How Growth Helped Companies Like Uber and Lambda School to be Successful

In this episode we talk to Adam Grenier who has done growth at companies like Hotel Tonight, Uber and Lambda School.

We get into Adam's wild ride at Uber, where during his four years the company went from 300 employees to 20,000. We ask what did growth do at Uber, how was it structured, and why it was disbanded after three years.

We get into Adam's journey at Lambda School, and how the growth team were tasked with optimizing a very unique customer journey, with some examples of the work they did.

Happy Growing!

Time Stamped Notes:

[2:50] - Most companies shouldn't invest in growth until post product-market fit. Adam talks through why growth made sense at Uber. During Adam's time at Uber (4 years) the company grew from 300 people to 20,000 people. A growth team made sense because neither product or marketing were setup to do the work needed. After three years, that had changed and the growth team was disbanded, with their work being allocated across both marketing and product.

[10:00] - Growth team's mission at Uber was to diversify the channels from which they were growing.

[11:20] - Adam talks about why the growth team disbanded in Uber after three years, and how it evolved. The teams organized themselves into groups where they got the most leverage. For example, when performance needed better data, better tooling, it made sense for them to live within the product org. After they had figured out those areas, performance marketing moved to marketing as that's where the most leverage was to be successful.

[20:00] - Adam talks about what it was like to go from 300 people to 20,000 people in four years. From a skeleton marketing team, to managing a one billion dollar marketing budget. From being a team of one, to managing 150 people across different timezones.

[22:00] - Adam talks about he's track record of working at companies that have gone on to be very successful. His advice is not to pick the company or job, but to put yourself into the position where they choose you.

[24:30] - The growth team at Lambda School as three distinct customer experiences they need to optimize:

a. The first phase is getting people to discovery and signup for the courses
b. The second phase is getting people to complete the courses successfully.
c. The third phase is to help people find employment

Adam talks through how the growth team focused on these areas.

[29:15] - We talk to Adam about how growth prioritized their time across Lambda School's customer journey, and go into some examples of the work they did to improve them.

[36:10] - Lambda School's ideal customer fit are the people who didn't think they could afford to do the web developer courses, and are attracted by Lambda School's business model.

[38:25] - Lambda School's biggest acquisition channel is worth of mouth, and their founders Austen Allred's twitter feed that highlights the success of the people who've taken their courses.