20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast...

Full Title

20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast | How to Optimise User Onboaring for Growth | How the Best Growth Teams Create Organic Growth and Community | Why LTV/CAC Models are BS with Ketty Slonimsky

Summary

The episode features Ketty Slaninsky, Chief Growth Officer at Palta, discussing effective growth strategies for scaling companies, emphasizing data-driven optimization, building defensibility through product, and the evolution of growth teams in the age of AI.

Key takeaways include the importance of understanding core use cases, leveraging multi-channel acquisition strategies, and the shift towards AI-native growth professionals.

Key Points

• Growth is defined as a broad discipline encompassing user acquisition, product, and monetization, not solely marketing.
• Building defensibility requires focusing on a core use case and expanding it into multiple areas, rather than relying on small optimizations alone.
• Successful growth professionals are hungry, smart, proactive, self-reflecting, and possess both analytical and "salesy" skills to guide users through complex funnels.
• Frameworks are often insufficient for mature products; companies like Palta adapt and rigorously test strategies for their specific context.
• Palta operates as a venture builder, creating and scaling companies with a clear target of achieving at least $100 million ARR, necessitating a focus on broad need and defensibility.
• In crowded markets, success comes from understanding user needs deeply, conducting fake door tests, and optimizing unit economics from early paid acquisition before transitioning to organic.
• Paid user acquisition is crucial for early growth in competitive markets, but it must be complemented by building shareable loops and organic growth mechanics.
• A 2:1 LTV to CAC ratio is considered a baseline, with a 3-month payback period for paid acquisition being a key metric for early-stage companies.
• Enduring retention is built through products solving fundamental needs and embedding into user workflows, creating defensibility and natural user engagement over time.
• Building multi-tiered subscription models and upsells is essential for profitability in a high user acquisition cost environment.
• Web onboarding is significantly more effective than app-based onboarding for acquiring paying users due to lower fees and better attribution.
• Free trials can attract low-quality users; focusing on paying customers with high willingness to pay is crucial for optimizing algorithms.
• Paywall optimization requires extensive testing to determine the most effective options for a given product and audience.
• Effective onboarding and activation are critical for retaining subscribers, as users often forget the value proposition if not actively reminded.
• Shareable loops and community building are vital for scaling organic growth, especially in saturated markets where pure paid acquisition becomes challenging.
• The transition from paid to organic growth involves solidifying the core use case and then building product features that encourage sharing and community.
• Growth loops are about building a scalable user acquisition engine, with the emphasis shifting from SEO to community-driven strategies.
• Building internal growth teams requires hiring hungry, adaptable individuals with an experimental mindset, rather than relying solely on prestigious backgrounds.
• Centralized growth functions are most effective for setting standards and facilitating cross-pollination, rather than directly managing UA or creative production for individual companies.
• Retention metrics like D7 are critical in the early stages for optimizing activation, while D30 and beyond become more important as the product matures.
• The nature of the product dictates the optimal retention metric and usage patterns, with some products requiring daily engagement and others relying on monthly check-ins.
• Push notifications and email flows are valuable for engagement but should be strategically implemented and balanced, not overused.
• Creative testing is paramount, especially on platforms like TikTok, requiring high volumes of variations and a blend of AI-generated and human-refined content.
• Influencer marketing can be effective up to a certain spend, but often proves difficult to scale sustainably and can be a waste of resources if not strategically managed.
• The growth leader role has evolved to incorporate AI-native talent and a focus on building scalable growth machines through data analysis and creative experimentation.

Conclusion

Prioritize building defensibility and nailing core use cases over relying solely on incremental optimizations.

Embrace experimentation, data-driven insights, and adaptable team structures to navigate the evolving growth landscape.

Focus on attracting and retaining paying users through effective onboarding, value communication, and well-timed engagement strategies.

Discussion Topics

• How can companies effectively balance paid acquisition with building organic growth loops in today's competitive landscape?
• What are the most critical skills and mindsets for growth leaders to possess in an increasingly AI-driven environment?
• Beyond established metrics, what qualitative factors should founders consider when evaluating the long-term success and defensibility of their products?

Key Terms

ARR

Annual Recurring Revenue - The predictable revenue a company expects to receive on a yearly basis.

CAC

Customer Acquisition Cost - The total cost of sales and marketing efforts needed to acquire a new customer.

CGO

Chief Growth Officer - A senior executive responsible for driving growth across all aspects of a company.

CPM

Cost Per Mille (or Thousand) - A marketing metric that measures the cost of 1,000 ad impressions.

D7/D30/D360

Day X retention - Metrics indicating the percentage of users who return to a product on day 7, 30, or 360 after their initial engagement.

GLP-1

Glucagon-like peptide-1 - A class of drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, known for their effectiveness in weight loss.

LTV

Lifetime Value - The total revenue a company expects to generate from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship.

MAU

Monthly Active Users - The number of unique users who interact with a product or service in a given month.

MVP

Minimum Viable Product - The version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

PMF

Product-Market Fit - The degree to which a product satisfies strong market demand.

ROAS

Return on Ad Spend - A marketing metric that measures the revenue earned for every dollar spent on advertising.

SOC2

System and Organization Controls 2 - A framework for managing customer data based on five trust service principles: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

UA

User Acquisition - The process of attracting new users or customers to a product or service.

VC

Venture Capital - Funding provided by investors to startups and small businesses with perceived long-term growth potential.

Timeline