Raman Malik: Inside Perplexity’s Growth Machine: What Worked, What Did Not Work | E1226

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 15, 2024

Duration

1h 0m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:22) From MBA to Startup Founder (02:43) From Founder to Team Member at Perplexity (04:17) What is a Head of Growth? (05:56) When to Build Out a Growth Independent Function (08:25) Is Growth About Micro-Optimizations or Big Swings (10:35) The Role of A/B Testing Today (14:55) Balancing Hitting Growth Metrics with Ensuring Real Value (17:35) Lessons from Partner Programs (19:17) Mistakes in Acquisition (21:50) What Good Retention Is? (25:44) The Biggest Needle-Mover (29:27) What CAC-to-LTV Metrics Were Crucial (32:13) Why Perplexity Does Adverts? (37:09) About Brand Marketing (39:54) The Biggest Challenge with Paid Acquisition at Perplexity (43:31) What Channel Could be Better (45:34) Hiring Growth Team (49:20) Interview Questions (52:30) Hiring Mistakes (53:49) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Perplexity’s Head of Growth:

1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine:

• What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity?
• What has not worked? What have they learned from that?
• How have partnerships driven growth? Lessons on what makes a good vs bad partnership?
• Why does Raman think paid acquisition is a drug and Perplexity do not do it? How does Raman -advise other founders when it comes to paid acquisition?

1. Acquisition, Retention, Churn: Mastering the Basics:

• Why does Raman think that brand marketing is BS? When does it become more important?
• What are the simplest things startups and product teams can do to drive retention up?
• How do Perplexity count an “engaged user”? What metric suggests they have a retained user?
• What is the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to A/B tests?

1. How Perplexity Built a Growth Machine:

• Why does Raman advise all founders to hire more former founders?
• How does the way you manage founders turned employees differ from employees who have never been founders?
• What is the must under appreciated growth channel today that has worked for Perplexity?
• What growth channel has been the biggest flop for Perplexity? What did Raman learn from losing money on the channel?

----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Raman Malik on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ramanrmalik Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #RamanMalik #Perplexity #Google #founder ##hiring #futureofwork #Lyft #openai #venturecapital #SamAltman #BillAckman

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Raman Malik

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Raman Malik and Harry Stebbings, Raman Malik: Inside Perplexity’s Growth Machine: What Worked, What Did Not Work | E1226 explores inside Perplexity’s Growth Engine: Retention, Partnerships, And Measured Bets Raman Malik, Head of Growth at Perplexity, explains how the company has scaled primarily through organic word-of-mouth, aggressive distribution partnerships, and a deep focus on retention over paid acquisition. He defines growth as a function that bridges product and marketing, owning the full funnel from acquisition to monetization, and stresses the power of micro-optimizations coupled with periodic big bets. Malik walks through how he diagnosed Perplexity’s core challenge as early retention, built milestone metrics like “three queries in first session,” and used audience and platform mix-shifts to raise the overall “water level” of active users. He also covers lessons from failed channels (influencers, newsletters), his philosophy on A/B testing, CAC:LTV timing, hiring for growth, and why he believes the application layer in AI will capture outsized value.

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