How to move your startup team faster
Pushing talented people seldom works. Instead, I start by understanding their blockers - exogenous and endogenous.
Growth Tactics Worth Stealing.
Hyper-curated. Two minutes per week:
A short weekly email with an actionable idea such as a good interview question, useful mental model or a growth tactic worth stealing.
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- 2 min
How to Improve your ROAS
Technically, it’s always okay to have a negative ROAS for some of your ads as long as you're learning. But how do you measure learning?
- 2 min
Here's Everything I Know about Hiring Marketers
I’ve spent two decades recruiting and hiring marketers in Silicon Valley and the UK. Here’s everything I’ve learned, neatly packaged...
- 2 min
My #1 Strategy for Employee Engagement
How to boost employee engagement? Here's my #1 strategy. But first, don't confuse "engagement" with "urgency." Engagement causes urgency, no
- 2 min
Spotify’s “growth hack” was a clever lawyer
Can lawyers growth hack? Not all growth hackers are marketers - Spotify can chalk up much of their success to clever lawyers. Here’s...
- 2 min
4 non-cliche tips for hiring startup marketers.
Looks like all of a sudden, my “founder” friends are desperate to hire good people. And recruiters are actually turning away clients. 🤯...
- 2 min
Should Startups Hire from Corporates?
It’s tempting to think that someone from a big successful company will gallop in and give your little startup hockey-stick growth. That’s...
- 1 min
The worst way to start a job description
In the next five years, unemployment rates will be negative in real terms.¹. Your startup is only as good as its people, so hiring is...
- 4 min
Why you should not hire a t-shaped marketer
If you’re a marketing recruiter in 2021, “T-shaped marketer” is the brief. That elusive combo: Broad “base knowledge” of analytics...
- 1 min
Hiring for growth (the 50% + 90% rule)
The most common question I get from founders? How to hire good growth people. (It’s hard; “marketing” is only a subset of growth). My...
- 1 min
Before I Call Someone out… I Ask This Question
Each year I give myself one personal development goal. In 2010, as a Director at PayPal, I challenged myself simply to “ask great...
- 1 min
Why Most "Hard Working" Startups Fail
When setting OKRs (Objectives & Key Results), are you focused on pushing everyone to work harder and achieve more? That makes sense in...
- 1 min
Your Next Growth Hire - Which Role?
“What roles have you seen that make the biggest impact on growth?” I get that question a lot. Most recently, from my old friend Tom,...
- 2 min
Hiring: Internal Locus of Control
In my time as a VC and as a PayPal exec, I had to evaluate a lot people. One massive predictor of success is an internal locus of...
- 2 min
This Ice Breaker Could Get Me In Trouble. (But it Works)
I often need to get workshop participants into a "growth mindset" right away, getting them to re-examine their thinking and assumptions,...
- 2 min
9 Words that Changed PayPal
When David Marcus took over as President of PayPal in 2012, the culture was nothing like the startup Peter and Elon founded. With over...
- 4 min
3 Top Growth Mindset Interview Questions (plus answers)
Here are my top 3 growth mindset interview questions, plus example answers, to help you spot a growth (or fixed) mindset.
- 1 min
Growth Mindset Interview Questions (2 of 3)
Okay, part 2 of "How do you interview for 'growth mindset." I have 3 go-to questions, here’s #2: “Tell me about a mistake you made...
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Growth Mindset Interview Questions (3 of 3)
Finally! Part 3 of "How do you interview for 'growth mindset." I have 3 go-to questions.. Question #3: “Do you have any questions for...
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Best Thing I've Stolen This Year
As 2019 draws to a close, I need to share this idea. It’s not originally mine, I’ve stolen it from the brilliant founder Jeff Lawson of...