Here are the 6 new Growth Mentors of December

1. Brian Rhea

Describe yourself

I help early-stage technical founders get out of their code bubble and talk to customers. Nothing is more motivating than traction, and nothing leads to traction like building the right thing, right now. My background is in front-end development, but over the years, my design background and business acumen have allowed me to move into product design & strategy roles.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

To reach new milestones, you’ve got to do new things and acquire new skills. Which you can do. You’ve done it before.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Product strategy. Building the wrong features for short-term growth leads to technical debt and long-term burnout or failure.

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

Structured search in an omnibox field.

Learn more here: https://medium.com/@brhea/structured-search-in-an-omnibox-5a4c4958ff32

View Growthmentor Profile

2. Eyal Toledano

Describe yourself

Full-stack growth marketing executive focused on SaaS and DTC. I detect patterns.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Growth is not magic – there are fundamentals at work that influence the way demand is generated and lost, and the question often should be “how should can my product drive demand” rather than “how can I drive demand for my product?” A growth mindset is one which reverse engineers victory conditions, critically defines the success factors that contribute to that victory, being clear on how those factors evolve over time, and how the product positions itself to facilitate those improvements. Growth is a company-wide discipline – not a function.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Achieving escape velocity via product-market fit.

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

Redesigned ManyChat’s early business model and customer success enabling it to achieve escape velocity.

View Growthmentor Profile

3. Jason Amunwa

Describe yourself

Hi, I’m Jason! At heart, I’m a curious problem-solver. I get a deep sense of fulfillment out of finding ways around the myriad obstacles that present themselves when you’re bringing a great idea to life. Work-wise, I’m an experienced product leader, having worked with world-class design and engineering teams to build, launch and scale 10 SaaS products, resulting in 3 acquisitions. Product marketing, analytics, UX, and strategy are my jam!

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

It’s the constant wondering of how to do better today than we did yesterday – and the curiosity to find answers, whether big or small, wherever they lie. The joy of a growth mindset doesn’t come from the results alone, but in creation and betterment of the process.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

User interviews, because in my experience, just one snippet from a customer’s response to a single well-crafted question can trigger a paradigm shift in a startup team’s understanding of their product, the problem it solves, and the market need. Just one!

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

Haptic feedback wearables for monitoring analytics data. Instantly feel the dips and spikes in your business’ key metrics, instead of getting a boring, meaningless graph in a daily or weekly email report.

View Growthmentor Profile

4. Michael Taylor

Describe yourself

I’m a data-driven, technical marketer with $50m+ spent and 10 years experience across all major growth channels. I co-founded Ladder.io and grew the team to 50 growth marketers in the US and EU.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset is about taking full responsibility for making a company grow, regardless of external conditions, internal politics, and resource limitations.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Data science applied to growth marketing.

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

I had the bright idea of using lookalike audiences to find and exclude people we *didn’t* want to target. I uploaded a list of ‘bad’ leads and then excluded that lookalike from our prospecting campaigns. It removed about 40% of our audience size and improved lead quality by 23%!

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5. Paul Kovalski

Describe yourself

I’m a data-driven marketer with over 5 years of experience working in the exciting world of tech startups. I currently lead paid acquisition at Rally, a Fin-tech app based on Soho. My passions outside of work include meditation, getting outside, and thinking about being a more compassionate human 🙂

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A mindset of rapid experimentation coupled with proven frameworks. I think you should always have the majority of your budget going to things you know will work while consistently testing and rotating in new tactics.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Customer Acquisition.

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

I’ve spent my career acquiring customers across multiple industries using every channel under the sun. I had a pretty big mindset shift this year while taking the Reforge Growth Series that was created by Brian Balfour. What I learned is that retention is what scales businesses and that your actions need to map to the type of customer you want to acquire. I used this framework to start building more long form content and explainer videos for our platform, understanding that it wouldn’t result in ‘cheap’ customer acquisition but that it would help to inform more folks about what we do.

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6. Ross Simmonds

Describe yourself

Curious by nature and fuelled by coffee — I’m an entrepreneur with a passion for tech, media, content & all things 90s. I’m the founder of Foundation; a content marketing agency for B2B brands that works with startups & fortune 500 companies. I’ve helped organizations big and small generate millions of visitors and millions in revenue through content & digital marketing.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset is having a perspective that embraces experimentation and constant evolution.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Content marketing.

Describe an out of the box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself?

Most marketers think marketing on Reddit is impossible to crack. I didn’t buy it… So I embraced the concept of experimentation and was able to uncover a system that consistently unlocks the opportunity to thrive on Reddit. I’ve seen clients content as well as my own on the front page of Reddit multiple times as a result.

View Growthmentor Profile

Apply for the January Batch!

Due to the insane amount of applications we’re receiving, we’re making a slight pivot to an invite-only model.

You can still request an invite by submitting the form here.

We’ll try to reply to everyone regardless, but massive apologies if we take a bit to get back to you.

What we’re looking for in the next batch:

• Performance marketers with experience scaling 6-7 figure ad spends (monthly).
• Product managers with experience managing multi-disciplinary teams
• Wildcards: Applicants that may not fit the above criteria but possess an extraordinary ethos fit that “get it.”