying to ask this since the beginning. But you know, you're a master of marketplaces having worked in some of the best. Um, I had Jeff Jordan on the show recently, he obviously was at OpenTable. And you know, the truth is, you know, he was like, "You know, we look for fragmented supply sides," and how brilliant fragmented supply sides are. And you know, then I hear a lot of VCs be like, "Well, it's super hard to acquire. It's super hard to retain. It takes a long time with lots of like little suppliers." And, but then if we flip it and you have a concentrated supply base, you have, well, you have concentration risks. That's very dangerous. You could lose 20% of your supply with one customer. And so my question to you is, I guess you've seen both with Uber and Masterclass, where I guess supply is more concentrated than say an Uber. What's, what's easier to run, the concentrated supply base or the fragmented?

    2. AGAdam Grenier32:35

       Easier to run is the concentrated. I find it incredibly more... uh, fun to run the, the distributed like long tail supply. Yeah. (laughs) That's my one short answer-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings32:48

       Can I ask-

    4. AGAdam Grenier32:49

       ... that you get today.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings32:49

       Yeah, no, I, no, I like that. You, I, I just have to ask, you know, d- driver growth is really, really hard. What do you think you did so well at Uber to accommodate the demand on the supply side? Like how did you at dr- how did you acquire drivers so efficiently, do you think?

    6. AGAdam Grenier33:05

       I mean, it wasn't one thing, right? (laughs) Like it was, it was dozens and dozens of things. So, uh, just a couple quick ones. So one was like new channel discovery, right? Like the idea of onboarding and h- like, like, uh, acquiring hundreds of thousands, millions of drivers is something no one's ever done before, right? There's no case study. Like there's some learnings in trucking or in like UPS or, you know, there's some elements in terms of like people that wanna make more money so you can take some learnings from like University of Phoenix and things like that. And like, so there's case studies on like how to do some stuff, but there was no just like, "Hey, here's how X company did it. You can go do it as well." And so literally like every other week we'd be like, "Okay, we were just spending time with our ops team and they post stuff on Craigslist to get drivers to show up at our office to sign up. Uh, could we automate that? Could we actually take that into our growth team and like make it like a scalable channel? Oh, uh, Craigslist works. Like, wouldn't all job boards work?" And like we, we had to go into like, uh, Indeed and Monster and actually, uh, like they're used to posting like two jobs at a time. We're like, "No, no, no. We want hundreds of jobs for every category. We wanna treat it like Google, not like a job classifieds," right? So just like constantly iterating and thinking through like, "Hey, we actually have to j- just be the snowplow here and go and find and create and identify ways to like, uh, like, like get drivers on board." I think the second thing was just really understanding, like taking the time to, uh, do just tons of customer research. Uh, y- you know, drivers is such a broad array of people, right? You have people that are professional drivers already, like taxi drivers, things like that, that just shifted their work effort over to Uber. You had people that were like, "Hey, I'm doing like odds and ends jobs as it is. I'll just add this to my mix." You had people that weren't working, they were maybe like stay-at-home moms or, uh, had a schedule that they just they're like, "Oh man, having one more thing to like plug the hole in." You have retirees that are like, "I just wanna talk to people. I wanna hang out with people." And like really understanding those, because, uh, initially we were able to just go market the heck out of like, "Hey, you can make $1,000 a week," right? Like, okay, everybody wants that. But eventually like that's not enough to build trust for someone to be comfortable with someone in the back of their car. Or for, you know, for that retiree, like the $1,000 a month isn't like that interesting. It's actually like the communicating, the engaging with people, getting to know your city, things like that. And so having this just like we, we, we brought on customer research onto our growth team really early on and was just constantly doing cycles of like, "How do we unlock that new fragmented piece of our marketplace?"

    7. HSHarry Stebbings35:34

       On the flip side, I'm just

12. 35:35 – 37:49

    Failed Experiments at Uber

    1. HSHarry Stebbings35:35

       too interested. Did you ever do a growth experiment which just totally flopped on the driver acquisition supply s- supply side at Uber?

    2. AGAdam Grenier35:41

       Oh, I'm sure like, m- like 75% of them, right? (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings35:46

       Which, which one's the most memorable where it's like you press play-

    4. AGAdam Grenier35:49

       Um, so-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings35:50

       ... ugh?

    6. AGAdam Grenier35:50

       Yeah, so when you would interview drivers who've been on the platform for a while, the thing that they would always say was that they don't actually drive for the money, they drive for the flexibility, right? Like, flexibility when stack ranked, like money was like number three. The flexibility, the ability to just like literally turn on my phone and I can go make money right now. Like I've never had anything that easy, that accessible. Uh, so I can fit that into whatever else is going on in my life. And so we took that insight and just went, we're like, "Great. We need to like shift all of our messaging away from dollars to..."... uh, flexibility, and we spent a ton of money on that type of messaging, and then it just burnt, right? Like, it was just, like, no one clicked, right? Like, and so what we learned is that, like, the messaging, like, the point of time for the messaging really mattered. The, the money was the thing that got people to be like, "Oh, that's interesting. I'll go click on that." Whereas the, the flexibility became more of an engagement strategy. And so, like, taking an insight from, like, your active customer and applying it to new customers was just, like, a, a, a big miss for us on, like, the marketing and messaging side of things.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings36:57

       So what does that teach you for founders? 'Cause like, that's really confusing. (laughs) If, you know, you do research groups if you're a founder, and they say, "Oh, I love the flexibility," totally right. You would market the flexibility. So should you not do the research group? (laughs) Should you not listen to what they're saying?

    8. AGAdam Grenier37:12

       (laughs) Yeah, I think you should. I think you should just, like, you have to be, like, really thoughtful about who you're researching and, like, what, like, who you're researching and where do you wanna apply that research? If I'm researching and I'm interviewing people that are active customers and I'm gonna go apply that research to inactive customers, like, I can't assume that the same insight is going to stand and, and work to the same degree.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings37:37

       Can I ask, how do you... Uh, I am totally going off schedule, but I'm just too interested.

    10. AGAdam Grenier37:39

        No, that's all right.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings37:40

        You mention- you mentioned the variant of drivers there, and I'm applying this more broadly now across just, like, horizontal customer bases. How do you market

13. 37:49 – 42:16

    How to Market to Horizontal Customer Bases

    1. HSHarry Stebbings37:49

       to horizontal customer bases? When there's old people wanting to chat, mothers wanting more money or fathers wanting more money on the side of, you know, life, and then full-time drivers. They're so different. Do you choose one and message for one, or do you try catch all and message for many?

    2. AGAdam Grenier38:06

       Uh, both. So, like, I typically try to build some type of, like, pyramid messaging structure that on the bottom of the pyramid, like, the broad stuff is, uh, mon- you can make money, right? Like, okay, that might still apply to that retiree. That might still apply to both men and women, things like that. And, and that I can kinda put into mass mediums, right? I can put that on my, my, on Uber.com. I can put that in TV ads, things like that. Uh, then the next tier up might be, like, something more specific. So let's take, like, safety, uh, and targeting female audiences, right? And so it's like, okay, we know that, like, women, another very large group but gets a bit more specific, uh, safety really resonates there. So now I might take those channels and, like, put that message in, uh... I may, I may still be on TV, but now I may, uh, not target, like, sports, right? Like, I may negative target things that I know are gonna be very male-skewed or things like that. Or, um, I might, uh, like, I'm gonna put the right talent in there that actually speaks to my customer. Um, I'm gonna put that on, you know, it may not be on Uber.com, but maybe there's a new badge on Uber.com that says, "Learn about safety," and, like, it goes down that path, right? Then it may be like, uh, what about, like, safety in Chicago, right? Where it's like, oh, like, there is, like, a, like, we're seeing that safety matters more in Chicago than any other market. I, I lived in Chicago for a long time, that's why I'm picking it, not because I think of it as a inherently dangerous city. Uh, but let's just say that's a thing, right? So it's like, again, you may build content around that, but now you're gonna find channels that are, like, very specific to Chicago and that message hitting there. And so ideally, you wanna build a structure that allows you to be, put the right message in the right place, and the, the better that targeting can be, the more refined the messaging can be.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings39:48

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AGAdam Grenier39:48

       And ultimately, like, you just have to figure out, like, okay, safety is a pillar that we can tackle. But, like, safety for retirees, uh, in Boca Raton is probably something that, like, I, uh, there's just not enough market there for us to, like, build an entire creative flow for that, right? And so there, there's, like, you know, creating different profiles and segments and, like, all that type of work that can help you decide, like, what is that right hierarchy and, and how do you deploy it?

    5. HSHarry Stebbings40:16

       How long do you leave a message out before you know whether it's worked or not? Like, is it instantaneous, where you're like, "Oh, this isn't working," or does it actually take some time where you need more data to understand the true effectiveness?

    6. AGAdam Grenier40:28

       Yeah, so (laughs) I mean, it, it, the, the data matters, right? So at Uber, we learn pretty quickly. Uh, I mean, we were spending a billion dollars a year at one point. And so for me to test something in the ads layer, I could get learnings within minutes, right? Uh, whereas like-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings40:44

       And so you, would, would you, would you pull it then in minutes, if it saw nothing and you were like...

    8. AGAdam Grenier40:47

       Uh, potentially. If it was like a, if, if it w- like, most of the time, we were, again, building, like, creative systems, and so it was just like, "Hey, we're gonna actually test 50 different messages now within this creative system within a week." Rather than just testing one thing for a week then having to test the next thing, we had the volume that we could test, like, a ton of different things at once. And so rather than putting all those impressions against one message, we could, like, you know, separate it and actually get, you know, a lot more insight and learnings into the direction we were going. Whereas, like, Lambda School (laughs) , right? Like, you think of the funnel for Lambda School starts with acquiring a student. Then they go through an, uh, an admissions perspec- like, uh, process. Then they're a student for nine to 12 months. Then they are interviewing for a couple of months. Then they get a job. So it's literally, like, a year-long funnel before you know if something really genuinely worked. And the volumes we're talking about are, like, 100 people in a class, a couple hundred people in a class, right? So we weren't, uh, we were spending maybe, like, 100 grand a month, right? We had not, like, just tons and tons of money. And so that, that cycle became like, okay, let's try to find signals. Let's pull in a lot more qualitative research, right? Let's talk to the students, see if they re- like, how do they reflect with that messaging? Do they think it's gonna work? And that just naturally would be more of that environment, where like, we're gonna test one thing for the next three weeks, see if we can get enough signal in it to keep investing in it. So it can range pretty drastically.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings42:06

       Mm-hmm. I think a big thing that founders often struggle with is, like, understanding what is a retained user and what is true retention? When you think back to, like, Uber, it's k- probably easier than, say, like, at Lambda,

14. 42:16 – 45:26

    How to Define a “Retained User”

    1. HSHarry Stebbings42:16

       but, like, thinking back to Uber, how did you define a retained user, and how do you advise founders on what, what they should define a retained user as?

    2. AGAdam Grenier42:24

       I think cohorting is really, really, really important when thinking about retention. I think a lot of times people get stuck in just looking at, uh, "Are our monthly actives going up," and things like that. And, like, really looking at different cohorts either on, like, a weekly or monthly basis. Um, and then, again, going back to, like, what is the use case? Like, what is the problem that you are solving? And what is the natural use case of that problem? And so at Uber, if, uh, if I took a segment that I knew were, uh, commuters, where I'm like, "I would expect these people to, this, this cohort in this segment to use our product three times a week." Um, you know, like, maybe not every single trip, but they're gonna use it three times a week. Uh, like, we'll, we'll pull in enough data to do that analysis. We'll do some, like, histograms to understand, like, what is the normal, like, the average? Uh, and then using that against that cohort to see, like, "Okay, does that three trips a week, is it happening regularly month over month or week over week?" Um, and then that gives you both the, okay, this is a retained user, and it gives you the anchor to say, like, "Oh, if they drop down to two or drop down to one a week, then that's someone I could actually start engaging with now in a way that's pr-" Y- you don't want to have to try to, like, recapture a user that's totally churned. You want to see someone, like, okay, they're looking like they're gonna churn, so what's our strategy for those people? Um, or are they now using it, like, ten times a week? Like, okay, they're now in a totally different segment, so I can move them somewhere else.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings43:49

       Whose responsibility is that, capturing someone who is potentially churning? Is that product? Is that marketing within this growth-minded person within the org where we don't have a growth team, thanks to your platform.

    4. AGAdam Grenier44:02

       (laughs) I mean, if we don't have a growth team, it's, it's, uh, I think that's where your data team is, like, really responsible for understanding, like, like, uh, you should have a suite of metrics that are your growth metrics that can be leveraged by a variety of different teams, right? And so that, to me, typically is a data owner or, like, uh, your VP of data, something like that, to be able to provide or make an investment, um, in, in growth. Like, uh, ideally you want it, you want data to not be a reactive part of your team. You want it to be a proactive part of your team. So every week, data should be bringing insights to your product and marketing org saying, like, "Here is, like, here are, here's a strategy on how we can get more, um, you know, more engagement, more value out of each of our customers." Um, or the opposite, being like, "Hey, I want to work on engagement. Data team, let's work together to, like, build out a model to help us understand, like, who are the audiences that we should be tackling?" Because I, as a marketing team, might want to do that with email right now, or I might want to do that with messaging in the app, or I might want to do that with an event for our customers. Whereas product might be like, "Hey, we're going in, and we're gonna be working on the discovery element of our website." So, like, uh, or our app, or ETAs or something like that, and we think it'll impact engagement. Like, let's work into that. So that's where I feel like data becomes, like, a really great anchor for growth to be infused throughout the organization.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings45:15

       Adam, you mentioned a word there, insight. And, uh, I often hear about postmortems, and I think, "Well, no one really talks about, like, how often to do them and, and everything around

15. 45:26 – 47:54

    When To Do Post-Mortems

    1. HSHarry Stebbings45:26

       it." So, do you do postmortems? How often? Who's invited? Who sets the agenda? Can you help me understand the right way to do postmortems?

    2. AGAdam Grenier45:34

       Yeah. Uh, so the right way, (laughs) and the way I've done it, are, are probably two different things. So the right way is, you know, you're ideally doing them with every sprint, and there's some type of just, like, regularity to them. My, you know, the nature of a lot of, you know, the business, I, I tend to be, uh, I've worked with a lot of early-stage companies, and it tends to be that postmortems happen when something breaks, right? It's actually like, "Hey, we should probably figure out what just happened there, because something went terribly wrong." But again, good, good, like, uh, postmortem health would say that you're actually doing it every time, so you're also identifying the things that are working and all of those types of things. And so... But you know, A, "Hey, something went wrong. Let's do a postmortem." Um, typically, like, there's some really great, like, on Miro and, uh, Coda, there's, there's some good just basic templates that you can use. Um, and I think, uh, it, it, you know, typically, it's figuring out who the right stakeholders are. So one example, um, is at Lambda School, we implemented a new, like, chat opportunity for our students, and we, we didn't loop in customer service. And customer service had, like, an entirely different chat element. And, and so it just, like, caused a ton of backlash, like, across the company, because it was like, "Hey, the, we got good data out of this, but, like, we totally," like, I, I like to call it owning your collateral damage. So it's like, everything you do is probably gonna have collateral damage. Go, like, find out what it is. Go embrace those teams. Like, ideally, you tell them ahead of time. You get their buy-in ahead of time and things like that. But sometimes I think that's where postmortems come in handy, to say, like, "Hey, we misstepped. We're owning that. We would like you to come in and help us, like, break this down."

    3. HSHarry Stebbings47:15

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AGAdam Grenier47:15

       But doing it with one of those templates and coming in with a, "Hey, we're gonna all share in an honest fashion here." And the goal isn't to point fingers, but is actually to, like, allow us to do that same thing again, not prevent us from doing that thing again. I think that mindset can really help a postmortem be more effective.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings47:33

       Man, I thought about it when you said about Ed Baker hiring you and then having, like, individual functions within a growth team. I'm like, "Wow, I bet the other functions within the org loved you guys." (laughs)

    6. AGAdam Grenier47:43

       (laughs) Oh, it ranged, right? Like, uh, like my, my biggest challenge were the operations teams, 'cause you had a, like, every city team would build, like, a, a small operations team, including marketing. And so we would get,

16. 47:54 – 50:19

    Why Uber Employees Used Personal Credit Cards to Run FB Ads

    1. AGAdam Grenier47:54

       like, we, uh, at any given time, there were probably, like, 200 personal credit cards buying ads on Facebook, and it used to drive me mad. And, like, initially, I went out with, like, a very, like, firm grip on, like, "You can't do that." Like, "Stop doing that." Like, "We have it structured over here. It's tagged appropriately. You're bidding against ourselves." Like, a very, like, just authoritarian kind of view on it, and it just never stopped. And so, like, eventually, I, like, shifted that into a, "I need to actually build for those teams. Otherwise, they're gonna keep doing this." And, like, I actually need them, right? Like, they understand their cities and these dynamics way better than I do, because they're on the ground. And so, like, we actually built, like, a function within our team to, like, work directly with cities, uh, and that type of stuff. And then I, I know product and data had those same challenges as well.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings48:37

       Hang on. Why are they using personal credit cards?

    3. AGAdam Grenier48:41

       Uh, I, you know, autonomy and go fight to win was very much part of our culture at Uber. And so if you're a GM for market and you hire a marketer, and you're like, "Man, this central team's doing marketing that's not quite what we need." Like, uh, a good example are, like, uh, Outside Lands or Lollapalooza or Coachella, where I as a global marketer, I'm not really building content for Coachella. Like, I don't really care. That's not... For me, that's, like, one week. It's not gonna... Like, I can buy more efficiently when I think much broader bay area, right? Uh, whereas, like, for the SF areas, like, our entire marketplace is gonna be screwed for a week. I want to go do specific marketing for that. And to, to me, as a global buyer, my initial view on that is like, "You're gonna spend $10,000 of our billion dollar budget and putting, like, three people full time on that? That is a waste of our time." Right? Like, that is not a good use of our time. But, like, that was the culture, was to go do that, because their goal was to get San Francisco to work, right? To win San Francisco. And so eventually, like, we had to come to terms. This is like, "Oh, okay, maybe I could build things that allow you to do Coachella." Like, hey, it looks like every city does a major concert, so, like, maybe we build, like, our own internal templates on how to buy that. So I reduce the noise hitting my team and I improve the effectiveness of what they're doing at the local level. Like, that's net-net good for the business.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings50:01

       That's a hard problem. Um-

    5. AGAdam Grenier50:03

       It's very hard. (laughs)

    6. HSHarry Stebbings50:04

       You mentioned they had a billion dollar ad spend.

    7. AGAdam Grenier50:06

       A lot of gray hair from that, uh, from that problem.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings50:09

       You look wonderfully young. I, I am younger than you, but I look incredibly older. Um, uh, tell me, you mentioned a billion dollar spend there, um, I think paid is really, really

17. 50:19 – 52:09

    The Right Ratio of Paid to Organic

    1. HSHarry Stebbings50:19

       hard. When you think about the ratio between paid and organic, how do you think about advising founders?

    2. AGAdam Grenier50:25

       So ultimately, like, you want to make paid a tool, not a crutch, right? You want it to be something that you can add fuel when you need that fuel, whether that's because you're Zoom and there was a pandemic and you're like, "Oh, crap," like, "We need to go win the market right now, like, move as fast as possible, just dump all of our money into the next six weeks, because it will be more effective now than ever before." In that moment, you should probably be willing to make it, like, 90%, right? Um, the... But I also, like, I'm, I, you shouldn't... To, to have, like, a refined tool, you also don't want it to be 0% necessarily, because you're gonna miss those moments if you're, like, not operating it at all. So I... From, like, a, a generic, "I'm gonna just give you an answer," like, I usually tell people, "30% tells me that you're not dependent on paid, and it tells me that you're doing it enough to have, like, a need to keep refining and improving it, being relevant in the moment and those types of things." Um, and by giving that anchor of 30%, it, it starts to allow people to be uncomfortable when it's above 30%. Right? It doesn't mean you shouldn't go there, but you should start to get uncomfortable. If it's like, "Man, we're spending way too much money," when you've put that anchor at 30, it allows you to at least say, like, how much m- is too much, rather than just saying, like, "Oh, this feels off."

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:43

       What did the split look like at Uber? Because you've got, like, product, like, growth tactics, like, referrals, especially within Uber, and, like, discount codes. Um-

    4. AGAdam Grenier51:50

       Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings51:50

       You've also got paid, you've got word of mouth, natural. You know, Uber in the early days, your amazing car showed up outside and everyone was like, "Ooh, how did that get there?"

    6. AGAdam Grenier51:58

       Yep.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings51:59

       Um, like, what did the mix look like in terms of those different acquisition strategies?

    8. AGAdam Grenier52:04

       So we probably floated around 50% when we were hitting that, like...

18. 52:09 – 52:47

    How Uber Spent $1B/mo on Marketing

    1. AGAdam Grenier52:09

       Uh, so when we were doing a billion dollars, that included China, and that was more than 50%. Like, paid drove a ton of our growth in China. Um, and so... And it was like... It was nonsense, it was just wild. Um, and so, like, let's say 6, $700 million on, like, the rest of the world to market Uber, that was probably accounting for 40 to 50% of our growth at any given time. Now it's probably way more efficient than that. They pulled back significantly. Uh, like, we started to there, uh... Like, my fourth year at Uber, we started pulling back quite a bit.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings52:40

       Sorry, I'm too... Jus-... I didn't... I, I've never been to China. I didn't... I don't know the Chinese w-... What was so wild about it?

    3. AGAdam Grenier52:46

       Well, so

19. 52:47 – 55:16

    How DiDi Got Access to All Uber’s Data

    1. AGAdam Grenier52:47

       one, you know, none of the channels that we've used are there, right? So, (laughs) like, oh, we've been using Facebook and Google and all these job boards, and, like, none of them exist in China. So, you literally had to take, like, everything you know about media buying and planning and marketing and, like, throw it out the window, go understand and learn that market, and then, like, figure out how to do all of the different channels there. So for instance, the app store is a much more distributed world there, right? It's not just like, "Hey, drive everything to Apple." It's like, "Oh, you actually need to go buy relationships with various different app stores to be able to be there and to be discovered there." When we would hire, like, agencies and things like that, it became very clear that, uh, everyone had all our data. So, like, like, DiDi knew everything we were doing. Uh, whereas, like, Lyft and Uber always knew what each other were doing 'cause we were watching each other, we're friends, things like that, but, like, we never had each other's data. Like, China, like, they definitely had our data, like, 100%. We were just like, "Eh, the Chinese government has it, B- DiDi has it." Like, everybody that wants to compete with us has it. It's, like, available readily in the market for us. Um, we-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:51

       Did you have their data?

    3. AGAdam Grenier53:54

       Uh, we didn't. Uh, as far as I know, we didn't.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings53:56

       (whistles)

    5. AGAdam Grenier53:56

       I didn't have their data. Uh... (laughs) Uh, but we, we would, like, have, like, Zoom calls, and then just, like, random phone numbers would just show up on our Zoom calls and we'd be like, "Oh, gotta hang up, get into a new Zoom room," like, things like that, where it's just like, oh, man, there is so much, uh... There's just a lot of the, the, like, the corporate structure that e-... Like, it feels like the Wild West here at times. But there is still a corporate structure there that, like, means that you're not gonna get a w- away with fraud for very long, or that, like, Google and Facebook kinda can't allow that stuff too much, because if they do, it's, like, gonna hurt their entire bus-... Like, their entire business model, right? Where, like... And, like, all of that just goes out the window. And then even from, like, a, you know, uh, cultural differences with, like, the types of rides, the type... Like, we had to do a lot of just different, creative, uh... Like, much more loud, crazy characters. Like, that type of stuff, uh, worked way better and differently there. A lot more out-of-home. Like, those types of things.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings54:57

       Can I ask, final one, for, uh, quick fire.... is CAC not totally bullshit? And what I mean by that is, like, you have no idea if my mother signed up to Uber because I told her about it-

    7. AGAdam Grenier55:07

       (laughs)

    8. HSHarry Stebbings55:08

       ... five times, or she saw it on a billboard five times, or she got my discount code. It may have been any of those that caused her. And so like when,

20. 55:16 – 58:08

    Is CAC:LTV a BS metric?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings55:16

       like, how do you think about the effectiveness, honestly, of CAC to LTV and CAC when measuring effectiveness of channel?

    2. AGAdam Grenier55:23

       I, I don't. I agree, I think it's bullshit. I think it's a really, uh, as like a, the expectation that it's gonna be a consistent metric across channels and having like a full view of everything that could be included in that is, is impossible. Like, it's not unlikely, it's impossible. Like, it's ve- it's impossible to fully attribute any, uh, all of your channels, let alone like one of your channels, especially with like the walled gardens of Google and Facebook and Apple and all of this stuff now. I do still think CAC is a really, uh, is a very efficient input and tool for a media buyer. But ideally that CAC is informed by like a media mix model that's constantly, you're, you're, you're basically just trying to optimize for your confidence in your model, not for perfection. And so like trying, you know, pulling in more data, pulling in more models, pulling in the information from your partners, all of that stuff being fed back into the buyers with a, "We believe that on Facebook, a customer's value is 20 bucks, go get as many as possible," is the best way to let that team operate instead of asking them to decipher all of the magic behind the CAC to LTV.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings56:27

       The, the way I always describe it actually with partners through our media companies is, you know, very bluntly, you know, "What's your LTV?" We mostly work with large B2B companies and they say, "$50,000." And I go, "Great, okay, so it's, it's $15,000 a month to work with us. So we do a three-month campaign, and it's $45,000. Do we think in three months being exposed to 3.5 million people, say, across those months, we will get one conversion that's 1X back? Highly likely, yes. Then it's probably a good deal, like, you should do it. But if we are doing $1 per user, do we think that we're gonna get actually 50,000? Tough, we probably shouldn't do it." I always think about it as like LTV to audience and probability.

    4. AGAdam Grenier57:08

       Yeah, I think the, like, to your, the, the one thing you just highlighted is that your B2B larger corporate audience, like, uh, is, um, uh, like, enterprise is a lot easier of a puzzle to solve from like a CAC to LTV perspective. Whereas like consumer, especially mass consumer, marketplace, et cetera, just, like, adds all of this noise and complexity and things like that into it. That from your perspective, from a media perspective, makes perfect sense. But from a buying perspective, if I'm a mobile game, I need to, yeah, you're right, it's gonna be hard to, like, attribute it, but I still need those users. I still need to go buy as many $1 users as humanly possible, like, where, where am I gonna do it, how much? So they still have to make that decision. And so, yeah, I think that, uh, uh, generally, I think you're right. Like, using CAC and just, you know, spreading it evenly across the business, CAC to LTV, I think is a, uh, uh, our third trap of the ƒ-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings58:00

       Final, final, final one, I promise. Um, you also, uh, are an active angel investor. You've invested in some fantastic companies. I think we've even got a few together.

    6. AGAdam Grenier58:07

       Mm-hmm.

21. 58:08 – 59:32

    How has investing changed your mindset towards Growth?

    1. AGAdam Grenier58:08

    2. HSHarry Stebbings58:08

       Um, but, uh, how has investing changed your mindset towards growth now working with many different companies and founders?

    3. AGAdam Grenier58:14

       So I, the, the thing I love about investing is that I, because I'm working with the founder with an expectation of how to scale this, a venture scale to this, I get pulled into what I think of as, like, the existential problems of the business, not the day-to-day operational problems. Whereas when I go and I'm consulting or advising, I inevitably, like, get pulled into like, "Hey, what's the next channel we should be doing?" And things like that. And like, like I talked about earlier, more often than not, I find that, like, most of the company's problems aren't that they haven't found the channel that's gonna work for them, it's actually that they don't have product-market fit, or that they're pointed in the wrong direction, or they're too narrow in, like, how they've solved their problem or things like that. And so I think being able to, to, to both tie that existential opportunity with the what are the operational asks that they're giving to their teams right now has just been really rewarding for me. And I, I've, I, I think helps me think those big picture thoughts and ground them to like, "Okay, here's what to go hand your team to go find what they're looking for right now." Um, yeah, so that's kind of how it shifted my, my ability to do both kind of ends of that spectrum.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings59:23

       Adam, I could talk to you all day, um, uh, but, (laughs) but sadly you're busy with me.

    5. AGAdam Grenier59:28

       (laughs)

    6. HSHarry Stebbings59:28

       Um, uh, so I, I've got a quick fire round for you. So I-

    7. AGAdam Grenier59:31

       All right, let's do it.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings59:31

       ... say a short statement.

22. 59:32 – 1:03:40

    Quick-Fire Round

    1. HSHarry Stebbings59:32

       So, okay, what did you believe about growth five years ago that you no longer believe?

    2. AGAdam Grenier59:37

       That everybody needs a growth team. (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings59:40

       (laughs) That really through, honestly, when you said that at the beginning, I was like, "Right, fuck the schedule." Good, good. Uh-

    4. AGAdam Grenier59:45

       (laughs)

    5. HSHarry Stebbings59:45

       Uh, why is Explore on Twitter so bad? And what would you do if you were CMO growth at Twitter?

    6. AGAdam Grenier59:53

       So, like, for me, it's just become all sports, and I have lots of interests. I like sports, but, like, it, it just, it just keeps showing me the one thing. I think they have overindexed on what they think ads will like versus indexing towards, like, time relevance, which I think is, like, the superpower of Twitter is that, like, it's exactly what's happening in this moment. And so if I was a, a growth leader at Twitter, I would be like, "How do we really capture that magic of, like, this is special right now more than this is special because it's like the generic thing that that person likes?"

    7. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:25

       Clubhouse, how do you evaluate what happened? Like, what did, what was the magic and what went wrong?

    8. AGAdam Grenier1:00:31

       So it, product-market fit on both answers. So I think they had just killer, killer product-market fit. The, you know, the, the vision initially was, how do we create this feeling of like a dinner party and those types of conversations? In that moment, everybody needed that. But very quickly, like, most people don't need that every, uh, you know, we talked about frequency. Most people want that, like, once a month, not every single day. But they opened it up so quickly to that, and then the product shifted, or the market shifted where that product-market fit doesn't quite fit there. And this is what a lot of consumer companies are going through right now, where, like, they think that, like, oh, they gotta keep trying new things, but really, like, they don't have product-market fit the way they used to in the middle of, like, a, a bear market or bull market.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:13

       Does TikTok die? And how do you think about that in terms of what it does? Because I'm seeing so much diversification of channel spend from Facebook and Google to TikTok from brands. Does TikTok die?

    10. AGAdam Grenier1:01:24

        Uh, I don't think TikTok dies. I think it, like ...

    11. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:27

        Gets banned.

    12. AGAdam Grenier1:01:28

        Yeah. I, I think, uh, I, I think they've carved their customers out. I think you're gonna have still people ebb and flow between them, but just like Snapchat before it. I think there is a very s-

    13. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:36

        But you don't think they'll, you don't think they'll get banned?

    14. AGAdam Grenier1:01:39

        Oh, that, I mean, I don't know. I don't think so. I think that there's too m- much of a single generation that uses that app that would go crazy-

    15. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:47

        (laughs)

    16. AGAdam Grenier1:01:47

        ... if, uh, if it, if it disappeared.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:50

        What would you say is the biggest mistake founders make when hiring growth teams?

    18. AGAdam Grenier1:01:55

        Um, I'm trying to think of one I haven't already said. Hiring a growth team.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:59

        Absolutely. Uh, yeah.

    20. AGAdam Grenier1:02:00

        (laughs) Uh, I, I think it's, it's hiring because they need growth rather than hiring because they have growth.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:05

        I agree. It's when they think it's a silver bullet to product market fit, and it's like-

    22. AGAdam Grenier1:02:08

        Mm-hmm.

    23. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:09

        No, you just don't have people that like it. Um-

    24. AGAdam Grenier1:02:11

        Yep.

    25. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:11

        Penultimate one. You're great at choose your skill. Why do other people fail at said skill?

    26. AGAdam Grenier1:02:19

        Uh, I'm great at connecting the dots. Like, I, I've had a lot of exposure. Like you, we talked about, I, uh, I studied improv and comedy my whole life, and so I love this idea of like the yes and, and like connecting pieces, and I find that really effective, like, in the weeds with founders, because I'm able to, like, not just think about their singular vision, but really connect it to different consumer experiences, different products, things like that. And I think a lot of people get way too pigeonholed into, "I have to solve this. It's a new problem. I can't learn anything from anyone else. I gotta go do it myself."

    27. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:50

        Final one. What one company growth strategy have you been most impressed by recently?

    28. AGAdam Grenier1:02:55

        I love Epic Games. I think that, like, they're, they're both building a platform with Unreal Engine and building the best games to be on that platform. Just reminds me a lot of Apple with the App Store early on, and I think we're starting to see some versions of that with the AI companies hitting the market right now as well, and that's a, you know, that, that, that to me is the closest to, like, winner take all opportunities is you building both the platform and some of the best products on it. And so I'm, I've actually been, like, really geeking out about some of their strategies within that.

    29. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:27

        Adam, I've absolutely loved this. Thank you so much for ruining my schedule, but then being so flexible-

    30. AGAdam Grenier1:03:31

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 1:03:40