Vaibhav Sahgal: How We Scaled Reddit to 55M Users; Lessons from Zynga | 20VC #942

1. 0:00 – 0:30

   Intro

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      V, this is such a joy to do. I had so many great things from the wonderful Casey Winters before. But thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal0:08

      Yeah. Thank you for having me and, um, Casey's the, the true wonderful person here, let's, let's be honest. Learned a lot from that guy. So, uh, thank you, Casey, for the introduction.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:18

      He is wonderful. But I wanna start here with a little bit on you because you have this incredible, uh, duration at some of the most fantastic companies, both in growth and product roles. So, how did you make your way into some of the most powerful growth

2. 0:30 – 3:28

   Vaibhav's Background

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:30

      orgs with Zynga and Reddit today? What was that entry for you?

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal0:34

      Yeah. I mean, mostly by accident to be, to be honest. Um, and I'll, I'll start when, in the beginning, I was a software engineer who just moved to the Valley, had worked for a company called Hi5. Um, I don't know if you know Hi5. Older social-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:50

      The video conferencing platform?

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal0:51

      No. It, it was, uh, um... That was different. That was also, I think, Hi5. But this is a social network, older social network than Facebook, nearly as successful, as you can tell. Um, so yeah. So, so I started as a software engineer for this little startup no one's ever heard of. Uh, took a big chance, came to the Valley, um, and I was working for this product manager, his name was Mike Starbird, best, best name ever, even better guy, um, and, and he was my PM, I was the engineer, and, and we used to just work together. Um, and we were sending a lot of these emails. Some would say kinda spammy emails, but we were, we were basically sending these emails that, to users, like, telling them who they might know. And so this email was just full of a lot of different pictures and people's names and, like, "Hey, Harry, you might know these 20 people," or whatever. And, and the way the email was designed, and I was the one coding it up, it was, uh, the, the pictures were huge, and so we could only fit so many people in there and so many pictures in the, in the email. And I had an idea one night, I was like, "Hey, what if we just, like, reduced the size of the pictures and we put more, more people in there?" So I ran what, uh, is obviously now known as an A/B test for back then, I, I didn't really know what it was called, and I, I did that, uh, one night, and then the next morning, I came back, I looked at the data, and the click-through rate had gone up 20%. And I was so excited. I was like, "This is, this is amazing." Um, and then from that point on, I just kinda became a junkie for that process. I'm not saying that's all that growth is but, you know, I, the idea that you can, you can have some idea, whether it might be a lousy idea or whatever, test it against real people, um, have them tell you if it's good or not, give them a- a- and, and read i- in the data if it's good or not, to me, it's just romantic. And it's just, it's just really amazing. Um, and from that day on, I was just a junkie for it, uh, and, and I just kept, kept going deeper and deeper into it. So Hi5 doesn't exist anymore, moved over to Zynga, switched to product management, uh, which was essentially, you know, Z- Zynga at that time was basically this school for product management. And, of course, some bad habits as well, which took a while to shake off. Uh, but went through that university, essentially, um, which was amazing to get to do that. Uh, and then just, yeah, kept going deeper and deeper.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings3:19

      Let, let's pause there. I, I, I never went-

   6. VSVaibhav Sahgal3:22

      Yeah.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings3:22

      ... to university. Well, I did, but it was so brief that I don't really count it. Um, uh, you said that, that Zynga was like a university. What

3. 3:28 – 4:23

   Vaibhav's Biggest Takeaway from Time at Zynga

   1. HSHarry Stebbings3:28

      was your one biggest takeaway from your time at Zynga? And then I have to ask, what's the biggest bad habit you think that you had to shed there?

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal3:37

      (laughs) Very easy to answer. Um, I'd start with one big takeaway, more than the obvious ones, you know, which was how to think about a big ambiguous problem, how to think about, um, uh, using data in product management. The, the biggest one that I learned, and I learned this maybe too late, was really get to know your user in and out. Like, who are they? What are their motivations? Why do they use your product? And I mean, like, really get to know them. Not just like, "Oh, yeah, it's this person. This is why they use it." I mean, like, you should be in their shoes and, you know, try to be living in, like, their life somehow. Um, and I found-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings4:18

      Uh, I, I think that, that, that... Go ahead.

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal4:18

      ... sorry. That, that is double down on that, 'cause I think the most important thing with episodes like this is granularity.

4. 4:23 – 7:34

   How to understand your customers

   1. VSVaibhav Sahgal4:23

      And so, okay, we should live in their shoes. I'm a founder today listening to this on the metro in New York. What does that mean? Do I go to- Yeah.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings4:32

      ... individual users and ask them for s- video calls to understand usage? What does that actually look like in practice?

   3. VSVaibhav Sahgal4:40

      Yeah. Let me give you an example. So for us, it was Words With Friends, which was the product I worked at for about four years, my term in Zynga, and our users were not me, mostly not me. They were 50 to 60-year-old women in the Midwest or somewhere in, in America, and they were looking, they were looking to use this product because they thought it was Fitbit for their brain. And that was just a massive, massive insight for us. And so in the beginning, when I, uh, worked on Words With Friends, I was just, I was just littered with all of my biases, right? And I was trying to figure out, "I really love sports. Can we do something with sports a- and Words With Friends?" And that's not helpful. What, what worked for us is putting a picture of this person, let's call her Mary from Ohio, who is in her 50s and has grandkids, putting that picture in your office with, "Here's what she likes doing. Here's why she uses your product," and every time you're making a decision, think about Mary, right? "And would Mary want this? Would Mary like this?" And that was such an important exercise that I- I learned really, really well.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings5:49

      Oh. But, but if we're drill- and if we're drilling deeper, V, how did you know what Mary wa- you're, you're a, like, respectfully, you're a dude in SF. (laughs)

   5. VSVaibhav Sahgal5:57

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings5:57

      How did you know what Mary wanted in Ohio? Did you call her up? Did you video call her? Did it come through on support tickets?

   7. VSVaibhav Sahgal6:06

      Yeah.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings6:06

      How can founders know the words to use, the customer personas to build around?

   9. VSVaibhav Sahgal6:11

      Yeah. I mean, in the, in the beginning, it was just, uh, you know, this cookie cutter research that we did and we found, "Here's our personas. Here's the type of people who use the products." But, but then I personally...... knew a lot of Marys, and I found them in the product. And I would talk to them every day, and I would ask them questions about their lives, about how they started to get to know Words With Friends, why they use it, why do they still use it after years and years. Um, so it was, it was really, like, deep and making friendships and talking to these people every single day, that, that actually gave me insight into it. That's so important.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings6:48

       Got you. Okay, uh, what were the bad habits?

   11. VSVaibhav Sahgal6:52

       (laughs) The worst habit I would say is we burnt out so many fucking channels. Um, and what I mean by that is Facebook in the early days, uh, opened up notifications for the first time for developers. Uh, so you could, as a, as a developer, just send literally hundreds of push notifications every day to each user. We did that. I mean, we did that. We spammed the hell out of our users. We didn't have any guardrails set up, and we essentially burned that channel out. And not only did we burn that channel out, we made Facebook change their, change their platform so people like us weren't, weren't spamming, uh, which was ultimately a really bad thing.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings7:33

       Can I ask,

5. 7:34 – 9:36

   How to Think about Channel Diversification

   1. HSHarry Stebbings7:34

      how do you think about channel diverse? I know this is where I love the show because we just go off, but how do you think about channel diversification? Because if you've got a channel that's working, you don't want to be spread too thin. Just go for it.

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal7:44

      Yeah.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:44

      So how do you think about the blend between going for it when something works, but also being cognizant that you do need diversification built into your channel expansion?

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal7:55

      Yeah. Uh, we, we did this at, at Reddit when I joined. Uh, you know, I was very cognizant of we burnt every channel we got at, at Zynga, and I did not want to do that again. So one of the rules actually, before I talk about diversification, that we did with push notifications, which is a massive lever for, for Reddit, is we said you're only allowed to send push notifications if it hits a minimum CTR, and if it doesn't hit that CTR, it's spam. So unless you're hitting 10% CTR, you cannot send more, more PMs. You have to first fix your CTR, which means you need to make it more valuable for the users, you need to target it better, and only then are you allowed to send more. Uh, so that was the first thing we did. We set up these guardrail metrics, and we used CTR as the guardrail metric, and it actually worked really well. So we made sure, we forced ourselves to work on relevance, work, work on quality, and avoided the temptation of just being like, "Well, PMs work, let's just send millions and millions of them every day. Who cares, uh, what, what the exact, uh, click-through rate is?" That's number one. I mean, number two, everyone is different, right? Every single user is different. Some will prefer push notifications, some will prefer emails, some will prefer both, and their tolerance is going to be very different. So you have to be able to diversify and have a arsenal of, uh, of channels at your disposal so you can ultimately personalize it for each and every user, both on frequency level and which channel do you use for each user.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings9:29

      Can I ask you, now, when I listen to you, the, the one striking thing for me is like when you first tried that first AB test and then hearing you there,

6. 9:36 – 11:50

   How do you define growth?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings9:36

      it's this kind of balance between art and science for, for growth.

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal9:40

      Absolutely.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings9:41

      I just want to u- I'd love to understand how you define growth, given the usage today being so overused. So what does growth really mean to you, and what does it not mean?

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal9:50

      Yeah, and I stole this from our common friend, Casey. Um, but growth really should be renamed to something like value connection. Uh, and mea- and while value connection isn't exactly a very sexy term, I do think it defines what growth teams do way better than the term growth does. And what I mean by that is there's value that exists in your product, and you need to make sure that that value gets connected to each and every single user so that they may retain, they may engage, they may use the product for a really long time. Uh, so really, that's what it's about. It's why tactics like push notifications or tactics like news onboarding typically sit with growth teams, right? Because what is news onboarding? You didn't create anything new in the product. There's no new value being created. What you're doing is you're trying to organize your product to better connect it to the user coming in so that they retain, engage, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really about value connection, not about value creation. It's, it's not core product, which is much more about creating new value in the product, which, by the way, you have to do to grow a product. There's this common misconception that growth teams are the only teams that really care about traffic growth. That's not true. That, it's a value connection team, it's as important as a value creation team. Uh, it's just a different way to grow your product. So I think that, that's one big misconception. It's also not growth hacking, which is a term I absolutely hate, because it makes it seem like it's this kind of short term hacky thing people, people do to get a little spike. That's absolutely not true. Growth is really about the long term, right?

   5. HSHarry Stebbings11:36

      Mm-hmm.

   6. VSVaibhav Sahgal11:36

      And it's about, it's about months and then years of, of, uh, uh, of, of outcomes and impact, uh, so that, that's also super important.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings11:46

      I just want to make sure, sorry, I understand creation versus connection.

   8. VSVaibhav Sahgal11:49

      Yeah.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings11:49

      What

7. 11:50 – 12:59

   Difference between value creation and value connection

   1. HSHarry Stebbings11:50

      is the difference really between value creation versus value connection when comparing product to growth?

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal11:55

      Well, let me, let me take Reddit as an example. As I mentioned, you know, sending a push notification about- from a subreddit that you're really into, where something happens in that subreddit, I didn't create that content. I didn't create the subreddit. I am, all I'm doing is connecting that content to the user who cares about it. Value connection. Value creation would be something like we think that on- Reddit is really missing realtime communication on the platform.... and if we add real-time communication on the platform, it will attract all sorts of users who will use it for that purpose or get existing users to use it more. And so therefore, let's add, like, a really cool chat component to our subreddits." That would be value creation. Push notifications, getting the content connected to the right person, value- value connection.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings12:47

      I totally get it. Sorry. Thank you for clarifying that. I wanna kind of really discuss this like we're sitting in a cafe. I'm an early stage founder. You're my angel and advisor. Um, when

8. 12:59 – 17:43

   When is the right time to hire a Growth Leader?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:59

      do I actually do my first growth hire? How do you advise on timing? And then in terms of profile, do I get, like, young growth engineers-

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal13:08

      Yeah.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings13:08

      ... or do I get a, like, seasoned growth exec like you or Casey?

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal13:12

      Yeah. So when to hire, it's a tricky one. I think ideally, you wanna do it post product market fit. In the beginning, you're trying to create value in your product, right? You're not... It's not so much about connection. I mean, there's a minimum amount of connection, obviously, that's important, but that's not what's gonna make or break your product. Having the great email or having great new user onboarding is probably not what's gonna make the big difference, uh, for you in those early stages. Now, that being said, I do think it's important to be intentional about how you're going to grow and how you're going to connect the dots. Um, so do you know what your distribution strategy is going to be? Do you know what your growth loop is? Do you know how network effects will start to play in? You do have to be very intentional and deliberate from day one about laying this down and then working towards it. Does that need a head of growth? Maybe. Uh, I would say if you have an advisor who, uh, who has the expertise or you have that expertise, that's probably good enough. But if, if you don't have that expertise, I would, I would definitely seek out... You could get ahead of growth, but again, you need to avoid the temptation of, uh, optimizing way too early when, when really the priority should be let's, let's first figure out what the product is going to be and what value it will add to users. Um, so, so really think ideally post product market fit, but you do need to be intentional about your growth strategy from day one.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings14:47

      Okay. And so post product market fit, I agree, especially I love the rubric of creation versus connection. I agree with you. Creation gets you the product market fit fundamentally, and then the connection is super valuable, but I agr- I understand post. Once it is post then, do I get growth reps and put them-

   6. VSVaibhav Sahgal15:05

      Yeah.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings15:05

      ... in isolation? Do I get a head of growth and put them under a CPO? Talk to me about the profile that's right and where it sits in the org.

   8. VSVaibhav Sahgal15:16

      It needs to, first and foremost, be a product leader.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings15:20

      Okay.

   10. VSVaibhav Sahgal15:20

       A head of growth is, is really a title that has shown up in the last few years, but really all it is is a director of product or VP of, of product who works on value connection or growth, right? So you need to look for, for someone who is a really great product leader and has an eye for, for value connection, as, as we talked about. Who should you hire? You asked me earlier about should it be, like, you know, some young, uh, person or should it be, like, a really experienced person? I would strongly recommend, of course, this is, this is going to be about your budget, to hire someone really senior, really experienced. I think that's, that's super important. Just think about what that person needs to do upfront in the beginning. You need someone who can analyze your data. You need someone who can form a, a really quick strategy. While they are actually writing specs and operating, they also need to start hiring, building a team, um, scaling, uh, and, and doing all sorts of w- wearing all sorts of hats, not something that I think a junior person really would be able to do. Uh, but of course, you know, budgets-

   11. HSHarry Stebbings16:29

       Do you think so? Do, do you think so or do you think actually, like, the senior growth people are so finely tuned in their very high roles that actually they're not used to doing everything and being that jack of all trades for a head of growth like you and Casey is like, "What the fuck? Like, really? I'm, I'm starting again like this?"

   12. VSVaibhav Sahgal16:48

       Yeah.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings16:48

       Is it not... Sorry, I'm just intrigued. I thought the young jack of all trades would be like, oh, getting their hands dirty, fine, versus a more seasoned global-

   14. VSVaibhav Sahgal16:57

       I think you at least want someone who's been along for the ride. So, uh, yeah, it might be really difficult to get someone like Casey to join your startup and go back into an operator role and start from scratch. But it would be good to get someone who's, who did it early on in Casey's team, right, and, and who kind of wants to take that next step. So yeah, there's some money ball in there and you need to find the, the diamonds in the roughs. Uh, but you do need someone, I think, who, who is senior enough, may not be, like, all the way senior, and who has some experience wearing all those different hats, 'cause it is pretty challenging.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings17:34

       Uh, listen, I, I, I definitely agree with you in terms of it being challenging for sure. Um, I, I do wanna ask, you know, when we think about actually building the Benchout itself,

9. 17:43 – 21:40

   Biggest Mistake when Building a Team

   1. HSHarry Stebbings17:43

      when we chatted before, I loved your honesty, but you said building a team from scratch is one of the hardest things you've ever done, um, (laughs) uh, are you married? (laughs) Just kidding.

   2. VSVaibhav Sahgal17:54

      I am married.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings17:56

      So there you go.

   4. VSVaibhav Sahgal17:57

      Still are

   5. NANarrator17:57

      (laughs)

   6. HSHarry Stebbings17:57

      Yeah. Wow, I mean, well, then let's dive into this. Like, what are the biggest mistakes you made in building your team?

   7. VSVaibhav Sahgal18:05

      Yeah. Yeah, I made so many mistakes. Uh, there's so much I would do differently. I think there, there are three main things. One is I just didn't hire fast enough. Um, I, I just wasn't... I didn't spend as much of my time hiring as I should have. Probably 30 to 40% of my time in those early years should have just been about hiring. And what happened because I didn't hire fast enough, I was the one who had to fill the gap, which makes the situation even harder, right? Uh, you kind of go into this, into this spiral because I'm the one writing the specs, doing the analysis, I don't have time for hiring.... and therefore, you can't scale and really have the big impact that you're there for. So that wa- that was one. We also didn't fire or move- move people off fast enough. Um, we wanted to move at a breakneck speed, and there are only certain types of people who are okay with that and who are willing to do that and get motivated by that. Um, and in the beginning-

   8. HSHarry Stebbings19:00

      (laughs)

   9. VSVaibhav Sahgal19:00

      ... we- we didn't really have that.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings19:02

       V, on that one, how long do you give someone? How do you give them enough time to prove themselves but also cut it within a reasonable timeframe?

   11. VSVaibhav Sahgal19:11

       You mean just, like, a team member or as a- a head of growth?

   12. HSHarry Stebbings19:15

       A- actually as a head of growth. I'm intrigued.

   13. VSVaibhav Sahgal19:18

       Yeah. I think for someone who you're bringing in who is fairly senior at that level, this is, like, a VP level higher almost, you should know within- within three to six months where the wind is blowing. And of course, like, people are unsuccessful for lots of reasons. I've been u- unsuccessful in my career plenty of times. You really need to ask yourself why. Um, are they unsuccessful because they're not actually set up to succeed, for example, you didn't give them a team, or are they unsuccessful just because that's not the right person for what you need? Um, and so I think you wanna make a decision pretty quickly. Three to six months for someone, uh, of- of who you've hired who's hopefully of the right caliber should be more than enough to- to make a decision, but of course, you need to ask why it's not working out.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings20:10

       Okay, so you didn't hire fast enough.

   15. VSVaibhav Sahgal20:12

       Yeah.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings20:12

       Naughty. Uh, you didn't let go fast enough, even naughtier. Uh, what's the third one?

   17. VSVaibhav Sahgal20:18

       The third one, I- I just didn't really care as much to harmonize with the rest of the company, right? I was coming into an existing organization, an existing culture, and I just, from day one, Harry, I just went guns blazing, right? "This is the kind of team I want. This is the kind of culture I wanna build. This is how we wanna run product. Go, go, go." Um, and I was- I- I was very, very aggressive with it, um, and what I didn't do is sit down with people from across the table, make a, you know, form a relationship with them. I didn't do any of that. And what that led to is a lot of stress and strife and a lot of us versus them that built up over the first year, um, and that's- that's not great for anyone, and ultimately, in the long term, it's gonna hurt you.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings21:04

       So what would you do differently now to avoid that us-versus-them conflict and communication challenge?

   19. VSVaibhav Sahgal21:11

       I mean, form- form those relationships early, but more importantly, really bring people along for the ride. Make them understand what you're trying to do, why it's valuable, why it's going to be impactful. Um, I think I- I just didn't prioritize that, uh, on- on my side and- and got hurt by it.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings21:29

       No, I- I totally get you. So, now we have those three, like, where you fucked up

   21. NANarrator21:33

       (laughs)

   22. HSHarry Stebbings21:33

       ... bluntly. Um, if we think about me structuring my hiring process for this, uh, e- early

10. 21:40 – 25:45

    Interviewing for Growth

    1. HSHarry Stebbings21:40

       head of sales post-product/market fit, I've never done this before, V, what do the stages look like? A- a- a help me out here. Literally, what does that interview process look like?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal21:51

       Yeah. H- here's what I would say about the interview process, like, I think this is- this is a fairly... In some ways it's a specialized role, but it's also a generalist that you're trying to hire, so it's- it's pretty difficult to find the right person. In the early hiring that I did, um, I only hired within my network or I only hired when I have a very clear back channel, uh, and here's why. The number one thing you're trying to figure out is this person can execute, right? Can they actually get their hands dirty and get shit shipped and make an impact? That is also incredibly hard to find out in interviews, incredibly difficult. How do you even ask that? How do you figure out if someone has those chops to make shit happen? You can figure out how intelligent they are, you can figure out what they've done, but it still doesn't give you the full picture. So, for me, it was about digging into my network, um, which I did a lot, um, or- or finding, you know, friends who I really trust or coworkers I really trust and really asking them, "Do you know someone who fits my profile?" Um, that, at least I would start there because execution is so important and so hard to figure out in an interview process.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings23:15

       I agree. Okay, so we agree it's super hard to figure out and we agree that networks generally, I know it's not great for diversity, but they actually do provide often the highest quality, most relevant candidates, which is why we all rely on them bluntly. Um, so got you. But now we have the actual process.

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal23:32

       Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings23:32

       In the interviews themselves for the growth hires, what can you tell, what can you ask to determine quality of candidate in those growth interviews?

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal23:41

       Yeah, yeah. So, uh, my friend Jamie Quinn, who you might or might not have heard of, uh, I had an interview with him. He was the director of product for ads back then. This is almost five years ago now. Interview was very simple. Uh, he asked me one question. It was a- it was a 40-minute interview. "How would you think about driving growth for Reddit?" That was it. That- that literally was the interview. And what you're looking for in that question, it's this, like, vague, really simple, uh, uh, in some ways, really high level, in some ways, like, really straightforward, uh, question. What you're looking for is someone who has the ability to be able to go like, "Okay. First, what does growth mean? W- w- uh, start off by looking at what your funnel is, where the break points are, what the opportunities is. Here's how I would prioritize. Here's how I would go from prioritization, uh, to setting goals. Here's how I would now start getting ideas. This is how I would form a roadmap."... this is how I would, you know, assess every three months or whatever it is. And then one year down the line, we'd reassess, blah, blah, blah. You want someone who can actually walk you through that end-to-end process with a lot of clarity. Uh, and that was it. So 30 minutes, I walked him through what my process would be, how I would go about it. I didn't give him answers. I wasn't like, I was like, "Oh, you should do chat on Reddit. It'll be huge for, for growth." But I just walked him through, like, "Here's what I would look at. Here's my process and here's how I would go about it." And that was it. That was the entire interview. So you really need someone who more than comes with really bright ideas, knows... has a very clear, uh, process that they can walk you through and explain to you in 30 minutes, hopefully less.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings25:43

       You said about prioritization there.

11. 25:45 – 28:27

    How to Approach Prioritization

    1. HSHarry Stebbings25:45

       What have been your biggest lessons on how you and the best growth leaders approach prioritization? It's tough.

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal25:52

       I think this is where you mentioned something earlier, where it's a, it's a mixture of art and science. Because a-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings25:58

       Yeah.

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal25:58

       ... a lot of people, like, they just think it's just science, right? They create a formula of prioritization and it's like this multiplied by three, divided by this thing. And yeah, let's just, like, prioritize the backlog and see what shows up on top. Let's do that first thing. But it doesn't quite work like that. You have to use... Some of that is important, but then your gut and your intuition is also really important. So for, for me it's always been that, yeah, this is what the science tells me, but, like, this is what my gut is telling me we should, we should really do. Uh, so yeah, you know, you need to, you need to find that, that blend of art and science and, and not just use one or the other.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings26:37

       So post this first meeting where we say, "Hey, V, what does growth look like for you and how do you think about that at Reddit?" What do we do in the second meeting? Do we get them to meet other members of the team?

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal26:47

       Yeah.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings26:47

       Do we get them to do a practical, a case study? What's the next step post being impressed with their first answer?

    8. VSVaibhav Sahgal26:53

       Yeah. I mean, I think you want someone who can... If this is really an early hire, a senior hire, you want someone who can, who, who can attract talent. Uh, that is, that is super important, um, 'cause, 'cause ultimately you want someone who can, who can build a team. Uh, you want someone who's going to be collaborative, um, and, and pretty low ego. Uh, and, and that's, that's really important. And obviously you want someone who's, who's a culture fit, um, and who will have high integrity, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So execution, ability to hire and, and, uh, and, and build a team. Um, of course creativity, uh, I think and, and imagination and, and being able to judge that, really important.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings27:41

       How, how do you test this? Do you say, "V, who are the three people that you'll bring with you right now? Here's my laptop. Show me their LinkedIns"?

    10. VSVaibhav Sahgal27:50

        I would, I, I, I would do a lot of back channeling there. So, um, I've done this for people where, you know, a lot of times when you back, do back channeling, you only talk to folks who were their previous managers. But I think it's actually equally important to talk to people who were on their team. And you ask them, like, "Would you, would you follow them? Would you work with them again?" Uh, and people lie to you, people will, you know, uh, embellish, but you gotta kind of read between the lines and figure that out. Uh, so for me, it's, it's, it comes down to back channeling and, and people who've worked for them, not just

12. 28:27 – 29:55

    Do you use case studies?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal28:27

       who they've worked for.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings28:29

       Do we give case studies at all? Do we open up the data and say, "V, this is a problem that we have. This is a bottleneck in the funnel. Figure it out. Come back next week." How do we... Do we use case studies?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal28:41

       Yeah. I mean, the question Jamie asked me essentially was a case study, right? It was, it was pretty straightforward. And those are the case studies that I like. You want someone who can take a high level ambiguous problem and just break it down for you, and be really articulate about how exactly, um, what, what exactly their process is and how they're gonna solve the problem. So for me, it's, it's like very simple. You look for these sort of questions. How do you think about Reddit, v- uh, growth at Reddit? Very much, uh, a case study problem. One that I like asking, um, is you are uh head of product for hosts or guests at Airbnb. What are, what are the three top metrics you care about? How would you set goals for those three metrics? How do you prioritize, uh, between those metrics? Same thing, right? You're trying to see if this is a person who understands what the process is and, and how, uh, and, and how they walk you through that.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings29:48

       Totally get you. Okay. No, I think that makes total sense. And so then we get to, uh, the offer stage. When we

13. 29:55 – 32:00

    How to Think about Equity Compensation

    1. HSHarry Stebbings29:55

       think about the offer, I think the other thing I see is just this complete lack of awareness around equity comp. How do you think about how much I should give equity-wise to this early but senior growth hire?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal30:09

       Yeah. You... This is going to be a critical hire for you, right? Um, so for Reddit, for example, uh, the, our North Star metric is DAUQ, DAU uniques. Probably the most important metric for the company, leading indicator of revenue, all of that. This person is going to be a massive impact driver for the most important metric in your company. And for you, it might not be the most important, but it's probably top two or three at least.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings30:39

       Yeah.

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal30:40

       You should pay them accordingly, right? This is a person who you're putting in a position that could make or break the company. You want them to feel like they have skin in the game. You want them to feel like this is their company, that they have ownership.... and that they could have a material impact on their lives if they do a great job. Uh, so obviously, I, I, I can't tell you, "Pay them this dollar amount," but you want to pay them enough to where you are setting them up to succeed, and if they do succeed, it's a great financial outcome for them. That's, that's very, very important.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings31:15

       How of- How often do you change your North Star metric?

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal31:20

       At, at Reddit, we've never changed it. Uh, back at Zynga, we rarely changed it. Uh, but it's a very downstream metric, right? Daily active users is so, so downstream, and by itself, it really does not mean anything. So really, you don't want to focus on daily active users. You want to focus on way more upstream metrics, like retention, or even more upstream than that, what drives retention. So in some ways, yeah, your North Star metric doesn't really change, but your leading indicators, they probably change a lot depending upon what you've tested, what you've learned, et cetera, et

14. 32:00 – 35:15

    How to Onboard

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal32:00

       cetera.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings32:01

       So we've made this hire. I've done this. I've listened to you on the equity package. I'm very happy. I've got this great candidate, and now they're gonna join. Um, I've never had a head of growth or, you know, a growth hire join before. I have no idea how to do onboarding. Uh, uh, uh, help me. I'm CEO. What does the onboarding process look like for this first growth hire/head?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal32:25

       Yeah. For the right person, to be honest, it should be very minimal. You want someone who, who can figure it out mostly on their own. I mean, obviously, give them access to data. Give them, uh, a laptop they can use. Hopefully, they have a team that they can work with. In the beginning, all you need is a few engineers. That's all you need to get started. You were gonna say something.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings32:52

       No, I was just gonna ask, do I need to have extremely clean, structured data for them to come in ready on day one? Or you know how startups are.

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal33:00

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings33:00

       Shit's all over the place. Can I just say, "V, here's login access. You go." Or do I need to actually be a little bit more disciplined around my data structure and discipline?

    7. VSVaibhav Sahgal33:12

       Yes. It would be very good to be, uh, disciplined around it, because then what you want is, you don't want this person to be your head of data and to actually fix whatever's happening with your data. That is not their job. What you want is for them to be able to actually an- get the data, analyze it, and form a strategy really quickly. So as much as you can, make that part easy for them so that they have the tools that they need to actually do their jobs. If you're relying on them to be your head of data, you're not setting them up to succeed, and that's not great. Um, so yes, you want someone who is a self-starter, who can, who can be scrappy, but you do need to do a bare minimum to, to make sure they're set up to succeed.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings33:56

       Okay. There's the bare minimum there. In terms of, like, the first month, what are the biggest red flags and also green lights when looking at candidates? What would you be like, "Holy shit. V did this? Amazing." And-

    9. VSVaibhav Sahgal34:10

       Yeah.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings34:10

        ... "Ooh, V did this? That's bad."

    11. VSVaibhav Sahgal34:13

        In the first month, the red flags have got to be people who are doing a lot of talking and a lot of listening and not a lot of action. The right candidate just wants to get going, and I mean get going as in they want to launch something their second week there or even their first week there. They should just be itching to execute and, and launching things. That is the right candidate. The one of the worst answers that I hear in interviews sometimes, like, when I ask, "What are your first 60 days like?" "Oh, a lot of, like, listening and learning and talking to people and forming relationships." No. You should have the drive to get going now. So in the first month, for someone who's a really senior hire, they should have looked at your data. They should have formed some sor- sort of strategy. It doesn't need to be a 10-page thing but even just a one-pager. And they should have actually started to work with engineers to get shit going. That's, that's super,

15. 35:15 – 37:23

    How to resource your head of growth properly

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal35:15

       super key.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings35:16

       How do I, as a CEO, resource them properly? Do I give them two engineers full time? Do I say, "Hey, you know, bring in eng when you need them, but I'm not giving you dedicated engineers"? How can I equip that new head of growth efficiently so they can do this?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal35:33

       Yeah. As I mentioned in the beginning, you just need a, a few engineers who can, who can collaborate, who can, who can work with this person. Um, full time, much better than contractors or part time. Again, you want people who have skin in the game, who are in it. This is a high leverage area for your company, uh, and, and you don't want someone phoning it in. So ideally, you have someone with the same mentality, really hungry, really ambitious, impact-driven people, uh, and not, you know, here's just a person sitting halfway across the world. They get paid this much an hour. They don't actually have any skin in the game. They're just doing a job.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings36:16

       Can I ask, is there a concern that they're a bull in a china shop? And what I mean by that is, V comes in. "I wanna do this. I wanna do this. I wanna do this. I've looked at the data, and let's go. Execute." And wait a minute. The head of product's going, "What the fuck?" The head of customer success is going, "V, w- what?" And, and everyone else is going, "Who is this guy?" Like, I get you are not, like, talking and building relationships-

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal36:43

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings36:43

       ... and this. I mean... But if you just come in aggressive, you're gonna not... You're gonna lose friends.

    7. VSVaibhav Sahgal36:48

       To be, to be clear, going back to what I said earlier, that stuff is important. I'm not saying don't talk, don't listen, don't build relationships. That stuff is important. But is it the only thing you do? Should it be the only thing you do? Absolutely not.... right? You should be looking to get into action, but obviously in a s- in a smart way, uh, and you need to ge- take people along for the ride. Again, going back to what I said, the mistake I made was I didn't do that. Right? I didn't walk people through, "Here's what I wanna do, here's how I wanna do it, and give me input." Right? "Let's,

16. 37:23 – 40:13

    What painful experience taught you the most?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal37:23

       let's sit down and talk about it." That stuff is important, even if it makes you go a little bit slower.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings37:29

       What's the most painful experience you've been through that you are really glad that you went through?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal37:37

       The most painful experience I went through, um, related to this or something, something completely different?

    4. HSHarry Stebbings37:45

       It can be anything you want.

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal37:47

       Okay. I used to work with Mark Pincus. Uh, I don't know if you've heard of him.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings37:53

       I've interviewed him.

    7. VSVaibhav Sahgal37:54

       Oh, awesome. Um, I've learned a lot from Mark. Um, he's a, he's a tough cookie to work with. He- when Mark came back to Zynga, uh, the, the second time, I was the general manager of Words With Friends, and we had gone through a really great period and then we were kind of floundering. Uh, and so when he came back, we were kind of, like, you know, not doing so hot. And he comes in and he looks at our roadmap, um, and at that time, we had funded and just launched this feature called Fast Play, and it was a faster version of Words With Friends. It was based on this pretty loose insight that people want w- words with friends, but it was, like, too slow. The people wanted something fast, something shorter. And so we built a board, and it was actually hundreds and hundreds of hours of engineering time. And we had launched this thing, and 5% of DAU used it. That added no value, right? So it was a complete waste. Mark came in and just, I mean, kicked my ass, right, for weeks on end. And for weeks on end, I mostly defended myself, and I'm, I'm trying to just be like, "No, it's actually not such a huge failure. 5% of DAU use it, it'll grow over time, here's why we did it, blah, blah, blah, here's what we learned, here's how we used the tech," et cetera, et cetera. Really, I was just making excuses. You know, Mark was exactly right. And he asked me this one question that, that stuck with me. He's like, "How did you test this idea before you decided to invest hundreds of hours of engineering time on it?" We were like, "We didn't. Uh, we just were convicted in the idea and we spent hundreds, uh, of hours in it, and, and we, we did it." He said, "Did you... Why did you not put up a dialogue in front of users asking them, 'Hey, do you want a faster board, uh, to play on?' Like, is Words With Friends too slow? Yes or no?" It's like, we nev- we never did that. And when I think, when I thought about it, I remember the exact moment, I was like, "That is so obvious. Why did we not do that? That would've been, would've been hours of engineering work. Would have saved us hundreds of hours of engineering time we could have, uh, deployed on, on something else." So that was, that was a very painful but valuable lesson for me.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings40:10

       Tell me, you mentioned kind of the growth and then the floundering.

17. 40:13 – 41:55

    How to maintain moral when your floundering

    1. HSHarry Stebbings40:13

       How do you maintain morale in an organization, in a functional unit, when you're floundering, respectfully, and it's not going well? How do you maintain morale?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal40:24

       Yeah. I think, uh, on Words With Friends, it came back down to culture, and we built a really great culture, and it was a culture where everyone felt ownership of what they were doing, and not in a way that, "Oh, I have equity in the company," in a way that, "We're floundering, and this is my job as much as it is the person sitting next to me or the GM or the VP of product or whatever. It is our job to get us out of this." And I think that is so key, because my morale wasn't down as, as the general manager, right? I was just trying to figure out how do we, how do we find the right idea to get us out of it? So imagine if every single person in your organization is thinking like that instead of like, "Oh, it sucks. Like, we were growing. We're not growing anymore. Like, I wish person X would, like, think of some idea, whatever." Instead, if every single person was thinking, "How do we get out of this? How do I figure out how to get out of this?" Morale isn't even a question, right? So on, on Words With Friends, for, for us, it was about that. It was about building a culture where everyone felt ownership and everyone had a voice and everyone had power to be able to come up with the idea that could, that could take u- take us out of it, and it ex- and that's exactly what happened. Uh, the idea that took us out of the mess was actually from an individual contributor. It was not from me, it was not from pro- product manager. It was from an engineer and

18. 41:55 – 43:45

    How do you validate ideas?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal41:55

       a, and a designer who came up with it in a brainstorm meeting.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings41:58

       Okay, he came up with it in brainstorming meeting. How do you idea validate? We spoke about this before the show.

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal42:04

       Yeah.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings42:04

       What's your idea validation process?

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal42:06

       Yeah. Um, coming back to that Fast Play example that I gave, all we needed to do was put up a fake dialogue that asked users, "Is this something that they want, yes or no?" 98% of users would have told us right then they don't want that, right? They just wanna play the game and, uh, that they already play and, and just keep doing that. We didn't do that. So after that lesson that we learned, we basically built this repertoire of validating ideas. We had ways to validate ideas. You could validate ideas by putting up those dialogues and asking questions. You could validate ideas by sending a push notification and asking a question and ge- getting users to give you input. You could validate an idea by doing user research and talking to real users. Or sometimes, you know what? You can't validate an idea, and sometimes it is about having conviction and vision and you have to do it to find out. Or you can do a, a very slim version of it, an MVP of it, and find out. So, so for me, it was about...... we have 10 different ways of validating ideas. For each idea, we chose one of those 10, and the key was that each of those would be just really fast, simple, easy, and ultimately would save us a lot of engineering time, which is all, what this is about, right? This is about converting engineering time into value for your users and for your company. Um, so yeah, that's how we did it.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings43:38

       So, so that's kind of idea validation pre-product creation there. Do we bother committing resources to it? Post-committing resources

19. 43:45 – 47:00

    How do you structure product reviews?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings43:45

       to it and post product creation or iteration, we have the product reviews. How do you approach product reviews? Who's invited? Who sets the agenda? How do you structure them?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal43:56

       Yeah, I think this is a really important instrument because there are a couple things happening here. One, there's accountability. So we did a bunch of stuff. What happened with the bunches? Uh, what did we learn? Two, it's about sharing learnings, right? And then three, it's about how does this inform what you are doing next? So if you take those three priorities, who needs to be in there? Well, all the leads, uh, absolutely need to be in, in a product review. They all are stakeholders in what we did, what we chose to invest our time in. They should care about what the results were and what we learned. Uh, and if we failed, why did we fail and what did we learn from it? So it's- it's- it's really, like, each and every one of your leads, and I don't mean just your product leads. Your engineering leads need to be there. Your- your design lead needs to be there, your QA lead, your research lead. Every single discipline needs to have a seat at the table because they have shared accountability to the results, and this is an instrument for accountability.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings45:03

       How- how often do you do them? And also... Sorry, very granular. What sort of documentation do you take to enable data capture so the rest of the org can also see it?

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal45:12

       Yeah, um, how often? It really differs from team to team. So when I was at Zynga, we did them weekly because it was just a weekly product cadence. I mean, gaming is, gaming is brutal, right? It is a daily, weekly business. Um, and you- you only have so much of a shelf life. So for- for gaming, that was the right cadence. For Reddit, it's actually more like once a month. You know, it's- it's- it's not like a content treadmill that a lot of games at Zynga were. It's a much more stable platform. Uh, and- and so the cadence doesn't need to be as high. So it- it's really up to you to decide how often should we be talking about learnings? 'Cause you don't wanna end up in a place where it's happening too often and it becomes meaningless. It's like burning out the channel, um, go- going back to how we started the conversation.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings46:06

       Mm-hmm.

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal46:06

       Um, so find the right cadence for you that makes sense for your product. Um, sorry, what was the second question?

    7. HSHarry Stebbings46:13

       No, it was also, like, the documentation.

    8. VSVaibhav Sahgal46:15

       Documentation.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings46:15

       How do you think about ............................ Yeah.

    10. VSVaibhav Sahgal46:17

        At- at Zynga, we had this elaborate, like, we would do slides, and people would spend, like, hours and pull all-nighters doing it. We got rid of all of that, um, at- at Reddit, and it was really very informal. So honestly, just what did we do? What did we learn? What were something surprising? What, uh ... or- or counterintuitive? And what does it- what does it mean? And then we just have a discussion about it. So it's just a one-pager document that just lists this, uh, very, very quick, and it's really more about the discussion. And then hopefully you have these one-pagers going in a repository somewhere that people can, uh, refer to and new employees can look at,

20. 47:00 – 48:04

    How has angel investing changed your mindset?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal47:00

       uh, and wrap up on.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings47:02

       Can I ask a final one? You've been an angel investor now also in some great companies. How has angel investing also impacted your mindset towards growth and company building, given the perspective you gained from seeing other companies through investing?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal47:17

       Yeah, I mean, it sounds pretty obvious, but ultimately talent is everything or almost everything, right? You need to invest in really great talent, and that's what makes stuff happen at the end of the day. So for me, when I- when I do angel investing, I'm not so much interested in what exactly is the product, what exactly is the market. If I really believe in the- in the person and the talent, I know they'll figure it out, and I'm investing more in them and less in the product. And it's the same thing, uh, when it comes to my teams internally. It's investing-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings47:56

       When you made-

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal47:56

       ... in great people.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings47:57

       ... when you made a, when you made a bad angel investment, what has been the reason and what have you learned?

21. 48:04 – 49:20

    Vaibhav's Worst Investment

    1. HSHarry Stebbings48:04

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal48:04

       I invested in a- in a hotel in, uh, in San Francisco (laughs) , which was a horrible investment. I mean, like, I don't know what's happening right now.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings48:13

       Wait, what are you- what are you doing?

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal48:14

       I know, I know.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings48:15

       Why would you invest in that?

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal48:16

       I've ruined all credibility, uh, with you now, Harry. Uh, but yeah, I invested in this hotel, and what's funny about it is, uh, you know, I- again, like, I just threw all of, uh, what I just told you out the window, right? To me, it was just like, "Oh, I've never invested in a hotel before. Sounds kind of sexy to be a part owner in a hotel." A small owner, but still. That's what- that's what got me to do it. But ultimately, if I was going by my rubric of, like, who am I investing in, what's the value of the product, uh, I would not have invested. So- so yeah, that was easily the worst investment I've ever made. (laughs)

    7. HSHarry Stebbings48:55

       Man, you clearly do not pass this with your wife 'cause she would have stopped you.

    8. VSVaibhav Sahgal48:59

       She tried to. She tried to.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings49:02

       Ooh, listen to your wife, baby. That is a- that's a steep learning curve.

    10. VSVaibhav Sahgal49:06

        Yup, yup.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings49:06

        Um, anyway, um, you know, have I told you I'm starting a new hotel?

    12. VSVaibhav Sahgal49:10

        (laughs)

    13. HSHarry Stebbings49:10

        Um, I'm looking for investors. (laughs)

    14. VSVaibhav Sahgal49:13

        Okay. Okay. Sounds- sounds like a great idea.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings49:14

        I'm game. I'm in. I'm in. Um, listen, I wanna move into a quickfire round, so I'm gonna say a short statement, you're gonna give me your immediate

22. 49:20 – 50:50

    What is the future of social media?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings49:20

       thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal49:21

       Yeah, sounds great.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings49:23

       Okay. Future of social, you sit at the front of it. Hit me.

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal49:28

       It's all converging, Harry. It's ... I mean, back in 2008, 2009, right, it was all about friends and the friend graph. And Reddit was alive back then, which is like, it was way ahead of its time because it were about- it was about communities and interests and not about people. And what you're seeing now is the broad social networks are becoming all about communities and all about interests, and they just have different take on it. Like, that's what TikTok is. That's what Instagram is becoming pretty quickly. That's what Reddit obviously is. That's what Discord is. It- it- it's- it's just inevitability. And all the friends stuff is becoming much more private. It's becoming much more in messaging and, you know, Mark Zuckerberg knew this- knew this five years ago, six years ago, whenever, when he wrote that community manifesto. I mean he- he could see this, uh, that broad social network, it's just going to be about interests and it's going to be less about identity more and more. Maybe just some famous people, of course. Um, Twitter is, and Instagram, there it's going to be important. But broadly it's going to be organized by interests, uh, or organized by communities. So Reddit, way ahead of its time in, uh, in that sense, and then messaging just ta- takes a cake on- on friends. Probably already happened.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings50:47

       This is really unfair but (clears throat) it's my show,

23. 50:50 – 52:28

    How could Reddit mess up?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings50:50

       so (laughs) . Uh, Reddit is on this kind of spectacular trajectory. How could it go wrong? What do you guys identify as the pre-mortem for how you could fuck up?

    2. VSVaibhav Sahgal51:01

       I think how we fuck up is by not ... Instead of doubling down where we are strong, we try to cover our weaknesses, or we look at what's happening with other social networks and we try to follow. We have a pretty unique thing going, right? When you think about where Reddit is strong, we are deep, right? You can get content about Stranger Things anywhere. You can get content about it in TikTok, on YouTube, on wherever. But like that great discussion, really thoughtful, deep discussion is only happening on Reddit and nowhere else. So instead, if we chose instead of just going deep on that and doubling down on that, which is our strength, which is depth, we instead try to follow what's happening elsewhere, I think that's how we fuck up. That's just not really good.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:59

       Can you have, can you have depth and breadth?

    4. VSVaibhav Sahgal52:03

       Yes, but depth is our differentiation, right?

    5. HSHarry Stebbings52:09

       Mm-hmm.

    6. VSVaibhav Sahgal52:09

       So you need to have breadth, absolutely, and we do when y- you can talk about the NBA, you can talk about knitting, you can talk about, uh, TV shows, movies, et cetera, right? Anything and everything. But the d- ... And you can do that anywhere, right? But the difference is Reddit is the deepest,

24. 52:28 – 53:40

    What growth tactics have died and which have not changed?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal52:28

       most thoughtful discussion. That's not happening anywhere else.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings52:31

       Tell me, on the growth side, what tactics have not changed over the last five years?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal52:38

       I mean, just- just, you know, serving your customer a great experience, um, just has not changed. And the- the channels, c- channels being really key. Stuff like news onboarding really being super key. I mean, it sounds too obvious for me to even talk about here. Those things have not changed. The mo- the most important things we still do to this day, new user onboarding and our push notifications and emails.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings53:07

       What tactics have totally died a death? What were like five, 10 years ago super central-

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal53:12

       Yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings53:12

       ... now you're like, "Oh, my God"?

    7. VSVaibhav Sahgal53:13

       I- I think a lot of SEO stuff is just dying a- a pretty quick death. Um, and- and I don't mean like, you know, there's- there's good SEO stuff, right? Like structuring your website well, getting great content, gr- telling Google what- where your great content is. We do a lot of that. That's great. But a lot of the, you know, kind of black hat SEO stuff I think at this point is just dead or- or almost dead,

25. 53:40 – 55:12

    What’s biggest mistake founders make when hiring their growth team?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal53:40

       um, but some people still do it. Some companies still do it.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:44

       What is the biggest mistake that founders make when hiring growth teams?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal53:49

       Look, there are lots of smart people out there. Um, there are lots of people who would be great for a job. You need to find people who are right for what you need exactly, right? And what I mean by that is I am probably not a great head of growth for a B2B company. I just never worked in the space. I don't get it. That's not where my expertise is. I wouldn't know what to do with it at all. Um, so you need to find not just smart people but like the- the- the kind of person that you need for this exact job. And it's not just about, um, the industry you're in and the- the c- and the kind of company you're- you're at. It's also about the stage, um, the- the personality of the- of the person, whether you need someone to come in and actually form a strategy and then that's really hard and you're struggling with it, or you just need ... You know what to do, the pieces are there, you just need someone to execute. All sorts of different slices, but like the number one mistake is just not going through that process and just being like, "Oh, this person was the head of growth at X, Y, and Z. Yeah, they will know what to do. Let's just hire them." No, it's very different. Every single situation, every single company is very different. You just have to be deliberate about who's right

26. 55:12 – 58:08

    Which company has the most impresive growth strategy?

    1. VSVaibhav Sahgal55:12

       for this particular job.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings55:14

       Final one, what com- what- what one company growth strategy have you been most impressed by recently, other than Reddit?

    3. VSVaibhav Sahgal55:25

       I mean, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of the bottoms-up SaaS model that has emerged over the past few years, um, and just listening to this story. I just read, um, Andrew Chen's book. Um, shit, I'm blanking on the name. Uh, Cold Start Problem.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings55:43

       The Co- the Co-

    5. VSVaibhav Sahgal55:43

       Cold Start Problem.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings55:43

       The Cold Start?

    7. VSVaibhav Sahgal55:43

       Yeah.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings55:44

       Yeah.

    9. VSVaibhav Sahgal55:44

       And one of my favorite stories was, was about Slack, and, uh, a- and it was, it was just really cool how this product grew and first, like, how they pivoted, right? Like, they were ... and talk about investing in teams, right? That they were, I think, a gaming startup of some sort-

    10. HSHarry Stebbings56:00

        Yeah.

    11. VSVaibhav Sahgal56:01

        ... and then pivoted to this, this B2B software and then took this bottoms-up approach, which I think mostly happened accidentally, but then they really, like, leaned into it, and how that grew the network effects and how ultimately, like, companies took notice and, and p- paid them b- loads of money to ... and now it's everywhere, right? So, I think, I think the bottoms-up SaaS model for me is, is really, really impressive 'cause it's this really cool, um, merge of what happens in social consumer companies and in B2B companies, and I think it's j- just really cool both of those are kinda coming together in this way. So, for, for me, it's probably Slack.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings56:42

        So unfair of me. Final, final one. What was the last first-mile experience you had which really blew your mind?

    13. VSVaibhav Sahgal56:47

        First-mile experience? Like-

    14. HSHarry Stebbings56:50

        Yeah.

    15. VSVaibhav Sahgal56:50

        ... in a, in a product?

    16. HSHarry Stebbings56:50

        Like, just ... yeah, in any product. It can be a physical product-

    17. VSVaibhav Sahgal56:54

        Yeah.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings56:54

        ... could be ... and ... yeah.

    19. VSVaibhav Sahgal56:57

        Uh, this is, this is kind of, uh, too obvious of an answer, but I think TikTok. Um-

    20. HSHarry Stebbings57:03

        Huh.

    21. VSVaibhav Sahgal57:03

        ... they just get it. They just under ... we ... uh, I mean, the tech is just so good, right? And they, and they just understand value connection better than anyone else. The first time I used TikTok, they drop you straight onto a video. No sign-up, nothing. I think it's probably changed now. Just drop you onto a video, that's it, telling you to swipe up, you're swiping up, they're taking note of your signals, probably stealing your data. Um, and then, and then on the fly, personalizing the experience to where five minutes later it's ex- they know me better than I know myself. I mean, just amazing. Um, so I think, I think they've, they've really unlocked value connection in a big way. Uh, so, so for me, it's, it's definitely TikTok.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings57:53

        Vi, I've really enjoyed this one. I love the natural conversations. I love the fly-on-the-wall vibe. I thank you for putting up with my more and more opinionated stances. Um, you've been a star, so thank you so much.

    23. VSVaibhav Sahgal58:05

        Hey, thanks a lot, Harry. Uh, this has been really, really a blast.

Episode duration: 58:08