Here are the 11 Growth Mentors of November 2022

1. Anand Arivukkarasu

Describe yourself

I am VP Product at Refersion, a fast-growing eCommerce martech startup on affiliate marketing, and before I helped build Grin, valued at a billion dollars today, a creator economy startup as head of product. I formerly led Product Growth at Facebook, where I focused on Messenger to get to 1 billion users and then on Instagram. I am currently an active investor, a mentor at accelerators, sit on the advisory board for startups, and has coached over 100+ PMs. Before working at Facebook, I was also a product leader at two startups that had successful exits.

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

To help the startup community using Growth PRoduct management and all the principles I used while working in startups and at Facebook.

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

failure is a way to learn and continuously experiment and grow, don’t stop.

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

Product Growth Management – Not many people can talk about this in-depth, there is product-led growth which has taken a small part. of Product Growth management and built on that. Having worked nearly 4 years in Facebook as a Product Growth leader, I can bring those principles to help startups grow without investing a lot of money in sales and marketing.

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

When I was growing Facebook’s Messenger product for businesses, we built a lot of features in the Messenger system to bring businesses to adopt the feature including chatbots but we dint have success, I applied Product Growth principles to build a Messenger Live chat plugin that can be installed in all WordPress sites, this instantly brought millions of businesses to use Messenger. That is the realization of take your product to where the businesses are already there instead of spending millions of dollar to bring them to your site.

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2. Dasha Petrova

Describe yourself

I’m a growth product lead who spent a few years at edtech and then fell into the rabbit hole with Web3. Now I’m using my experience in marketing and education to build communities and community-led growth. I’m in love with startups, biohacking, and a nomad lifestyle.

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

I’ve been mentoring for three years because I love helping people and using mentors’ help to grow myself.

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

Aiming for numbers to grow. Matching goals with metrics and constantly testing ways to influence your metrics. Failing fast.

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

Launching a community – because right now I’m the most passionate about it myself.

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

In 2020 I led a vertical of educational products at an ed-tech company. We needed to meet some aggressive revenue goals. I’ve launched products on complicated topics like Data Science in Medicine and the Internet of Things, even though teammates were skeptical about it and it was hard to produce the content. They helped us reach 400% growth YoY in that quarter.

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3. David Neuhaus

Describe yourself

Hi, I am David Co-Founder & CEO of SocialHub. In the last years I grew my company (B2B SaaS) to 70 people working across 20 countries. I love the journey of entrepreneurship and received so much help from my mentors in the early days. Now I want to start giving back.

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

I really want to help founders build and grow their own businesses.

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

I really believe that life is about strengthening our abilities. In business there is always the next challenge, the next obstacle to overcome. Either its in hiring the right people, building a sales team, growing revenue, scaling, … The solution always starts with ourself. We are probably the reason and the solution to this. Changing perspective, learning new skills and doing the things that are not easy but necessary will help us get to the next level. Growth mindset for me means always looking for the solution not the problem. Let’s enjoy the journey :-).

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

Building & growing a software business.

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

Clarity & Focus. In moments when we have 1000 choices and multiple things that need our attention – understanding the real problem (the biggest obstacle to overcome to grow and move your business forward) comes pretty easy to me. I come up with solutions and co-create a plan with you . Give it a try.

Topics I like:

• Finding product market fit
• Understanding your growth engine
• Hiring the right people (that you are probably missing)
• Setting inspiring goals (BHAG) & hitting them with frameworks like OKRs
• Building a distributed company

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4. Eddie Bearnot

Describe yourself

I have raised $10M+ in venture capital to build a nutrition-focused CPG company in South Asia, where I am currently the CEO. We now produce and distribute ~500 MT of fortified snacks through 100K retail outlets, and employ 200+ people.

I love working with founders and teams because leveraging my skills & experience to help others is incredibly rewarding, and because I find the work to be energizing.

I have helped dozens of clients, friends, colleagues and former employees raise millions in venture capital for their businesses, and manage the complex challenges of growth.

I’m here to help and would be happy to hop on a call to introduce myself or talk through a challenge – feel free to reach out!

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

Mentoring and advising founders and teams is both incredibly fulfilling and has helped me bring renewed enthusiasm and passion into my own work as a founder and CEO.

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

To see a challenging situation as an opportunity for learning; To assume that ones perspective and opinion can and should change; To be in a state of constant self-reflection and analysis.

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

Raising capital, from the Angel to Series B stages.
I’ve developed a robust, scalable, and repeatable process for raising that I’ve had success teaching to other founders.

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

As we struggled to build out the manufacturing capacity, marketing strategy, and distribution infrastructure to support our own brands, I pitched and won major contracts to develop and produce products for leading FMCG companies, the World Food Program, and top research teams at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and the Gates Foundation. This allowed us to continue growing the business, improve our reputation, and raise additional capital.

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5. Laura Bull

Describe yourself

Hey, I’m Laura. I work in the Acquisition team at the recipe box subscription company Gousto. I’m involved in everything from Conversion Rate Optimisation to performance marketing, all with a heavy commercial focus to strike a balance between the volume of new customers with a high lifetime value.

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

I want to share the knowledge I’ve gained from 5 years of working in well funded start ups with other business owners and employees.

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

Growth mindset to me means seizing opportunities to learn through both success and failure. It’s about knowing when to pivot your strategy in the face of changing digital or economic landscapes to maximise the return for your business.

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

Experimentation, PPC, paid social.

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

Completely re-thinking the way we currently incentivise new customers which increased conversion rate and retention.

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6. Lucy Heskins

Describe yourself

I work with early-stage startups, helping to navigate the messy journey of creating and marketing tech products. My in-house experience as employee #1 can give insight into the practical execution that’s needed as well as the mindset required to get used to and thrive in a startup environment.

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

I made a ton of mistakes when working in an early-stage startup, but the insights I learned from a marketing and product perspective helped us grow fast and I’d love to pass this on.

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

To always be learning from your experience, whether or not you are successful in that goal. It’s seeing the positives and learnings from a ‘failed’ experiment; it’s seeing what you can do today that you couldn’t yesterday.

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

Early-stage startup audience and customer development. I’ve first-hand experience of helping validate a business model, build and market a platform, and seeing the startup get acquired. What got us there was strategy-driven customer research and the ability to act on the info gleaned.

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

Working to re-position a brand, from niche offering to re-segmented audience, which helped us land a new corporate client. We’d never worked in or secured a contract in the private sector.

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7. Paula Haunit

Describe yourself

I have built Implementation and Customer Success Teams in two Fintechs, building processes that deliver against commercial KPIs (e.g. time to revenue, NRR, client satisfaction) and hiring and coaching a top performing team. I would love to share my experience to empower others to do the same. I’ve also received very strong assessments and have been made part of the executive team, and would love to support others, particularly women, in achieving their career goals.

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

I would love sharing my learnings from starting (and failing) a business and successfully building a department in Tech with those building a business.

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

A growth mindset means listening, staying humble and recognising that something can be learnt from almost everyone.

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

Leading teams, because helping others achieve their potential and fulfil their career ambitions is one of the most rewarding things I have had the privilege to do.

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

Creating a Fintech’s end to end implementation process from scratch.

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8. Peiran Yu

Describe yourself

I’m a growth expert with a vantage point to observe and compare – at depth – tactics across Chinese, American, MENA, and other tech ecosystem players.
I’m heading growth for a leading virtual real estate scale-up – SuperWorld; also mentoring portfolio companies at SOSV and Seedstars.
Most of my growth arsenal lies in data: as I had degrees in Data; also started out my career at the leading analytics firm comScore.

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

To gain more experience in growth while helping others.

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

An artist’s heart, a scientist’s mind.
Growth practitioners are relentless creative thinkers that dare to try new things but are guided by data.
They are tenacious problem solvers and unstoppable fast learners.

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

“Customer Journey Map”
This topic is like me – a result of combining the data and the creativity in one – discovering ideas that eventually help startups arrive at a sustainable growth phase.
I experienced the power of customer journey map first hand at companies of various sizes. I know it is not just the foundation of anyone’s growth work; it’s also incredibly helpful but unfortunately overlooked by many.

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

While leading marketing and product for a biomedical publisher, we faced the challenge of driving activity for end users for B2B2C clients.

This was difficult as we were dealing with some niche groups that were hard to target 🎯.

But with testing a huge range of creatives and maintaining flexibility across channels, we managed to successfully reach our audiences and drive improved uptake and b2b retention.

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9. Rudhra Veena

Describe yourself

Hey all! I’m Rudhra— a Senior Marketing Strategist at Zoho who started as a content writer 5 years ago. I’m here to share my learnings on regional market analysis, product positioning and launch, product website ideation and creation, lead generation, sales enablement, content marketing and SEO.

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

I’m excited to share and also learn from creative minds across the globe.

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

It is about asking “What if…” or “Why not…” rather than going by the “We’ve always done it this way” approach.

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

Content marketing tips and strategies.

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

To sell our app creator platform, we needed to create templates that will help our leads get started quickly. But back then, we were only a team of 4 marketers and we couldn’t build all the templates by ourselves. So I ran a contest among our customers to get their apps featured on our website which gave us a library of 200+ user-generated app templates.

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10. Scott Markovits

Describe yourself

I build startups. Either as an early hire or mentor/coach. I’ve coached over 1000 startups in just about every aspect of building a startup. I’m also super passionate about the future of work.

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

I love helping people. I’ve mentored over 1000 early-stage startups & first-time founders over the past 10 years.

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

Always be growing. Having the hunger to always up-skill one’s abilities and never feeling like you’ve made it or learned it all.

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

If one thing, I guess it would be how to be a great remote leader and build a world-class remote culture. Few things I’m more passionate about than remote work and leadership.

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

In the past 6 months to increase my team’s happiness and performance, we implemented a 4-day work week and I required each of my team to take 1 continuous week off each quarter. So working less to be more productive.

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11. Tom van den Heuvel

Describe yourself

I’m currently working as CMO at one of the fastest-growing SaaS scale-ups in Europe. I’ve set up marketing there from scratch as the first marketer to join the company and grew the company to a fast-growing scale-up with a 50+ people marketing team. Next to that, I’ve founded a digital E-commerce side-business, that has grown exponentially in recent years to become a 7-figure business and the business has been acquired in early 2022. I have a big passion for marketing, entrepreneurship & to help grow and build businesses from A to Z.

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

Helping other people to grow their business/startup is what provides me with energy and what I love to do. Other than that I love to network and learn more myself as well (so both sides of knowledge sharing).

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

A growth mindset for me means being extremely eager to learn, test, and ‘get-shit-done’.

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

Quite broad, anything regarding SaaS marketing, marketing tech stack, technical marketing, growth strategy, entrepreneurship, and more.

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

A few years ago we were mass A/B testing new headlines on the homepage for a new and improved brand positioning. I think we’ve tried over 50 different lines and the eventual winner generated a 160% increase in sign-ups for our platform. It was stunning to see how 1 line can make such a difference.

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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.