An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5.0 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2023
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Meltem Kuran Berkowitz is Head of Growth at Deel, which went from $0 to $300m in ARR in 3 years (fastest company in history to do so). Meltem joined Deel early to lead growth, and currently leads all of the growth and marketing teams including paid ads, content, product marketing, community, brand, and more. In this episode, we discuss:• How Deel found success leveraging low-cost growth channels• Why early awareness campaigns are a waste of time in B2B• How to create effective SEO content• Deel’s “traffic light” framework• When it makes sense to invest in paid ads• The art of structuring growth teams• Building a startup culture
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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/an-inside-look-at-deels-unprecedented-growth-meltem-kuran-berkowitz-head-of-growth/#transcript
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Where to find Meltem Kuran Berkowitz:
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meltemkuran
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meltem-kuran-berkowitz-4721114b
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Meltem’s background
(04:21) What Deel does
(06:32) How Meltem leverages low-cost growth channels
(13:18) How to answer questions in a value-add way
(14:52) Leveraging closed communities
(15:48) Breaking down Deel’s impressive growth
(16:33) SEO best practices
(18:32) Deel’s “traffic light system” framework for publishing content
(20:03) The step-by-step process of publishing an SEO article
(21:55) How Deel structures their content team
(23:18) Why you can’t cut corners when doing SEO
(25:15) Businesses that should not invest in SEO
(26:40) The growth channels Deel prioritized early on
(32:12) Why Meltem is not a fan of early awareness campaigns for B2B businesses
(33:54) What Notion did right with their ad campaigns
(36:16) How Deel can help your company
(38:15) Deel’s blog post that caught the attention of the IRS
(40:06) Paid ads tips
(42:12) Why acquisition channels are useless without a great product
(44:19) How the pandemic helped drive growth at Deel
(47:11) Structuring early growth teams
(51:23) Building a startup culture
(1:01:10) The story behind Meltem’s unique workspace
(1:05:22) Closing thoughts on growth
(1:06:05) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Deel: https://www.deel.com/
• Clearscope: https://www.clearscope.io/
• Notion: https://www.notion.so/
• Geoff Charles on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp-became-the-fastest-growing-saas-startup-of-all-time-geoff-charl/
• Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity: https://www.amazon.com/Amp-Unlocking-Hypergrowth-Expectations-Intensity/dp/1119836115
• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com
• How Will You Measure Your Life?: https://www.amazon.com/How-Will-Measure-Your-Life/dp/0062102419
• Oppenheimer: https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/
• The Summer I Turned Pretty on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NF4J7XW
• Library stamps on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/library-stamp/s?k=library+stamp
• Bloody Caesar recipe: https://www.liquor.com/recipes/bloody-caesar/
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | early days it's very important to just go back to the basics you just build the skeleton |
| 0:04.0 | before you put on the makeup so the first question I would ask is do you have a |
| 0:09.2 | website is it fast do the search engine knows that it exists? Okay great. The next step would be can people find it? |
| 0:18.3 | If they can't find it, do you need to write content to make sure that people find it? |
| 0:22.1 | The net only after all of those questions or answers should you then consider, |
| 0:26.0 | do I have money? |
| 0:27.0 | Can I put it behind some paid ads to make sure people come to my website? |
| 0:31.0 | You know, you can't run a successful paid ads program if you have a website that's |
| 0:35.2 | loading in four plus seconds. So really going back to the basics and starting from a good |
| 0:40.9 | experience of the core and then expanding step by step from there. |
| 0:44.5 | Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and |
| 0:50.6 | growth experts to learn from their hard-wound experiences |
| 0:53.0 | building and growing today's most successful products. Today my guest is Meltham |
| 0:56.8 | Coron Berkowitz. Meltham is head of growth at Deal, which is arguably the |
| 1:01.0 | fastest growing SAS business of all time, |
| 1:03.2 | possibly even faster than RAMP, which we delved into in a previous episode. |
| 1:07.1 | They went from $0.00 in revenue to a mind-boggling $300 million in revenue in three years while also staying ebit up positive. |
| 1:15.0 | Melton has led their growth team from the early days and today leads all their growth efforts |
| 1:19.5 | including paid ads, product marketing, content, community, brand, and more. |
| 1:23.6 | Before joining Deal, she was leading marketing efforts at Branch Accounting. |
| 1:27.2 | In her conversation, Meltham shares how Deal kick-started growth through low-cost growth |
| 1:31.0 | channels like tapping into communities like |
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