Here are the 15 new Growth Mentors of September
- 1.We're introducing a batch system for onboarding new growth mentors
- 2.Here are the 25 new Growth Mentors of August
- 3.Here are the 15 new Growth Mentors of September
- 4.Here are the 15 new Growth Mentors of October
- 5.Here are the 8 new Growth Mentors of November
- 6.Here are the 6 new Growth Mentors of December
This marks month #2 of our new batch system for mentor onboarding.
One of the ways we select who we should onboard as a growth mentor each month is by using the data from our help requests.
For example, if a lot of our members are posting help requests for a specific skill set, we’ll prioritize onboarding new mentors that excel at it.
Here’s a screenshot of the latest help requests
Let’s get started!
Here are the 15 x new growth mentors of September 2019!
1. Andrew Capland
Describe yourself
Hey, I’m Andrew – the Director of Marketing at Wistia (former Director of Growth)I work alongside an amazing team of marketers and creatives focused on growing our video marketing product. I’m a growth geek at heart and happiest when I’m analyzing funnel data, running a/b tests, and solving product-led growth challenges to help us (and others) grow.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
A growth mindset is the idea of continuous learning and improvement. Someone with a growth midset is humble and thinks about how much they can learn from a person or new experience vs thinking they already have the knowledge.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Growth Strategy & execution.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
At Wistia we struggled to increase our new user activation rates. One challenge is that many new users simply didn’t have a video ready – so they couldn’t experience any of the product benefits. We created a “loaner” video that our new users could borrow.
After watching the data – we realized that many people were actually watching the video that we allowed them to borrow. So we experimented with different videos and were able to increase activation with that cohort by around 30% by creating a better video!
2. Ben Chiriboga
Describe yourself
I’m a former corporate lawyer turned b2b Growth practitioner and now Head of Growth. Four years ago, I transitioned from the corporate world into Growth using a combination of Growth Tribe T-Shape learning, product management, startup growth experience and consulting work to get me where I’m at today. I’m motivated above all else by growth: personal community and economic.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Drop your assumptions about what is possible – test everything -leverage behavioral science. Small changes can lead to big gains in complex domains.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Strategy based-CRO.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
- Problem: Generate content without a content marketing team for a Legaltech startup.
- Solution: Used survey tools + Avvo legal network to generate personalized “content”.
3. Baris Karaman
Describe yourself
I am a generalist who uses machine learning, data analysis, and programming to solve complex business cases. Also trying to expand the knowledge and practice of data driven/predictive growth. You can find my related articles here.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Focusing on improving the north star metric by problem solving, continuous experimentation and using the right tools.
- problem solving: identifying the problem or the opportunity with business analytics skills and ideation of actions
- continuous experimentation: using a/b or multivariate testing to measure the impact of actions and trying new ideas
- using the right tools: using right approach depending on the business case. The right tool can be a software, or a script or a machine learning or just a simple design.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Machine learning algorithms that helps growth hacking.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
We were struggling with the profitability of a company. We have introduced two machine learning models to improve it.
- LTV model
- Campaign ROI model
LTV model changed the mindset to profitable growth and helped to predict 9 months LTV of customers. All growth hacks and digital actions changed to keep high LTV customers and drove the profitability.
Campaign ROI model helped to predict the RIO of the offers that have been sent to customers. It improved the ROI by 25%. People used the predictions for better targeting and campaign setup.
4. Bosky Mukherjee
Describe yourself
Learning something new, working with people to design and build beautiful and seamless experiences and see the light in the eyes of buyers and the team behind it, coaching my team to be an even better version of myself.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Learning constantly with a child-like curiosity.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Product management, building with empathy, collaboration software, saas.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
Designed and launched an experiment for Free Trial for a 22-year-old legacy software in 15 mins that increases conversion of MQL-SQL by 32% and a customer in B2B in 3 weeks that has historically had a 90-day closing cycle.
5. Christoph Schachner
Describe yourself
I am a data-driven and customer-focused growth marketer eager to help organizations grow. I have been in Growth Marketing for over 6 years now and we offer it as Growth Hacking as a service to our clients.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Being open-minded on which patch to take and how to cope with potential hurdles along this journey.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Growth strategy.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
We once worked with b2c client that was on the verge of leaving us. It was a hearing aid producer. I just started at the agency and got handed over the client. So the pressure was on.
We came up with a campaign to send “fake” hearing aids to potential clients (scraped the information and bought databases) because through our research we found out that the biggest objection for customers was that they could not imagine the feeling (family might see the aid and think they are old).
With this tactic, we got them to their “wow-moment” which resulted in a conversion rate of the follow-up offer of almost 12%.
6. Devon O’Rourke
Describe yourself
B2B and B2C product marketer with experience working alongside marketing, product, design, sales, and engineering teams to bring new features and products to market. My unique background has allowed me to develop differentiated approaches to product development as well as go-to-market solutions that excel in high growth, fast-paced environments.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
It means building frameworks that allow you to scale your business and find product-market fit.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Finding product-market fit and drafting go-to-market plans with positioning and strategy. This process is foundational work that is often ignored in favor of growth hacks.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
While at Etsy, as the product marketer for the Etsy app, I was tasked with app acquisition and retention. I analyzed the customer journey and discovered that the optimal period to prompt a user to download the app was only after the 3rd purchase.
Prompting users to do so prior to their 3rd purchase drastically increased the mobile web bounce rates, decreasing sales/GMS. Only after a user had made 3+ purchases did the app provide an increase in sales/GMS.
With this analysis, I changed out mobile web deep-linking strategy to only target acquisition of 3+ purchasers and optimized the app experience toward this audience (personalization features, marketplaces near you, recommended items for your modules, etc.)
7. Hale Schneider
Describe yourself
My name is Hale and I work as a growth marketer. I am motivated by challenges. As a US citizen who lives in Brazil, I love helping US companies expand into the Brazilian market and Brazilian companies expand into the US market.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
For individuals, the idea that abilities aren’t predetermined and one can learn and evolve. For organizations, the idea that everyone is responsible for a company’s growth, no matter what the role you are in.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
PPC Strategy. It’s the area I’ve focused on the most in my career.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
Used data mining of a SaaS company’s customer info to create a lookalike audience for an ad campaign and then layered a retargeting campaign on top of that to achieve a 50x ROAS on the campaign.
8. Hannah Parvaz
Describe yourself
I love working on performance marketing, brand development, and user engagement inn early-to-mid stage startups. I’ve been working in apps for the last 6 years, with 5 years before that in e-commerce and events. Looking forward to chatting.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Working with a growth mindset means you challenge everything and are always learning with decisions made on data. Experiment fast, learn fast, and progress.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
I would love to teach people about the importance of the growth mindset and iterative experimenting. After focussing on this for years, I have found my greatest successes with small and consistent changes as well as user conversations which has helped build close user relationships.
9. Harri Thomas
Describe yourself
Hi! My name is Harri and I’m a Co-Founder of Respondent. Respondent is a venture-backed two-sided marketplace that connects researchers with research participants. We’re an entirely distributed team, meaning we have employees all over the continental United States.
I moved to the United States from Australia about 6 years ago, and my background is in consumer insights. What I’m really passionate about is informing strategic decision making through research – I really believe that research is the oxygen for intelligent innovation.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
For me possessing a growth mindset means:
- proactively identifying problems
- investigating their cause
- determining multiple possible solutions
- determining metrics by which the solution’s impact can be measured
- then implementing the designed solutions and using the metrics to determine the best outcome.
- Rinse and repeat.
But the crux of a growth mindset lies in being honest with yourself, in determining where the real problems lie. The temptation to fix vanity problems is immense! It requires deep introspection and hardcore focus on objectives and metrics to really understand what is going wrong and why.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
I love market research. Designing research objectives, finding and accessing your target audience, building discussion guides, running interviews, distilling insights. Conducting well thought out research interviews saves early-stage start-ups a HUGE amount of time and heartache.
10. Jordi Capdevila
Describe yourself
I am passionate for B2B marketing and I love creating communities, connecting with fellow marketers and gathering knowledge from insightful conversations.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Try, Analyse, Test, Repeat; Try, Analyse, Test, Repeat; Try, Analyse, Test, Grow.
To me, it is the exercise of finding the market fit upon many tries and tests until you are ready to grow.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Marketing Strategy and Market fit, for being one of the very first steps before being able to be positive on where to scale.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
Getting my Inbound SDR team on a roll and aligned with content with the following: – Lowering time to call from a demo request to less than 5′ thanks to a Zap to trigger Slack messages – Creating a Leaderboard for their demo requests – Having our content team in the same page to nurture the right content based on pages the lead has viewed.
11. Luis Camacho
Describe yourself
I’m currently building the most elite digital marketing agency for SaaS companies alongside the strongest community, SaaS AdLab, for SaaS entrepreneurs just like you. I’ve helped many SaaS companies increase lead and subscription volume, penetrate new markets and become recognized brands within their vertical.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Continuous learning.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Paid digital advertising, it’s my forte.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
Identifying opportunities for free traffic to later leverage that as a resource to create lookalike and similar audiences inside of platforms that allow for stronger audiences = lower CPMs = lower CACs = increased ROAS + lower burn rate.
12. Michael Stancil
Describe yourself
I’m a digital marketer with over 8 years of experience across the entire digital funnel and how that works with other core business functions. I love working with startups to help them grow, no matter the industry, from weddings to pets to shoes, I’ve probably done it.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Understanding what our most achievable goals are, and what it’s going to take to get to them, knowing our outer limits on performance and values.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Marketing strategy from acquisition to retention. That’s my wheelhouse, and I know the in’s and out’s across most industries and tools.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
I was the first hire at a startup (Tailor Brands, an automated logo design tool), and we had a product that wasn’t tiered externally, but when we would look at marketing data and purchasing habits, the user journey was clearly segmenting into three flows based on engagement level.
I created a targeted system called cold/mild/spicy that spoke to each user in the respective bucket.
- Cold had designed a logo but not customized it
- Mild had customized but not made it to checkout
- Spicy made it to checkout but didn’t buy.
Cold wouldn’t get as intense of emails, and the content would be more about who we are vs. why you need a logo, and ads would be more general.
Mild would have more frequent emails, and the remarketing ads would have your actual customized logo design.
Spicy was an email within 10 minutes of your session ending, and we paid a higher bid on remarketing to always appear first.
Conversion rates shot through the roof, and it’s still how Tailor classifies users.
13. Neal O’Grady
Describe yourself
Passionate about learning, experiencing, and growing, and helping others do the same – World traveler and language lover (40+ countries and 6+ languages) – Jack of all trades. Engineer + writer + marketer – Run/ran everything tech/automation related, Google ads, analytics, CRO, emailing, and content marketing.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
A growth mindset is framing every business/product decision with growth in mind. Focusing on the things that matter to move the needle. It’s a holistic mindset across the entire organization. It also means using data to drive decisions. And continuously experimenting with new ideas and sources. And delighting people and building a brand that people trust and love in the long term.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Hard to choose since I’ve done nearly everything growth related. But probably customer acquisition. How to get leads, track them, convert them, and how to do it efficiently using automation tools.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
One of our e-commerce clients was a startup selling technologically advanced, beautiful, but expensive bikes. People simply weren’t purchasing. We made the primary CTA in major cities to be booking a test ride. We then got Taskrabbits to bring a bike to the person to try. Sales started rolling in after people saw and played with the bike and saw that it was high quality.
14. Nurkan Kirkan
Describe yourself
My background will tell an untraditional story about a young guy gaining unique experience and abilities at an early age. Entrepreneurial and results-driven growth guy and critical thinker with superb written communication skills. Motivated by success and challenges.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Growth starts from the ground. the growth, in my opinion, data – analytics and step by step you can build you funnel accordingly.
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
It could be a market-place or e-commerce easily. Based on my background and previous experience.
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
At my current role to solve sign up / registration method and increase/ get YOY 60% more new users.
15. Rob Delijani
Describe yourself
I lead the Growth Strategy team in the European office of BounceX. I’m motivated by learning new skills, testing them out and learning fast if they work or not, refining the process along the way. Professionally I’m excited about new tech and how it can be introduced to make real business change.
In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?
Striving to improve and succeed by working hard, constantly learning and being open to change!
If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?
Striving to improve and succeed by working hard, constantly learning and being open to change!
Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?
A product we launched wasn’t demo-able as the data was all client-specific. So I took a copy of it, anonymized the data and made a version that we could show to prospects for launch. Quick and dirty but it did the trick 🙂
Apply for the October Batch!
October’s batch will be capped at just 15 growth mentors.
What we’re looking for in the next batch:
- Organic social media experts with storytelling skills
- Growth marketers or founders with two-sided marketplace experience
- Copywriters with +5 years of email marketing experience
- Product analytics experts with experience using tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, and Segment
- Wildcards: Applicants that may not fit the above criteria but possess an extraordinary ethos fit
