Jan 18, 2023 · 1h 2m · news
Hila Qu: The Ultimate Guide to Product Growth at Your Startup | 20VC #967 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this masterclass episode, former VP of Growth Hila Qu outlines how to build and scale data-driven growth organizations, sharing key frameworks for growth hiring, metric selection, and channel optimization based on her experiences at Acorns and GitLab.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 18.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 1.3 Harry pushing back 2.8
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:57 Hila reframes channel diversification advice
When Harry advises founders to focus solely on one working channel without getting cute early, Hila directly reframes the advice by emphasizing that paid channels decay and multi-channel foundations must be built early.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 46:50 Harry rejects revenue as a direct North Star metricHarry directly interrupts Hila's example of ARR/revenue as a North Star metric, insisting that revenue is an output result rather than an actionable input metric that teams can directly manipulate.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 59:21 Hila explains the Chinese 'Operations' growth modelHila educates Harry on structural growth differences between the US and China, showing how lower labor costs in China created a human-centric 'Operations' growth role that replaces automated product onboarding.
Harry holds his own ▶ 19:38 Harry challenges conventional product-market fit hiring logicHarry demonstrates strong strategic expertise by refuting the rigid dogma that growth hires can't precede PMF, arguing that channel testing by growth hires helps identify non-obvious ICPs.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hila Qu's Career Journey: From Biology to VP of Growth | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Stebbings introduces Hila Qu and cites specific details about her tenure at Acorns based on prep calls. Qu explains her career transition from biology into product growth, detailing early growth tactics at Acorns. | |
| Channel Diversification Strategies and Growth Failures at Acorns | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Stebbings challenges early diversification of channels, advocating for doubling down on what works. Qu politely reframes the premise by distinguishing between initial testing, long-term CAC inflation, and decay in user quality. | |
| Defining Growth and Structuring B2B vs. B2C Growth Teams | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Stebbings offers perspective on changing CAC over time and asks for growth team definitions. Qu educates on the core structural differences between B2C full-funnel growth teams and B2B product-led growth orgs. | |
| Timing and Profile for the First Growth Hire | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Stebbings challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that early growth hires can assist in discovering product-market fit by identifying ICPs via channel experiments. Qu details hiring profiles, advising against hiring VPs too early. | |
| The Role of Growth Advisors and Team Integration | 3 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Stebbings presses directly on concrete compensation figures, demanding specific advisor equity percentages. Qu breaks down advisory structures and how to write targeted job descriptions with focus metrics. | |
| Designing Effective Take-Home Assignments and Identifying Interview Red Flags | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Qu explains why take-home assignments should focus on the hiring company rather than past employers to evaluate learning velocity. She highlights major red flags like candidates claiming no failed or unexpected experiments. | |
| The First 90 Days Onboarding Blueprint for Growth Leaders | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | Stebbings prompts Qu to explain her published 90-day onboarding framework. Qu outlines concrete deliverables for the first week, first month quick wins, and first quarter process systemization. | |
| Data Infrastructure Preparation and Choosing North Star Metrics | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Stebbings pushes back firmly when Qu mentions revenue as a North Star metric, arguing that revenue is an output rather than an actionable input. Qu clarifies how company-level revenue goals are broken down into growth inputs. | |
| Prioritizing Activation and Understanding Growth Loops vs. Funnels | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Stebbings asks about activation levers and the distinction between growth funnels and growth loops. Qu provides a pedagogical breakdown of compounding strategic loops versus tactical funnel conversion steps. | |
| Codifying Learnings, Execution without Data, and the US-China Growth Comparison | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | In the quickfire round, Stebbings asks about international dynamics. Qu educates on China's unique growth ecosystem, explaining how lower labor costs led to human-driven 'Operations' roles instead of pure software automation. |
Statements from this episode (24)
Increasing user revenue unlocks higher CAC tolerance and more paid channels
“We added new product life so that we can charge more. And then that higher revenue allow us to unlock a higher CAC in paid channels or more paid channels.”
Native gas station ads outperformed celebrity endorsements for Acorns' user acquisition
“We also do a bunch of like very native ads. Someone go to gas station and then just pump, pump gas and say acorns help them. Like the ordinary person gas station version works much better than a celebrity.”
Top companies always rely on viral loops or SEO for long-term growth
“Over time, you will see all the best, most successful companies, they always have some sort of a viral approach or content-based SEO approach.”
Acorns spent heavily sponsoring NASCAR but saw zero visible user growth
“At one time we sponsored NASCAR. And it's a lot of money, but it didn't, we didn't see any visible lift in our results.”
Snapchat and Pinterest ad channels cannot scale like Meta or Google
“Snapchat, Pinterest, those work, but those are hard to scale. Like you don't get large scale, similar to Facebook and Google.”
Full-funnel growth teams are the most effective structure for B2C startups
“B to C growth team, as I mentioned I usually think the full funnel team is the most powerful.”
Startups with network effects should hire growth talent earlier to engineer loops
“If your product has a social collaboration, network effect, that kind of thing, think about Slack, LinkedIn, right, or anything like, or Airtable, Figma, hiring for growth early on, a little bit earlier, will allow you to engineering those growth loops into th…”
Early-stage startups should hire mid-level growth PMs instead of VPs
“When I talk with early stage founders, I advise them to hire kind of an experienced growth PM or experienced growth mass marketer. Don't go for VP growth from the very beginning. Don't go for someone very junior who hasn't done this before, because that kind o…”
Early-stage founders cannot outsource initial growth channels to agencies
“The most fundamental things is about figuring out your growth model, the initial channels that cannot be outsourced, and you need to figure that out on your own.”
Growth advisors require an internal team member to execute their strategy
“Growth advisor need to be paired still with a team or as a founder, right? Advisor don't have the capacity to execute things. So you need to have someone to execute.”
Hila Qu details growth advisor retainer structures and cash-equity compensation splits
“We usually have a monthly kind of returner model. We have a like six months engagement or even a year. And then it's a, usually a blend of cash and equity. Personally, myself for earlier stage, I may kind of be willing to Take more equity. If the company is re…”
Small equity stakes motivate growth advisors more than large cash retainers
“Even a small percentage of equity will be actually more powerful than sometimes a large amount of cash in, in some cases, right? For selected companies.”
Founders must identify specific growth loops before writing a job description
“I would say the first thing is write the job description. It shouldn't be your standard job description because you, as I mentioned, the first step, there are some like homework for the founder to do. You need to think about your growth model. What are the ini…”
Failing to document growth experiments leads to repeated mistakes by new hires
“The third thing is choose a system of records, document learnings, document results is such a big part. Otherwise it get lost. And after two years and new hires begin to do the same experiments you already did like two years ago and didn't work.”
Hila Qu calls Google Analytics a last-generation tool compared to Amplitude
“A lot of funders in early stage, they use Google analytics is okay, but it's, I would say it's last generation of analytic tool. You want to have tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel or things like that.”
Hila Qu compares B2B data infrastructure to a 'kindergarten level'
“B to B. The data situation is in general, much worse. I would say B to B is almost like kindergarten level. If B to C is third grade level in terms of data foundation.”
GitLab focused its growth teams on input metrics rather than top-line ARR
“So when I joined at GateLab, I talk with our CEO, we have a, we have ARR, not ARR, ARR growth as our North Star metric for the company, which is fine. But for me as a growth leader, right? Or for any other teams, I need to break that down into inputs exactly a…”
North Star metrics change annually at most; input metrics change quarterly
“Yeah I think the North Star metric shouldn't be changing very frequently. Otherwise, it's north, it's not a North Star metric. It's a south, like, east to west star metric, right? It's all over the place. That should be, like, for the, even, like, it doesn't c…”
Activation and conversion are the easiest levers for early growth wins
“First of all, those two levers are the easiest place to find quick wins. Like I mentioned, As a new growth person or growth leader, you want to find quick wins because wins change people's perception. You can get more resources. Everything else become easier. …”
GitLab publicly open-sources all growth experiment results and hypotheses
“At GitLab, we have everything open source. We have a handbook. So it's open and public. And actually people look at our experiments and it's categorized by like, is this activation acquisition? And you can click in to see what's the hypothesis, what we tested,…”
Acorns converted high-performing ad concepts directly into in-product features
“At Acorns, we often run ads that work so well. And we begin to implement that feature in the product. Like we have a calculator, retirement calculator ads. We talk about if you start saving today in, in twenties, in your thirties, what difference does that mak…”
Lower labor costs in China favor human growth operations over product automation
“The most popular role in China's growth space is called operation. It doesn't exist here in US at all. I was confused initially, but what is behind that is because the average labor cost in China is lower. So a lot of things that tend to be automated here in t…”
Moving fast without stakeholder buy-in creates resistance to winning experiments
“I think the biggest mistake I made in my early days is try to move too fast without getting buy-in from the stakeholders. The result, the experiment might be successful, but there's so much resistance in implementing the winner.”