Traction Podcast

They say success comes at a price, but what about the hidden toll it takes on the minds of those who dare to dream big? Andy Johns is a former Tech Exec and VC who spent the last 15 years investing in and driving growth for some of the biggest tech brands including Facebook, Twitter and Quora, as well as Wealthfront, where he was also president. After several years of working through psychological...

Generative AI is all the rage these days. There are thousands of generative AI tools swarming the market, and VC funding for this vertical hit two and a half billion last year. Regardless of the hype, generative AI has the power to transform the way we do business and reshape the entire customer journey. On this episode, Des Traynor , Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Intercom , breaks do...

Building a unicorn as a first-time founder doesn't happen too often, but Capchase did that in two years while helping other startups get more than $2 billion in non dilutive funding. On this episode, Miguel Fernandez , Co-Founder & CEO at Capchase dives into: - Building a unicorn as a first time founder - Acquiring early customers and getting to product market fit - Funding your company withou...

On this episode of the  Traction Podcast , Immad Akhund, Founder and CEO of Mercury shares their playbook to 80,000+ customers in more than 180 countries and becoming a multi-billion-dollar fintech company.  Specifically, Immad discusses: Tactics for driving early customer acquisition and getting to go-to-market fit How Mercury grew its customer base from 19,000 to more than 80,000...

Matt MacInnis , COO at Rippling shares what it takes to successfully build and scale a hypergrowth company. In less than seven months after reaching a $6.5 billion valuation, Rippling was valued at $11.25 billion. Matt joined the company when it was just 70 employees, and he has been a key player in its exponential growth. From 2009 to 2018, Matt was the Co-Founder and CEO of Inkling, a mobile lea...

Loom’s Co-Founder and CTO, Vinay Hiremath , joins us to share learnings from the highs and lows of his startup’s hypergrowth journey, going from maxing out his credit cards and being inches away from closing the company’s doors to having over 14 million users and a $1.5 billion valuation. Specifically, Vinay covers: – Coming up with the idea and finding co-founders. – Managing the chaos of pivots...

On this episode, Mike Knoop , Co-founder and President at Zapier , dives into how they built a $5 billion company with little to no funding. A completely remote company utilizing little to no venture funding isn't the norm for highly successful companies, but that's exactly how Zapier started. Fast forward to today, and the company is helping millions of businesses connect with 5,000+ apps to aid...

On this episode, Karl Sun , Co-Founder and Board Chair of Lucid Software discusses how to build a platform on top of your product to drive exponential growth.   Although for more than a decade Lucid Software focused mainly on its flagship product, Lucidchart, the team always built the company with a platform in mind. It’s because of this mindset of optionality and scale that the company can quickl...

On this episode, Stacey Epstein , CMO at Freshworks shares key lessons from the hyper-growth journey of the first India-founded B2B SaaS company to go public in the US – going from a 6-member, $1 million start-up to a 4,000+ member, $300 million scale-up leading up to IPO.  Customer-focused businesses foster a company culture dedicated to improving customer satisfaction and relationships, and...

On this episode, Mada Seghete , Co-Founder, Managing Director and VP Marketing at Branch shares their culture playbook from zero to a $4 billion company.   From high-growth companies, to a changing environment due to a global pandemic, to a recession — companies have to adapt more than ever.   Mada discusses what culture is, how you define it at an early stage, and how you measure it and maintain...

On this episode, Jonathan Yaffe , Co-Founder and CEO at AnyRoad shares how to drive growth through experiential marketing from his experience working with large brands like Red Bull, Budweiser, Tabasco, and Honda.   Today, brands of all sizes recognize the value of experiential marketing — studies show that 76% of consumers prefer to spend their money on experiences.   So how can brands provide me...

On this episode, Melissa Rosenthal , Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp discusses which rules to break to skyrocket your company's growth.   Competition is stiff in today's startup world.   With so many innovative ideas and business models, it's no wonder that companies are running on all cylinders to stand out and generate revenue.   So how do you gain a competitive edge to accelerate growth? And...

On this episode, Spencer Kimball , CEO at Cockroach Labs shares his tips for innovating and evolving your business and discusses how to develop a growth mindset to come out the other side of a downturn as an even stronger contender.   During turbulent times, all companies focus on survival.   But many make the mistake of pulling most (if not all) resources out of innovation, growth and research, t...

On this episode, Immad Akhund , CEO & Founder at Mercury and Jon Fry , CEO & Founder at Lendflow discuss the key components of the FinTech ecosystem and how to embed FinTech into your products to drive exponential growth.   Want the key to unlocking the next unicorn?   Today more and more companies are embedding FinTech (banking, payments, lending, insurance, etc.) into their products not only to...

On this episode, Tamara Grominsky , VP Product Marketing and Lifecycle at Kajabi shares how to identify your company’s best customers, discover the value they seek and build a compelling go-to-market strategy that will help you attract, convert and retain them.   Tamara dives into:   - Identifying your best customers using a data-backed approach. - Customer metrics to consider when you're looking...

On this episode, Kyle Poyar , Operating Partner at OpenView shares 11 rules to grow faster with low cost customer acquisition tactics using real-life examples from leaders like Calendly, Loom, Notion and Webflow.   Viral products not only sell themselves but they market themselves, too. The fastest-growing companies generate 2x as many new sign-ups from product referrals compared to everyone else....

On this episode, Casey Winters , former CPO at Eventbrite shares 5 key steps to drive a sustainable user acquisition strategy from his experience helping scale iconic brands like Pinterest, Airbnb, Grubhub, Tinder, Canva and Lyft.   Specifically, Casey covers:   - The two types of growth strategies that startups should consider. - An example of a complex startup that changed over time. - The attri...

On this episode, Kirsten Newbold-Knipp , Chief Marketing Officer at FullStory shares 5 proven tactics to create a successful analyst relations program that will drive long-term brand and revenue through influence. A recent survey noted that 92% of enterprise buyers leverage analyst reports and reviews to make buying decisions. Analyst Relations is an often overlooked but key driver in "influencing...

On this episode, Anna Griffin , Chief Marketing Officer at Intercom discusses how to accelerate business growth through nano-engagement, why this type of engagement is critical for growing companies and how it can scale. Growing users without engagement are the empty calories of growth. It feels good, but it’s not good for you. Users who are not engaged will eventually churn. Specifically, Anna co...

On this episode, Eric Siu , Chairman at Single Grain reveals the timeless, tested growth-marketing principles he has used to help several companies.   Specifically, Eric covers:   - Why podcasts have a high retention rate.   - How to increase organic engagement on LinkedIn.   - Why YouTube shorts are a big opportunity right now.   - Pillar content and the framework for repurposing your content.  ...

On this episode, Oji Udezue , former Chief Product Officer at Calendly and former Head of Product for Creation & Conversation at Twitter provides a framework for evaluating startup ideas based on their potential for growth and expected outcomes.   Specifically, Oji talks about:   - A different way to focus on and understand your addressable market.   - Which workflows are worth optimizing for prof...

On this episode, Raj Sarkar , Advisor and former CMO at 1Password shows us how marketing-led growth, powered by a term he’s coined ‘outbound fury’, can help you engineer virality, displace the competition, and win the hearts and minds of millions.   More specifically, Raj covers:   - The concept of outbound fury and why you need it in your business.   - How outbound fury works.   - How to make a b...

On this episode, Lucie Buisson , CPO at Contentsquare , Anique Drumright , VP of Product at Loom and Casey Winters , CPO at Eventbrite discuss how to build hypergrowth teams that ship blockbuster products consistently.    Lucie, Anique and Casey have built and scaled products to millions of users. In this session, they provide invaluable insights and give advice on:   - When founders should hire a...

On this episode, Mary D'Onofrio, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners discusses how to build an enduring $100M ARR business.   Specifically, Mary covers:   Why $100M (“Centaur”) is the new milestone to strive for and why the term was coined.   What companies that reach Centaur status all have in common.   What companies that fall off their projected growth path have in common.   Defining a cash co...

On this episode, Tomasz Tunguz , Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures discusses fundraising in today's environment, which is radically different from his past 14-year experience in venture capital.    Before joining Redpoint Ventures, Tomasz was the product manager for Google’s AdSense social-media products and AdSense internationalization. In total, he's worked with six unicorns from when they...