20Growth: Why Product-Market Fit is Not Enough, Revenue Does Not Create Usage, Metrics Must Be Before Strategy, Why it is Always Better to Concentrate than Diversify Marketing Channels and Secrets from Hubspot's Growth Engine with Brian Balfour @ Reforge

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Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Balfour is the Founder and CEO of Reforge. Previously, he was the VP of Growth @ HubSpot. Prior to HubSpot, he was an EIR @ Trinity Ventures and founder of Boundless Learning and Viximo. He advises companies including Blue Bottle Coffee, Gametime, Lumoid, GrabCAD, and Help Scout on growth and customer acquisition.

In Today's Episode with Brian Balfour We Discuss:

1. Entry into Growth and Lessons from Hubspot:

How did Brian make his entry into the world of growth?
What does Brian know now about growth that he wishes he had known when he started in growth?
What are 1-2 of his single biggest takeaways from his time at Hubspot that impacted his mindset?

2. The Foundations:

What is growth? What is it not?
What does Brian mean when he says "all growth can be boiled down to 4 things"?
When is the right time to bring in your first growth person?
Should the first growth person be senior or junior?
Should the growth team be standalone or sit within an existing function?

3. The Importance of Product Channel Fit:

What is product channel fit? How should founders approach it?
How do you know when you have it?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make with regards to PCF?

4. Next Comes Channel Model Fit:

What is channel model fit? How should founders approach it?
What are clear indicators that you have or do not have channel model fit?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make with CMF?

5. Finally, Model Market Fit:

What is model market fit? How should founders approach it?
What are clear indicators that you have or do not have model market fit?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make with MMF?

6. Brian Balfour: AMA:

Why is product market fit not enough?
What does Brian mean when he says "revenue does not create usage"?
What are the biggest dangers of mixing customers and users?
What do Hubspot do better than anyone else to know when an existing product/strategy is dying?
Is it always better to diversify marketing channels?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Revenue does not create usage. To understand what your metrics should be, you have to understand the qualitative underpinnings.
0:08.3	You have to have something called product channel fit. Then you need to understand channel model fit.
0:13.3	Focus your firepower on fueling that thing as fast as possible.
0:18.2	This is 20 Growth with me, Harry Stebbings. Now 20 Growth is the monthly show where we sit down with the best growth leaders in the world
0:24.2	to discuss their tips, tactics and strategies to starty and scaling growth themes.
0:29.0	Today, we're joined by an OG of the growth world, Brian Balfour.
0:32.4	Now, Brian is the founder and CEO of Reforge.
0:34.9	Previously, he was the VP of Growth at HubSpot, and prior to HubSpot,
0:38.6	he was an EIR at Trinity Ventures and founder of boundless learning in Viximo. He also advises
0:43.6	companies today, including Blue Bottle Coffee, Game Time, GrabCAD, and others on growth in customer
0:49.0	acquisition. But before we dive into the show today, listen to this. Mercury has been a breath of fresh air.
0:56.2	Getting started was maybe one of the most delightful onboarding experiences I've had.
1:00.0	Mercury is just so easy to use. The aesthetic of it is actually quite relaxing. For me,
1:05.8	it was less a choice and more finding a kindred spirit. Imagine feeling this way about business banking.
1:13.5	You could if you join more than 100,000 startups on Mercury, the powerful and intuitive way
1:19.0	for ambitious companies to bank.
1:21.1	Start building momentum and leave the friction behind by visiting mercury.com forward
1:26.0	slash 20VC. Mercury is a financial technology company,
1:30.2	not a bank, banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank and Trust,
1:35.8	members of FDIC. And speaking of incredible products like Mercury there, the question, do you know
1:41.8	the impact of your marketing efforts, or how much you've spent so
1:45.0	far this month and what you got as a result? Funnel is the world's first and only marketing data
	...

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