Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart who moved to the “dark side” to focus on Marketing. With this career transition, he found a way to combine his 2 passions by applying his “engineering thinking” model to Marketing. He is now a B2B SaaS Advisor to Vercel and Airbyte among others and Co-Founder & GP of Hypergrowth Partners. Previously, he was SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0.

In Today's Episode with Martin Gontovnikas (Gonto) We Discuss:

1. From No Idea to Growth Leader:

How Gonto made his way into the world of growth when it was not a thing?
What does Gonto know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of growth?
Why does Gonto believe product and marketing is more important than sales and marketing?

2. Growth: What, When and Who:

What is growth? What is it not? What do people misunderstand most with growth?
When is the right time to hire your first growth person?
What is the right profile for the right first growth hire? Junior? Senior?

3. Mastering PLG and Enterprise:

What are the single biggest mistakes startups make when scaling into enterprise?
Why does Gonto believe that all PLG companies should start with 6-8 design partners?
Is it possible to do enterprise and PLG at the same time?
How does one provide enough value in a PLG motion to convert enterprise buyers?

4. Data vs Intuition: Art vs Science:

Is growth more art or science?
Why does Gonto believe qualitative data is more important than quantitative?
How does Gonto think about psychology when selling and marketing? What do so few startups? understand about the psychology of their customers?
How does Gonto approach messaging and what is truly great product marketing?

Hallway Chat, #24 - Cruise, Nest, what it takes to keep innovating