Gaurav Vohra built Superhuman from the ground up — having led Growth, Product, Marketing, and Analytics.
Now he advises top founders at companies like Clay, Replit, and Superpower on growth.
In addition to advising, Gaurav angel invests, and writes the most detailed growth essays on the internet at substack.gauravvohra.com.
In this conversation, we discuss:
1. Gaurav’s background and journey to startups + Superhuman
2. Lessons from building a high-leverage RevOps function and transitioning into consulting
3. What early growth looked like at Superhuman—and why they didn’t A/B test for 4 years
4. Hiring the first 9 engineers through a hyper-instrumented, founder-led recruiting funnel
5. Superhuman’s “hard mode” GTM strategy: targeting CEOs, VCs, and power email users
6. The rationale behind their white-glove onboarding model and the decision to scale it
7. Creating intentional FOMO through waitlists, referrals, and Twitter virality
8. How Superhuman built a localized monopoly among high-expectation customers (HXC)
9. Why onboarding was led by ex-teachers, and how analytics drove quality assurance
10. The bottoms-up growth framework: fixing churn → activation → demand gen
11. Why paid acquisition failed, and what replaced it as the key growth engine
12. Building for team expansion, not just individual users, to achieve high NRR
13. Designing opinionated, interruptive onboarding flows—like video game tutorials
14. The “PLG trap” and why horizontal tools need clear vertical buyers
15. Gaurav’s #1 advice for PLG founders: fix your pricing and packaging first
More on Gaurav:Substack:https://substack.gauravvohra.com
Twitter: https://x.com/gauravvohra1More on Charley:Twitter: https://x.com/CharleyMa
Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/pathlightvc
