The Growth Show

Six months after Karen Aiach’s daughter Ornella was born, she was diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Doctors told Karen her daughter would likely live for just over a decade. Left with no option, she created one herself. After only three weeks of receiving the news, and with no medical background, Karen cofounded Lysogene, a biotech company targeting the syndrome. In this...

In a world of unicorns, Anthony Tjan is an investor looking for sea turtles. He watched first hand as his company went bust the same day the Dotcom bubble burst. And he realized that good, steady growth powered by teams of good people is really the only thing that matters.  In this episode, Tony tells us how to learn from standout companies that promote goodness, how to surround yourself with good...

If you’ve ever had to cater a meeting, you know the panic that comes along with it. The type of panic that sits deep in the pit of your stomach. Will the food be late? Will it be the same as you ordered? Or even worse, will it show up at all? Stefania Mallett heard these concerns first hand. Thousands of these concerns, in fact. All from customers at her previous company. And when that company wen...

On Monday, you download a new productivity app. On Tuesday, you load it up with all the tasks you need to accomplish. By Friday? You’ve abandoned that list - and you’re in the market for the next new app that’s sure to change your life. That’s why Amir Salihefendic, the founder and CEO of the productivity startup Doist, says his company is out to solve a psychological problem, not a product proble...

Jim Cline was only a few months away from retirement. That is, until a former colleague of his offered him a job most people would run far away from: CFO of a company $134 million in debt. In today’s episode, Jim tells us why he took on that challenge, how he helped realign his team, and how he’s changing course now that he’s stepped up to be the CEO. This episode is presented with HubSpot’s State...

If everything on earth is connected, what does that mean for humanity? This week we’re digging out one of our favorites from the archives. In this episode, Linden Tibbets, CEO of IFTTT, outlines a vision of the world where everything is so connected, that moving across the different systems in your life is as easy as rearranging books on a shelf.

If you work in some kind of office, you’ve probably spent a good amount of your time in group brainstorms. Sometimes they work, but often you’re left with a ton of really great ideas - and no action. Jake Knapp is probably the most vocal critic of the group brainstorm. He’s the creator of GV's (Google Ventures) sprint process, and the author of “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas...

One criticism of the gig economy is that it takes advantage of employees. Companies like Uber or Lyft classify their employees as independent contractors, disqualifying them from benefits. But Hello Alfred, a personal butler service, started by thinking about work differently. When they launched, they made their workforce all eligible for health insurance, 401Ks, and paid family leave. In this epi...

Back in 2011, Kathryn Minshew and Alexandra Cavoulacos founded the online career resource The Muse. Six years and 50 million users later, they decided to team up again to write a playbook - The New Rules of Work - for people looking to plot a course for their career and execute on it. In this episode, we talk to Kathryn about what getting taken down by government agents while working at the US Emb...

Many women find themselves at a point in their career where they’re just stuck. Sometimes it has to do with moving up the ranks in a company, returning to the workforce in general, or even striking out in their own venture. That inflection point is why Lisa Skeete Tatum created Landit, which provides career coaching and a playbook for women trying to reach the next step in their career.

It seems like every company is trying to come up with an AI and machine learning strategy. Monica Rogati is an independent data science advisor, and she has some news: You can’t just lock a few data scientists in a room and expect them to sprinkle “magical machine learning dust” on everything. In this episode, she explains how a company can develop a successful data strategy, build a strong data t...

There are a lot of different ways to move in your career. You can quit and move on to a new company. You can completely reinvent your job, or even reinvent your company. Rachel Blumenthal has moved in her career pretty much every way you can think of. Today, she’s the CEO and Founder of Rockets of Awesome, a children’s clothing membership. In this episode, she tells us how she knew when it was tim...

Many ecommerce companies face the same two problems: the cost of keeping inventory, and the money they have to swallow when a customer returns an item. Shan-Lyn Ma, the CEO and co-founder of Zola, has dodged both of those problems. Zola is an update on the wedding registry. In today’s episode, Shan-Lyn tells us about what she learned from her time working at the shopping website Gilt, her view on...

Julie Zhuo was Facebook’s first intern back in 2006. Today, more than a decade later, she’s their VP of Product Design. You can thank her for the newsfeed, “Reactions”, and a lot more. On today’s episode, Julie tells us how she got to where she is today -- despite having no formal background in design -- why her goal is for her team’s work to be “invisible”, and why changes to your product (even c...

The process of buying and selling used furniture is painful. It’s hard to know what you’re getting and who you’re getting it from. Reham Fagiri started AptDeco to solve that problem. The company has morphed from a scrappy team poaching furniture sales from Craigslist to operating an end-to-end buying, selling and delivery service. In this episode, she talks about how she got AptDeco off the ground...

A few months after Sara Mauskopf launched her first company, her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. With an infant at home and investors looking for results, Sara had to find a new definition of what “normal” looked like. In this episode, Sara talks about how she started her company while supporting her husband through his illness, why having a co-founder is so important for...

Just 10 weeks into her maternity leave, Vera Fischer was laid off after her company went through a major reorg. Now, 13 years later, she shares how she launched her successful all-in-one advertising and marketing agency, 97 Degrees West. This episode includes Heliotrope and Shift of Currents by Blue Dot Sessions, licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Happy Valentine’s Day! This holiday has everything to do with relationships. And there’s one type of relationship that we talk about a lot on this show: co-founders. In the spirit of the day, we’re bringing back one of our favorite episodes with the co-founders of Gimlet Media. Alex and Matt tell us why they decided to document their entire experience starting Gimlet in a podcast called StartUp, h...

In 1949, Andreas Weigend’s father was imprisoned in East Germany by Soviet occupying forces who thought he was an American spy. A decade later, when Andreas tried to find the Stasi file on his father, he instead found one about himself. In his new book “Data For the People: How to Make Our Post-Privacy Economy Work for You,” he works to help people understand how they can use their personal data t...

Before Doug Landis stepped into his current role as the Chief Storyteller at the file-sharing company Box, he was a Senior Director of Sales at Salesforce. In our last episode from INBOUND 2016, Doug explains why having a story to tell your customers is important, why there’s so often a divide between sales and marketing teams, and why it’s important to let out your “weekend self” sometimes. This...

It was 2005. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos borrowed a camera, rented a car, and set out to cover a murder trial in the small town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. They didn’t realize they were embarking on a decade-long journey to create the Netflix hit series ‘Making a Murderer.’ This week, in our third episode from INBOUND 2016, Moira and Laura give us a behind-the-scenes look into their process. This...

Sarah Cooper finds the satire in a normal office job in her blog - The Cooper Review. Today, Sarah is a full-time comedian. This week, in our second episode from INBOUND 2016, Sarah tells us how she makes typical life hysterical and what companies get wrong when they try to make content for regular people. This episode features the song “Sorriso (Parvo)” by J-K, available under a Creative Commons...

This week is the first of our episodes from INBOUND 2016. First up is Alec Baldwin -- actor, comedian, and most recently, Donald Trump impersonator on Saturday Night Live. In this episode, he tells us why the role of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock was the best job he’s ever had, how he prepared to play Trump, and why he almost didn’t take the gig in the first place. This episode features the song “Can't...

Daniel Pink has been a leading voice in business for more than two decades. He’s written five best-selling books about work and management, including “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” and “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.” In this episode, Dan tells us what most managers get wrong when they try to motivate their employees, why feedback is key for youn...

We’re looking back on a few of our favorite moments from the show this year. In this episode, we hear from basketball legend Bill Walton about his time working with coach John Wooden, author Charles Duhigg on why the making of the movie ‘Frozen’ was so chaotic, and a few other favorite past guests. Cheers to a great 2016! Thanks for listening.