An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth)

Early days, it's very important to just go back to the basics. You know, build the skeleton before you put on the makeup. So the first question I would ask is, do you have a website? Is it fast? Do the search engine know that it exists? Okay, great. The next step would be, can people find it? If they can't find it, you need to write content to make sure that people find it. The ne- Only after all of those questions are answered should you then consider, do I have money? Can I put it behind some paid ads to make sure people come to my website? You know, you can't run a successful paid ads program if you have a website that's loading in four-plus seconds. So really going back to the basics and starting from a good experience at the core, and then expanding step-by-step from there. (instrumental music)

Welcome to Lenny's Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today my guest is Meltem Kuran Berkowicz. Meltem is head of growth at Deel, which is arguably the fastest growing SaaS business of all time, possibly even faster than Ramp, which we delved into in a previous episode. They went from $0 in revenue to a mind-boggling $300 million in revenue in three years, while also staying EBITDA positive. Meltem has led their growth team from the early days, and today leads all their growth efforts, including paid ads, product marketing, content, community, brand, and more. Before joining Deel, she was leading marketing efforts at Branch Accounting. In our conversation, Meltem shares how Deel kickstarted growth through low-cost growth channels, like tapping into communities like Reddit, and also content and SEO. She also talks about how she evolved her thinking on growth investments as the company grew. She shares a bunch of tactical advice for how to do SEO well, how to do paid ads well, and how to structure your early growth team and prioritize your early investments. She also shares her experience building a culture of speed and optimism, and so much more. Enjoy this episode with Meltem Kuran Berkowicz after a short word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard that's designed specifically for teams like yours. The best way to see what Miro's all about and how it can help your team collaborate better is not to listen to me talk about it, but to go check it out for yourself. Go to miro.com/lenny. With the help of the Miro team, I created a super cool Miro board with two of my own favorite templates, my one-pager template and my managing up template, that you can plug in play and start using immediately with your team. I've also embedded a handful of my favorite templates that other people have published in the Miroverse. When you get to the board, you can also leave suggestions for the podcast, answer a question that I have for you, and generally just play around to get a sense of how it all works. Miro is a killer tool for brainstorming with your team, laying out your strategy, sharing user research findings, capturing ideas, giving feedback on wireframes, and generally just collaborating with your colleagues. I actually used Miro to collaborate with the Miro team on creating my own board, and it was super fun and super easy. Go check it out at miro.com/lenny. That's m-i-r-o dot com slash Lenny. Today's episode is brought to you by LMNT. I just recently discovered this stuff actually from another podcast, and it is such sweet, salty goodness. LMNT is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with a science-backed electrolyte ratio. And unlike most electrolyte drinks, there's no sugar, coloring, artificial ingredients, gluten, or any other BS. Getting enough electrolytes helps prevent and eliminate headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, sleeplessness, and other common symptoms of electrolyte deficiency. LMNT is the exclusive hydration partner to Team USA Weightlifting and many other Olympic athletes. Also, dozens of NBA and NFL teams and players rely on LMNT to stay hydrated, along with Navy SEAL teams, FBI sniper teams, and the Marines. You can try LMNT totally risk-free. If you don't like it, you can share it with a salty friend, and they'll give you your money back, no questions asked. To give it a shot, go to drinklmnt.com/lenny and you'll get a free sample pack with any purchase, which includes one packet of every flavor. My favorite is watermelon salt. You won't find this offer publicly available, so you have to head to drinklmnt.com/lenny to take advantage of this offer. Stay salty. Meltem, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.