Growth Led Podcast

Today, we're peeling back the layers on a concept that's crucial for early-stage startups but often flies under the radar: Founder Led Growth. 

For many of us in the startup world, the early days are a blend of excitement and uncertainty. It's a time when 'growth hacking' isn't just a buzzword—it's a survival tactic. 

Before the marketing budgets expand and the sales teams grow, there's a critical phase where the founder's touch turns the gears of progress. This topic hits close to home for me. It reminds me of the hustle, the late nights, and the relentless pursuit of that first batch of loyal customers. It's the story of how I, and many of you, began the journey to what our companies are today. 

In this episode, we're going to explore what Founder Led Growth really means, why it's indispensable, and how embracing it can set the foundation for all the growth that follows. 

So whether you're just starting out or looking to inject new life into your venture, stay with us as we uncover the essence of Founder Led Growth, inspired by insights from industry leaders and my own trenches of startup life. Now, let's set the scene and dive into the world of Founder Led Growth, where every small step counts and every effort can lead to that big break we're all striving for.

This week on the Growth led Podcast we revisit some of the best bits and clips from past episodes including special guests Jeanne L. Hopkins and Christian Brown. 

00:09 - Clip from Activation Strategies with Craig Zingerline
05:26 - Clip from Insights on Culture and Team Building with Christian Brown
11:52 - Clips from Experimentation with Craig Zingerline
18:03- Clip from Sharing the Wins and Losses of Growing Businesses with Jeanne L. Hopkins
24:18 - Clip from Retention with Craig Zingerline

Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking about Experimentation, the six steps I follow when carrying out experiments and some case studies and examples. 

To access the materials referenced by Craig, please go to bit.ly/vgmodels.

00:00 - Introduction
00:33 - Episode Overview and Access to Materials
01:06 - Examples of Experimentation
04:27 - The Experimentation Framework
09:39 - How do Experiments Work in Practice
16:43 - Future Experiments and Next Steps 

Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking to Christian Brown,  Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Glewee and Forbes 30 under 30 2023. 

Glewee the easiest and fastest all-in-one influencer marketing platform that connects brands and creators through collaboration and paid social media brand deals. 

As a co-founder and leader of marketing, Brown worked closely with the CEO, Dylan Duke, to scale Glewee from its early days of sticky note ideas into the fully-fledged brand it is today

Centered around community, innovation and fluidity, Glewee’s entire brand evolution and refinement have been the labor of love for Brown since the company’s founding.

00:00 - Introduction
08:55 - What Inspired The Creation of Glewee: Influencer Marketing Platform
12:10 - Christian Shares Difficulties and Importance of Teamwork
16:15 - The Role of Team in Business Growth and Reflections
26:52 - Team Culture and its Resilience: Dealing with Employee Turnover
29:29 - Entrepreneurial Lessons: The Value of Customer Feedback and Embracing Failure
31:12 - Reflecting on the Past vs Looking at the Future


Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast.

This week I am talking about Product Market Fit.  

Some key points I touch on are:

• Why understanding Product Market Fit is important 
• How to know when you have it
• Developing, testing, Iterating and improving your product

02:16 - Introduction to Product Market Fit
03:57 - Understanding the Importance of Product Market Fit
04:27 - Measuring Product Market Fit: Quantifying Your Success
09:43 - Accelerating the Journey to Product Market Fit
12:24 - The Power of Proxy Metrics
15:00 - The Tough Reality of Product Market Fit
16:10 - Common Causes of Failure in Achieving Product Market Fit
19:09 - Key Indicators of Successful Product Market Fit

Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast. This week I am talking to Jeanne L. Hopkins about times in her career where she experienced some lows and how she learned from them.

Jeanne is the Founder of Salty Marketing Group, working as a fractional CRO and CMO, offering GTM planning for B2B tech companies.  In additional to many other roles, she served as CMO for spend management software company Lola.com, founded by Paul English and acquired by Capital One in 2021.

00:56 - Introduction
2:46 - AI and the Present Market
5:41 - The Importance of Editing
9:01 - Trusting Your Team
10:17 - Conference Failures
15:13 - Leveraging Team Expertise
16:30 - Life & Career Struggles
22:19 - Starting Fresh at a Startup
23:21 - Campaign Failures & Lessons
28:59 - Efficient Funnel Management
33:12 - Why Customer Retention is Critical
38.01 - Aligned Product & Marketing
41:45 - Breaking Free from Perfection




Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast.

This week I am talking about Activation Strategies.  I chat about what Activation is, why it is important for businesses as well as sharing real life successful activation strategies. I also discuss some common mistakes and how to avoid them. 



00:28 - Introduction
00:46 - Overview of Activation
01:42 - Where Does the Activation Occur?
03:04 - End-Point Acquisition Goal
06:40 - Key Factors in Activation: Intent and Leverage
10:00 - Product Led Growth: Can it be relied upon?
11:10 - Common Activation Pitfalls
14:08 - Miro: A Successful Activation Example

Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast.

This week I am talking about Retention Strategies.  I discuss why retention is important for businesses, the common retention challenges as well as providing examples of businesses with proven retention strategies.

00:00 - Introduction
00:49 - Definition of Retention
01:26 - Retention Rate & Models
02:28 - Core Metrics to keep customers from churning
03.48 - Why is Retention So Important
06.17 - How Do You Impact Retention
08.34 - Having a Retention First Point of View
09.49 - Ways You can to Influence Retention
10.52 - The Most Common Challenges
11:27 - Core and Proxy Retention Metrics
15:34 - Retention Benchmarks Per Industry
16:37 - Plotting an Activation Curve
18:41 - Easy Ways to Improve Your Retention
23.32 - Recap

Craig Zingerline
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigzingerline/
@craigzingerline

Welcome to the Growth Led Podcast, where we discuss entrepreneurship through the lens of growth and marketing. I’m your host Craig Zingerline, and today I’m going to discuss the art of the pivot - knowing when it’s time to pivot, what leading indicators to look out for, and how to pivot. 

Stay tuned - this episode goes into the weeds of how we’ve approached pivoting ourselves at Velocity Growth.

Hi everyone! Exciting announcement here that I'll be back soon with new episodes of the Growth Led Podcast. But in the meantime, please check out my other podcast: Triggered.

On Triggered, myself, Aoife Jacob and Jen Bryan from the Velocity Growth team discuss the things that trigger us from within the startup and marketing space. 

It's fresh, fun, and maybe just a bit over the top.

Hope you enjoy!

https://velocitygrowth.com/trigged/