The Exchanges

Q know when it's working? And what I mean by that is, do you think we can trick ourselves into thinking, ah, we're at, you know, a 50 KMR and like, ah, there's real customer demand, but actually It's kind of forced. It's founder-led sales, maybe. They may not be churning. We may not have enough data to know about retention. Do you think founders actually understand where they're really at?

A The thing that is important is, is it repeatable, right? And when you say founder led sales, the thing that I often think about is like, if a founder's having to make every call, it's not repeatable because there's a lot of things to do when you're building a company and the founder having to be able to sell kind of every deal is not the thing that is repeatable. And so, you know, I think at that stage, definitely not. I think what I'm looking for is actually like, has it scaled kind of beyond the founder or, you know, one other kind of test that I think about is like, if you stop kind of that activity, if you kind of like back off, You know, if you're running ad campaigns, if you turn them off, what happens? And if it totally goes to zero, you actually don't have something that's working because you're not starting to see that, uh, you know, organic adoption is happening. And I think that it's very rare that a product exists totally through just kind of direct sales only or marketing only or other things like that. You tend to see something is happening when you do one of those is other channels start to kind of take off as well. Um, and so to me, you kind of actually need to see that, like, Something is working when you, you pull back your effort or kind of lower your level of investment.

AI assessment note: “has it scaled kind of beyond the founder”

Q need to build that growth team more. We want to embark on that process. And so we're going to start hiring Ryan. We are hiring for our growth team, but also we're aware that candidates often for startups are non-obvious and underappreciated, uh, often kind of the obvious, bluntly are kind of the biggest companies earning the biggest salaries. Where do you find great non-obvious talent and growth talent, Ryan?

A I mean, what I really look for is the change agents, particularly in operational roles. And Some of this comes from the bias of my journey into this role, but where I started, I started in the Facebook Austin office, which is an operational team that handled customer support operations for some different Facebook teams. And the people that stood out in that where they could get things done both kind of within the teams that they're working on, but then actually impacting kind of the core product of Facebook are the people that you want to be looking for as kind of a untapped talent that is not yet being reached. And so I think a lot about who are the people that are being able to make changes from difficult positions or places that you wouldn't expect change to be happening from. In those roles, you kind of learn a level of scrappiness, you learn customer empathy, you learn humility that sets you up for success in a bunch of ways that like, you know, the traditional kind of PM that has started right out of college doesn't necessarily have. And so I look for someone that has been making some changes and been able to kind of affect that change. You know, at Mercury, one of the best PMs I've worked with was someone that came from customer support. She taught herself how to code, and she was able to kind of, like, just learn all these small little tasks that helped her do her job b…

AI assessment note: “what I really look for is the change agents, particularly in operational roles.”

Q Would you ever hire someone who hasn't done growth before?

A It depends because I think many things can look like growth. You know, I think that, you know, if I go back to what is my definition of growth, I think growth is a system of optimization and being able to understand a problem in a system and change that system towards positive outcomes. And that to me, if I'm seeing that, that is something that like, you know, it doesn't have to be called growth for me to be down with that, to hire for that. But I do need to see that kind of like ability to understand the system, make changes, and then that change have like an impact. That is kind of the core, the core line that goes throughout that skill set.

AI assessment note: “it doesn't have to be called growth for me to be down with that”

Q Who do you bring in on the decision process? Who's the people who should be on the hiring committee that say, yes, we should hire this growth person?

A Yeah. I mean, I think that it should be the leadership team, uh, should be kind of core to it and the people that are going to make decisions about the future of the company. I think the, uh, cross-functional partners they work with is going to be critical. So the team they work directly with, if it's marketers, if it's engineers, uh, if it's partnership folks, you got to kind of get those people working together and understand, can they work as peers? Uh, and then if there's going to be kind of reports, you need to get some report signal as well in management skills. Two. And so the thing I think you're looking for is kind of the three 60 overview of how does that person work with other people? Um, and so that's some of the aspects that I think about. Um, I also think that, uh, you know, the analysis part is critical. And so if your company doesn't yet have an analytics team, like understand how you can try to build that kind of skillset or bring in external advisors, because I think that fundamental to growth is analysis and you have to kind of add that skillset into it.

AI assessment note: “I think that it should be the leadership team... cross-functional partners they work with”

Q You said act on super quick there. I think we'll both recognize that people are generally too slow to let people go if it's not working out well. If it's not going to plan, how long should we give ahead of growth and a growth higher? And they may be different there to prove their worth and prove their value.

A I mean, I think in most cases you can understand three to six months if someone is working out. And that doesn't mean that they have to be totally changing the directory of your company in three to six months. But the question is, are they leading to a quality of work that is the kind of understanding choosing of smart bets and showing that they can execute on problems that is leading to like any success. It has to be focused on the inputs and the quality of those inputs. And sometimes the output takes a while, you know, some, for some of the roles that I've taken, it's taken me Uh, you know, six to six months to 12 months to actually see a win, but that kind of early inputs of how they're interacting with the team, how they're kind of coming to conclusions, and then what they're building is, I think, enough to be able to tell, like, this is going to be successful or it's not. And then you have to have a hard conversation and understand, can they, can they change that trajectory? And if they can't, then, you know, it's time to let it go. But, you know, the thing I found about letting people go is that you're always happier When we do, then you ever would expect.

AI assessment note: “you can understand three to six months if someone is working out.”

Q What are the biggest fuck ups you've made in hiring Ryan?

A I remember once we hired someone that in the interview, the thing that we felt that was that they were super heard. Uh, they just kind of like presented themselves as like the expert and the perfect person for the job. Uh, and we all kind of picked up on it, uh, in the interview, but we decided like, oh, this person's got a bunch of skills and so we should do it. The thing is that people show you who they are in the interviews. And the things that you see that are red flags early on tend to be problems that kind of grow over time and people don't kind of change their core behavior. And so the red flags for me are one, not taking the red flags I saw in the interview process seriously. And two, thinking about like, you know, did we hire someone because the, you know, system around them at their previous company made it so they were successful or were they uniquely successful? Ultimately in a hire, the thing I'm looking for is can they drive an incremental difference in a new scenario? And, you know, they should have some example of being able to do that previously.

AI assessment note: “I remember once we hired someone that in the interview, the thing that we felt”

Q So, we, we, we've hired the person. Fantastic. We, we've done it, Ryan. Well done. Uh, they're joining our company. Woohoo. Uh, now we need to onboard them, a kind of segment of the hiring process which is continuously fucked up. So, what is the right way to onboard gross talent? What does that optimal onboarding process look like?

A To me, month one is about getting to know the people, the product, and the kind of processes. So, You know, what I really look for when I'm onboarding someone is an exponential growth trajectory for themselves as being the person in that role. And so in that first month, the thing that I'm really trying to get them in is all the context that we can possibly have. Do they have the right relationships? Do they understand the problem in the customer journey? And do they understand how they can get stuff shipped? And that first month, actually, you may not see much progress, but by month three, what I expect is someone to be starting to form opinions and starting to make changes that are having clear input Into a successful trajectory. And so what I'm looking for there is, are they finding unique insights? Are they making changes and helping ship things that wouldn't have otherwise been shipped? Are they bringing clarity to a strategy and kind of the tactics that we're building and helping kind of bring people along in the communication of what they're doing? And so, you know, that's kind of how I think about it is that one month and then three month timeframes. And, you know, I think that it varies by the person, but that's essentially the path.

AI assessment note: “To me, month one is about getting to know the people, the product”

Q What are the biggest fuck ups you've made in hiring Ryan?

A I remember once we hired someone that in the interview, the thing that we felt that was that they were super heard. Uh, they just kind of like presented themselves as like the expert and the perfect person for the job. Uh, and we all kind of picked up on it, uh, in the interview, but we decided like, oh, this person's got a bunch of skills and so we should do it. The thing is that people show you who they are in the interviews. And the things that you see that are red flags early on tend to be problems that kind of grow over time and people don't kind of change their core behavior. And so the red flags for me are one, not taking the red flags I saw in the interview process seriously. And two, thinking about like, you know, did we hire someone because the, you know, system around them at their previous company made it so they were successful or were they uniquely successful? Ultimately in a hire, the thing I'm looking for is can they drive an incremental difference in a new scenario? And, you know, they should have some example of being able to do that previously.

AI assessment note: “not taking the red flags I saw in the interview process seriously”

Q Facebook growth Like, born out of, ah, LinkedIn profile, like Brian Hale, and like many other greats. My question to you is, do you think we place too much emphasis on these logos, and what do you advise people who are navigating their careers, and maybe, kind of like you, you didn't always know that this was what you'd ultimately do in the end, and what would you advise them?

A I started my career, you know, in pretty humble backgrounds, and You know, the thing that's interesting is that growth wasn't even really a job when I started. So basically my entire career has been unplanned, but there have been kind of two guiding principles that have guided a lot of my career that have come in the form of advice. And so the two kind of things that come up is that, you know, first, at the end of the day, you have to pursue things that you're really curious about, and you have to use those kind of curiosities as a way to add value to the team you're on. My mom always had this saying, which is that you should blossom where you're planted. I've tried to do that as much as I can, and when I've done that, it creates options for where I can go. Second, someone once gave me the advice that you should try to pick a role in a person you want to be, and try to understand your skill gap to that role, and then once you find opportunities to apply that skill gap, you try to make progress in that, and you can reevaluate over time, but if you're kind of pointing in a direction, trying to make progress in that, you'll grow in ways that you didn't expect, and so You know, I don't know that I'm more or less skilled than any people from, from some more advanced backgrounds or from some of these kind of technical schools, but I found that those two principles have helped me and …

AI assessment note: “there have been kind of two guiding principles that have guided a lot of my career”

Q Okay, so say we have this candidate pool in mind. We now need to run a process, and Ryan, I've never hired for a growth team before or a growth hire before. Well, in terms of the, like, structure, how should we literally structure the process for a growth hire?

A I think the fundamental things you're looking for are really three things. One, I think you're looking for some background examples of being able to get things done and ship impact. Can they get stuff done beyond their position or what they would have done kind of beyond the system of the company that they were in? If you just sail with the wind behind your back, you're not a great sailor. You have to be able to go through the difficult times as well. Second, you're looking for the ability to understand customer behavior and do analysis. Can they break down problems into actionable insights? You know, go from an idea to actually what would you do to execute on that idea? I think that that's something that's really critical, and what you're looking for is someone that isn't going to be blocked by other people and need to, like, pull a bunch of resources. They need to be someone That can kind of generate value without needing to pull as much from other people. And the last thing I think is product sense and taste. Um, I think they, you know, you have to ask, can they make decisions that are going to fit within this broader kind of company perspective? So those are kind of the three dimensions that I look for. And I think there are many configurations of what you can actually screen for and how you can set up the interview process. But I think those are the three pieces that I'm r…

AI assessment note: “those are the three pieces that I'm really looking for when I hire”

Q What are the best and what are the worst there? What are the green flags in how they describe those experiences and what are the red flags?

A The thing that I'm really looking for is the ability to understand the system behind what's happening. Can they, can they understand that it's not just about, you know, adding an entry point, but actually there's a value that matters for a person at a given, uh, drop off point and that, that they can understand that there's something broader beyond just the one change they made and kind of find consistent wins or, you know, break it down into like, how could you take that and maximize something? Um, those are some of the dimensions that I'm really looking for in that background is, you know, Can, can they, can they think broader than just the example, uh, about their kind of role and how they entered that? Great people I find are people that, uh, you know, are able to take a problem, which is like, how do we get more people to sign up, break it down into composable pieces and then figure out, you know, this, the seven things that you should try. And then this one works. Oh, let's take that one thing that works and, and 10 exit. Um, that is often the thing that I'm looking for in that kind of background thing. In the worst cases, the thing that I see is, you know, someone that is just kind of, Running a playbook. Uh, someone that is, you know, just doing the thing that either their company would do or, you know, we could find on a blog or things like that. Like to me, you have t…

AI assessment note: “In the worst cases, the thing that I see is... someone that is just kind of, Running a playbook.”

Q Facebook growth Like, born out of, ah, LinkedIn profile, like Brian Hale, and like many other greats. My question to you is, do you think we place too much emphasis on these logos, and what do you advise people who are navigating their careers, and maybe, kind of like you, you didn't always know that this was what you'd ultimately do in the end, and what would you advise them?

A I started my career, you know, in pretty humble backgrounds, and You know, the thing that's interesting is that growth wasn't even really a job when I started. So basically my entire career has been unplanned, but there have been kind of two guiding principles that have guided a lot of my career that have come in the form of advice. And so the two kind of things that come up is that, you know, first, at the end of the day, you have to pursue things that you're really curious about, and you have to use those kind of curiosities as a way to add value to the team you're on. My mom always had this saying, which is that you should blossom where you're planted. I've tried to do that as much as I can, and when I've done that, it creates options for where I can go. Second, someone once gave me the advice that you should try to pick a role in a person you want to be, and try to understand your skill gap to that role, and then once you find opportunities to apply that skill gap, you try to make progress in that, and you can reevaluate over time, but if you're kind of pointing in a direction, trying to make progress in that, you'll grow in ways that you didn't expect, and so You know, I don't know that I'm more or less skilled than any people from, from some more advanced backgrounds or from some of these kind of technical schools, but I found that those two principles have helped me and …

AI assessment note: “there have been kind of two guiding principles that have guided a lot of my career”

Q Do you do case studies? And if so, do you do case studies with a company that they've worked with before or your company? That's a tough question.

A Yeah, it is a tough question. I mean, first, I think it's like really important not to just do case studies about the problems you have in front of you, because it kind of makes the candidate feel like they're just doing free work. And like, it's answering a question that you may already have an opinion about. So if I do use my own company, I try to make it something that's general enough about a slightly different problem. Uh, that is maybe something that we could go after, but not the kind of problem of the day that helps kind of establish the framework for thinking. And lets you kind of go deep on a couple of different dimensions. Um, and so case studies are critical, but I try to think about, like, can it be about the more general problem of what the case study gets at versus something that, you know, would be influenced by my thinking of the day.

AI assessment note: “So if I do use my own company, I try to make it something that's general”

Q Okay, so say we have this candidate pool in mind. We now need to run a process, and Ryan, I've never hired for a growth team before or a growth hire before. Well, in terms of the, like, structure, how should we literally structure the process for a growth hire?

A I think the fundamental things you're looking for are really three things. One, I think you're looking for some background examples of being able to get things done and ship impact. Can they get stuff done beyond their position or what they would have done kind of beyond the system of the company that they were in? If you just sail with the wind behind your back, you're not a great sailor. You have to be able to go through the difficult times as well. Second, you're looking for the ability to understand customer behavior and do analysis. Can they break down problems into actionable insights? You know, go from an idea to actually what would you do to execute on that idea? I think that that's something that's really critical, and what you're looking for is someone that isn't going to be blocked by other people and need to, like, pull a bunch of resources. They need to be someone That can kind of generate value without needing to pull as much from other people. And the last thing I think is product sense and taste. Um, I think they, you know, you have to ask, can they make decisions that are going to fit within this broader kind of company perspective? So those are kind of the three dimensions that I look for. And I think there are many configurations of what you can actually screen for and how you can set up the interview process. But I think those are the three pieces that I'm r…

AI assessment note: “I think the fundamental things you're looking for are really three things.”

Q How much do I pay them? What does that comp package look like, Ryan?

A I mean, I think compensation varies by location and the kind of seniority of the role, but, but one dimension that I think is really important for a growth role that is slightly different than maybe some other roles is that you really want skin in the game so that the growth person has, you know, equity upside in the problem. And so, you know, the thing that I would look for is what is the kind of combination of salary that kind of fits their needs, but then equity that has a Such that if that person succeeds, uh, they would have reasonable upside. And, and that is kind of the combination of things that I'm looking for. I think that, you know, it's good to kind of give a sliding scale of that, you know, present an offer, but say, you know, if you want more equity or if you want more cash, like we can talk about that. But, you know, I think you, you do have to think about that balance of reasonable cash, uh, you know, sizable equity, uh, and then trying to find that is important. The other thing is kind of, uh, correlated with that is you have to be pretty Critical about like, if it's working or not, you don't want someone to have a huge equity package and just be sitting, resting, investing. You want them to like, you know, how, know that they're going to be evaluated by their performance and, you know, they will be compensated, uh, as such that like, you know, if you do well, …

AI assessment note: “combination of salary that kind of fits their needs, but then equity”

Q How much do I pay them? What does that comp package look like, Ryan?

A I mean, I think compensation varies by location and the kind of seniority of the role, but, but one dimension that I think is really important for a growth role that is slightly different than maybe some other roles is that you really want skin in the game so that the growth person has, you know, equity upside in the problem. And so, you know, the thing that I would look for is what is the kind of combination of salary that kind of fits their needs, but then equity that has a Such that if that person succeeds, uh, they would have reasonable upside. And, and that is kind of the combination of things that I'm looking for. I think that, you know, it's good to kind of give a sliding scale of that, you know, present an offer, but say, you know, if you want more equity or if you want more cash, like we can talk about that. But, you know, I think you, you do have to think about that balance of reasonable cash, uh, you know, sizable equity, uh, and then trying to find that is important. The other thing is kind of, uh, correlated with that is you have to be pretty Critical about like, if it's working or not, you don't want someone to have a huge equity package and just be sitting, resting, investing. You want them to like, you know, how, know that they're going to be evaluated by their performance and, you know, they will be compensated, uh, as such that like, you know, if you do well, …

AI assessment note: “compensation varies by location and the kind of seniority of the role”