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Growth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe’s first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman

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May 25, 2025

Guest

Krithika Shankarraman

Krithika Shankarraman, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Thrive Capital and the first marketer at OpenAI and Stripe, shares her rich insights into strategic marketing. She discusses why conventional marketing playbooks often fail and introduces a four-step framework for effective growth. Krithika emphasizes the importance of genuine customer understanding over vanity metrics and explains successful strategies for user loyalty in AI. She also highlights the need for transparent collaboration within teams and the challenges of adapting marketing in today's diverse landscape.

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Episode notes

00:00 / 00:00

Marketing Teaches Use Cases

Marketing helps customers understand use cases and how to best utilize a product, not just create awareness.
Product management and marketing should collaborate continuously for better product development and messaging.

00:00 / 00:00

Date Framework for Marketing

Diagnose your funnel problems before hiring marketing roles to avoid misallocating resources.
Analyze competitors, differentiate from them, and experiment to find effective marketing strategies.

00:00 / 00:00

Leverage Customer Stories

Evaluate existing channels critically by focusing on pipeline and revenue, not just vanity metrics.
Leverage customer marketing and storytelling to create unique differentiation from competitors.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Marketing Innovations at OpenAI

04:32 • 7min

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Strategic Marketing Mastery

11:18 • 20min

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Quick Value Addition for New Marketers and the Importance of Process

31:14 • 3min

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Elevating Startup Marketing Strategies

34:34 • 14min

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Navigating Marketing in a Diverse Landscape

48:41 • 17min

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Navigating Career Setbacks

01:05:17 • 4min

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Exploring Productivity Tools and Personal Insights

01:09:27 • 2min

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Punctuation Preferences and Perceptions in Writing

01:11:25 • 3min

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Circe

Madeline Miller

In this novel, Madeline Miller reimagines the life of Circe, the daughter of the Titan sun god Helios and the nymph Perse. Circe, who is neither as powerful as her father nor as alluring as her mother, finds her own path through the discovery of witchcraft. After being banished to the island of Aiaia by Zeus, Circe hones her magical abilities and encounters various figures from Greek mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus, Icarus, Medea, and Odysseus. The story explores themes of identity, love, loss, and female strength in a patriarchal world. Circe's journey is marked by her transformation from an outcast to a powerful goddess who must choose between her divine heritage and her love for mortals.

Obviously Awesome

How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

April Dunford

In 'Obviously Awesome,' April Dunford provides a practical, step-by-step guide on product positioning. Drawing from her extensive experience in tech marketing, Dunford explains how to identify a product's 'secret sauce' and sell it to the right audience. The book covers key topics such as the five components of effective positioning, how to connect an audience to the product's value, choosing the best market, and leveraging market trends. It is punctuated with witty anecdotes and compelling case studies, making it both entertaining and illuminating for entrepreneurs, marketers, and salespeople.

Krithika Shankarraman was the first marketing hire at OpenAI and Stripe and led marketing at Retool. At OpenAI, she established marketing foundations for ChatGPT for consumers and enterprises, as well as their developer API platform. While at Stripe, she spent over eight years building and scaling their marketing function from scratch. An engineer turned marketer, Krithika brings a uniquely analytical approach to marketing. She currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at Thrive Capital, where she helps portfolio companies on all things marketing.

What you will learn:

1. Why do most marketing playbooks often fail, and what’s a better way?

2. Which marketing lever should I pull first?

3. Why is trying to be better than competitors usually a losing strategy?

4. How do I craft positioning that actually converts?

5. What makes messaging stick with developers, enterprises, and consumers?

6. What pricing experiments actually move revenue?

7. What is working at OpenAI really like?

8. Why does consistency and quality matter more than speed?

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Brought to you by:

Eppo — Run reliable, impactful experiments

Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development

LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business

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Where to find Krithika Shankarraman:

• X: https://x.com/krithix

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krithix/

• Website: https://krithix.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Krithika

(04:22) Early marketing lessons from OpenAI

(11:17) Diagnosing marketing needs

(15:06) The DATE framework and why being cheaper is a race to the bottom

(17:11) Marketing strategies at Retool

(22:29) Insights from marketing at Stripe

(32:33) The importance of consistent marketing communication

(39:55) Criteria for hiring a marketing expert

(41:43) “Capital M” vs. “lowercase m” marketing

(43:05) ChatGPT vs. Claude: market dominance

(45:31) The future of AI and its societal impact

(47:09) Work-life balance

(48:41) Transitioning to Thrive

(52:35) Career advice for marketers

(55:00) The importance of taste and creativity in the AI era

(01:00:04) AI product pricing

(01:03:21) AI tools in marketing

(01:05:17) Failure corner

(01:08:46) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Referenced:

• OpenAI: https://openai.com/

• Stripe: https://stripe.com/

• Retool: https://retool.com/

• Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/

• Sam Altman talks about his business model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLnyjxgFxew

• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan

• Pricing your SaaS product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/saas-pricing-strategy

• Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/

• Stripe Connect: https://stripe.com/connect

• John Collison on X: https://x.com/collision

• Patrick Collison on X: https://x.com/patrickc

• Cristina Cordova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinajcordova/

• Hackpad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackpad

• Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history | Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-wiz-raaz-herzberg

• Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/

• Thrive Capital: https://thrivecap.com/

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• Claude: https://claude.ai/new

• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

• Lessons from scaling Stripe | Claire Hughes Johnson (former COO of Stripe): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-scaling-stripe-tactics

• Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/

• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch

• Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/april-dunford-on-product-positioning

• A step-by-step guide to crafting a sales pitch that wins | April Dunford (author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-step-by-step-guide-to-crafting

• Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/

• Granola: https://www.granola.ai/

• Some people think AI writing has a tell—the em dash. Writers disagree: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/09/ai-em-dash-writing-punctuation-chatgpt/

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Recommended books:

• Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It: https://www.amazon.com/Obviously-Awesome-Product-Positioning-Customers/dp/1999023005

• Circe: https://www.amazon.com/Circe-Madeline-Miller/dp/0316556327/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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