A lot of people think that AirTable was like a pure product-led growth company and missed that like huge customer success component. The other one that we did, related to this, Champions at Scale, was we spent a hilarious amount of money on a really fancy swag. Admittedly, more people were in the office back then. Now they are more remote and this would not work as well. But back in the day, if you gave people something really good, like not a pen or a sticker, really good, they would show it off to absolutely everyone that they talked to.
Zoelle Egner is best known for her time at Airtable (currently valued at $11 billion), where she was the 11th employee and built and led the initial marketing and customer success teams. Currently she’s the Head of Marketing and Growth at Block Party, a company that designs consumer tools for online safety and anti-harassment. In today’s episode, we explore the marketing strategies that helped Airtable punch above its weight and build an established brand. We also dig into how Airtable was able to find its first super-users, how customer success played a key role in getting early traction, and the do’s and don’ts for marketing investments. Zoelle also shares her experience working for VaccinateCA (which ended up playing a massive role in helping get people vaccinated during the pandemic) and several tips for obtaining valuable customer feedback.