Here are the 26 Growth Mentors of January 2024

1. Adeagbo Obaloluwa

Describe yourself

Hi, my name is Obaloluwa. I’m a data-driven, growth marketer with over 8 years of experience that has helped a couple of high growth startups in Africa drive double digit growth. I was the head of growth at Risevest where I led growth and helped to double both user acquisition and Asset under management. While at CashEx, I helped the startup to grow user acquisition by 600%+. I’m big on performance marketing, AI, experiments and growth marketing process and frameworks.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Becoming a growth mentor will allow me to share my expertise and experiences, guiding others towards success and personal development while also enhancing my own skills and network.

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

To me, a growth mindset means that anything can be achieved through dedication, hard work, and learning. It’s embracing challenges, mistakes, persevering through setbacks, viewing effort as a path to mastery, and sometimes coming up with weird and stupid ideas. It is thinking out of the box even if there are established frameworks. In fact, I believe with a growth mindset, people and organizations can build their own frameworks and playbooks.

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

I would teach growth frameworks anytime!

This is because frameworks provide a structured approach to solving problems or completing tasks. Frameworks often encapsulate best practices, saving time and resources that might otherwise be spent on trial and error. Learning how to apply a framework in one context often translates to skills that can be applied in other areas. This transferability is valuable in a rapidly changing world where adaptability is key.

Although frameworks provide structure, they also encourage critical thinking and creativity within their boundaries. Understanding the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of a framework fosters deeper learning and innovation.

Using frameworks can improve the quality and consistency of work. They provide guidelines and standards that help maintain a high level of performance.

In essence, teaching about frameworks equips individuals with tools to navigate complex tasks and challenges more effectively, fostering both personal growth and professional excellence.

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

The presenters of the creative team at Risevest had always spent time to rehearse what they want to say for a social media segment titled “finance in 30 seconds”. This rehearsal took hours and reduced productivity.

The ideal solution was to purchase teleprompter. What if we could use a phone teleprompter? I said. It sounded like a crazy idea. Does this exist? How would we see the words. They asked.

In less than 10 minutes, we discovered a free platform that allows you to change the scroll speed and font size. What took hours now take minutes.

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2. Alexis Knygavko

Describe yourself

Startups is where I started my UX journey and where I feel the most alive: it’s innovative, purposeful and thrives on collaboration and learning. This is where you’ll get a great listening ear and an abundance of enthusiasm for what you’re doing.

Nuanced expertise comes with my 5+ years of experience on various size teams in B2B companies, where I lead onboarding and discovery for new features or products, prioritizing activation & engagement as key metrics.

Currently, I lead a team of designers with a global brand and provide UX advisory for an EI startup.

How can I help YOU?

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to feel impactful but helping founders navigate something they rarely have initial funds for: quality UX.

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

Always learning, always evolving – going out into the world with curiosity and embracing mistakes, failures and triggers as lessons to show where I can grow.

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

The key role UX plays in the valuation of your product.

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

When I started investing, instead of listening to people tell me what to buy depending on what was going on in the market, I took a step back and studied what causes the market to go up and down, and how is each asset class and industry impacted by each cycle (there’s 4 by the way).

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3. Alvan Aiau Yong

Describe yourself

I love problems. Every bit of it. I get excited about identifying them, diagnosing them and figuring out how to solve them. Throughout my career at Airbnb, DHL, CWT and now PayCargo I have solved problems related to organisational structure, team leadership, business growth, profitability and product-market fit. I’m looking forward to learning about your challenges.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I am an active angel investor, mentor, and advisor to several startups in various stages and sectors. I am passionate about supporting ambitious founders and businesses build great value, from creating strategic vision and getting stakeholder buy-in, to building execution plans and delivering results. I enjoy sharing my insights and learnings from my previous roles at Airbnb, CWT and DHL, where I scaled the business in Asia Pacific and led key initiatives in product, operations, and sales.

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

Growth mindset is about grit. It’s about never giving up no matter what you’re up against. It’s also about believing that by pushing back against all odds one will ultimately learn and grow.

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

My superpower is to help founders bring their products to their customers. I specialize in helping founders go to market so their creation doesn’t become the best kept secret.

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

When I started at Airbnb, companies did not believe that their employees would use Airbnb for business tris. We created Airbnb for Work, targeted travelers who were frustrated at expensive, tiny and souless hotel rooms, especially when they were on longer trips. We aggregated these business stays and showed companies that they were wrong. We grew Airbnb for Work 3x every year during my time there.

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4. Armic Kasparian

Describe yourself

I’m a venture designer with a deep passion for UX and customer research. I’ve spent the last 15 years assisting businesses in evaluating ideas, experimenting, continuously gathering insights, gaining a competitive edge, and securing funding. At present, I lead my own venture studio and am eager to share my expertise with this vibrant community as a mentor.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I love the variety of problems I get to solve and the energy I receive when talking to start-up / product teams.

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

To me, a growth mindset is seeing every problem or challenge as a learning opportunity. Just as people are drawn to puzzles, I am invigorated by obstacles. They don’t deter me; instead, they fuel my drive to learn and adapt. This mindset not only propels me forward but also enriches my journey with continuous learning and evolution.

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

Understanding customer needs and seeing the why behind the analytics.

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

When a startup approached me for assistance with their pitch deck and website design, I took them on a transformative journey. By guiding them through a thoughtful process and asking the right questions, they were inspired to reevaluate and ultimately refine their business model with me. This strategic pivot redefined their target audience and unlocked an astounding 15x growth in their business.

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5. Azat Eloyan

Describe yourself

Hi, I am Azat, a marketer with over 8 years of experience in growth. I have been working at a CPaaS company for nearly 5 years. I was there from day one of planning our product until now, with the company now generating more than $24 million in annual revenue. During this period, I have learned what needs to be done to foster growth, and importantly, I have learned what can hinder the desired growth.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to become a mentor to hear new stories and to share mine, helping make effective decisions and save precious time and resources.

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

I have the right to fail, and so does everyone else. It’s okay to fail and make mistakes; it’s even okay to make the same mistake twice. However, this is acceptable only if I continue to iterate and understand the mistakes and failures in detail. If I keep doing so, the third attempt will always be successful.

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

Understanding the 80/20 rule in the specific context of a startup’s current state: What are the 20% of tasks that I can perform to drive 80% of the growth? Because the most important thing for growth is to be effective.

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

I created a logic for a personalized experience for CPaaS users within our product. The issue was how to deliver a flawless user experience to our diverse target group. Therefore, the strategy involved displaying the precise piece of information tailored to the user’s location, company size, industry, department, position, and preferred channel of communication.

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6. Charles Bowman

Describe yourself

I’m a generalist growth marketer working across different industries and company stages for the last 10 years. I have a unique mixture of working both in the US and EMEA to bring a more holistic approach to global growth marketing. My passion lies in helping young organizations build their growth functions from the ground up.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

To provide actionable, insightful input to people trying to push the growth industry forward.

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

A growth mindset is a consistent willingness to question what currently is with what could be.

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

How to prove the value of growth marketing to the business. Setting up the right team, metrics, and goals to show the business the impact a team is having.

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

Our sales team was having trouble prioritizing how they worked inbound leads so I built an automated lead scoring process within Hubspot that scored leads based on critical ICP inputs and behavioral components. The result was a much more effective lead qualification and routing mechanism that moved only the highest intent leads to sales. This led to better qualification rates and increased pipeline.

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7. Christian Busch

Describe yourself

Chris is an expert in taking startup ideas from zero to one and in turning around underperforming corporate innovation teams. He has built product portfolios and SaaS platforms generating $750M ARR across disparate industries and technologies including AI/ML in Health Care, NLP, IoT and virtualization at scale.
He invented and built SAP’s Consumer & Life Science and Healthcare IoT, VoC NLP platforms from concept to market launch and the first millions in sales.
The teams he led received multiple industry awards.

Chris mentors CEOs and CTOs at Stanford Graduate Business School, Alchemist Accelerator & invests as an angel with The Band of Angels.

He can help with streamlining your product, market, fundraising, engineering and GTM.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Have been mentoring at stanford gsb and techstars sone 2014.

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

I concur with Richard Feynman: You can learn anything if you try and practice.

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

SAAS Startup.

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

I figured out how to take the existing 5 day prior authorization workflow and turn it into a 1 second query.

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8. Dharmesh Patel

Describe yourself

I am an Insights and Strategy Leader bridging the gaps between insights, strategy formulation, execution and impact assessment in today’s data-driven world. I leverage my commercial, problem-solving and analytical skills to deliver coherent data-driven strategies for unlocking continuous improvement and growth strategies for the business.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

To encourage and help entrepreneurs solve business problems whilst expanding my understanding and knowledge.

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

Athletic rigour for continuous improvement MoM, WoW and on a daily basis.

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

Commercial Analytics

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

When Covid struck, overnight Deliveroo lost a significant percentage of its restaurant partners and their order volume declined massively. I led a data science team that formulated and executed a menu and opening hours optimisation strategy for partners that recovered 90% of sales with 30% operations, resulting in a positive recover with an improved profitability.

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9. Egor Donde

Describe yourself

I’m a Product Marketer at heart who’s crafting revenue through product features, retention, and user loyalty for gaming and heavy-tech startups. With 12 years of experience as CMO and Marketing Product owner, two $10M+ startup exits, four successful ICOs, and my own playbook for orchestrating product launches (for web2 and web3 startups).

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

In my own experience, I felt an insane impact from Growth Mentors. And now I want to both share my knowledge and get access to the incredible community of professionals. Also, I realized that there are not so many experts in the gaming industry, that I’m experienced in.

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

It’s a constant focus on three things: (a) the feedback loop from your customers, (b) the core/essence of your product, and (c) growing & leading exceptional talents who know things better than you.

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

Product-market-fit, Retention and Customer loyalty.

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

For a niche cybersecurity startup entering the B2B market with zero customer development and genuinely still B2C products, I created a full GTM strategy, shortlisted the potential business niches, and built a sales department. Which combined led to $3M+ yearly revenue and $10M+ exit in 7 months.

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10. Florian Frese

Describe yourself

My passion is to build highly scalable b2b marketing machines for high-growth companies. For the past I’ve been exactly doing that, first my own startup now leading 20 b2b marketers as the head of marketing at one of Germanys fastest growing SaaS/marketplace startups. I learned a lot through mentors, advisors and investor groups and I am extremely looking forward to meeting smart and ambitious people through GrowthMentor.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I love b2b marketing, learned so much during the last 5 years of growing from 0 to 8-digits ARR especially through private networks/coaching that I want to give back, coach others but also learn from other at the same time.

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

Define a clear goal, form hypotheses based on data and assumptions, build a MVP, get it out there, analyze results and repeat. The faster you execute this process the better – this works across all maturity stages and companies. Move fast, set high goals and optimize on the go.

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

B2B marketing

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

Let’s not focus too much on tactics here – there is no magical pill that you can take. It’s all about execution, doing the small things right every single day to get to that hyper-growth stage. To grow in competitive environments requires out of the box thinking across different channels but also in terms of leadership. What I am extremely proud of is the positive, high-output team culture we have created to support our growth. How? Through playing games together in our video calls! Thats how we recreated that office atmosphere while working in a team split across the entire world.

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11. Gianluca Stamerra

Describe yourself

With over 15 years of Marketing experience, I am a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of business. In fact, on one side I’ve been accelerating the internationalization of companies like GoDaddy and United Internet across Italy, Spain, France, Mexico, Colombia. While on the other side, in 2014, I co-founded and managed a Healthtech startup in Spain for a couple of years where I develop and strengthened my entrepreneurial skills while enjoyed a deep passion for the problem I wanted to solve. I believe that my experience in working in complex organizations, combined with my entrepreneurial mindset, can be a game changer for early stage startups.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Because I believe I have, and we all have the power, the tools, the right and the duty to build a better future within our circle of influence.

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

Embrace and live the attitude of growing through testing and learning in a proactive, disciplined and scientific way, but without reinventing the wheel. Fail fast and learn faster.

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

Internationalization and growth. Over the last 10 years I have opened new markets for technology brands in Europe and Latin America, balancing the need for short-term revenue growth with brand building and long-term sustainable growth.

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

I recently helped a doctor set up his own private medical practice with almost no investment. While her colleagues had proposed that she rent a clinic, ask for permits, renovate it, furnish it, buy an ultrasound machine (€30K), buy a shock wave machine (€25K), etc. First we validated the market demand with SEM campaigns (160 € / month) to understand if it made sense to invest, then we rented a studio by the hour for one afternoon a week and without term length in a clinic that already had permits. We rented a used ultrasound and shock wave machine from a phytotherapist and a doctor who were not using them for only €200 and €150/month for six months (we left them in the clinic on the days we were not using them) . We ran SEM, Paid Social and even Referral acquisition campaigns on patients seen in another clinic to whom we left business cards. Cannot say the ARR yet, but the average ticket is €300 (returning at least 2 times a year) with a CAC of €70. Therefore we expect an LTV/CAC of at least 8.

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12. Hugo H. Macedo

Describe yourself

Marketing and Strategy expert with over 25 years of experience (hopefully some wisdom) across multiple sectors, industries and business models. Product marketing strategy is my core passion, but I’m “fluent” across the entire go-to marketing stack. I know very well the $0-100M growth journey (and pains) from a business and organization POV.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

To help others grow and grow myself along the way.

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

Always be learning; the more you know, the better questions you’ll make, the more curious you’ll be, and the more you’ll want to learn.

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

Positioning. Because it has a multiplying effect on everything else you do downstream. I also love it as it involves system thinking, and the ability to understand multiple playing fields: market, product, and organization.

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

For years, a product struggled to verbalize two distinct positionings for two different use cases. I translated that by focusing on two very distinct outcomes – “More Revenue” or “Less Costs”. For messaging could be explored with even more options to convey the different mindsets: More trill/Less stress. More pleasure/Less Pain.

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13. Ilia Markov

Describe yourself

My name is Ilia and I have been helping B2B SaaS companies grow and market their products for over a decade now.

I have deep experience in content marketing and SEO, but I have touched on all aspects of SaaS marketing including building and executing holistic marketing strategies, figuring out GTM, and building and leading marketing teams.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Help the next generation of startups; expand my experience with different niches/projects; learn form other mentors in the community.

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

A growth mindset means you always come prepared – you have an opinion or a proposed decision that’s backed by facts and data.

Yet, you are ready – happy even – to change your mind when better facts and data emerge.

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

Go-to-market strategy – because it’s one of the most important, yet most challenging activities for founders (especially those who don’t have a business background).

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

In my first experience managing a content program I came in, built processes and hired a team of freelancers which allowed the company to scale its content production process.

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14. Ines Hubmann

Describe yourself

Hi, I am Ines, founder of Profect Marketing. I help startups, corporates and SME’s drive their marketing strategies, leading to long term growth. The past 10+ years, I have worked in fast-scaling startups and worked with bigger brands on the agency-side. With a big passion for all things creative, I love to advise on brand positioning and content strategy. Due to my experience building large teams from scratch, I am also excited to share my knowledge in building high-performing teams.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Share my knowledge of 10+ years working client side and in startups with business owners on growing their businesses.

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

A growth mindset means to keep on challenging your own knowledge. This works best, when you step out of your comfort zone and take risks in order to learn how to tackle new challenges to achieve personal and professional growth. Adaptability, perceverence, mental resilience, consistency and ambition all fuel a growth mindset.

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

Finding your why and refining your message. Most early-stage founders struggle with refinement of who they are and their ongoing company’s vision and mission. The brand foundations are the roots to a company ‘s growth. Sometimes little tweaks can make a huge difference to resonate with target audiences better.

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

I developed a content strategy for an edtech unicorn, that was implemented in 6 markets. Due to high publishing goals, the blog’s organic traffic tripled MoM for the DACH market and doubled MoM for the other markets.

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15. Kirill Zima

Describe yourself

I’m a UX designer and consultant. In the past 15 years, I helped a handful of e-commerce and SaaS businesses build UX that customers love. I ran 500 A/B tests and spoke with 200 users to learn what matters the most. If you’re looking for someone to help you fix and level up the UX of your product, let’s have a chat.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to help startups build better products, get more happy customers, and increase revenue by fixing and improving UX.

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

A growth mindset means taking steps to learn, build, iterate, and experiment to get to the better version of the product. Fail fast and often, challenge the status quo, don’t give up, and trust the process.

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

Ethical user experience (UX) for acquisition, onboarding, activation, retention, and beyond.

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

We were building a hotel management system, and needed to create an onboarding process for the new users. We had an onboarding video and a step-by-step product tour, but our activation and retention rates were low.

I conducted user interviews and studied the best onboarding practices. I learned that users would skip onboarding as they wanted to try the product ASAP and had questions and issues later.

Instead of displaying all messages at once, I created a contextual system, that would display onboarding messages based on the activity (or inactivity) of the user.

This way I managed to educate people based on actions they took and highlight functionality to help them make the best use of the system — gradually, not all in one go.

After we implemented only half of the messages we planned, we saw a 120% increase in weekly active users.

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16. Marcus Standish

Describe yourself

I’m passionate about startups and tech, working most recently as head of business development for Permutive (Series C $120M raised), an adtech platfrom in the digital advertising space, managing the team responsible for top-of-funnel sales funnel.

I have experience managing and mentoring and am part way through a level 5 ILM coaching and mentoring qualification.

I love making new connections and leveraging my network to support those around me.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to share my expertise and help others with their top of funnel sales motion within the B2B space. I want to grow my network, and maintain my knowledge in the space.

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

Continual striving to improve, confidence in ability to learn and adapt to new challenges, self-knowledge when it comes to strength and weaknesses and acting accordingly.

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

B2B pipeline generation and sales growth.

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

At Permutive, the DMEXCO trade show in Cologne was pivotal for customer acquisition, historically contributing over 80% of new business from events. Given ambitious yearly goals, the success of DMEXCO was crucial.

Leading the prospect and outreach engagement team, I orchestrated a 2-month campaign involving the marketing, sales, and business development teams in Europe. A re-engagement strategy targeted previous prospects, fostering accountability through weekly check-ins and incentivising meeting bookings with prizes.

Establishing stringent metrics, we exceeded expectations, securing 50+ meetings before the event, a 100% yoy increase. This generated $1.5m in revenue within 6 months, with additional potential opportunities awaiting closure.

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17. Marianna Tzaerli

Describe yourself

I am a dedicated PR & Communications professional currently specializing in the healthcare sector. Growing up in a diverse cultural environment, I excel in collaborating within international teams and engaging with people from various backgrounds. My studies, professional journey, and passion for travel have led me to numerous countries, enriching my communication skills and ability to adapt across cultures.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I truly believe knowledge is meant to be and should be shared with others.

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

A growth mindset consists of different elements, but for me, the most important is the ability to step out of your comfort zone, using your intuition as your North Star!

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

Optimizing your communications strategy.

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

I managed to create and nurture relationships with a select few key journalists, which ultimately resulted in them contacting me first for a quote on specific industry topics. Journalists are a tough group to reach, so I was very proud of that!

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18. Mark Velthuis

Describe yourself

Hi, my name is Mark and I have been living and working in Asia-Pacific for the last 20 years (Hong Kong, Shanghai and now Singapore).

The core of my experience is around Go To Market leadership and strategy in B2B SaaS or blue chip tech companies. I’ve ventured through diverse industries, crafting bespoke solutions for IT, Product, Data, Finance, and Legal executives alike.

At the heart of my journey is a pursuit for excellence in scaling revenue, expanding business operations, opening new markets, targeting new logo’s and building high-performance teams.

I am passionate about motivating and guiding a team of skilled individuals through change. At the core of what I do are my 5Hs: Humble, Hungry, Happy, Honest and Healthy. Aligning these values with strategic initiatives aimed at top-line growth and improving retention, gives the team a shared sense of purpose and direction.

I am happy to support you in your growth journey!

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

After over 2 decades of GTM leadership roles in APJ, I am keen to share my learnings so others can benefit from my experience.

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

From my perspective, a growth mindset extends beyond the realm of the SaaS industry. I believe it embodies a mindset and approach that continually strives for progress and enhancement in various aspects of life. Whether it’s in family relationships, interactions with customers, personal development, or contributing to the better world, a growth mindset entails maintaining a “beginner’s mind,” dedicating oneself to continuous improvement, and demonstrating grit.

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

I would focus on helping B2B SaaS companies scale and grow their business in Asia Pacific and Japan with a GTM strategy that blends: PLG with SLG, Direct with Indirect routes to market, and Land with Expand sales motions.

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

Simplifying complexity is my strength. Whenever I have taken on a new role, my first objective is to get the GTM team aligned on KPIs (too often this is not the case). In my experience the focus has always been around combining values (and desired behaviour) with 1 or 2 numeric KPIs. This not only gives focus and clarity, but it also helps illustrate how individual contributions can have a meaningful impact.

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19. Marlon Rodrigues

Describe yourself

Mathematician turned marketer who finds clarity by ordering the chaos . Serial first marketer at various startups, serial founder. Occasional angel investor.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I noticed in my career that good ideas require smart business design to succeed.

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

Growth mindset means having the audacity to pick goals outside of our current capabilities and having the humility to develop the skills required to get there.

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

Meditation and mindfulness. After 15 years of exploring my mind through therapy and meditation, it is clear to me that we are usually in the way of our own success.

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

I was helping a medical billing company grow its market share when I realized that we had to win the new doctors because experienced doctors rarely switched providers. So I figured out where all the resident doctors would graduate from in the coming year by speciality and university location so we could precisely target the new generation and keep score about where we had shown success. All of it from public data that needed to be stitched together and narrated to make sense. It was breathtaking!

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20. Nathalie Couët

Describe yourself

Born and raised in the United States, to Canadian and French parents, I have lived and worked in the US, the UK, and now Canada. Graduating with a degree in bioanthropology and archaeogenetics, I have an appreciation of science that translates into a logical approach to my work and a deep love of the outdoors in my personal life. My marketing career has spanned print media, Saas, tech, and finance.

My projects now include seed-round to series-B phase businesses, primarily in the technology and Saas space. I have a particular penchant for working with impact startups, advising them on brand positioning, go-to-market strategy development and implementation, and team structuring. In addition, I also collaborate with more established businesses, advising them on new product deployment strategies, digital transformation, and martech stack implementation (everything from the technical RFP/budgeting process to team mobilization and training).

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

The only thing I love more than what I do (go-to-market & general growth strategy development) is teaching and coaching other people about how to do it.

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

A growth mindset is the ability to see what most would consider obstacles as opportunities instead. To never me married to a single course of action, but to adapt, improve, and learn with every step.

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

Go-to-market strategy development.

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

During a previous engagement, the marketing team was decidedly “green” when it came to digital marketing. We were dependent on external agencies for everything (website development, ad strategy and placement), SEO wasn’t even understood, content was minimal, and ad campaigns were occasional and their expenses were through the roof.

I brought in an in-house technical SEO specialist, increased evergreen content output, coached team members to help them ramp-up their digital skillset and data-centric mindset, reduced paid ad spend, and increased inbound lead generation 1,500% over 2 years, all with the same overall budget.

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21. Nessan Harpur

Describe yourself

I designed the face and emotions of a robot that made it to the front page of Time Magazine in 2019. My journey from engineer to sales person means that I’ve learned everything from first principles and have a deep understanding of the human and the process side of sales. I’ve also completed nearly 2 years of Sandler sales training and completed the Entrepreneur First program in London.

Sales should be a fun experience working with people from all kinds of backgrounds on problem-solving, socialising and a little bit of people manoeuvring.

Starting off in a boiler room, I was doing one-call closes for $2 in commission per close 🙁

Moving along the way to the board room, I was doing 2-3 year complex sales processes for six figures to the fortune100. It’s been a wild ride 🙂

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I love coaching, teaching and selling. I’ve worked with 20-30 entrepreneurs and gotten great feedback – would like to standardise through a platform.

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

Waking up everyday and asking yourself ‘how am I generating revenue today’

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

Sales. From getting into the initial prospecting to mastering the behavioural games played by top level decision makers.

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

Sales people always want things to be easier and look for shortcuts. We worked with a partner for years and to great frustration, we could never figure out ‘why aren’t we getting more leads!’. Each call was like talking to an automaton who was mindlessly checking boxes – a demoralising experience.

I got to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to learn each and every box they were ticking. It was going to be an incredibly boring process which could lead to nothing.

I spent a ton of time talking to their reps, asked the same questions over 50 times and compiled a ton of data. I then made a new pitch based on what they wanted to hear and started delivering that.

The results were phenomenal. By just telling the partner exactly how we ticked the boxes, we saw leads go up by ~300%. The calls were still monotonous and boring, but it lined our pockets pretty nicely 🙂

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22. Olha Yohansen-Veselova

Describe yourself

I am fascinated by how things work, why people do what they do and I ask a lot of questions. This curiosity got me to work on some cool products, happy to share what worked there. And I am very excited to hear and learn more from this awesome community.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I’d like to give back to the community and connect with like-minded growth people.

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

Asking a lot of questions and figuring out what is it that make people choose this over that and then implementing a bunch of solutions in very small steps and learning along the way.

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

The most fun one to me at the moment is acquisition+activation part of the product, I’d love to help you with your user onboarding, do a funnel tear-down etc.

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

Once I asked a lot of questions, challenged all the ‘it has never worked for us before’ and ‘we don’t know how to do it’ and we got a new acquisition channel that’s doubled the ROAS.

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23. Pierre-Jean Hillion

Describe yourself

Hi! My name is Pierre-Jean.
I have been working in the tech & startup ecosystem for +6 years, and I’m currently a Growth Manager at BlaBlaCar, the world-leading carpooling platform.

I also spend a lot of my time writing about growth topics on Linkedin and through my newsletter.

I’m passionate about Growth topics for product-oriented companies (Mobiles apps, Product-led SaaS).
I can help on :

• Building growth and go-to-market strategies
• Defining experiment processes to find marketing & product wins
• Building a scorecard and process to hire growth profiles

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I love sharing my knowledge with other people and helping them grow.

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

Someone who’s always eager to learn, accept the challenges, celebrate wins but also failures, and refuse the status quo.

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

Building a Go-To-Market/Growth strategy

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

To redirect users from BlaBlaCar (long-distance carpooling app) to BlaBlaCar Daily (commuting carpooling app), I’ve created a simple redirection strategy targeting users publishing short-distance trips on our main app. We built a fullscreen in the publication flow + an automated sequence of emails/push notifications/inbox messages promoting BlaBlaCar Daily to those users.

It resulted in a 3.5x increase in users publishing short-distance trips signing-up to BlaBlaCar Daily.

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24. Rishabh Gupta

Describe yourself

Hey, I’m Rishabh – Product Lead at Alerzo. I work alongside an amazing team of engineers and designers focused on growing our b2b marketplace product. I’m a generalist at heart and happiest when I’m solving product-led growth challenges to help us (and others) grow.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

To nurture bright talent with the best of product and growth mindset to maximize the impact on people’s lives.

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?

Customer empathy in product management to solve the right problems

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

Problem – enable organic traffic by generating SEO friendly content with limited resources for a B2C eCom startup serving thousands of SKUs.
Solution – automate the content strategy based on specific category and use relevant keywords from associated attributes to generate high quality organic traffic.

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25. Ryan Carruthers

Describe yourself

I’m a SaaS growth marketer with a focus on content marketing. In the past, I’ve taken content marketing strategies from 0-1 and scaled them. These days, what keeps me engaged is pushing the envelope to do content marketing that grows brands, not just keywords on page 1. I’ve also built websites, run ads, and written tons of copy. I’m excited to talk shop with other growing marketers, providing what clarity I can based on my experiences.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

To connect with other professionals who are driven to consistently broaden their horizons an never stop learning.

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

Setting a pace that’s slightly uncomfortable for you but will get you in a space where you’re primed to learn.

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

Content marketing strategies and tactics.

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

I entered a startup that had validated organic as a channel for growth but hadn’t scaled it. After looking at the data, I learned that by refreshing content and doubling down on topics that have historically converted, we could drive out-sized results. We executed that fairly simple idea, and it 5x’ed traffic within several months and generated so many more leads that our sales team onboarded more AEs.

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26. Samar Kohl-Habibi

Describe yourself

My career in research is driven by an intrinsic fascination with humans. I’m most known for transforming emotional and psychological insights into digestible findings, and strategic recommendations and impacting the way teams set and deliver their KPIs with customers in mind. As a mentor, I help people break down hypotheses and biases from data, empathize with the customer, and support them in articulating the right research questions from company goals. One of my favorite mottos – Research is only as good as the questions you dare to ask.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Being a consultant means that sometimes I get caught up in my own bubble and I don’t have as many opportunities (vs full-time employment) to give back or learn from supporting others.

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

A growth mindset is an upward spiral of growth through embraced challenges, openness, and curiosity alongside a good dose of humility and eagerness to learn from perceived failures.

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

Balancing a strategic mindset with empathy skills and leveling up extracting human insights into core growth areas for the business.

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

The brand was declining in sales and the client wanted to know why. I recommended we shift the focus to a small segment of new buyers to category instead. This resulted in a new target, focused product innovation, and an uptick in sales as we redefined what the brand stood for in that category.

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Interested in becoming a growth mentor?

What we’re looking for:

• Growth marketers, product managers, and designers, with extraordinary track records of success
• Inspirational founders that have “been there and done that.”
• Friendly people that take joy in helping other people.
• At least 5 years of demonstrable experience working in growth.
• GrowthMentor is a #givefirst platform. You should be cool with mentoring for free until you have three reviews.