The Ledger
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Diao: Hire growth specialists only after proving early channel fit
“The growth teams that I see that have the most impact are the ones where there are some early signs that there's channel fit with some kind of growth channel that's working, and then you build a team customized in a way around that. So instead of saying, I wan…”
Diao: Traditional SEO automatically drives traffic from generative AI engines
“If you do the things that are good for SEO traditionally, you're going to benefit from it. From GEO. And that's already been proven by many companies who already start to get a lot of organic traffic from generative engines, even without optimizing for those m…”
Diao: Fast-growing companies rely on one or two power-law channels
“The consistent observation I've had in being the first growth person and head of growth in multiple companies now and advising many more is observing that the fastest growing companies and those who really know where to double down experience the power law of …”
Diao: Early paid acquisition should target breakeven ROAS, not 3x returns
“I don't think ROAS is necessarily the best target to start with. I think the best target to start with when you're investing in some of these paid channels, or channels with cash or financial investment up front, is to actually figure out whether or not this i…”
Diao: Startup website redesigns almost always cause a short-term metrics dip
“Everything's going to shoot up until right after that. Almost never does. In fact, always creates a little bit of a dip in the short term, actually, because you're changing the gravity or the expectations of the customer.”
Diao: Horizontal products succeed when paired with targeted entry points
“I find that with these, I'll call them prosumer product or self-service products, you can actually get away with being relatively horizontal with the functionality of the product. So long as you're tailored with the entry points.”
Diao: Adding friction in onboarding can produce higher quality users
“Don't be scared of friction. Friction sometimes produces higher intent, higher quality users.”
Diao: Channel saturation stems from audience exhaustion, not channel failure
“The channel saturation comes less because the channel itself stops working for you, but because you've kind of exhausted one set of audiences, but naturally, as a company grows, the product grows, the markets that we serve grow over time, and our audiences bec…”
Diao: Meta provides virtually no organic reach for brand accounts
“For meta, if you're a brand, there's virtually no, We're very, very limited organic distribution for you, so paid is naturally kind of the way to go, and they really make that engine work”
Diao: User-generated content is the most underrated growth channel
“Most underrated growth channel has to be the user generated content that we were talking about, where we're essentially working with creators to create content about our products, and oftentimes we don't necessarily even need to directly compensate.”