Early-stage founders cannot outsource initial growth channels to agencies
Hila Qu · Hila Qu: The Ultimate Guide to Product Growth at Your Startup | 20VC #967 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 18, 2023 · at 25:39
Hila Qu, advisor and former growth executive at Acorns and GitLab, addresses whether early-stage startups should hire growth agencies instead of building internal teams.
0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 8.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Hila Qu
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.”
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…”