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20 Growth: The 3 Levers to Successful Growth Models, The 3 Types of Growth Hires Startups Need To Know, The 3 Stages All Successful Growth Teams Need To Go Through with Elena Verna, Advisor @ MongoDB and HP

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Oct 28, 2021

Elena Verna, a growth expert with a rich background at SurveyMonkey and Miro, shares her insights on scaling growth organizations. She discusses the critical levers for sustainable growth and when startups should consider a growth team. Elena emphasizes the importance of data literacy and the common mistakes founders make in hiring and onboarding growth talent. Additionally, she highlights the necessity for collaboration between growth and product teams, advocating for experimentation and strategic decision-making in driving success.

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ANECDOTE

Unconventional Entry to Tech

Elena Verna's tech journey began unexpectedly with a Craigslist job listing for SurveyMonkey.
Despite initial rejection, her persistence led to a 7.5-year tenure, starting as a data analyst and eventually leading growth.

INSIGHT

Growth vs. Product-Market Fit

Growth is a separate system from product-market fit, focusing on customer acquisition, monetization, and retention.
A strong growth model is essential for maximizing product distribution, even for less-than-perfect products.

ADVICE

Premature Growth Teams

Avoid forming a growth team before achieving product-market fit.
Instead, cultivate a growth mindset within the founding team and nurture internal talent before seeking external hires.

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Elena Verna is a master when it comes to all things starting and scaling growth organizations. Previously, Elena spent over 7 years as SVP Growth @ SurveyMonkey where she ran product, growth marketing, and data teams. Post SurveyMonkey, Elena worked with the rocket ship that is Miro both as Interim CMO and as an advisor. Elena has also advised some of the best growth orgs with advisor roles at HP, MongoDB, Netlify, Maze, and many more awesome companies.

In Today’s Episode with Elena Verna You Will Learn:

1.) How Elena made her way into the world of tech and growth from a Craiglist job listing? What was her big break in the world of growth with her first Head of Growth role?

2.) How does Elena define "growth" and "Head of Growth"? When should startups not have a growth team? What are the 3 main levers to the growth model today? How does Elena advise between hiring a CMO vs Head of Growth? Where do many founders make mistakes with this decision in mind?

3.) Who are the wrong people to hire for your growth team? What characteristics and traits do these people have that make them bad for growth? What questions does Elena ask in interviews to determine if they have these traits? How does Elena advise founders structure the process of hiring their "Head of Growth"? Should it be internal promotion or external hire?

4.) Where do most founders go wrong in the onboarding phase of their growth team? What do you have to have in place before the growth team starts? What are the biggest red flags for founders when reviewing their growth teams in the first 3 months? Why does Elena not like post-mortems? What is the optimal relationship between CEO and Head of Growth?

5.) How can growth teams work most effectively with both product and engineering teams? How do they need to communicate to ensure a healthy relationship? Where do growth teams most often make mistakes here? What have been some of Elena's lessons on how growth can experiment without angering engineering teams?