Sri Batchu: Biggest Growth Lesson from Instacart & Opendoor; 70% of Experiments Should Fail | E1040

1. 0:00 – 0:41

   Intro

   1. SBSri Batchu0:00

      You have to let some fires burn. If you think you have to fight every fire on your team, you're gonna burn yourself out, so you just have to realize that like some things are just not gonna be worked on for a bit and they're gonna be broken and, uh, and be comfortable with that because they're less important. And try to be intentional about that. So whenever we do planning, it's like, what are you not doing? You know, name the fire that you're letting burn.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:20

      Trí, I am so excited for this. I spoke to Apoorva, I spoke to Evan, I spoke to Jason Child. They all said terrible things. No, I'm joking, they said fantastic things. But thank you so much for joining me today.

   3. SBSri Batchu0:31

      Yeah, of course, I'm very excited. Huge fan of your show, so excited about the conversation.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:36

      That is very, very kind of you. I want to start, and growth is this kind of weird new-ish discipline

2. 0:41 – 8:10

   The Journey to Growth

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:41

      really, so how did you first make your way into the world of growth and what was that first entry point for you?

   2. SBSri Batchu0:46

      Yeah, as you mentioned, growth is a relatively new field that's at the intersection of product, marketing and data and analytics, right? I've been, I've come here in a slightly different path than most probably. Uh, I've been thinking about growth as a consultant and, uh, an investor prior to becoming an operator, uh, and I joined Opendoor when it was 40 people in hyper-growth phase. Got to see it grow to, you know, 2,000 people nearly and five billion of revenue, and being an early business generalist, worked on anything that, you know, needed help, so sales, analytics, pricing, et cetera. And, uh, and then subsequently went to Instacart where the key problem that they had at the time was building out the ads business. And so I kind of leveraged my analytics and investment background into a growth role that way, spent time working on growth, uh, at Instacart, pr- primarily in the ads business first and then the overall business, and now lead, uh, growth at Ramp. So I kind of came to it via an investment and analytics background versus a product or marketing background, which is often how you see a lot of, uh, growth leaders, and I think you'll see more people like me because I think increasingly growth is a discipline of making a portfolio of bets, thinking about ROI and, uh, and thinking about data and experimentation in a rigorous way, which I think my background, uh, speaks to.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings1:59

      I totally agree with you in terms of the portfolio of bets. I think the best growth and marketing leaders are actually very much like VCs, place many bets, analyze what works, doubles down efficiently, so I t- I totally agree with you there. I do have to ask, you mentioned Opendoor, uh, you mentioned Instacart, two incredible companies. If you were to think about one or two big takeaways and how they impacted your mindset from each, what would you say they would be, Trí?

   4. SBSri Batchu2:22

      Yeah. Uh, one lesson and experience that I, I remember vividly from my time at Opendoor for those of, uh, folks that know the market is, you know, Opendoor was the leader in the space called iBuying, buying and selling homes, and Zillow, the largest player, you know, in real estate had entered our market, uh, in, in 2017, and as you can imagine, uh, that had some impact on our growth because they entered the exact same markets that we were in. And we at Opendoor had a choice to make, um, which was do we price compete, do we price match, uh, Zillow to acquire customers if Zillow is bidding higher on homes or, or not? And, uh, and it was a really tough decision, and, uh, and something I learned from that process is sticking to your conviction if you've arrived at it on a first principles basis, even if it gets tough. So what we decided at Opendoor is our biggest asset in competitive mo- is the ability to price accurately, and we're not going to compromise that for, uh, short-term growth. And, and we stuck to our guns. We never did a price match, uh, and we never negotiated, uh, on price with sellers of homes. Lo and behold, we were right longer term in the sense that Zillow eventually lost their shirt and exited the market, uh, a few y- before the m- market crash, right? So they, they left, uh, while still in a peak, uh, real estate market. So I'm proud of that decision, uh, but, you know, it was painful, uh, for a while, uh, while, while we were in that competitive situation.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings3:40

      How do you analyze the statement, "The market can stay irrational longer than your company can stay solvent"? Because you may be right-

   6. SBSri Batchu3:48

      Yeah.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings3:48

      ... but if they had enough cash-

   8. SBSri Batchu3:49

      (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings3:50

      ... say SoftBank was behind them-

   10. SBSri Batchu3:51

       Yeah.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings3:51

       ... they could've kept outbuying you f- forever.

   12. SBSri Batchu3:54

       That's certainly true, and, and that was a risk that we took, and I think our mitigating factor there is our overall goal was to be and we were, uh, consistently profitable, uh, on every cohort of homes that we were buying. So our goal was even if they were, you know, outstripping us in volume, we would be able to survive, uh, for a long period of time because our- we were unit economic positive, uh, as long as we were doing our business right.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings4:16

       So stick to convictions, stick to first principles. This is Opendoor. What about Instacart?

   14. SBSri Batchu4:22

       Yeah. Instacart was in some ways an even more complicated business than Opendoor because it's a four-sided marketplace. We have shoppers, we have buyers, we have advertisers, and we have the retailers, uh, that are on the platform as well, uh, with various different incentives and, and revenue streams. And so as you can imagine, it was a lot of stuff to, to juggle. And, uh, and one thing I learned from Apoorva at Instacart is, uh, simplification is a, is a superpower, and it's actually very difficult, uh, and, uh, a lot of executives, you know, when they're faced with two potentially high impact initiatives are often tempted to say, "Let's do both. Uh, let's figure out how we can do both." The good ones can pick one and, uh, and make a clear decision. I think the best ones, uh, will just say, "Actually, we're doing neither, uh, because they don't fit in our overall strategy and are distracting." Um, and, uh, and Apoorva was particularly good at this, and, and it's great when the founder says it, right, and then people are like, "Okay, all right, this is great. We're, we're gonna focus on our original thing." That was something that, uh, I, uh, I, I, I picked up from, uh, from my time at Instacart and, uh, and there were, there were a few of us that we had a joke that, that we'd call, we, we would call ourselves the VPs of no. Uh, we'd be the people that would tell people no. Like, we are not doing that because we're focusing on the things that matter most.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings5:33

       Uh, I, I, I want to start with, well, you know, this show fundamentally is a benchmark for what great growth and great growth leaders look like. I think there's, um, a misunderstanding on growth and VP of growth. What does growth or VP of growth mean to you and how do you define it?

   16. SBSri Batchu5:49

       Yeah, it's a great question. As you mentioned, like, if you were to poll 10 different people on what their growth team looks like, you would get 10 different answers, uh, today, and it's often determined, at least, you know, historically, kind of-... ad hoc based on who's in the seat, who was hired first, what the org structure is, rather than a, a principled decision. Personally, to me, a growth function is something that you build post product market fit and is the home for all high volume data and experimentation-oriented customer acquisition, retention, engagement strategies. So what does that mean? Uh, typically things like paid marketing, SEO, as well as product-led growth, website, uh, I would recommend working as closely together as possible structurally, uh, and at Ramp they're all under one roof, uh, which is great, and have the same kind of North Stars and goals. Uh, but I know other, other companies design them differently, but me personally, uh, I think you gotta put everything that drives acquisition and retention that's high volume and experimentation-oriented under one roof.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings6:44

       When you say under one roof, what do you mean by that? Do you mean like it's integrated into product and engineering? Do you mean it's a standalone team? How do you think about that and what does under one roof mean?

   18. SBSri Batchu6:54

       I think there's a couple different ways to do it. I think there's, you could do it structurally as a different team, uh, and have, like, the growth product leader report to, you know, the growth leader, uh, as well as the high volume marketing channel leaders also reporting into the same leader. So that would be under one roof in a very literal sense, in terms of, uh, reporting lines and, uh, and structure. Uh, I, I think you can... which works. Uh, you can play with dotted lines versus solid lines on that. You know, a lot of product leaders that are very principled about not having product teams report outside of product. Uh, same with marketing leaders, uh, on that. So hence, there's so many permutations of, uh, of growth leadership. I think the other way that you can do it is, even if you don't have solid line reporting into one place, is clear accountability, like all three or whatever of these teams are driving towards the same North Star goals and are jointly accountable. The problem with a lot of joint accountability I tend to find in org structures is when more than one person is responsible, no person is responsible. Uh, and, uh, and so that's a balance that you, you have to strike culturally.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings7:53

       You also said about North Star metric that I think one of the biggest problems that I see honestly, Sri, is that people have the wrong North Star metric. Often it's revenue, and revenue for me is an output, it's not an input.

   20. SBSri Batchu8:04

       Yeah.

   21. HSHarry Stebbings8:04

       Um, how do you advise founders today on choosing the right North Star metric, and how do you approach

3. 8:10 – 17:57

   Feedback Loops and Experimentation

   1. HSHarry Stebbings8:10

      it?

   2. SBSri Batchu8:10

      Yeah. I think, uh, as you mentioned, there's, there's not a, a per- I, I, I personally think there'll never be a perfect North Star metric for growth. It'll obviously depend on your business, and there's always kind of multiple pushes and pulls that you're trying to optimize for (whistling) 　 while you're into that. Obviously want a North Star metric to be simple and intuitive for people to understand. You want it to be, as you mentioned, something that the teams can actually directly impact. Uh, so something that is much closely related to their inputs, but something that's also very aligned with the ultimate value creation of the company. Right? Uh, and I typically like to have, like, a volume goal and an efficiency or ROI goal for growth teams. Um, on the volume goal, like if you were to take the B2B example, right, uh, you could have the growth team's goal be some sort of qualified leads, like MQLs or, or PQLs or, or something like that. But as you know, businesses are ultimately valued on long term, you know, dollars of profit and cash flow generation. And, and humans are very good at intentionally or unintentionally optimizing for, uh, the targets and metrics that they're, uh, that they're given. So in this particular example, how could it go wrong if you give a team qualified lead goal? Uh, they can hit that goal by bringing a bunch of small leads or lower quality leads, uh, that don't end up driving much profit. Right? And, uh, and there's a lot of temptation, as you mentioned, for a lot of teams to go the other extreme in that case and be like, "Okay, well what is it I'm really trying to measure? Okay, why don't we, uh, you know, hold the team accountable for contribution profit dollars, 'cause that's actually very correlated to long-term value." Then you have the opposite problem where, you know, the results are so far away from the sphere of influence of the team, both in terms of the time it takes as well as their own actions, that it ... the feedback loop is slow and the teams become demotivated and it becomes almost like an irrelevant, uh, target metric because they're like, "We can't really move it, or if we move it, we won't see it for a really long time." So, I think you have to kind of strike the right balance there, uh, and, uh, and have some guardrails. So typically for B2B, uh, you know, where I land at is, like, dollars of, like, SQL pipeline, which kind of controls for that quality element and controls for the size of the lead, uh, element as a North Star. That's just one example, but obviously depending on your business model, you wanna find something somewhere in between where it's highly correlated with, uh, with the actual business outcomes that you're trying to drive, but close enough to the actions of the team that they can directly impact it and have a feedback loop.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings10:31

      You shed- said there about the speed of the feedback loop being so important. You, you said before, "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast." Could be a line from Kama Sutra-

   4. SBSri Batchu10:42

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings10:42

      ... could be a tweet. Um, some things get edited out, some don't. We'll see what-

   6. SBSri Batchu10:46

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. HSHarry Stebbings10:46

      ... the editors decide on that one. Uh, what did you mean by slow is smooth and smooth is fast?

   8. SBSri Batchu10:51

      Yeah. I, uh, I think it's ... this one's actually, uh, repurposed from the Marines. Uh, but basically, uh, the, the concept is that, you know ... well, I'll, I'll maybe just use the growth example directly, which is, uh, you know, in the early days of growth, you've got kind of a, a small ragtag team that's throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what works, right? Um, this works for a bit, um, but often tends to devolve into undiagnosable chaos if things aren't working, you have no idea why. Uh, and, uh, and if things are working, you still have no idea why and don't know where to double down. So what I tend to do, uh, you know, usually bringing in a growth leader is a nice opportunity to do it, but you can do it anytime, which is, uh, to slow down a bit. Like, reset, uh, the basic structures of a team. So what, what do you do during this quote unquote slowdown period is one thing is w- we just talked about is set the right North Star metrics for the team, uh, create a framework for how do you prioritize, um, projects, how do you measure success, uh, and ROI. And I think once you have that clear process of this is how we select projects, prioritize them, promote experiments, you know, is clean and understood and aligned, I think it helps the team move a lot faster. I don't want to slow down teams with a lot of process, but I think some sort of lightweight process and aligned framework on how we, um, you know-... select pro- uh, projects and- and, you know, scale them to general availability or what have you as they succeed is, I think, really important.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings12:16

      If we selected a project and we decide to focus on it, what is the success versus failure rate that we should expect within growth? What does that look like to you?

   10. SBSri Batchu12:26

       In my experience, and I've- I've seen this be pretty consistent actually across the various companies that I've worked on these types of projects, uh, growth has just a typically high, uh, failure rate. Um, and, uh, my historical success rate that I've seen at various companies is around 30%. Uh, you know, so two-thirds of your projects are- are likely to fail. Uh, what's important is, you know, that you fail f- quickly and- and conclusively, right? Um, and happy to talk more about what that looks like, but, uh... (laughs)

   11. HSHarry Stebbings12:53

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. SBSri Batchu12:54

       Yeah.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings12:54

       Can- can we actually?

   14. SBSri Batchu12:55

       Yeah.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings12:55

       How do you increase the speed to failure?

   16. SBSri Batchu12:57

       (laughs) Yeah. Um, I think on speed point, it's really, uh, around reducing cycle times. I think there's a- a bunch of cultural baggage that you get, which is the unit of planning time that you work with, uh, the larger that is, the slower you are as a company. You know, Google has, you know, OKRs that are one-year based, right? Uh, startups should have time periods of planning that are much, much shorter. We at Ramp still, for example, run the growth team, whether it's product or non-product teams as well, on a two-week sprint cadence. So you really reduce the cycle time to output, at least... I mean, obviously some projects are gonna take longer than that, but you have the two-week accountability mark on, like, what have you shipped so far that really, um, pushes the- the speed point. And at Ramp, the other thing that we've done culturally as a company as well is to just really drill that in into the teams by, uh, talking about days actually. So we- we talk about what day it is since the founding of Ramp at every all-hands, at every board meeting, et cetera. So people start thinking about, uh, the smallest unit of time as days, like, "What have you shipped today?" You know, it's an implicit kind of mental model, um, that we have, uh, at Ramp. And something that's funny to see is it's something that's spreading via the Ramp alumni, you know, some of whom I've invested in, uh, where they in their investor updates say, "Day number X, uh, since, uh, founding of my company and this is what we've shipped or accomplished over the last month or quarter," or whatever.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings14:23

       Can I ask you a hard one that's not in schedule?

   18. SBSri Batchu14:25

       Y- Yeah.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings14:25

       Speaking of successes and failures, you said 70% fail. What's been the biggest failed growth experiment you've done and how did it change your mindset?

   20. SBSri Batchu14:34

       Things can fail in two ways, right? One is they- you don't grow, uh, with the experiment or you grow in the wrong way, uh, and it hurts the business in a different way. So I'll- I'll pick an example of the- of the second kind. When we were at Opendoor, uh, we... Competitive situation and- and, uh, growth was slowing and we were like, "Okay, we should try to figure out other ways of driving scalable growth that are not, you know, paid advertising or what have you." So one idea, which seemed obvious that we had, was that there's a bunch of people that are listing their homes on the market. Uh, rather than trying to, you know, get buyers that are- that are not agent represented, why don't we just put bids on homes that are listed on the market, uh, based on, you know, whatever our pricing model, uh, to drive acquisition volume, uh, at- at Opendoor. I don't know if you guys, uh, if you see why this didn't work coming already, but, uh, as you can imagine, when you're buying a listed home, there's a few things happening. There... If the person is willing to sell to you after they've listed, it means there's probably some asymmetric information. They know something about the home that you don't because it hasn't sold and they've gotten a bunch of buyer feedback and they're willing to now take it off the market, uh, and sell it to you. Uh, there's also more costs involved for the seller, uh, when it's a listed home because they still have to pay their agent commission and they have to pay, uh, Opendoor, et cetera. So the kind of buyer that's willing to make that decision, uh, there's a ton of adverse selection, uh, on the property that our diligence process couldn't catch. These homes, you know, we- we- we did this program for a few months and- and we learned that they were tremendously unprofitable, uh, for Opendoor, um, because of the adverse selection element, uh, and we had to shut down the program.

   21. HSHarry Stebbings16:11

       So what did you learn as a result of that?

   22. SBSri Batchu16:13

       Yeah. Uh, great question. I think, um, a lot of growth teams, especially when push comes to shove, think about, okay, l- let's- let's hit our goals of whatever, you know, top line North Star metric goals that we've talked about. Uh, and, uh, and- and don't think about kind of pre-mortem, uh, what- what might happen, like, what can go wrong, as well as, like, really keep in mind that paired metric that we talked about. Um, so actually, I don't know if I mentioned it earlier when we talked about North Stars, we want a volume goal and an efficiency goal. So you want something that you track even as you're hitting volumes to make sure that you're driving growth profitably or efficiently, right? And so for something like this, we probably should have had a, what is the specific profitability of this program and should we track it early to make sure that it doesn't go off the rails? Uh, would- would have been one way to- to solve for this.

   23. HSHarry Stebbings17:06

       Can I ask you, when you think about pre-mortems, does that inhibit your ability to move fast and experiment quickly?

   24. SBSri Batchu17:13

       Yeah, I- I think you have to be selective on any process, right? And- and, uh, and try to shy away from process as much as possible, in my opinion. So I typically think of, like, pre-mortems as something that feels like a big departure from current strategy or something that's a lot of investment, uh, or that you believe has a lot of high potential in terms of visibility or risk or- or pipeline generation. For things like that, uh, is where I would recommend doing a, uh, a pre-mortem.

   25. HSHarry Stebbings17:41

       You mentioned throwing spaghetti at walls.

   26. SBSri Batchu17:44

       (laughs)

   27. HSHarry Stebbings17:44

       A brilliant analogy. But it is the early days of a growth team that are sometimes most important in setting the foundations. When's the right time to start thinking about a growth team?

   28. SBSri Batchu17:52

       I think many of the other guests on your podcast have also said this before, which is, uh,

4. 17:57 – 25:52

   How to Build a Growth Team

   1. SBSri Batchu17:57

      finding product market fit, in my opinion, is the founder's primary job. Uh, it is not something that you outsource to a growth team. In my view, like, a growth team, uh, in the- in the beginning days is honestly, like, sales team, the founder, and maybe one kind of, like, early career generalist that has, like, an analytical background that can run some experiments and tests, right? I think once you have clear product market fit and you have some escape velocity and you're actually, like, growing, uh, is- is when I would actually staff a growth team that's more than, like, one person, right? I don't know where the right number is. Is it like five million ARR maybe, something like that? Uh, I don't know. I- I'm sure people can arrive at different numbers or thresholds, uh, to get there, but that's, like, one opinion.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings18:37

      I would love for you to give me a very precise.

   3. SBSri Batchu18:39

      (laughs)

   4. HSHarry Stebbings18:39

      At 4.3 million ARR-

   5. SBSri Batchu18:41

      Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

   6. HSHarry Stebbings18:41

      ... you need to hit that point. Uh, okay. So, so say we find that tipping point where we need it. Do we hire a junior, like, analyst who is super analytical and smart and hustles and experiments, or do we hire a growth leader? Which role is the right to hire for?

   7. SBSri Batchu18:56

      A growth leader is helpful when you have, um, multiple, like, quote unquote programs that, that are starting to show work. So when I say programs, I mean you've spent a little bit on paid marketing, it seems like it's working. You've got potentially somebody full-time working on paid marketing or, or thinking about it. Uh, and, uh, and you've, you know, you've got some initial, uh, traction on product-led growth or, or, or what have you, is when I would say you start looking for that, like, you know, director plus, uh, level of, uh, of person. The early days of growth can be managed by, in my opinion, a lot of different types of people. I actually really like the BizOps profile, uh, for the early days until you're, like, ready to really put some gas, uh, on the fire and, and, you know, hire a VP. But I, I think what's great about growth is that it's truly a cross-disciplinary field, and so I actually think people that are generalists, uh, do a lot better than hiring a specialist early on.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings19:59

      Do you think you need to hire someone who's been a head of growth before in such a small field?

   9. SBSri Batchu20:04

      Yeah. Yeah, I, I don't think so. I think what you, what you want to look for is people that have, you know, the, the T-shaped classic thing where they have, like, a deep spike in one area or one discipline of, uh, of growth in some way and, and that, whether that spike is product, some function of marketing, or you know, analytics and data. Uh, and you can invest in somebody to try to scale into the other areas and, and really build out a growth function. And, and you're right there, it's not like the function has been around for so long that there are so many, you know, uh, people that you can hire from that are good.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings20:36

       So speaking of investing in someone, I need to freaking hire them.

   11. SBSri Batchu20:39

       Yeah.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings20:39

       And you're my angel investor, Sri-

   13. SBSri Batchu20:41

       (laughs)

   14. HSHarry Stebbings20:41

       ... so you get to help me. How do I structure the process for hiring the first growth hire and what do the stages look like?

   15. SBSri Batchu20:49

       I could probably speak to so- uh, like, um, a more senior growth hire, how you kind of think about it. I think in terms of sourcing, uh, I, I don't think the process looks that different, um, versus, uh, another kind of senior leader or what have you that you're trying to do. Um, and I think Google has actually done a good job of summarizing on Twitter what people actually do, uh, which is use your network and, uh, uh, of your investors and, and executives to identify companies and people that you think are one to two stages ahead of you that are exceptional at the function, namely growth here. Um, and, uh, and you use those companies and people to find more people and you kind of validate reputations, et cetera. And depending on, you know, how advanced the company is, you, you target people that are actually at the head of the role at that company or you target one level, um, below that. And, uh, and as you know, the best candidates are, are often, uh, uh, passive and, uh, and the role, uh, as we've talked about before, can be very nebulous. Get ready for a long process 'cause you'll have to, like, iron out the scope, uh, and think about your own org structure, uh, as you bring that person in. Um, and then, you know, once you actually get, you know, mutual fit, uh, and feel like there's something with, with a few candidates, uh, I, I think the, the next step is actually, um, having them do something that simulates the actual job. I'm a big believer in doing a little bit of homework or a case study, uh, type of thing, and, and it works at, uh, I think fundamentally you should do it for all levels. People often think about it as, like, something that you would do for potentially a more junior candidate.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings22:20

       Do we make them do a case study on our company, on their old company, on a neutral company? Which one?

   17. SBSri Batchu22:26

       I would prefer the third. The my- the way I kind of think about it is, um, you, you want a space where neither, uh, you nor, uh, the candidate has asymmetric information, right? Uh, because then that can cloud your judgment on, uh, on their performance. You either pick something that, you know, is about a third company or you pick a problem at your company that's relatively new to you that you haven't worked out yet, uh, and give them the context, uh, to see how they think about it. So you're kind of jamming on it together, so to speak.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings22:56

       Do we bring other disciplines in? So they do the case study, they impress. Do we bring head of product engineering see, uh, how does that work in terms of who we bring in?

   19. SBSri Batchu23:06

       Yes, absolutely. And, uh, and what I actually b- uh, ha- have done in the past and, uh, uh, is have a panel. So not just have them, like, you know, write out a case or whatever, but have a, a, a sp- a small panel where they actually present their work, uh, and where you bring the cross-functional leaders in, uh, and you can ask them, you know, questions, see how they react, uh, to, you know, on-the-spot thinking as well as how they react to feedback, and, and you learn a lot about, you know, how this person works. You know, the main thing, w- and we use the term, probably overuse it, growth mindset, uh, in the tech world, but I think it's, like, especially critical for, for somebody in, in growth, uh, to be nimble, uh, in their thinking, uh, and, uh, and be open to new information and creative. So...

   20. HSHarry Stebbings23:49

       Sri, what questions do we ask in the interview process? What determines the growth mindset? There's some-

   21. SBSri Batchu23:54

       (laughs)

   22. HSHarry Stebbings23:54

       ... that we would love to go back to. I, I have mine. So I might-

   23. SBSri Batchu23:57

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   24. HSHarry Stebbings23:57

       I always love, my favorite is, "How did you first make money?"

   25. SBSri Batchu24:00

       My favorite interview question that I, uh, ask, eh, that tests that, it's just a very simple one, uh, is, uh, "What's something that you, uh, are bad at that you enjoy doing?" For me, I think one thing that it shows is, like, how interested are you in learning versus only doing things that you are good at and how af- how afraid are you of failure? I think there are two data points that you get, uh, when people struggle to answer that question if they can't name a single thing that they're bad at that they like doing. (laughs)

   26. HSHarry Stebbings24:29

       Sug- I don't even know what to say. There's so many things I suck at, so I stopped doing them (laughs) .

   27. SBSri Batchu24:35

       (laughs) But I'm sure there's something that you're bad at that you like doing (laughs) .

   28. HSHarry Stebbings24:38

       Wh- wh- what if I told you, as a response to that, "I believe in focusing on your strengths and really honing in on your superpower because I'll only ever be mediocre at what I'm bad at"?

   29. SBSri Batchu24:49

       Yeah, a- a- and I think that's- that's fair, uh, I, uh, from a, like, skillset perspective, but I think from a knowledge perspective, because this is such an interdisciplinary field, like, you want somebody that is interested in going places where they necessarily don't have the expertise or- or knowledge and have that intellectual curiosity, and not just staying in their own lane where they are knowledgeable and they're good at something.

   30. HSHarry Stebbings25:15

       And are there massive red flags that you see in this process that worry you when you see them?
5. 25:52 – 31:32

   Culture and Team Alignment

   1. SBSri Batchu25:52

   2. HSHarry Stebbings25:52

      I mean, it slightly goes back to culture in terms of making them-

   3. SBSri Batchu25:55

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings25:55

      ... feel safe enough to-

   5. SBSri Batchu25:57

      Yeah.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings25:57

      ... feel like they can be challenged and that they are safe. And you said before on culture, "Culture matters more than org structure when it comes to growth." What did you mean by this, and how does that impact how you lead and operate today?

   7. SBSri Batchu26:09

      I think a lot of companies, and we- we've had some of this conversation earlier here as well, hem and haw a bit on, like, what should the structure of growth be, like which functions should report in there? Should it be solid? Should it be dotted? Where should product go? Where should life cycle marketing go? Where should analytics go? Um, et cetera. And, uh, and yes, those are important questions that eventually you might want to solve them, uh, as the company gets much bigger. Um, but to me, what matters more culturally is that all of these functions, uh, are actually driving towards the same outcome and have the same culture of speed, uh, comfort with failure, uh, and same mechanisms of, uh, of working. I think if you have that, I think the reporting structure, uh, becomes less important.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings26:55

      So where do- where do people go wrong with those, do you think?

   9. SBSri Batchu26:58

      I think where- where this stuff, uh, breaks apart is when each team feels like, "Oh, actually, our team works in a very different way, so our North Star shouldn't be SQL pipeline or whatever you guys agreed. Uh, but it should be this other thing that we have the ability to, you know, micro-prioritize or micro have an impact on." And I think this is where a lot of stuff devolves, when you don't have the same common currency, uh, for projects and- and a- and a translation layer. So, uh, one example that I'll give is that like, you know, Instacart, the- the- the growth and- and consumer team was over 300 people, right? Like, it was a massive team that was working on, uh, that part of- of the function. And so with a team that big, obviously it's broken into many, many smaller teams, and each team has their own little corner that they're working on, right? Like, there's a, you know, there's a team that's working on just, like, making search faster, uh, making the app load faster and all those things, right? You tell those teams, "Okay, your goal is profit," or, "Your goal is monthly active users," they're gonna be like, "Okay, like how much am I gonna really impact that with this small area that I'm- that I'm working on? And how do I know that I'm actually making progress?" What we actually did is, we would have translation factors for each team on, like, what they did, how that would impact the monthly active users, uh, based on historical data that we would reevaluate.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings28:16

       Can you give me an example of a translation factor? Sorry, you're much-

   11. SBSri Batchu28:20

       Yeah (laughs) .

   12. HSHarry Stebbings28:20

       ... smarter than me, so I need-

   13. SBSri Batchu28:22

       I don't know about that, but-

   14. HSHarry Stebbings28:24

       ... ..........................

   15. SBSri Batchu28:24

       Uh, so what we would say is, okay, so let's say, like, the load time team's goal was, like, six seconds or- or- or what, just bring it down from six seconds to two seconds or whatever, but, you know, should we have a 10% engineering team working on this? Like, what is the impact of this for the overall business? It's hard to know, right? Um, and, uh, and so what we would do is try to use historical information as well as holdouts to get a sense for, okay, like, if we actually accomplish this, we think the propensity to order increases by, like, 1.2% or whatever, and that translates into X amount. So we- we give them basically, uh, and as well as the broader team, a way to cross-prioritize, which says that, like, for each second you deliver, you deliver, like, 100,000 active users, uh, on- on the platform, and we have that sort of translation for every engineering and- and other teams, uh, at the company. And then when we do the planning of, like, "Okay, we're trying to go from," I'm just making up some numbers, like, "5 million active users to 10 million active users this year." Okay, like, what is the bridge? And what are all the various teams contributing, uh, to help us get there?

   16. HSHarry Stebbings29:30

       I spoke to Evan Moore, and he said specifically you're one of the best managers he's ever seen. When you reflect on that statement, what do you think makes you such a good manager? And what have been your biggest lessons on great management?

   17. SBSri Batchu29:42

       Yeah, I think Evan is being too kind-

   18. HSHarry Stebbings29:44

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SBSri Batchu29:44

       ... but- but I- but I appreciate the sentiment. Um, I, uh, I- I think management, like a lot of things, is actually, um, pretty easy to learn and, uh, and hard to master. It's not rocket science, the- the rules on what makes a good manager. What's- what's hard is actually remembering it and, uh, you know, putting it in practice every day. I think it requires intention. Fortunate in working with a bunch of great, great managers, uh, and executives closely, including Evan, uh, and, uh, and I think what a lot of executives forget, especially as they get more senior, is that they're- they're still a manager. Like, you do have a management part of your job to- to do.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings30:19

       What does that mean when you remember that you do actually have a management part of you?

   21. SBSri Batchu30:23

       Yeah.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings30:23

       So what?

   23. SBSri Batchu30:25

       I think th- this sounds a little bit, um, kitschy, but, uh, or maybe sentimental, but I'd say, like, the- the really great managers, uh, remember that they're working with people, not, like, coworkers and cogs. And so what does it mean that, you know, you're caring about the person and the human? It's- it's... Sure, maybe it's about knowing about their personal life, but it- it's- it's less that and more about seeing them as a person and taking the time to understand, "Hey, like, what motivates you? Uh, what, uh, drives impact for you? What are you trying to optimize for personally, uh, in your life?" And kind of approaching all of those questions in a non-judgmental way and seeing how you can help each person, uh, achieve their goals in the framework of, you know, driving value for the company as well. Uh, and so, uh, how do you kind of still see that? And so one, like, very tactical thing that I do actually is I've got, like, a- a two-page template of questions that's like your first one-on-one that I walk through with every new person, uh, that I manage. Uh, and it goes through a lot of these questions on, uh, and just understanding them a little bit deeper. And then we do it both ways, so they get to understand me better as well.

6. 31:32 – 41:12

   Effective Leadership

   1. SBSri Batchu31:32

   2. HSHarry Stebbings31:32

      S- sorry, I'm fascinated by that. So first day, you and me sit down and we go through this, like, two-page one-to-one questions. What are some examples of those questions again? And then what do we do on the back of them? Like, why do we do them?

   3. SBSri Batchu31:46

      I tend to find that it really builds, uh, A, like, a relationship and an understanding of each other, which, uh, to be honest... So maybe I'll- I'll say it in a different way, which is when things aren't working, I- I think it's very rarely, uh, because someone is a bad actor. Uh, it's- it's usually because they're not a right fit for this role because either they lack the skills or they lack the motivation, right? The skill gap is an easy one to have the conversation about and move somebody out into a different role or, you know, talk about their transition out. I think the motivation gap, uh, is one that's a little bit harder to solve, and you solve it by actually understanding what motivates the person, uh, and- and finding ways of- of motivating them, uh, before, you know, taking more drastic action. And so to have a high-performing team, I think you really need to understand what drives the individuals. And what drives everybody is probably not profit for the company. Maybe it is for some. Uh, but, uh, e- every person has their individual motivations that they work through, and that's the main thing that I try to get out of, uh, in- in the first one-on-one.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings32:53

      Is there a wrong motivation? If I say I'm inherently insecure and actually title and view in the organization drives me to be fucking great, would you be worried about that?

   5. SBSri Batchu33:06

      Mm-hmm. I- I don't... I actually don't think, uh, w- there's necessarily a- a wrong motivation. I know that might be a controversial thing to say. So I- I- I pulled up this one-on-one template while we were talking, uh, and- and wanted to see what the wording of the question was. "What motivates you? There's no right or wrong answer here. Some typical motivating factors can be customer impact, compensation, praise and recognition from peers, exposure to senior leaders, title or position, functional learning, intellectually challenging problems, uh, external validation and recognition outside the company," et cetera, et cetera. I start off with that and I frame it in a very non-judgmental way because I'd- I'd love to just start from a position of honesty, uh, and- and work with the incentives that are in people's heads than try to create different incentives for them.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings33:51

      Do you find pe-... This is the first day. You're my boss.

   7. SBSri Batchu33:53

      Uh, it's not necessarily the first day, but in the first, you know, couple weeks. Yeah.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings33:57

      You find people open up, though. It's- it is quite personal.

   9. SBSri Batchu34:00

      Yeah, it is. Uh, it's not the first question that I ask. (laughs) Uh, obviously at the end of things.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings34:05

       What's the first question?

   11. SBSri Batchu34:06

       The first question I ask is, uh, "How- how do you, um, want to be recognized, um, at the company? Uh, how do you like to receive feedback?" Uh, and then I go into the motivations and then, "What are your career goals?" Et cetera, et cetera.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings34:23

       Can I ask a slightly stoic statement?

   13. SBSri Batchu34:25

       Mm-hmm.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings34:26

       I don't think people know themselves very well, especially the younger they are.

   15. SBSri Batchu34:29

       Yeah. Yeah.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings34:29

       I think... I don't think they know how they like to receive feedback. I don't think they know-

   17. SBSri Batchu34:33

       Yeah.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings34:33

       ... what motivates them.

   19. SBSri Batchu34:34

       Yeah. I- I agree. Uh, and so this is not always the most productive conversation, and so you learn through that conversation where they are in their self-awareness journey as well. Uh, and that's an important data point, c- 'cause that can be challenging too, to work with people that don't have clear goals a- and you can have that as your kind of back of mind notes for, like, "What do I want to work on with this person, uh, in terms of, you know, skills that are outside of their core craft, in terms of what will make them a better coworker or manager," what have you.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings35:04

       Which one-to-one question do you find most revealing? And is there one that people find hardest?

   21. SBSri Batchu35:10

       I find the motivation one, obviously, uh, very revealing. Um, I... Uh, as well as the career goals. Uh, and I ask them to give me, like, the time horizons, like, "Where do you see yourself in three, five, 10-plus years?" And a lot of people haven't really given it thought on, like, "Okay, what does it take for me to get to the 10-year mark? What does my three-year outcome look like, you know, five-year outcome look like?" Uh, et cetera. And- and it actually gets people s- to start thinking about, uh, stuff like that. The- the thing that people have a hard time also answering, which especially early career people, which they should be better at and more aware of, is, uh, I ask them, you know, "What can I do to help you succeed?" And people are often, like... I- I don't think people are often asked that, so they're, like, stumped whe- when somebody asks them, uh, you know, what their manager can do to- to help them succeed, uh, at the job.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings35:59

       I totally agree with you. What've been your biggest hiring fuck-ups on reflection?

   23. SBSri Batchu36:03

       (laughs) Um...

   24. HSHarry Stebbings36:05

       I'm enjoying this. This is great.

   25. SBSri Batchu36:07

       (laughs)

   26. HSHarry Stebbings36:07

       This is why I do the show.

   27. SBSri Batchu36:09

       Uh, this is a good question. For better or worse, I've had to separate with a lot of people, but typically they've been, uh...... uh, inherited, uh, teams, uh, and, uh, because of m- my, like, one of the things that I get a lot of feedback on is that I hire very slow. Uh, my, my hiring bar is, is very, very high.

   28. HSHarry Stebbings36:28

       That's interesting. If you're in a startup where speed is everything, is it better to hire now and get it done versus be really slow?

   29. SBSri Batchu36:36

       I'm a big believer in hiring slow, obviously, 'cause I still do it despite getting the feedback that I'm hiring too slow. Uh, and, uh, and, and the reason being also I actually am also a huge believer in, uh, diseconomies of scale for teams. Uh, I think teams get materially slower, uh, as they get bigger. Um, they're, i- i- it's really like the equivalent of a resource curse, uh, for companies rather than countries, right? Uh, when you have too many resources, you get bad at prioritizing, uh, and you get bad at accountability, and you actually end up moving slower. So it is painful in the short term where, you know, some things might not get done, uh, and, uh, b- but, but I think the right things get done, uh, and they get done better, uh, on small teams. And, and, I think one thing that you learn to get comfortable with as a, a more experienced manager, somebody told me, uh, a- a while ago, is that you have to let some fires burn. If you think you have to fight every fire, uh, you know, uh, on your team, you're gonna burn yourself out. Uh, so you just have to realize that, like, some things are just not gonna be worked on for a bit, and they're gonna be broken and, uh, and, and be comfortable with that because they're less important, and you... and, and, and try to be intentional about that. So whenever we do planning, it's like, what are you not doing? So like, you know, name the fire that you're letting burn.

   30. HSHarry Stebbings37:52

       What fire are you letting burn now?
7. 41:12 – 48:51

   Navigating Growth Challenges

   1. SBSri Batchu41:12

   2. HSHarry Stebbings41:12

      Is there anything you have short-term gain for long-term pain?

   3. SBSri Batchu41:15

      One area that I can think of is we, we do have parallel processes of acquisition that are going after the same clients that are automated versus manual. You know, there's some challenges in performance at different steps of, like, how the automated system performs versus how humans do the same, you know, prospecting and customer acquisition sales process, right? The short-term gain, of course, is that humans are better at certain steps because there's just a lot of intangibles that we haven't been able to productize and automate yet. Uh, so we ha- we hire a lot of, you know, we have a sales team that runs sales because they're good at certain things that are better than automating them. But I think the long-term pain if we don't focus, uh, and, and pivot more and more th- things towards self-serve and automation is that we're gonna end up having a massive sales team, uh, that, uh, is, you know, hard to scale and manage and, and, and potentially expensive, uh, although that's not the case today.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings42:09

      What are the first things to break in a scaling org? You've been in some of the best, Instacart, Opendoor, now Ramp. What are the, like, the, "Oh fuck, it broke again" things?

   5. SBSri Batchu42:18

      The thing that breaks, uh, is, uh...... is, is really just culture and engagement actually, uh, as, as companies grow, right? So let's imagine that you're not successful as you're scaling. Obviously people are going to be demotivated and, and, and, and whatever, so that one's obvious. But I think the thing that people miss is, um, if you are successful, uh, I think a lot of, um, you know, founders and executives can take, you know, the growth engine and the team, uh, for, for granted. And I think if you're not continuing to provide kind of guidance, feedback, gratitude, uh, the team will get burned out and disengaged and, and you'll see departures. So that, that's the one thing that I tend to find is, like, the danger of success is that, uh, the, the teams that drove that, uh, get taken for granted often, uh, because, you know, people want to focus on problems, not the things that are working. Uh, and, uh, and so, uh, that can create some challenges.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings43:13

      Shri, you mentioned the importance of engagement there. Um, engagement often relies on focus. You are also a very, very prolific but successful angel investor. I'd first love to start, and I hope it's okay, when you're an angel investor today, do you invest through a fund? Do you invest personal money? How do you structure your investing?

   7. SBSri Batchu43:32

      Yeah. So I do personal as well as I'm a scout for, for a VC fund, so I, I, I do investments through both of those.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings43:40

      Okay, got you. So it's scout and personal. You said to me before, full-time operators who are part-time fund managers will make some of the best early stage investors. Why do you think this?

   9. SBSri Batchu43:52

      Yeah. So, I mean, if you look at the investing process, right, there's four components. There's deal flow, there's diligence, there's winning the allocation, and then supporting your portfolio, right? I think operators have a distinct advantage, uh, especially with their smaller checks in earlier stages, across all four of those, uh, than a lot of professional, uh, investors. I don't know if you've had other people articulate this to you, uh, there's also this notion of, like, a half-life to operating experience, something like two to four years, which is, like, you know, every whatever X number of years you're away from operating and have become a specialized and, or full-time investor, your ability to really help and empathize with the current state of operations decreases, you know, by half or, or what have you. So, uh, the reason I mention that is because there are also of course a lot of former operators that are investors, uh, that are successful, but speaking of operators that are currently working, I would say, okay, like, what are the advantages across the four stages, right? So operators get, uh, a lot of early deal flow with the companies that they've worked in. So folks that are leaving, uh, they get to know first, uh, who's leaving, especially if you're working at great companies, you know. Alums of Ramp, OpenDoor, Instacart, uh, obviously reach out to me when they're thinking about, uh, you know, starting their, their companies, which is a great way of, uh, of getting that deal flow. You also have the ability to evaluate-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings45:12

       We're going to have, we're going to have fun here.

   11. SBSri Batchu45:13

       Yeah.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings45:13

       Okay. Discussions are way more fun.

   13. SBSri Batchu45:15

       Yeah.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings45:15

       Sure, narrow.

   15. SBSri Batchu45:16

       Yeah.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings45:16

       Even if you work at many companies, it's three.

   17. SBSri Batchu45:18

       Sure.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings45:18

       The actual net- network SH, the OpenDoor network SH.

   19. SBSri Batchu45:22

       Yeah, yeah.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings45:23

       Nah. Put that one in the can. Not buying it.

   21. SBSri Batchu45:25

       Yeah. All right, fine, uh, but it just depends on how many you need, right? Uh, and how big of an, uh, of an investment pool that you're driving. Um, and so I, I think that's one. Uh, I think I, I agree with you, there's other benefits to being an institutional investor, which is, like, you get a lot more inbound because of your reputation, right? But then you also have to sort through, uh, that, that inbound. So one thing that I, um, find it, as an operator, I have much less conflict, right, uh, in terms of with, with other investors, so I, I get deal flow from other investors all the time, especially ones that are like, you know, if, uh, if Sequoia or Craft or whoever are like, you know, "We're leading this round. We're really excited about it. Do you want to be a part of it?" That's great. Like, a lot of the work on, uh, you know, uh, the sourcing, diligence, everything is, is done for me as an operator, you know? They're not going to do that for another fund typically, right?

   22. HSHarry Stebbings46:16

       I totally agree with you that it's a beautiful position to be in. Does it scale? So say you have, you know, a $5 million microfund, 100% history I'm bringing you in for every 100K check, but you don't scale as a fund manager.

   23. SBSri Batchu46:31

       Yeah.

   24. HSHarry Stebbings46:31

       It doesn't scale.

   25. SBSri Batchu46:32

       That I agree with, uh, so I don't think we're, we're in disagreement. I think the strategy only works up to a certain size and, you know, my general understanding with venture is the job is, like, materially different every 5X or so the check size. So, uh, and, uh, and it's a completely different job. Uh, what, what can help you win in the previous stage is probably not what's going to help you win in the next stage, right?

   26. HSHarry Stebbings46:53

       But agreed, you do get brought into great stuff, so that, that's second pillar. Or the third pillar.

   27. SBSri Batchu46:59

       Deal flow we talked about. Diligence, I think you actually ... So whereas, like, you know, VCs or whoever are, you know, and this is, like, in a limited scope that we're talking about, right, you often get a lot more information about the competence or strengths and weaknesses of, of founders that you work with because you've literally worked with them in the past and you have a lot more exposure to this person and how they've worked in a real operating environment, whereas, you know, people are trying to suss this out in other ways as outside-in investors. There's some benefit to that, again, right, because these are folks that are, um, in your network. And then similarly on the products when you're working with them, typically as an operator, you're often a buyer of these products, right? Uh, so I, I have a, a differential insight in being able to diligence products because I'm like, "Would I buy this? Would I approve the budget, uh, for this product if they came to Ramp or Instacart or wherever?" And it helps you think through, uh, just cut through the BS of, like, "Okay, is this ... Are they making something that people will buy? 'Cause I'm a buyer, so I can make that decision." This is very helpful for, for B2B stuff 'cause I think a lot of people have intuition on this on consumer, uh, less so on, on B2B stuff. So I think there is an advantage there as well, uh, on the, you know, diligence part.

   28. HSHarry Stebbings48:12

       I also think, like, the rate of decay on operating experience has never been greater, like, specifically on two, which is like if you haven't operated in the world of AI-

   29. SBSri Batchu48:22

       Yeah.

   30. HSHarry Stebbings48:22

       ... it's fundamentally different thinking kind of AI first and with AI as part of your stack than-... 15 years ago.
8. 48:51 – 1:03:04

   Tips for Operator-Investors

   1. HSHarry Stebbings48:51

   2. SBSri Batchu48:51

      Yeah.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings48:51

      If you're an investor staying in VC and you haven't managed-

   4. SBSri Batchu48:53

      Yeah.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings48:53

      ... people in 15 years-

   6. SBSri Batchu48:54

      Yeah, yeah.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings48:54

      ... you know how it was.

   8. SBSri Batchu48:56

      Yeah, I agree with that. (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings48:57

      You know what I mean?

   10. SBSri Batchu48:57

       Yeah, yeah, 100%. And, yeah, on allocation, we've talked about it, it's much easier to get an allocation as a operator, investor than, uh, than it is as a, you know, a larger investor.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings49:07

       Does it not distract you from your operational role? I get it that it helps you pick better, but on the flip side, does it make you distracted?

   12. SBSri Batchu49:15

       No, it's a, it's a great question. Uh, and, uh, you know, uh, s- some principles are universal, right, which is everything in moderation and also you have to be doing well at your core job (laughs) before you're doing stuff outside of work. You, uh, want to be respectful of, uh, obviously work hours. Um, having said that, the other great thing too is, like, I, I get a lot of high-quality deal flow. I know, I'm, I'm a... I'm actually very anti-cold outreach. Uh, I know it's, uh, a lot of investors go out there and say, "Cold outreach is great. You send me, you know, a message on LinkedIn or, or Twitter or, or whatever, and, uh, and I'll look at everything." My theory is if you can't even succeed in getting a warm intro, how are you gonna hustle in building a company? I only take conversations that are very high reputation, warm intros, where the person is, like, typically, like, already spoken to the person, likes them, or has a relationship with them, and I have a deck. So I, I don't take... I take very few meetings, uh, but I tend to find that they're very high quality because I do a lot of that filtering before.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings50:17

       I actually agree with you totally, but I got killed for being exclusionary. What if it's someone who doesn't know anyone in your ecosystem? Is that fair? And what do you... What should I respond?

   14. SBSri Batchu50:27

       I think it's a fair question, but, uh, fortunately, uh, I, I think there are a lot more, uh, systems available now to help with that, that are not as gatekeeping. OnDeck is here. There's a few other networks like that. I, I don't think it's actually, like, for the entrepreneurial person, it's that hard to find a path, uh, to meeting the right set of investors. And, and it just depends on how friendly people are, right? Like, if somebody messages me, uh, with a tenuous connection, I'm typically willing to help them, right? Like, if they're like, uh, you know, um, "Hey," like, uh, "I went to the same college as you," blah, blah, blah, like, "will you take a meeting?" Maybe. But if they're like, "Hey, I really wanna get to know this person. Will you intro me?" And obviously I do a dual opt-in. I'll message them being like, "Hey," like, "I don't really know this person. Their profile seems interesting. I haven't really evaluated. Let me know if you'd be open to taking a convo." Uh, and even if they spray and pray with that tactic, they will get some meetings via warm intro. So you gotta hustle somewhat. Uh, and I think there's a way to get the warm intro. And if you can't even do that, uh, I, I, I struggle to find how you're gonna fundraise, find customers, et cetera.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings51:43

       If I'm on your team, Sri, I'm, I'm gonna do a, a scout, you know, program. I'm gonna raise a micro fund even better. I'm gonna raise a micro fund. What do you say?

   16. SBSri Batchu51:54

       Uh, as I mentioned before, I think as long as you're not, you know, distracted during work hours and getting your day job done, I think what you do outside of work, uh, is, is your prerogative. And I actually do have folks that are-

   17. HSHarry Stebbings52:06

       Yeah, but, but, but, but, but do you... And I mean this in the-

   18. SBSri Batchu52:08

       Yeah.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings52:08

       I don't mean it badly.

   20. SBSri Batchu52:10

       Yeah.

   21. HSHarry Stebbings52:10

       The best people go home and sales reps, they get more leads.

   22. SBSri Batchu52:14

       Yeah.

   23. HSHarry Stebbings52:14

       They want more converted sales. They work out of hours to make it work.

   24. SBSri Batchu52:20

       Yeah.

   25. HSHarry Stebbings52:20

       They don't go off and do something else.

   26. SBSri Batchu52:22

       What we didn't talk about are, like, the potential benefits, right? Of, uh, like, what's the value add of, uh, of investing, uh, outside, uh, of your job? I think there's no playbook for necessarily how you grow. That's why it's a very experimentation driven culture, right? Uh, and a lot of experiments fail. Um, and so you have to find your own growth path, and the more creative ideas, strategies, tactics that you can come up with, the better chance you have at, uh, at, at, you know, hitting your growth goals. Uh, and so I tend to find that the context switching and learning, uh, about different spaces actually, um, builds more intuition and, uh, and creativity for ideas. So I think in, in moderation, I actually think it's a, it's a good idea to do that. And I also think, like, yes, there's, like, parts of the job that are, like, keeping the trains running on time, and there's parts of the job that are, like, taking a beat, thinking about strategy, thinking about creative ideas, and I think that stuff is not measured in hours in and hours out. And in fact, like, being on a treadmill of, like, doing that, I think has diseconomies of scale again. Like, I think you need to, like, uh, get out of your kind of rabbit hole, uh, and, and re-contextualize and get perspective to generate the best ideas.

   27. HSHarry Stebbings53:35

       What about conflicts with your company? So say I'm in expense management or I'm not in expense management, but then I pivot to it. Now I'm potentially competing with you.

   28. SBSri Batchu53:48

       Uh, obviously anything that could be competitive, perceived as competitive, or looks like it's down the line competitive, I don't even take the meeting. Uh, and, uh, and I strongly advise against anybody, uh, at the company taking meetings as well if they're considering them. And so I think that one's, like, a more obvious one, which is like, okay, like, you know, use your judgment. If you have a question, ask me or ask our GC. Uh, but the, the conflict that's, like, a little bit trickier potentially is, um-... uh, if Ramp is in the market to buy the software or something like that, uh, and you've invested, uh, in the company or you're, uh, investing in the company. What, there, it's like you want to be extra, extra above board, uh, make it clear to the company that you're not going to influence the purchasing process, as well as, um, actually, like, not influencing the purchasing process entirely. (laughs)

   29. HSHarry Stebbings54:43

       What about, what about talent? You're an investor in my company as an angel.

   30. SBSri Batchu54:47

       Yeah.
9. 1:03:04 – 1:07:44

   Final Thoughts and Inspirations

   1. SBSri Batchu1:03:04

      Yeah.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:04

      Okay, so I'm going to do a quick fire with you, my friend.

   3. SBSri Batchu1:03:06

      Okay.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:06

      So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thought. Sound okay?

   5. SBSri Batchu1:03:10

      Okay. Sounds great.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:11

      What tactics have not changed over the last five years?

   7. SBSri Batchu1:03:15

      I think the, the PLG playbook has actually stabilized and it's pretty, uh, similar. I mean, the specific tactics will change, but like, the, the core of it I think is the same. I think cold outbound and email still work surprisingly well despite all of the changes in that space.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:28

      Does PLG die in a world of segregation between user and buyer again? Tightening budgets, CFOs manage everything.

   9. SBSri Batchu1:03:38

      It's, it's a good question, but I, I don't think so necessarily. I think these are economic cycles that, uh, companies go through. I think there's challenges in the short term, and then as the economic cycle moves forward, like, it just eases. It's like a little bit of contraction and a little bit of easing in terms of like headwinds versus tailwinds.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:57

       Okay. What tactics have totally died a death?

   11. SBSri Batchu1:04:00

       I mean, I think this is an obvious one, but pouring, you know, money indiscriminately into paid marketing I think is gone, for two reasons. One is, of course, like the efficiency environment and I don't think we're gonna be in a completely ZERP environment again. Uh, and the other reason being, I think attribution has become a lot harder, uh, and so I think people will be hesitating for a long time to come in terms of how they deploy paid marketing.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings1:04:22

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

   13. SBSri Batchu1:04:27

       Honestly, um, hire either too senior or too junior, uh, for, for the given problem that they have. Too senior being like, you know, if you've got a three person growth team, like, don't hire a VP level person because you actually need somebody that can really coach people and get into the weeds. Uh, and, uh, and, and other times, I, I, um, while I'm a big fan of hiring for slope versus intercept, I think, uh, uh, sometimes I think people underappreciate the, the scope of the problems. I think that basically it's just like matching the, the skillset, uh, to the stage, uh, of the growth in the company I think is someone they have a challenge with.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:05

       You mentioned pre-mortems earlier. How do you do post-mortems?

   15. SBSri Batchu1:05:09

       Yeah. So we do monthly post-mortems. They're somewhat structured. We actually have a, you know, Airtable system where we track all of our experiments, we score them, et cetera, in terms of impact. And so we share like aggregate statistics of the team on like what's been shipped and, and what the impact has been. It's like an opportunity for us to like celebrate team members as well as like encourage the notion of like velocity in a, in a more subtle way. And then outside of that, we have teams come back with one to two, um, wins or losses over the previous month that they present, uh, and get feedback and just share the learnings. So it's not super structured, um, but there is like a regular cadence of it every month, so it's not just when like something great or something horrible happens is when we do post-mortems. We actually do them in a systematic way.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:54

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

   17. SBSri Batchu1:05:58

       What I would love to change about the world of growth is just breaking the walls between the disciplines of marketing and product and, and, and growth. Uh, and, and really have it be, like, one kind of cross-functional, um, discipline. I, I think companies and people and teams struggle with it a lot because it's a newer function and, uh, and folks come from different backgrounds.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:20

       From Apurva, what's your favorite Pitbull lyric?

   19. SBSri Batchu1:06:24

       (laughs) Uh, I knew this one would come back. Uh, my, (laughs) my, my favorite one is, I, uh, there's probably plenty but this one is my favorite. "Ask for money, get advice, ask for advice, get money twice." Uh, and to me, it's like super, super helpful framing for like almost any, like, difficult situation that you're dealing with, not just fundraising. Um, which is like, the more you bring people in to what you're solving for, the more value you'll get, uh, rather than like directly asking for resources or solutions.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:54

       Final one, what one company growth strategy that you've seen recently have you been most impressed by?

   21. SBSri Batchu1:07:00

       Yeah, I think there's, there's a l- a lot to pick from, but one I'll pick is, uh, is, is Notion. I think they've done an incredible job of building a very large, uh, multi-pronged community, uh, based growth strategy, which I haven't seen a lot of companies do that. I think they're, uh, it's very impressive, and they actually also recently hired my friend Lauren, uh, to do product growth there, so I'm excited to see how they, uh, supercharge their growth.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:24

       I'm totally with you. I think CanvaTok as well, aligned-

   23. SBSri Batchu1:07:28

       Yeah.

   24. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:28

       ... is fantastic. So the two together. Sri, I love doing this. Thank you so much for putting up with my Pitbull-like approach today.

   25. SBSri Batchu1:07:35

       (laughs)

   26. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:35

       It's the end of the day here, so I just thought we'd-

   27. SBSri Batchu1:07:37

       Yeah, yeah. No.

   28. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:37

       ... have a good-

   29. SBSri Batchu1:07:38

       I, I loved it. Uh, I appreciate you taking the time. It was a fun conversation.

   30. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:42

       You're a star, man.

Episode duration: 1:07:44