Ed Baker
Former Head of Growth, Uber · Angel Investor & Growth Advisor. On 2 shows, 2 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to startups including Lime, Zwift, and Whoop. He previously served as VP of Product and Growth at Uber and Head of International Growth at Facebook.
2shows
2appearances
39statements
7resolved
6supported
0contradicted
86%fully supported
8said about them ↓ Everything Ed Baker said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Baker: Uber would have kept growing without any paid acquisition
“Uber would have kept growing even if we had never done any paid acquisition, but especially in a competitive market it kind of makes sense to pay up to what the, that rider or that driver is ultimately going to be worth”
Baker: Simple copy change made Japan Facebook's most viral market
“And Japan went from like our least viral country to our most viral country. But it was literally just a copy tweak to make people more comfortable with sharing what the product they were using with their friends.”
Baker: Uber Merged Core Product and Growth Teams in 2016
“We actually merged the product team and the growth team about a year ago at Uber for largely for those reasons. Especially as we started focusing more on engagement and retention within the growth team. And that's kind of what the core product team was working…”
Ed Baker says Friendly reached 25 million users with zero marketing spend
“That grew to about twenty-five million registered users all through viral growth, no market”
Ed Baker: Facebook's North Star metric was monthly active users
“Well, so at Facebook, when I was there, the North Star metric was monthly active users.”
Ed Baker: Uber selected weekly trips as its North Star metric
“Similarly at Uber, our North Star metric, in fact, one of the first things I did when I started the growth team at Uber was said to the team, we've got to come up with our North Star metric. We decided on, instead of something like monthly active riders, We sa…”
Baker: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick onboarded growth head without formal process
“So when I think back to my onboarding experience at Uber, for example, there wasn't much to it. I was basically told by our CEO, who was my manager, here are five people for you to start the growth team with. Go.”
Baker: Pair incoming growth leaders with company veterans on day one
“I do think one of the most important things is to at least think about, well, who can be on their team on day one? I think that's probably one of the most important things. It's like, think about who are the initial people that can be on that growth team with …”
Baker: A 0.5 K-factor doubles customer acquisition per marketing dollar
“Because even with a K factor of something like .5, you're basically able to acquire twice as many customers for the same marketing cost.”
Baker: Facebook's growth team reached around 500 people during his tenure
“And when I was at Facebook, I think the growth team was about, around 500 people or so.”
Baker: Facebook's entire analytics team was once part of growth
“In fact, all of analytics back then was part of the growth team.”
Baker: Uber chose weekly trips as North Star to balance supply and demand
“Ultimately we decided on trips, weekly trips as the North Star metric, because for every trip to take place, you need, ah, riders and you need drivers. And so by having trips as that North Star metric, you could then break that down into the supply side and th…”
Baker: Facebook Relied on Organic Growth While Uber Scaled Paid Acquisition
“So, Facebook, we didn't really do very much paid acquisition, but at Uber, we had an entire performance marketing team. Well, initially it was a one-person team, but ultimately became a team where we would actually spend money to acquire both riders and driver…”
Baker: Uber tested phone mentoring by existing drivers for first-time trips
“We also experimented with are there ways we can get potentially existing drivers or other people to, like, get on the phone with a driver and talk them through that, that first that first trip.”
The other half of the tape: Ed Baker's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 1 episode across the shows. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Adam Grenier 4Harry Stebbings 1
Statements about Ed Baker, by other people (3)
Uber Built Its Growth Team by Hiring Cross-Functional Leaders Simultaneously
“When we built growth at Uber, like we infused an entire team In one fell swoop, right? Like, and Ed was hired, and he hired myself, a head of product, a head of engineering, a head of design head of analytics.”
Ed Baker Imported Facebook's Growth Organizational Structure to Uber
“Uber was really the first place that we called it growth, right? I was hired by Ed Baker. He brought over the kind of Facebook structure that they had built at Facebook.”
Elman: Airbnb's growth team expanded from 3 to over 100 people
“Ed joined Uber to start the growth team when it was five people, and then over the three and a half years became kind of VP of both product and growth for kind of all of Uber, and Gustav joined, and the Airbnb growth team was him and two other people when he g…”
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20VC 5
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ed's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Angel Investor & Growth Advisor | 1 +2 | 27 | 83% 5/6 | full record on 20VC → |
 Y COMBINATORLEDGER | Former Head of Growth, Uber | 1 | 12 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast → |