🏔 How to grow a growth education business with Brian Balfour, CEO at Reforge📚

Nov 21, 2022

Brian Balfour, an influential person in growth, talks about his experiences and growth strategies. He discusses the impact of writing on his career and the value of content for personal growth and company success. He also explores the significance of building a targeted product and balancing short-term revenue with long-term goals. Additionally, he delves into self-reinforcing growth loops and Reforge's strategy, as well as the impact of search ranking and referral mechanics.

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Introduction

00:00 • 3min

Working with Blue Bottle Coffee: A Unique Experience Combining Physical and Digital

02:37 • 2min

Working with an External Coach and the Impact of Unbiased Perspectives

04:55 • 17min

The Impact of Writing on Career and the Roots of Reforge

22:10 • 2min

The Value of Writing and Content for Growth

24:11 • 22min

Building a Targeted Product and Balancing Short-Term Revenue with Long-Term Goals

46:34 • 2min

Exploring Self-Reinforcing Growth Loops and Reforge's Strategy

48:53 • 4min

The Impact of Search Ranking and Referral Mechanics

52:39 • 3min

Our guest today is Brian Balfour - and today’s episode is a rebroadcast from our older podcast How Things Grow. Brian is seen as one of the most influential people in growth today. He has to his credit some truly astounding accomplishments and growth, both as a practitioner, as well as an instructor and teacher.

In this fascinating conversation, Brian not only talks about his own experiences and growth but also dives into how he applies growth frameworks and loops to Reforge.

It’s fascinating to listen to his breakdown of how he thinks about growth frameworks for an education business like Reforge. This interview was recorded when Reforge had 4 courses - today, of course, they have many many more - and it’s a fascinating peek into the early days of a very unique business.

Check out the show notes here: https://mobileuseracquisitionshow.com/episode/how-to-grow-a-growth-education-business-with-brian-balfour-ceo-at-reforge/

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

🍾 The experience with Blue Bottle Coffee

🚣🏼‍♂️ What is it like to hire an external unbiased coach?

🤾🏿‍♀️ The beginnings of a social network exclusively for college students

📝 The learnings from running a social gaming distribution company

🗂 Competing with established book publishers by building a product for students

🖥 How the habit of writing helped create a popular blog

📈 How content marketing helped HubSpot grow tremendously

⏳ What is a self-reinforcing growth loop

▶️ The beginnings of Reforge as Silicon Valley Business Review

👣 Building Reforge out of SVBR

🥾 What are the challenges in scaling an education business

🔖The criteria for having an application get through at Reforge

🛴 Self-reinforcing growth loops at Reforge

Note:
Mobile Growth Lab
We wrapped up the Mobile Growth Lab where over 60 marketers, executives, product managers, and developers signed up to break the shackles of ATT's performance and measurement losses. You can get access to the recorded versions of these sessions through our self-serve plan.

Check it out here: https://mobilegrowthlab.com/

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