How I Grew This

What can be gleaned from the stories at the geographic and technological edge between the US and China? As a Bay Area native, how did a journey back to China lead to strategic growth for American companies like LinkedIn and Tesla who hadn’t yet unlocked the Chinese market? Hear about the way Pinterest grew pre-IPO, how Linus is leading his team with compassion at Coinbase, and how his appearance on a Chinese dating show became a user acquisition strategy. Hear all this and more on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.

How do you achieve growth when the system is full of obstacles? With today’s guest, Lomit Patel, we talk about choosing to take decisive action towards your goals whether that’s in your own career or with your product. From working his way up the ladder to his dream job to having the foresight to push for utilizing AI at a time when it was still very new, Lomit has proved to be a catalyst for immense growth. More on Lomit’s story on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

What are some lessons you learn after being with a company for almost a decade? How do you end up changing your life based on the products you build? This, the stories of being acquired by Adidas while maintaining the freedom to innovate and practicing what you preach, are featured in this episode of “How I Grew This” With Robert Schenkenfelder of Runtastic. Listen and subscribe on Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube!

How does someone with a passion for cooking end up leading a team driving business-critical decisions? What does it take to teach yourself how to code then apply that to how you are able to help a company grow? This story, how she learned to tell stories with data at Visa, the 2x2 matrix thinking model, and when to make a career jump into (or out of) the startup world is featured on this episode of How I Grew This with Farah Abuzeid of Depop.

What does it take to recreate the organic growth of the largest online delivery grocery in the US in a new market like Mexico? How do you define growth when new markets take time to mature and show actual business outcomes? Our next guest, Adithi Sampath, has worked across a variety of industries building products in gaming, insurance, and now is forging the online grocery experience for Walmart Grocery Mexico.

Aim big. This theme, along with successful cross-collaboration, aligning with strong mentors, and leading by example, seems to be common in many growth stories. How does the theme of family fit in? Manoj Tolety shares what he’s learned from becoming a parent and how human behavior, a dash of luck, and hard work drives both personal and professional growth. This, traveling the world every 6 months for eBay, increasing his app budget by 3x, and more are featured on this episode of How I Grew This with Manoj Tolety of StubHub. Listen now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher!

Some get to join a company that redefines an industry once in their life. Sheila has done it twice. As Dropbox’s first marketing hire, she led the transition from a consumer-facing product to one with an enterprise focus. Now at OpenDoor, she is redefining a 100+ year-old industry and revolutionizing the way real estate is bought and sold. This, stories of doubling market share for OpenDoor in 3 months, and how brands should approach marketing and caring for customers during a pandemic, are featured in our podcast episode with Sheila Vashee of Opendoor. Listen and subscribe on Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube!

Kristina had never imagined working for a bank but when the opportunity came along to innovate the mobile experience for N26 she took it. Coming from a background in fashion e-commerce, Kristina asked, "How could we transform the learnings about mobile UX from e-commerce and apply them to the financial world to make everything less painful?" This and stories of why you shouldn’t build what your customers ask for, and reasons to always speak your mind, are featured in this episode with Kristina Walcker-Mayer of N26.

How does a woman go from teacher to running Kids and Family content at Netflix? What happened along the way to lead Michelle, a pre-med student in college to a career building the experiences for the companies we know and love. That and stories of failed experiments, taking an unconventional path to product management and why empathy is your most powerful tool are featured with Michelle Parsons of Netflix.

What does it take to build a leading Peer-to-Peer car-sharing company when the market is exploding with new competitors? How do you continue to drive growth after your company gets acquired? This, the stories of learning from failure, recruiting his first users one by one, and the decisions he made that ensured the product remained a market leader, are in our third episode of “How I Grew This” with Vincent Saint-Martin of OuiCar.