Scale or Die

In the last episode, Dave got vulnerable and shared the biggest leadership and company mistakes he's made while growing Proof. This week, he turned over the coin to share the 7 keys to why Proof has been successful.

Also, stay tuned at the end of the show for a new weekly segment: things I like, things I hate, and the product I'm loving right now.

Sujan Patel is one of the biggest names in the growth and content marketing world. For the past 13 years, he has led digital strategy for clients such as Salesforce, Mint, Zillow, LinkedIn, and several Fortune 500 companies. Plus, he's also an entrepreneur himself — founding WebProfits, ContentMarketer.io, Narrow, Quuu, and Mailshake.

By working with a variety of clients over the years, Sujan has a variety of growth strategies that can take a company from startup to scaleup. In this episode, we’ll deep dive with him on brand, user experience, and customer obsession. We’ll cover pivoting a company, buying businesses, and his decision to run a SaaS billboard in the middle of Iowa. Plus, during this episode, we host a recurring feature, Which Test Won?

In this episode, Dave gets vulnerable. He reflects on the biggest leadership and company mistakes he's made while growing Proof — blunders in growth, communication, hiring, product, strategy and more! If you're an entrepreneur or manager, learn from our missteps and don't make the same errors as you grow your business.

Also, stay tuned at the end of the show for a new weekly segment: things I like, things I hate, and the product I'm loving right now.

In this episode, Dave covers First Principles Thinking in-depth and how he's used it over his career as an entrepreneur. This is a strategy employed by Elon Musk, Ray Dalio, and others — and it's led to many of the biggest breakthroughs of the past decade. After explaining the concept, Dave focuses on exactly how this line of thinking has impacted Proof.

Have you ever tried to save an email to Evernote? Fire a Google Calendar from a Slack message? Getting programs to talk to each other without direct APIs used to be a nightmare. And then came Zapier.

Zapier is the solution to help companies set up powerful workflows and make nearly any software program integrate. With their service, you can connect over 1300 apps (and growing) without a custom built hook. The service originated during a hackathon weekend, and it’s quickly grown into one of the largest software companies of the decade. In just over 7 years, Zapier graduated YCombinator, has grown to $35 million in ARR, and recently they were named #53 on The Forbes Cloud 100.

In this episode, Wade Foster, CEO & founder of Zapier, talks with Dave about the strategies he’s used to achieve massive revenue and user growth. Their conversation covers early user acquisition, finding ideal customers through forums, building growth flywheels, the split between Growth vs Marketing, failed strategies, and much more!

In this episode, Dave opens the door on Proof's experience at Y Combinator (Proof is a YC Winter 18 grad). He'll talk about why he decided to apply to the notorious accelerator, why Proof didn't get in the first time around, what the day to day at YC is actually like, common misconceptions about the program, and more! If you're thinking about applying to YC or just are curious for an insider's scoop on the program — this episode is for you.

The Internet has changed a great deal over the past decade, and it's about time for marketing to catch up. In this episode, Dave continues his talk from last week on why Marketing 3.0 is an era in which every person has their own unique funnel. He explains how his team has used the concept to increase demos and trials at Proof. Plus, he'll give a preview of the new software project Proof has been working on for the last few months. This is part 2 of 2. Part 1 originally aired 2/22.

After going through TechStars in 2014, LawnStarter has scaled into the leading online name in lawn care. Ryan Farley, LawnStarter's co-founder and CMO, has led the company's massive growth — scaling the business to over 10,000 customers. How has he done it?

On this episode, Ryan will cover the growth channels that have worked for him, why he experimented with biphasic sleep for a period of time, how to adjust for seasonality in a business model, and the shocking insights he's had over the past few years as he's sat at the epicenter of growth marketing. We'll also do a deep dive into his customer acquisition funnel, and walk through exactly why he's built it in the way he has.

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

The Internet has changed a great deal over the past decade, and it's about time for marketing to catch up. In this episode, Dave chimes in on why Marketing 3.0 is an era in which every person has their own unique funnel. He explains why businesses that embrace "experiences" will win in the long run: higher conversion rates, greater revenue, happier customers... This is part 1 of 2. Part 2 goes live next Friday, 3/1.

As Proof has grown from 3 friends working out of a basement in Maryland to a company of 15 working in downtown Austin, Texas — Dave has had to change the way he thinks. It's no longer a situation where he can work in a silo, he's had to develop systems to better manage and lead a team. In this episode, he deep dives on the books, strategies, and actions he's taken to make the shift from marketer to CEO.