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20Growth: How to Master Product-Led-Growth, The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make When Scaling into Enterprise, How to Assess "Bets" in Growth; Which to Take and Which to Not with Gonto, Interim CMO @ Vercel

Feb 14, 2024

Martin Gontovnikas, a software engineer turned marketer, shares his insights on mastering product-led growth, the biggest mistakes startups make when scaling into enterprise, and how to assess growth bets. He emphasizes the importance of product and marketing over sales, the need for design partners in PLG, and providing value in a PLG motion to convert enterprise buyers.

01:10:42

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Episode guests

Martin Gontovnikas

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Quick takeaways

Marketing decisions are emotional and rely on coherent storytelling rather than data-driven emails.

Exponential growth requires taking bold risks and temporarily foregoing certain efforts.

Integrating marketing and product teams is crucial to align promises with delivered value and improve user experience.

Deep dives

1. Psychology and Biases in Marketing

Psychology plays a key role in marketing as all decisions are emotional, according to Daniel Kahneman. Biases can be utilized to advantage in marketing. For example, focusing on coherent storytelling rather than data-driven emails has been found to improve conversion rates.

Starting with a Growth Mentality

01:46

Experience before paywall in product adoption

01:34

Proactive Expansion Strategy for Business Growth

01:33

Growth as Applying the Scientific Method to KPIs

01:04

Introduction

3min

Lessons on Growth and Exponential Growth Strategy

3min

Embracing Failure and Creating a Culture of Innovation

4min

Using A/B Testing for Decision-Making in a Media Company

23min

Combining Top-Down and Bottoms-Up Strategies for Product-Led Growth

16min

The Role of Marketing and Product in Product-Led Growth

17min

Effective Growth Tactic: Sponsoring YouTubers for Organic Promotion

2min

The Importance of Short Form Videos and AI-Powered Tools for Designing

2min

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?

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