20Growth: Biggest Growth Lessons from Instacart and Opendoor, Why 70% of Growth Experiments Should Fail and How to Fail Fast, How to Hire a Growth Team; Secrets and Tips & Why Operator Investors WIll be the Best Investors in 10 Years with Sri Batchu @ Ram
In this discussion, Sri Batchu, the Head of Growth at Ramp and former growth strategist at Instacart and Opendoor, shares insights from his impressive journey. He reveals why the majority of growth experiments should fail to accelerate learning. Sri also emphasizes the importance of hiring adaptable growth teams and setting appropriate metrics. He offers lessons learned from Instacart's growth strategies and warns against pitfalls in goal-setting. Finally, he highlights the evolving role of operator investors in venture capital.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Opendoor vs. Zillow
At Opendoor, facing Zillow's competition, they stuck to their pricing model despite short-term pain.
Zillow eventually exited the market, proving Opendoor’s conviction right.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Simplification at Instacart
At Instacart, with its complex four-sided marketplace, simplification was key.
Learning from Apoorva Mehta, focus on what truly matters, even saying no to high-impact initiatives if distracting.
insights INSIGHT
Defining Growth Function
Post product-market fit, a growth function handles data-driven customer acquisition and retention.
This includes paid marketing, SEO, and product-led growth, ideally working closely together.
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Sri Batchu currently leads Growth at Ramp. He previously led Growth Strategy and Operations at Instacart where he also helped grow their Ads business. Prior to that, he was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams including Analytics, Sales, and Pricing. During his time, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ revenue and to 1500+ people. He started his career in management consulting at McKinsey and also held various investing roles including in private equity at Bain Capital.
In Today's Episode with Sri Batchu We Discuss:
1. From Harvard to Private Equity to Leading the Best Growth Teams:
How did Sri make his way into the world of growth with Instacart and Opendoor?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his time at Instacart? How did it change his approach and mindset towards growth?
How did Zilllow burn themselves by buying homes? What did that teach Sri about hitting metrics and goal setting in growth teams?
2. Growth Teams Should Fail and Fail Fast:
What is the right ratio of success to failure within growth teams?
What are specific ways that growth teams can increase the speed with which they fail?
How are the best post-mortems run? Who joins them? Who leads the agenda?
What are Sri's biggest lessons on how to set the right goals?
Where do so many growth teams go wrong with the North Star that they set for themselves?
3. Building the Bench: Hiring a Growth Team:
When is the right time to make your first growth hires?
What profile should your first growth hires be?
How should one structure the interview process when hiring growth teams?
What is the first question Sri asks all new hires?
Why does Sri believe you have to hire slowly?
Should candidates do case studies as part of the process, if so, on a new company or on the company they are interviewing for?
4. When Operators Become Investors:
Why does Sri believe the best investors of the next 10 years will be operators?
Why does Sri believe that operators can do due diligence to a higher level than traditional VCs?
Why does Sri believe that investors should not take cold emails?
Why does Sri believe that it is not wrong for an investor to hire from their portfolio companies?
What does Sri believe the future of venture holds over the next 10 years?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch