airtable

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Today’s show:

Airtable CEO Howie Liu joins Jason to discuss his philosophy of product-led growth (1:35), the current explosion of AI (36:37), and much more!

Time stamps:

(0:00) Airtable CEO Howie Liu joins Jason

(1:35) Howie’s philosophy on product-led growth

(5:05) Bridging the gap between spreadsheets and purpose-driven apps

(7:12) Tweet storm referenced on the All-In podcast

(13:19) ⁠Lemon.io⁠ - Get $2000 off your first hire at ⁠https://lemon.io/hire

(17:13) Blitzscale hiring

(24:28) InTouchCX - Get started with a free consultation at ⁠https://intouchcx.com/twist

(26:18) Charging per-seed basis and revisiting Airtable on E814 in 2018

(30:36) Jason shares two successful use cases utilizing Airtable

(35:32) Northwest Registered Agent - Get a 60% discount on your next LLC at ⁠https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

(36:37) The AI boom and its potential dangers

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Check out All In E146: https://youtu.be/X-Sb8sIi22g?si=fhiIi5ehFOyrMUD-&t=3673

Check out Howie in TWiST E814: https://youtu.be/55JnirJ7oHk?si=oPlNol8cotYrJTI1

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Follow Howie: https://twitter.com/howietl

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Lauryn Isford is a product growth leader and practitioner, who most recently led Growth at Airtable, and is about to start something new 🤫. In today’s episode, we get into the many tactics Lauryn has learned about optimizing onboarding flows. Lauryn describes how overhauling Airtable’s onboarding led to a 20% increase in activation rate, the company’s unique segmentation process, and why North Star metrics are so vital. Lauryn also shares her framework for a PLG growth funnel, and how to use a reverse trial to leverage the benefits of both freemium products and trials. If you’re looking to find growth opportunities within your funnel, this episode is for you.

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/mastering-onboarding-lauryn-isford-head-of-growth-at-airtable/#transcript

Where to find Lauryn Isford:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurynisford

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

Where to find Lenny:

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

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

Referenced:

• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days: https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/1442397683

• Blue Bottle coffee: https://bluebottlecoffee.com/

• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/

• How to determine your activation metric: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-determine-your-activation

• Elena Verna on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/

• The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-Lessons-Learned-Company/dp/0399592091/

• Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon: https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Men-Odyssey-Astronauts-Journey/dp/081298871X

• Fifth & Mission podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fifth-mission/id1457274965

• The White Lotus on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-white-lotus

• Belfast: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12789558/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Miro: https://miro.com/

• Zoelle Egner on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/what-pr-is-and-isnt-good-for-according-to-zoelle-egner-head-of-marketing-and-growth-at-box/

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Lauryn’s background

(03:48) Lauryn’s spicy take on experimentation

(06:44) Why doing the right thing for customers should be the ultimate goal

(08:54) How Airtable rolled out Airtable Forms with A/B testing

(11:38) The importance of onboarding

(13:15) Airtable’s onboarding revamp and how it increased activation by 20%

(16:57) How Airtable’s guided onboarding wizard improved the user experience

(18:00) Why reducing reliance on tooltips can be a good idea for complicated products

(20:06) The importance of meeting users where they are

(22:52) How Airtable segmented users by learning styles

(24:10) Airtable’s activation metrics

(27:22) How the week-four multi-user collaboration metric was operationalized

(30:45) Other metrics Airtable used

(34:34) When Airtable changed their North Star metric 

(36:26) How much time to give a North Star metric before pivoting

(38:05) Trials vs. freemium and what a reverse trial is

(42:51) How to have self-serve options when you’re not fully self-serve

(46:04) Onboarding experiences that aren’t very helpful

(47:31) How to help users understand features

(48:42) Why user education is more important than pushing premium features

(50:03) The role of guardrail metrics 

(51:40) Lauryn’s PLG growth funnel framework

(54:26) How Lauryn’s framework helps teams communicate more clearly

(55:57) How Lauryn structured the growth team

(57:53) B2B growth as an emerging space 

(1:00:18) Lightning round

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

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Zoelle Egner is best known for her time at Airtable (currently valued at $11 billion), where she was the 11th employee and built and led the initial marketing and customer success teams. Currently she’s the Head of Marketing and Growth at Block Party, a company that designs consumer tools for online safety and anti-harassment. In today’s episode, we explore the marketing strategies that helped Airtable punch above its weight and build an established brand. We also dig into how Airtable was able to find its first super-users, how customer success played a key role in getting early traction, and the do’s and don’ts for marketing investments. Zoelle also shares her experience working for VaccinateCA (which ended up playing a massive role in helping get people vaccinated during the pandemic) and several tips for obtaining valuable customer feedback.

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-airtables-unconventional-growth-strategy-zoelle-egner/#transcript

Where to find Zoelle Egner:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/zoelle

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

Where to find Lenny:

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

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

Referenced:

• Patrick McKenzie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/patio11

• The Last of Us on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us

• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/

• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/

• Block Party app: https://www.blockpartyapp.com/

• Kathy Sierra’s book Badass: Making Users Awesome: https://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-Sierra/dp/1491919019

• Gainsight: https://www.gainsight.com/

• Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com/

• Notion: https://www.notion.so/

• Zapier: https://zapier.com/

• Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Computing-Taste-Algorithms-Makers-Recommendation/dp/0226822974

• Ancillary Justice: https://www.amazon.com/Ancillary-Justice-Imperial-Radch-Leckie/dp/031624662X/

• The Happiness Lab podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/id1474245040

• Gastropod podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gastropod/id918896288

• Everything Everywhere All at Once on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/titles/3493875/everything-everywhere-all-at-once

• Extraordinary Attorney Woo on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81518991

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Webflow: https://webflow.com/

• Clay: https://www.clay.com/

• MKT1 Newsletter: https://newsletter.mkt1.co/

• Emily Kramer on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-build-a-powerful-marketing-machine-emily-kramer-asana-carta-mkt1/

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) How VaccinateCA helped bridge a gap in infrastructure

(05:00) Zoelle’s lessons from her time at VaccinateCA

(18:04) How Zoelle broke into the tech industry

(19:01) Flocking patterns

(24:21) What Block Party does

(24:32) Zoelle’s storytelling

(29:15) Tactics for punching above your weight as a small startup

(31:30) The importance of having a highly detail-oriented person on staff

(33:33) Why Airtable used billboards

(36:43) Growth and marketing strategies at Airtable

(42:29) Using data provided by your customers to build features that help future customers

(50:59) Why customer success and marketing should be one team

(52:56) Things to avoid in marketing

(58:04) The power of templates

(1:00:58) Why Airtable did not prioritize templates for top-of-funnel revenue 

(1:02:04) Why just getting PR to “get PR” is not a good strategy

(1:04:57) The importance of getting customer feedback and investing in customer success

(1:05:51) Simple strategies for getting customer feedback

(1:07:53) Lightning round

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

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Yuriy Timen was Global Head of Marketing and Growth at Grammarly, and is now a full-time growth advisor, having worked with more than a dozen companies, including Canva, Airtable, Whimsical, Otter.ai, Oyster, Flo Health, and Clay. In today’s episode, Yuriy discusses the ever-changing world of growth, emerging growth tactics, and how to find your growth engine. You’ll learn the most effective strategies for driving user acquisition, how to balance and diversify organic and paid channels, when it’s time to change plans, how to vet new growth channel opportunities, and much more.—

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-grow-a-subscription-business-yuriy-timen-grammarly-canva-airtable/#transcript

—Where to find Yuriy Timen:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriytimen/• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thetimenator—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny• Modern Treasury: https://www.moderntreasury.com/• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/—Referenced:• Casey Winters: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/• Elena Verna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna/• Lyka Pet Food: https://lyka.com.au/• Ethan Smith’s LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanls/• Graphite: https://www.graphitehq.com/• Recast: https://getrecast.com/• Measured: https://www.measured.com/• INCRMNTAL: https://www.incrmntal.com/• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less: https://www.amazon.com/Essentialism-Disciplined-Pursuit-Greg-McKeown/dp/0804137382/• Man’s Search for Meaning: https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0807014273/• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz: https://www.amazon.com/Splendid-Vile-Churchill-Family-Defiance/dp/0385348711/• The All-In Podcast: https://www.allinpodcast.co/• Hustle: https://www.netflix.com/title/80242342• Mark Fiske at H.I.G.: https://higgrowth.com/team/mark-fiske/—In this episode, we cover:[03:49] Yuriy’s background[09:46] Different paths to growth for subscription-based products[13:21] When to lean into virality[15:39] What are network effects?[16:32] SEO strategy and timeline: how long can it take to see results?[24:22] The shifting landscape of paid media[28:09] The return of media mix modeling[32:01] How can you tell if media spending equates to business results?[33:44] Don’t spread yourself too thin[36:01] How to tell if you’ve taken a strategy far enough[38:02] When to lean into a strategy that’s working vs. when to think about diversification[42:13] Is there a shift from growth to survival?[46:19] Two reasons to do paid media[56:45] Why you shouldn’t dismiss TikTok (and other channels you might be overlooking)[59:36] Lightning round!—Production and marketing: https://penname.co/

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