Hila Qu: The Ultimate Guide to Product Growth at Your Startup | 20VC #967

1. 0:00 – 0:59

   Intro

   1. HQHila Qu0:00

      I caused, actually, some explosions. (explosion)

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:03

      The world of growth, it's a new world.

   3. HQHila Qu0:05

      Growth advisor actually can help you figure out that growth architect, that map. A lot of founders in early stage, they use Google Analytics. It's okay, but I would say it's less generation of analytic tool. You want to have tools like...

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:20

      On the equity side, is it like 0.1% or is it like 2%?

   5. HQHila Qu0:24

      Wins change people's perception. You can get more resources, everything else become easier. Product-led growth is fundamentally data-led growth.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings0:32

      You are a star. Hila, I'm so excited for this. I heard so many good things from Josh before the show. So first, thank you so much for joining me today.

   7. HQHila Qu0:40

      Thank you for having me, Harry. It's a, it's a, it'll be a fun experience.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings0:44

      Oh, it'll be a great chat. But I wanna start with a little bit on you and provide some context. We see Acorns, we see GitLab, and the world of growth, it's a new world. So how did you make your way into the world of growth and come to lead some incredible growth orgs at Acorns and GitLab most recently?

2. 0:59 – 2:25

   How did you make your way into the world of growth?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:59

   2. HQHila Qu0:59

      So believe it or not, I was a biology major, and I suck at doing experiments in the lab. I caused, actually, some explosions. Um, everyone is safe, so don't worry. But I always loved idea of scientific experiment. So I got my MBA, I transitioned into the business world initially as a data analyst. Uh, but very quickly I found that doing data analysis is awesome, but I don't get to do anything with my awesome recommendations. The PMs, the marketers, they don't take my recommendations. So I joined a very small startup called GrowthHackers.com, um, and I become a product manager, growth. And back then, that title is confusing, like, "Product manager? Growth? What do you exactly do?" Um, but I love that role. It really allow me to use my analytical background, my product manager background, my marketing background, and pretty much do everything. Uh, and from there, I become kind of this growth person. I joined Acorns, uh, and ended up leading their entire growth team as VP Growth. And most recently, I joined GitLab, building their gr- uh, growth team from scratch as well. Now I work as a growth advisor. So, like, I'm really deep into the world of growth.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings2:15

      I, I love it. And I, I spoke to Josh before the show, and he said that I really had to dig in on the Acorns journey because you were so instrumental to building that growth org and really making sure it worked

3. 2:25 – 4:02

   What tactics worked for growth at Acorn

   1. HSHarry Stebbings2:25

      so efficiently. He asked what tactic really worked and what did you learn from that?

   2. HQHila Qu2:32

      Yeah, yeah. I, I think, like, I would say there are definitely some, I would say, mega learning from my Acorns experience. Um, first of all, the company really starts as a product that people love. Like, we have a feature called Roundup. Roundup your spare change so that you can invest with, with very small amount of money. Our early adopters loved it, and that powered the initial word of mouth growth. And from there, I think one thing we did right is that we layered on multiple growth channels. So, like, initially it's word of mouth. We quickly expanded to paid, like Facebook. We're very early in capturing the Facebook, uh, wave. We added paid referral and then we divide- diversified into more paid channels. We added new product lines so that we can charge more, and then that higher revenue a- allow us to unlock a higher, uh, CAC in paid channels or more paid channels. I think that layering on really helped. That's one learning. The other one I would say is, uh, we established a full funnel growth team. By full funnel, I mean marketing, growth product, analytics, design engineer, we sit together. I manage that team. So, um, I'm responsible for acquisition, how to get people download the app, but also I'm responsible for getting them to sign up, invest their money, uh, become a paid customer, retain, and maybe try other products, right? So, like that really full funnel approach

4. 4:02 – 7:21

   How to Optimize Facebook Ads

   1. HQHila Qu4:02

      allow us to unlock many opportunities and experiments and successes.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings4:06

      You mentioned Facebook there. I have to dig in on it because Josh brought it up specifically. In terms of Facebook ads and optimizing them, I'd love to just go a little deeper. How did you figure out how to optimize Facebook ads and what really worked on Facebook ads for you?

   3. HQHila Qu4:22

      Yeah. First of all, I think as a disclaimer, this was back in 2008, 2019, right? And you know the world of Facebook and paid ads change every day, especially I think after 2020 with iOS 14, they make the tracking more strict. Everything changed. So specific tactics may not work, but I, I can definitely share the process. We figure a new channel out. I think that is still applicable. So I would say there are a couple things. Um, in terms of process and team, we have a team that we do daily standup. Like, your typical engineer teams do daily standup, but our acquisition team, we do daily standup. In the daily standup, we will watch where we are in the App Store ranking and we're like, "Oh yeah, we're up," or, "No, we're down." Or a co- or some other companies jumped out from nowhere and we hate them. So, like, that really gave us a lot of, um, velocity and focus on this. So that's one. And then we have a cross-functional team as well. We have designer and, uh, channel experts and data person and myself in that room together. So we share all sorts of data, we brainstorm experiments, we launch them quickly. I think a big part of making Facebook work is, um, there are a lot of standard best practice. We use lookalike audience, we kind of, uh, optimize towards our, um-... best customers, like who are looking like our best customers we- that's our goal. Um, but we do large amount of creativ- creativity testing, like all the ads we produce, we, we launch new ads every day pretty much and then we do all sorts of ads. Like one thing that's really funny, back then I think there is this company called Cameo, and they have, they have the celebrities and doing things, and we have them do ads for us, like we basically, uh, have an early partnership with them. We have some pa- uh, celebrities we, we try, like they record a short thing, we do ads. Um, we also do a bunch of like very native ads, someone go to gas station and then just pump, pump gas and say Acorns helped them. Like the, the ordinary person gas station version works much better than the celebrity.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings6:37

      Uh-

   5. HQHila Qu6:37

      And we also do a lot of interesting ones, things you wouldn't expect work actually work. Like, um, we'll ask people to do a math question about investing, calculating if you invest, um, one cent today, two cents tomorrow, four cents (laughs) on Wednesday, like how much it will be. People guessed it wrong, but that grab people's attention and they go to the app store, download Acorns app. So a l- tons of creativity ads testing, that really unlock a lot of success, and we definitely layer on the tools and the data, like we have tools, uh, for attribution, we have Singular, we have a lot of inder- internal data analysis. So I think the team, the, the, the creative ads testing,

5. 7:21 – 12:29

   Advice on Channel Diversification

   1. HQHila Qu7:21

      the tools, data, all of that together unlock the success for us.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:25

      You mentioned that about, like, the diversification of channels early and kind of layering on the channels. The thing that I often see is founders are very keen to diversify their channels early when they have something that's working, and I always say, "If you've got something that's working, great. Double down on it, like don't-"

   3. HQHila Qu7:41

      Mm-hmm.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings7:41

      "... get too cute too early." How do you advise founders on channel diversification? Should they start with many at s- at the start? Should they start with one test, move on? Like how do you advise them on the diversification of channels in the early days?

   5. HQHila Qu7:57

      Yeah, that's a great question. I think, I think you are absolutely right. If you find something that works, definitely don't, don't let it go, like double down and try to squeeze everything out of it. I would say in the very, very beginning you, you want to kind of try a couple of different channels just to get some ideas because you, you will learn something, like all the rules changing all the time, you will learn something out of it. But usually from paid perspective, um, like Facebook, Google, maybe TikTok now are the biggest ones, right? You, you want to figure them out. Usually, um, one of those, if you figure it out is enough for you, and a lot of learnings you can apply to other channels. So that's one. Um, the other thing I would say, don't only focus on paid. And we will talk a little bit later, right, paid is powerful, paid is quick, but, um, over time you will see all the best, most successful companies, they, they always have some sort of a viral approach or content-bay- based SEO approach. Those take t- time, and those is much deeper, much harder for Facebook to change rules overnight and mess it up, right? So you want to layer that on as well over time.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings9:13

      I think the number one reason people fail with content is they give up too easily, exactly-

   7. HQHila Qu9:18

      Yes.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings9:18

      ... as you said, it takes time and you have to be patient. I, I a- we mentioned what worked well, on the flip side, what didn't work well and what did you learn from that not working?

   9. HQHila Qu9:29

      Yeah, many, many things didn't work, right? Like you would assume for everything I shared, the other half didn't work at least. Um, I think many channels didn't work. At one time we sponsored NASCAR, um, and it's a lot of money, but it didn't s- we didn't see any visible lift in our results. Um, we tried to distribute content on many financial media, like very established media outlets, that doesn't give us kind of direct results as well. Uh, Snapchat, Pinterest, those work, but those are hard to scale, like you don't get large scale similar to Facebook and Google. Many experiments my growth product managers launched didn't work as well. Um, there is ones, one, one experiment I remember, I think that's really interesting to share. Um, we have this paid referral mechanism, like you invest, you in- invite your friends, you get five dollar, your friend get five dollar to get started, that's very typical standard paid, uh, referral. We layered on kind of a monthly campaign on top of that to, to make it even more attractive. For example, for this month if you invite five friends, on top of those five dollars, you may get additional benefit of like, I don't know, fifty dollar or you get something w- we experimented like we plant a tree for every friend you, you invite, um, as well, like we did a lot of that. I think those, um, monthly promotional campaign with additional money incentive worked on the numbers. We get people to do things, um, we, we kind of... Some of them, they, they, they invite four friends, they g- didn't get to five, so they didn't end up getting the, the bonus, but we get the number, we get some new users joining, and those users are good users. So initially everything looks great, the numbers are good, we, we used this for a while actually. But over a longer term, we begin to see that the quality of invited users drop.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings11:37

       Mm-hmm.

   11. HQHila Qu11:38

       Um, and, and, like, which is expectedly what will happen, right? But, um, so, so I think there is this, this trade-off, right? You always want to do things that impact number, but you also don't only want to look at the near-term results, you want to monitor long-term metrics. Um, on the other hand, some channels will work, there is this period of time it'll work great, and, uh-... after some time it will die down. Like, it, it is a forever trade-off and- and an experiment in monitoring in the growth world.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings12:09

       I think that's a really important thing for founders to understand, which is like, your CAC today will not be your CAC tomorrow. Like, as you saturate your initial market, you will not only have a reduction in quality of your subsequent user, but you'll also be paying more for them in a lot of cases, (laughs) which is why I love it when it's like, "This is my CAC forever."

   13. HQHila Qu12:25

       Yeah.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings12:26

       Um, so I- I totally agree. Now, this series is designed

6. 12:29 – 14:30

   How do you define growth?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:29

      for founders who are building out growth teams and I think that's just a big question on definitions first. How do you define growth and VP or head of growth first?

   2. HQHila Qu12:39

      Yeah. Yeah, I think growth is a tricky thing. It is both a result and a discipline, and whenever you have that, um, it is a hard job. Like, sales is a result, right? You get sales and it is also a discipline, it's a function. So, um, growth is... By results I mean like what are you trying to grow, right? You want to grow your ARR, your revenue, your- your user base, your metrics, whatever. Um, I think the other layer is you want to grow them sustainably, not just, like, for a short period of time. And growth as a discipline, there- it is really, in my view, about using scientific methods to grow business KPIs. Um, like, there are the core, uh, methods is around data and experimentation, which is similar to scientific method, right? There are different levers you can grow. You can grow by growing acquisition or activation or revenue retention. All of tho- all of those different aspects will lead to growth. You can also grow by different channels. You can grow by product, you can grow via marketing. Like, there are also the channel aspects. So growth is both results and a discipline, an approach. And in terms of the different titles, I would say there a- there are also some different nuances, right? Y- you talk about VP, right? VP, director, growth PM, sometimes there is a chief growth officer. Those are the different levels of a growth leader. Um, but you also have different focus. Some- some people is more focused on growth product, some people is more focused on growth marketing, some can do both. So yeah, like, I don't know how to summarize it. It is a little bit confusing, but there are some nuances to this- to this growth thing.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings14:27

      So now we have, like, the definition, the meta-definition of growth

7. 14:30 – 18:05

   B2B vs B2C Growth Teams

   1. HSHarry Stebbings14:30

      there. Uh, e- the- the way that growth is implemented changes drastically, whether it's B2C or B2B. For- for founders listening, kind of, we have both that listen, how does it differ between B2B and B2C, and how should a B2B growth team look compared to a B2C?

   2. HQHila Qu14:47

      Yeah, that's a- that's a great question. I had the, um, pleasure to build both teams. I built a B2C growth team at Acorns, I built a B2B growth team at GitLab, and it is an experiment for myself as well, to be honest. So I think B2C growth team, as I mentioned, um, I usually think the full funnel team is the most powerful. Like- like I mentioned, right, I have growth marketing, um, who is more- mostly focused on acquisition. They- they are the channel experts. They want to get more users to download apps, sign up for a product, they are all different channels. There is the lifecycle marketing aspect, like thinking about email, push notification, messaging, how to engage your existing users, and there are basically CRM specialists in those teams. And then the last piece is the growth product team, where I have growth product manager, engineer, designer, analyst. They work on all sorts of experiments. How to make signup flow more efficient, how to get new users onboarded quickly, how to increase conversion rate. Um, they- they kind of basically do a lot- a lot of experiments across the entire user journey. And then there is the data analyst component. So that's the most typical B2C growth team. Like, you have user acquisition, lifecycle marketing, growth product and data analyst, and they usually report to the product org. Like, I reported to chief product officer, I reported to the CEO for some time as well, but that's kind of the most likely setup. B2B growth team, on the other hand, is a different animal. The core team is the same, you still have the PM, you have the design, engineering analyst, so the squad itself is very similar, but I would say, um, the growth org, the- the product-led growth organization in a B2B company is broader. For example, at GitLab, I was head of the product growth team, right? I- I sit in the product org, but I have counterparts in marketing who is kind of collaborating with me. I have counterpart in sales, which is totally new, doesn't exist in B2C. Um, it is, this is because the user journey, the buying journey in B2B is much more complex. You- you have multiple stakeholders you need to convince, the cycle is three months rather than three minutes in dow- comparing to downloading the app. So that- that org is broader, um, and in terms of reporting structure, most commonly growth teams do- still report to the product org, like myself. However, sometimes you have, you- you- you may say there is a kind of different structure where there is like a, almost like a general manager of the self-serve business or product-led growth business line. The general manager manage kind of growth, um, product and- and marketing and sales, and this person may report to the VP sales or chief revenue officer or, um, kind of, uh, head of GTM. Like, that- that is possible as well.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings18:00

      So when I- when I hear you, I hear kind of pretty extensive growth orgs and I'm thinking, "Wow,

8. 18:05 – 20:09

   When to make your first growth hire?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings18:05

      this is quite a developed org and that's quite a costly growth team." If we peel it back, for an early stage founder thinking about hiring-

   2. HQHila Qu18:12

      Mm-hmm.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings18:12

      ... their first growth hires, when do you advise founders on when's the right time to make the first growth hire?

   4. HQHila Qu18:19

      Yeah. I think the overall principle you probably heard many times is get your product ready first, right? Find your PMF and, and hire, thinking about hiring for growth. But I would lo- love to add some nuance to it. Um, for example, I talked with a founder, he has a product that's a Chrome extension enable collaboration, right? He has 10 people in his team, he's talking with me about growth and hiring for growth. I suggest him to hire a growth PM or lead growth PM right now, even before raising the series A. Why? Because for his product, that collaboration, right, that viral growth is so critical, it's almost part of the product, so you want to figure that out early on. He ended up find someone from, I think previously from Dropbox, with that viral growth experience, and that's awesome. That helped him actually raise the next round. So if your product has a social collaboration network effect, that kind of thing, think about Slack, LinkedIn, right, or, or anything like or, or Airtable, Figma. Hiring for growth early on, a little bit earlier, will allow you to engineering those growth loops into the product itself, and that can be very powerful.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings19:38

      I, I also think growth, like early growth hires can help you, like find product market. I, I, I hate it when it's like, "Growth is not a solution to product market fit."

   6. HQHila Qu19:45

      Mm-hmm.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings19:46

      But as we said there about the testing of different channels, quite often your I- ICP, your ideal customer profile, will be different to how you anticipate and actually a growth hire who's tested several different channels can find that Pinterest with middle-aged women in America is actually your ICP when you thought it was younger women or-

   8. HQHila Qu20:04

      Mm-hmm.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings20:04

      ... do you know what I mean? They can find-

   10. HQHila Qu20:06

       Yeah.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings20:06

       ... elements that you didn't know before, which suggests product market fit.

9. 20:09 – 23:58

   What Growth Profile to Hire

   1. HSHarry Stebbings20:09

      Okay, so when you have... Uh, I like that nuance. Next question, how do we know what profile to hire for that first growth hire? Are they senior, junior? What does that hire look like, do you think?

   2. HQHila Qu20:22

      Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a great, uh, question as well. I think, um, in terms of senior, junior, I usually, uh, when I talk with early stage founders, I advise them to hire kind of a experienced growth PM or experienced growth mas- m- marketer. Don't go f- for VP growth from the very beginning. Don't go for someone very junior who hasn't done this before, because that kind of middle layer gave you some advantages. They have experience, especially in one of the area, maybe in product or more, more in the marketing. Um, try to find someone who is very analytical, good with data, and eager to learn. Like, they want to learn the other aspects. They also have the drive to become a head of growth one day. So I think all of those components is more advantageous to the founder and also, um, give you the options, right? You can potentially grow this person into your head of growth or, um, if, like, that doesn't work out, you can still have the op- option to hire an external head of growth, uh, to partner with this person. Like, when I, when I... As I mentioned, when I joined, uh, growthhackers.com, my title is PM Growth, but just, I was doing everything and I wa- I was learning everything pretty much new as well, and, um, I was very scrappy. I tried to do things without engineer or without data, without everything. Like, I think you want to find someone who is like that, and he can have the potential to become your, uh, head of growth one day.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings21:52

      I think a lot of potential growth hires are nervous about being the first.

   4. HQHila Qu21:57

      Uh-huh.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings21:57

      Like anything, being the first is nerve-wracking. For founders listening, what can they say to convince a potential growth hire that they should join and this is the right place, even though they are the first?

   6. HQHila Qu22:11

      Um, that's a, that's a great question. I think the... I would say, like, the, the, the, the best growth person, not even the best, the, the person with the best growth potential probably are nervous and excited at the same time, right? Like, if it's only nervous and scared, then probably maybe growth is not your thing, because growth is new every day. I would say, what is helpful for the founders to explain is, first of all, um, the culture within the company, right? This is... Growth can make or break, um, when the culture is not right, when the company itself is not really thinking about data or, or using data and experimentation as a discipline to make decisions, uh, when he or she not only need to do experiments, but also need to convince everyone, right? Beg for resources. That's the hardest part. So I think if the founder himself or herself has the growth mindset, believes in data, believes in experiments, believes in the scientific approach, and the leadership kind of is aligned, that is very important sign, for me at least, if I, if I'm thinking about joining any org, right? That's r- really, really critical. And also lay out the, the potential and the opportunity for this role. Like, it is new, but everything is there for you to mess up with and figure out and, and, like, try, right? So I think there's a lot of, uh, excitement along with that as well.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings23:46

      I totally get you. I think ch- charting that career trajectory and showing a pathway to a head of growth at a hyperscale company is, is really what excites a lot of the best. Say I decided not

10. 23:58 – 26:05

    When To Hire an Agency

    1. HSHarry Stebbings23:58

       to hire this growth hire and I went for an agency.

    2. HQHila Qu24:02

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings24:02

       When does hiring an agency work well and when does it not work well?

    4. HQHila Qu24:08

       Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I- i- in general, I think agency should comes a little bit later, because if you're thinking about, um, figure out your, your growth mechanism, right? This is pretty fundamental to your business, to your point. Like, you have PMF, but also you need to have channel, right? You need to have some sort of a... You need economics and channel works, otherwise it's not a viable business. So-... hire an agency for that feels very irresponsible and it would- wouldn't work in most cases. So you need to think about if you're building a skyscraper- craper, you need to be the architect, you need to be the growth architect. Like, founder need to be very invested in figure out growth channels, and you can hire someone with expertise to work alongside with you. Like, that is the main thing. But certain building block later on may be outsourced or you may tap into expertise. The- the most things I see maybe successful than others is if paid, like, is your main channel, is your initial growth loop. Um, some agencies are ex- like, specialized on that, you can use them to scale, right? Or if you me- kind of, uh, stumble upon certain speci- specialized areas like pricing, or- or you need more support in creating creative ads, you don't have capacity in-house, maybe you can tap into some consultant or- or agency. But I would say the most fundamental things is about figuring out your growth model, the initial channels. That cannot be outsourced and-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings25:50

       I- I'm-

    6. HQHila Qu25:50

       ... you need to figure that out on your own.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings25:51

       ... I'm totally with you. There is real specialists in- in terms of channels. Like, I see a lot of actually TikTok on Facebook today, which are potentially worth it over time. You mentioned tapping into knowledge and wisdom there. Some tap into the knowledge and wisdom through growth

11. 26:05 – 30:15

    When To Bring In a Growth Advisor

    1. HSHarry Stebbings26:05

       advisors like you and Elena Verna, who are obviously both incredible people to add, but when does a growth advisor work-

    2. HQHila Qu26:13

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings26:13

       ... and when does it not had worked? And how do you advise founders on whether or not to bring on a growth advisor?

    4. HQHila Qu26:19

       Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, um, the benefit of hiring growth advisor is that growth advisor actually can help you figure out that growth architect, that map, not just building blocks or tactics. What is the growth model? What are the pot- potential channels you should try? What are some, uh, product-led growth mechanisms you need to, uh, build internally? A right growth advisor with the rel- relevant experience can help you with that. The other thing I would add there is that growth advisors come in different shapes as well, right? There are the ones who are really good with super early stage PMF. There are also the ones who are good at scaling stage. So you need to find the one with the re- right expertise that can help you. Um, so that's one. And I would say growth advisor need to be paired still with the team or as a founder, right? Advisor don't have the capacity to execute things, so you need to have someone to execute. Uh, as a recent example, one of the company I advised, they are, they are... Like, they are Series B. Um, they have... They want to do product-led growth. They have something, the basics. They don't know how to do it, like, in the scientific way or scale it. They paired with me as an advisor, with their, uh, head of, um, investor relationship. It sounds interesting, right? But this guy, he's very analytical, he's very smart. He doesn't have growth PM experience specifically, but he knows data so well of the company and he knows all the teams. Like the product team, he can socialize the product team, um, the- the marketing team, all of them. So our partnership actually was very successful, much more successful than I expected. So, like, I- I think that's another thing. To pair with a growth advisor, you still need to have someone internal who can work with this person to- to make it work.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings28:17

       How do you compensate a growth advisor? Is it pure salary? Is it salary and equity?

    6. HQHila Qu28:23

       Mm-hmm.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings28:23

       For me as a founder if- if I wanna work with you or some of the best, what does that look like just so I can budget for it?

    8. HQHila Qu28:30

       Yeah, yeah. So for me, um, I've seen both models. For- for me myself, like, and also many other- other experts I know, we usually have a monthly kind of returner model. We have a, like, six months engagement or- or even a year, um, and then it's a... usually a blend of cash and equity. Personally, myself, for earlier stage, I may kind of be willing to take more equity, uh, if the company is really great and awesome. For a little bit later, it's more towards the cash side.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings29:04

       Totally get you. This is really unfair of me to ask. On the equity side, I know founders listening will be like, "Great." But like, is it like 0.1% or is it like 2%? If you're early stage with Series A, what- what kind of level is it, just generally? Like, 0.1, 2, 10? Where does it sit? (laughs)

    10. HQHila Qu29:24

        (laughs) No. I- I think-

    11. HSHarry Stebbings29:25

        It's not 10.

    12. HQHila Qu29:25

        ... like, I would say, obviously this is very personal. I'm sure every different growth expert or advisor have different kind of, um, strategy. I... Per- personally for me, um, I think it's definitely much lower than the kind of you hire full-time executive, right?

    13. HSHarry Stebbings29:46

        Mm-hmm.

    14. HQHila Qu29:46

        You shouldn't, you shouldn't... Like, for me, I don't ask for that. Like, I usually ask for a reasonable amount so that we can have a kind of great relationship. And the- the key thing is that as an advisor, I'm incentivized to participate in the upside. Like, even a small percentage of equity will be actually more powerful than sometimes a large amount of cash in- in some cases, right?

    15. HSHarry Stebbings30:11

        Oh-

    16. HQHila Qu30:11

        For selected companies.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings30:13

        ... absolutely, if you're there at the

12. 30:15 – 34:52

    How do you structure the hiring process for growth

    1. HSHarry Stebbings30:15

       Series A. Now, you are my growth advisor a- and you're my friend, okay, on this mission to hire my first growth hire-

    2. HQHila Qu30:23

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings30:23

       ... but I don't know how to hire them, uh, Yile, so you're gonna help me. How do I literally structure the process of hiring my first growth hire? What do the stages look like from step one-

    4. HQHila Qu30:35

       Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings30:36

       ... what do I do?

    6. HQHila Qu30:37

       Yeah, yeah. And I actually helped, uh, quite a few founders going through this process. I would say, the first thing is write the job description. Um-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings30:46

       Okay.

    8. HQHila Qu30:47

       ... it shouldn't be your standard job description because you... As I mentioned, the first step, there are some, like, homework for the founder to do. Um, you need to think about your growth model. What are the initial growth loops or growth mechanisms? That's important, um, because that is something you should be trying to look for. Like, for example, I worked with a founder of FinTag app. Um, they figured a lot of things out. They also figured out a lot of early page channels and their, uh, payback is great. I mean, like, yeah, for this growth person, you really want to have someone with super strong channel, page channel expertise because you already figured out, you literally need someone to amplify it, right? The other, the... Maybe there are some other different cases. They have a user base that's already there, um, they want to really system- systematically think about the entire growth funnel. In that case, maybe a more head of growth or lead growth PM with growth product ex- expertise makes more sense. So, you need to-

    9. HSHarry Stebbings31:51

       But-

    10. HQHila Qu31:51

        ... do the homework, figure it out because that will go to your job description. In those job descriptions, I usually advise the founders to lay out some early KPIs and initial focus areas that will map to what you need and also the expertise of the person, and also-

    11. HSHarry Stebbings32:08

        So sorry to- can I, can I just dig in. Um-

    12. HQHila Qu32:10

        Yeah.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings32:11

        What- what would some examples of the KPIs be? Would that be, like, the revenue numbers? The user numbers? The, uh, the DOWS? What- what- what would that be? Just take an example.

    14. HQHila Qu32:21

        Yeah. Like, it would be... First of all, like, the- the- the north star metric, right? What are the key thing? Like, for a B2B business, it may be revenue. For a B2C, it may be users, active users. But also, some initial focus areas. For example, uh, for- for one company I work with, they- they... I- I helped them figure out, like, um, activating new users, onboarding and, uh, free-to-paid conversion. Those are one of the initial possible focus areas. So, in the job description, you don't- don't need to go that deep, but you can talk about, "Hey, there will be a lot of focus on the, uh, onboarding, activation, conversion." Like, um, that will help you track the right expertise and also make your thinking super clear as well.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings33:10

        Okay. So we have the KPIs in the job description, we figured out the growth model, we figured out a couple of the growth loops. So we've got a kind of understanding of what sort of profile we want from that understanding.

    16. HQHila Qu33:22

        Mm-hmm.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings33:22

        What do we do now, Hila?

    18. HQHila Qu33:24

        Yeah. The next step is usually, um, try to share this around in your network, in all the growth channels. Like, I help pass this along because there's that concentration of people and it's always better to figure out someone who- who know, um, that you're a potential hire. So, like, try to get referrals, share that like crazy. And then once you begin to get some candidates' applications, try to do some screening. Uh, I would say there is a company list that I know that has great growth people and I share that with the- the- the founders and maybe what is the industry? What is the skillset? Like, all those... If there's a perfect fit, right, awesome. Try to go after them as quickly as possible. Um, from there, I help a couple founders actually create a take-home assignment because that is a very nice way to really know their thinking and allow the candidate to share their more comprehensive thinking as well. Uh, and then the last step will be the interview, and you need to interview with the founder, the leadership team, your collaborators and- and yo- maybe someone in your team as well, like engineer, designers, but also the VP of Marketing, VP of Sales if you need to work with them.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings34:44

        Can I ask you, on the take-home assignment-

    20. HQHila Qu34:46

        Mm-hmm.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings34:46

        ... is that always on your business, like the one that you're hiring for? Or is it on the business

13. 34:52 – 38:35

    Take Home Assignment for Potential Growth Hires

    1. HSHarry Stebbings34:52

       that they've worked in before? Because obviously they'll have a lot more historical expertise from the business they've worked in before.

    2. HQHila Qu34:57

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings34:58

       So w- how do you do the take-home assignments?

    4. HQHila Qu35:01

       I try to do it in my, uh, business, in the- in the company that's hiring because you want to get people who are quick at thinking, right? Quick at learning new things. That's e- essential skillset of a growth person. Um, I have a couple questions I like to use. The... One of those is, like, just go to my company's website. Go through the entire journey as a new user. Pretend you're new, you're exploring Acorns, you're exploring GitLab, download app, and try it yourself. Um, construct a new user funnel. Like, how would you... Like, what are the steps you will include in the funnel? Uh, what are the numbers and metrics you will try to collect to understand whether this funnel is effective or not? That can help me know, hey, how do they think about things? Do they... How do they think about data? Do they know the most important concepts, like aha moments and things like that? Is that funnels ended at downloading app? That's a big red flag, like they don't even go beyond that, right? So that's one. The other one is I will ask them to propose three experiment ideas and share their hypothesis, and how will they measure success metrics? Like, that again help me understand what's their level of growth expertise. Do they have great ideas? Like, sometimes we- we do get great ideas from- from candidates, and we test them, and we let them know as well if... Like, we- we have the results back. The last component is a more heavy data analysis component. I usually share some real data and a real problem we're trying to solve analytically. Like, I will allow them to think very open-ended, like how would they approach this problem? What other things they may try to look? What other, uh, conclusions they will- they will draw from the preliminary data? So that's how I would structure the take-home assignment.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings36:53

       Can I ask, what would be some really big red flags for you-

    6. HQHila Qu36:56

       Mm-hmm.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings36:57

       ... when g- engaging in this interview process? Where you'd be really worried when you saw them in the interview process?

    8. HQHila Qu37:02

       One of my favorite question to ask is, "What is the most unexpected experiment result you saw and what do you do after it?" And the reason I like- li- love- lav- let that interview question is because first of all, people get prepared about their most successful experiments. I don't want to ask for that, for sure. Unexpected is in a way that they must have done a lot of experiments, and then they have something unexpected. And what they do after to dissect that results and to take out kind of the- the issues and figure out the next steps is critical. If I hear them, "Look, no, I don't have any unexpected experiments. Everything work as I planned," that's a red flag-

    9. HSHarry Stebbings37:48

       (laughs)

    10. HQHila Qu37:48

        ... (laughs) because that's not possible. Like, 60% of A-B testing fail. If you have done growth or experiments, you should have something. That's one. The other red flag I would say, too big of a ego. Like-

    11. HSHarry Stebbings38:01

        Mm-hmm.

    12. HQHila Qu38:01

        Like, lack of se- (laughs) self-awareness. And I think that's a, that's a, that's a ch- in general one. Like, not just growth but for growth, it's even a bigger red flag because you will fail a lot of times. You need to work with a lot of different teams. You need to be willing to negotiate, have a commu- communication, uh, or rather than prescribe your thing to everyone. Like, that's another one.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings38:25

        Uh, I think one I see is, like, a rigid mindset, which is where you have a growth leader who's had success in a playbook in-

    14. HQHila Qu38:31

        Yeah. (laughs)

    15. HSHarry Stebbings38:31

        ... Facebook ads from 2018 and they're like-

    16. HQHila Qu38:33

        Yeah.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings38:33

        ... "You know what? It's this way."

14. 38:35 – 42:50

    The First 90 Days

    1. HSHarry Stebbings38:35

       And you're like, "Well, the world's changed a bit."

    2. HQHila Qu38:37

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings38:39

       So, to- totally. Okay.

    4. HQHila Qu38:41

       That's a good one.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings38:41

       So you've helped me hire this great, great candidate and th- we're onboarding them.

    6. HQHila Qu38:46

       (laughs)

    7. HSHarry Stebbings38:46

       Uh, we've spoken before about the first 90 days and so-

    8. HQHila Qu38:49

       Mm-hmm.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings38:49

       ... I want to start there. You've broken it down into first week, first month, and first quarter. I love this article, which I'll include in the links.

    10. HQHila Qu38:58

        Mm-hmm.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings38:59

        What do we want to achieve in the first week?

    12. HQHila Qu39:02

        Yeah. I think first week is really about get the lay of the land. I would say the five things you want to focus on, learn about what tools you have. Like, do you have Optimizely as experimentation tool? Do you have product analytics tool like Amplitude? And also understand the past initiatives, like what worked, what didn't work. The second thing is dive into historical data. Like, growth people crave for data. If you can do that, that's great. The third thing is meet with your manager, your CEO, and other leaders. And then the fourth thing, meet with your own team, your collaborators, like engineers, designers, analysts, or your people in your team. And the f- last one is try to sit in a customer call or go to a, uh, user research session, listen to your customers to just get a feeling of who they are.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings39:51

        So we have that as a first week. That's a, that's a busy first week, Hila.

    14. HQHila Qu39:54

        (laughs)

    15. HSHarry Stebbings39:54

        I'm impressed with your productivity. Um, o- next, first month. As a founder, what should I expect you to do in the first month?

    16. HQHila Qu40:02

        Yeah. I think first month, you need to begin to generate some results. Like, I think growth is all... Like, like I mentioned, growth is a discipline and a results. But the quicker you can generate results, the easier it will be for you as a growth leader or growth practitioner to move forward. So I would say try to find some early wins, try to do some quick fix, try to just make some impact. Um, the five things I pick for first months is pick a growth metric, the first one. Second, identify a focus area where you want to work on. Like, rather than you want to change DAU on the first day, what are the smaller things, specific thing you want to f- work on? Launch some experiments. Like, try your best, change something. Analysis wouldn't change results. Um, you need to do something to change results. The fourth thing is set up some communication mechanism with your customers and also with your stakeholders. Like, if you sit in product, but sales VP is an important person to be happy with, like, try to set up that communication channel. And the last one is start to fill in the gaps in infrastructure to data. If you need to reinstrument some tracking to get better data or if you need to look into some tools, start to look into that.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings41:24

        So I'm gonna unpack some of those elements later, but I wanna finish on the f- first quarter. First quarter, what should you be doing?

    18. HQHila Qu41:32

        Assuming you are lucky and you work hard, you get some quick wins, right? You get some excitement around you. That momentum and excitement is very important. Now you want to take that to build this thing into a more, like, program, right? Like, culture and make this more formal. Like, you have a sustainable growth process that will allow you to generate wins constantly. Um, so there are five things again. The first thing is create a growth model. Like, understand how your product grow. The second thing is build experimentation program. Like, make this more form- formal. Have a cadence. How many experiments are you trying to launch every week and what is the process, right? Like, have this to be a, a part of your operating system. The third thing is choose a sys- system of records. Document learnings, document results, is such a big part. Otherwise, it get lost. And after t- two years, a new hire's beginning to do the same experiments he already did, like, two years ago and didn't work. Um, the fourth thing is start a weekly growth meeting. Again, this is part of the program systemization. And the last thing is create a growth culture. Like,

15. 42:50 – 46:20

    What Data Should Founders Prepare

    1. HQHila Qu42:50

       growth culture is so critical. A lot of times, um...I saw why gross team fail is, like, this company doesn't have a culture to nurture it, to make it successful. So yeah, those are the five things I would try to aim for in the first 90 days.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings43:08

       Hila, I was listening to you there and I had so many questions listening to you, but now I get to dive into some. You said in the first week, one, dive into historical data. Many founders don't necessarily have the best data repositories, the best data ready for a growth hire. For founders listening, what from a data preparation side can they do to ensure that, you know, a, a new growth hire can really ramp up fast on the data preparation side?

    3. HQHila Qu43:35

       First of all, many growth person are also data person. Like, one of the, my favorite profile to hire is a former analyst-to-turned-growth PM. So if you can find unicorn like that, this person can help you clear, like, clean up some of the data as well. So, like, that's, that's one thing I would share. But on the other hand, um, I would say for B2C product, there are a couple data point or data sources you should try to have available. App store data is not enough if you have a app. You want to have marketing channel attribution data from tools like Adjust or, or things like that, so that you know which channel is bringing which users, right? That's the number one question. The other question, the other thing is product analytics and user behavior data. A lot of ear- founders in early stage, they use Google Analytics. It's okay, but it's, I would say, it's last generation of analytic tool. You want to have tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel or, or things like that. It really require you to have a tracking plan and also instrument the tracking of the events so that you know what users are using in my product. Like, where, where are they come from? Channel, right? What they are doing? That's the product analytics. And then there are a lot of tools in B2C, like Segment, make linking all those data much easier. So that's B2C. B2B, the data situation (laughs) is, in general, much worse. I would say B2B is almost like kindergarten level if B2C is third grade level, in terms of data foundation. Um, so especially if you are traditionally a sales-led motion, you're starting from sales, right, you don't need to know so much about your product usage and all of that. So I think the first step if you want to hire a growth team or start a product-led growth motion is instrument product analytics, like, like I mentioned, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Pendo, um, po- like, there are al- also open source s- product analytics solutions. Like, so that you know what features user are using and connect that with the backend purchase data so that you have that usage and purchase journey. Um, and then that's the most fundamental thing. The next level requirement, if you can do that, is have all the data sources connected. Again, Salesforce data, um, which record sales activity, Marketo, which has h- all the marketing activity, how that link to the product usage dat- data, but that's much harder.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings46:14

       It is much harder. And so let's just say we've got all the different data sources. W- you said for the first

16. 46:20 – 50:03

    How To Pick The Right Growth Metric

    1. HSHarry Stebbings46:20

       month now we've got, you know, this beautiful amount of data from all these different channels. You said first month you should pick your growth metric. How do you advise these new hires on how to pick the right metric to focus on?

    2. HQHila Qu46:34

       Yeah. So I think the first thing is, uh, figure out the North Star metric. You can talk with the CEO, you can talk with the leadership team, you can ask them, like, "What is the most important metric? Like, I'm hired for growth. What I'm trying to grow here, what is the most important thing?"

    3. HSHarry Stebbings46:50

       Okay. So, so let's just, uh, just pause on that. I, I always ask this and everyone always says, "Uh, revenue."

    4. HQHila Qu46:56

       Mm-hmm.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings46:56

       And I go, "No, no, no." Revenue is not un- like, uh, in my eyes, and we can have a debate on it, it's, it's an output, it's not an input. It's like, you know, amount of sessions created will drive the revenue. Uh, amount of referrals made will drive the... Like, the output is the revenue, but it's not the input. Do you see what I mean? It's a result. So what is the North Star metric? Like, how do you advise founders on how to choose a North Star metric?

    6. HQHila Qu47:22

       Yeah, exactly. I think North Star metric need to be in the intersection of three things. The first thing is the business objective. Revenue usually is the business objective, right?

    7. HSHarry Stebbings47:33

       Mm-hmm.

    8. HQHila Qu47:33

       Sometimes it's something else. The other thing is users are getting value from your product. Like, you need to think about users, because otherwise the revenue may not last, right? And the third thing is the strategic direction, the strategic focus of the company at this time, maybe for this year, right? As a example, like, uh, uh, like Uber, um, um, they, they may choose, say, like, let's focus on safety for this year, because there are all sorts of incidents. Like, that's the most important thing we want to focus. Maybe it's not revenue, uh, at this moment in this year. Um, maybe in their early stage, right, they may focus on user growths or rider growths or driver growths at cer- some given time, and then later stage, uh, they may focus on, um, revenue, right? Because that's the right moment to focus on that. So North Star metric need to be reflecting your business objective, user getting value, but also your strategic direction. So when I joined, uh, at GitLab, I talked with our CEO. We have a, we have ARR. Not ARR, ARR growth as our North Star metric for the company, which is fine, but for me, as a growth leader, right, or for any other teams, w- I need to break that down into inputs exactly as you mentioned and work on the inputs. I cannot work on revenue directly, but I can work on, uh, like the new user activation rate, free-to-paid conversion rate, or some other metric that is the input to that ARR.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings49:09

       I totally agree with you on like what you- the inputs is what you work on. Can I ask, when do you change that metric, number one?

    10. HQHila Qu49:18

        Yeah.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings49:18

        Most important one.

    12. HQHila Qu49:20

        Yeah. Um, I think North Star Metric shouldn't be changing very frequently, otherwise it's nor- it's not a North Star Metric, it's a South, like a-

    13. HSHarry Stebbings49:28

        (laughs)

    14. HQHila Qu49:29

        ... East or West Star Metric, right? It's all over the place. That should be like for the, even like it ch- doesn't change for m- several years or at, at most like once per year, right? You reevaluate the big focus for the company. But the focus area metric, like I mentioned, right? The free-to-paid conversion rate, the retention rate, the specific input metric, um, I tend to revaluate that quarterly with my team. Like, did we make enough headwind on this one so that we can move to the next one, or we want to continue?

    15. HSHarry Stebbings50:01

        I totally agree with you on that,

17. 50:03 – 51:11

    Activation and Conversion Rates

    1. HSHarry Stebbings50:03

       the North Star Metric remaining the same. I see it change too many times. You mentioned activation and conversion there. I, I do have to touch on it 'cause you mentioned before to me that they're your two favorite growth leaders. Levers, sorry. Why is that the case? Why activation and conversion?

    2. HQHila Qu50:18

       Yeah, because f- first of all, those, those two levers are the easiest place to find quick wins. Like I mentioned, as a new growth person or growth leader, you want to find quick wins because wins change people's perception. You can get more resources, everything else become easier. Those two places, um, are the easiest place to find wins. Like even now when I work with my advisory clients, I usually do a new user funnel audit with them as one of the first things. I look at their marketing website, um, I look at their sign-up flow, I look at their onboarding experience and the, uh, purchase experience. Like, there are usually a lot of low-hanging fruits you can pick and you can experiments get results right away. So I think it's a great way to find quick wins and build confidence and trust.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:08

       You, you've also said before about kind of how important

18. 51:11 – 55:15

    What’s a funnel and what’s a loop?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings51:11

       loops are, but d- that does not mean we should abandon funnels. Just so I can like fully get this, like what's a funnel and what's a loop for anyone listening?

    2. HQHila Qu51:21

       It's now become a scientific d- discussion now. (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:25

       Yeah.

    4. HQHila Qu51:25

       Um, so it's funny because I now teach, uh, growth courses at, uh, reForge as a ER, executive in residence. The course, one of the course I teach is called Advanced Growth Strategy. It's all about growth loops. Um, there are three main category of growth loops. There is the content SEO loop. Basically, content can bring you traffic and the, the users become the pr- users can generate more content, right? So that's one. There's also the paid loop where you can use those paid channels to get users, users make money, eh, spend money, and then you use the money to buy more ads and get more users. And then there's viral loop where, um, I, like in Acorns case, I invite my friend to join and my friend can join, invite someone else to join. Loops is compounding, meaning what you do here will bring more of that, like users will bring more users, content will bring more content. So it's awesome, right? It's like, um, compounding, it's every growth person's dream. This thing is working on its own, right? It's awesome. It's very, very important. But a funnel is also important. Funnel is just a different perspective. Like, in reForge, it's kind of hot take because sometimes, uh, in reForge lessons, we don't see the funnel word, I don't, we don't see the F word. Uh, but students get confused because they're like, "I still look at funnel every day." Right? Funnel is, is a way to look at all the steps within the loops. If I'm inviting a friend to join, that is a loop. But I still need to look at the step, like I sign up for Acorns, I invite a friend, my friend accept. Like, there is steps, um, there is a conversion rate, drop-off rate in each of the step. That's how you look at a funnel. So I would say loop is a strategic tool. You think about how to construct the mechanisms, how your product grow. It's compounding, it's very powerful, but you don't think about that every day. You, you think about maybe initially when you're building the product and you look as a growth leader, you look into the future, you're thinking about the next loop you need to invest now in SEO so that it will kick into play like in, in a while. Loops is an execution tool. You look at the steps, you look at the conversion rate that you launch experiments to drop them, you look at it day-to-day. Um, people who are executing look at a funnel much more closely.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings53:59

       What are the biggest mistakes you see founders make when it comes to loops?

    6. HQHila Qu54:04

       I think the biggest mistake is one, don't think about loops. You only think about funnel, right? You don't think about those powerful things. You miss the opportunity of constructing those. The second thing is just by having the, it there doesn't mean it will work as a loop. Just put four things into a circle and draw a line, connect them, doesn't make, make it a loop. For example, if I launched a referral mechanism in Acorns, doesn't mean people will use it, right? There are things you can do to make people to use it. You can add incentive, experiment with the experience, make the process super smooth. Think about the motivation, like why this loop will spin. Like, just put four things there, it doesn't mean it will work. You need to make it work.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings54:53

       Totally agree with you. I, I absolutely also think like the amplification of loops which is like you can very quickly see in organic things that work, so content that works incredibly well, where it hits and you've gone above, I don't know, 50,000 views on whatever platform, double down, pay, promote it everywhere else. Like, A/B test content that works and then spend

19. 55:15 – 57:04

    Systems of Record

    1. HSHarry Stebbings55:15

       to get even better. Do you see what I mean? It's like amplification of loop.

    2. HQHila Qu55:18

       Yeah. Yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings55:19

       Um, f- final one, I kind of think, um, uh, you said before about kind of systems of record and codifying-

    4. HQHila Qu55:26

       Mm-hmm.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings55:26

       ... these learnings.How do you do that? Do you do it ... What tools do you use? Who's responsible for codifying it? Uh, how do you do that l- lesson, um, documentation?

    6. HQHila Qu55:38

       There are two steps. One is documenting. The growth PMs or the people doing the experiments is responsible for doing that, and there aren't so many tools. It doesn't need to be fancy. Like, we, we used Google Doc, we used the slide deck. You, if you have tools like Confluence or any knowledge documentation system, you can use that. Um, at GitLab, we have everything open source. We have a handbook, so it's open and public. And actually, people look at our experiments and it's categorized by, like, is this activation, acquisition? And you can click into see what's the hypothesis, what we tested, what's the results, what's the next step. That's super critical, bec- ... That's one. The other step is, I would say, is beyond documentation, is sharing. You need to proactively share this with your stakeholder, with the team. Like, make this as valuable as possible, because they may stumble upon something that will utilize this learning and make this learning doing more for the entire company. At Acorns, we often run ads that work so well, and we begin to implement that feature in the product. Like, we have a calculator, retirement calculator ads. We talk about if you start saving today, in, in 20s, in your 30s, what difference does that make, right, in your retirement saving? The ads work so well, we implemented them in

20. 57:04 – 58:35

    Most Suprising Result

    1. HQHila Qu57:04

       email, we implemented a feature in the product to kind of ... for the same concept as well. So, that is critical too.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings57:12

       Can I ask you, you mentioned there the, the retirement calculator. Can you talk to me about an experiment or a growth decision that you made without data to back it up? How did it go, and what were some surprising takeaways for you? If we ask you the question, "What's the most surprising result that happened as you said," what would you answer?

    3. HQHila Qu57:29

       At GitLab, we definitely have a lot of situations where we don't have data to back it up. As I mentioned, a lot of B2B companies, the data foundation is lacking, right? We don't have all the granular trackings. So, a lot of times, for example, when we make a change in the, um, new user onboarding flow or new user signup flow, uh, because the data is not sophisticated and our sample size is also small ... That's another thing for B2B and also for early-stage products. Your sample size is so small, we can wait for two months to get results and statistical significance, or we can call it a win and, and implement it. So, sometimes we need to make that decision to, to do that. And, um, in those cases, I would say, try to make sure you have the, the, uh, qua- qualitative, like, your user feedback, uh, or, or something to back it up, and also monitor, is there any backfire later on. Um, and those is what you have to do in those situations.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings58:33

       Hila, I, I have so many things I could talk to you

21. 58:35 – 59:10

    What tactics have and haven’t changed in growth?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings58:35

       about. I could talk to you all day. But I wanna move into a quick-fire round. So, I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    2. HQHila Qu58:41

       Yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings58:43

       So, what tactics have not changed over the last five years?

    4. HQHila Qu58:47

       I think all tactics change in the last five years, but the fundamental principles, like the scientific methods, data, experimentation, psychology, human being, those are the same.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings58:59

       What tactics have really died? I know so- today, everything changes, but some do die.

    6. HQHila Qu59:03

       (laughs) Like, a lot of channel die, died down, right? C- do you remember?

22. 59:10 – 1:00:17

    How do best practices in China and U.S. differ?

    1. HQHila Qu59:10

       I don't think they died. Like, Clubhouse become much smaller now, right? And a l- a lot of other channels, they don't exist anymore.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings59:17

       How do the best practices in China differ to those in the US?

    3. HQHila Qu59:21

       That's, uh, something I can talk about, like, all day long. But their ... The most popular role in China's growth space is called Operation.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings59:31

       Huh.

    5. HQHila Qu59:31

       It doesn't exist here in U- US at all. I was confused initially. But what is behind that is because the average labor cost in China is lower, so a lot of things that tend to be automated here in US are handled by human, and that's called the role of Operation. Um, and, like, think about rather than using the product experience to onboard a new user, we have a WeChat group, we have, uh, someone in there responsible for talk with everyone to onboard you into a new program or new product. Um, yeah, that's, uh, that's one of the big ones. And WeChat-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:09

       I love it.

    7. HQHila Qu1:00:09

       ... is another big one. The WeChat doesn't exist in US. It is a super app combining Facebook, payment,

23. 1:00:17 – 1:02:44

    Why do growth teams fail?

    1. HQHila Qu1:00:17

       um, Slack, everything. And that completely changed the trajectory of grow- how growth has been done.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:24

       What are the single most common reasons why growth teams fail?

    3. HQHila Qu1:00:29

       Culture is the biggest one, I would say. And also, lack of data foundation is another one.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:37

       Tell me, what would you advise a growth leader joining a new role in a new company today?

    5. HQHila Qu1:00:43

       Find the trains that already left the platform. Like, almost think about yourself as an investor. Like, try to be very critical and picky about those companies. Evaluate the culture, evaluate the leadership team. Is there a foundation for growth to be successful? And try to stay ahead of the next wave. Like, think about AIs, think about Web3. I don't know. Like, there are always something exciting if you can-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:13

       Yeah.

    7. HQHila Qu1:01:13

       ... stay in the front.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:15

       What would you most like to change about the world of growth, Hila?

    9. HQHila Qu1:01:18

       Yeah. I think one thing I would say, product-led growth is fundamentally data-led growth. I would love more people to know the important of data.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:27

        What's the biggest mistake you've made in experimentation or new channel expansion? When you look back over the years, what's the biggest mistake you've made?

    11. HQHila Qu1:01:38

        I think the biggest mistake I made, uh, in my early days is try to move too fast without getting buy-in from the stakeholders. The result of the experiment might be successful, but there is so much resistance in implementing the winner.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:55

        I totally agree with you. Integration is half the battle. Um, tell me, final one, what one company growth strategy have you been most impressed by recently?

    13. HQHila Qu1:02:04

        ChatGPT is, is the one, right? Like, they have such a awesome and kind of, uh, revolutionary product. The almost growth is powered by that. That's, that's one. Like, super strong word of mouth and organic growth. I think Miro is another one. They, they are r- doing great in terms of B2B product-led growth.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:24

        I, I, I totally agree with you on ChatGPT 'cause it's almost like this UGC loop, where I know the point is-

    15. HQHila Qu1:02:28

        Yeah. (laughs)

    16. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:28

        ... it's not UGC, but you implement enough, uh-

    17. HQHila Qu1:02:31

        Yeah.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:32

        ... inputs to get the outputs. So, I totally agree with you. Hila, this has been so fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me, and I've so loved chatting.

    19. HQHila Qu1:02:40

        Yeah. Me, too. I had a great time. Thank you for the opportunity, Harry.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:43

        You are a star.

Episode duration: 1:02:44