When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Adam Grenier is the former Head of Growth Marketing and Innovation at Uber, where he helped build Uber’s growth infrastructure from the ground up. He is also the former VP of Product and Marketing at LambdaSchool, and former VP of Marketing at Masterclass. These days, Adam is a growth and marketing advisor to many companies, as well as a teacher through Reforge. In today’s episode, Adam shares how to determine whether a new channel is worth exploring, the rise of the growth CMO, and how improv classes can improve team bonding and create a more positive ‘yes’ culture. He also speaks candidly about his own struggles with burnout and depression and shares some incredible tools that have helped him along the way.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/when-and-how-to-invest-in-new-acquisition-channels-adam-grenier-uber-masterclass/#transcript—Where to find Adam Grenier:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AKGrenier• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akgrenier/—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:• Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/—Referenced:• OOT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-top_media_service• Grin: https://grin.co/• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-High-Tech-Mainstream/dp/0060517123•Hacking Marketing: Agile Practices to Make Marketing Smarter, Faster, and More Innovative: https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Marketing-Practices-Smarter-Innovative/dp/1119183170• Adam’s twitter thread about burnout: https://twitter.com/akgrenier/status/1285275433282359296•Why Buddhism is True: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenment/dp/1439195455—In this episode, we cover:(00:35) Adam’s background(05:34) How improv can improve creativity and collaboration(13:09) What we’ll cover in this episode(13:52) Determining when an acquisition channel is a good match(25:38) Advice for how long to test a new channel(30:11) Emerging platforms that are worth exploring(36:53) Influencer marketing tools(37:55) When to broaden your audience(41:22) What is a Growth CMO?(49:36) Why marketing leaders should learn product development(51:32) Red flags that your CMO isn’t a good fit(55:33) Dealing with depression and burnout(1:03:00) Tools to help you through difficult times(1:05:20) Signs you’re facing burnout(1:07:15) What’s next for Adam—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquires about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:00.0	one of the biggest pieces of advice I'm giving to people that are like,
0:03.1	how should we adjust our marketing with the economic changes and things like that?
0:06.1	It's like, start by assuming you no longer have product market fit.
0:09.2	Because you had product market fit in a different market.
0:13.2	It's a different market now so you have to start over and hopefully you do or it's pretty close to it and you just have to just a couple things
0:19.7	and you can be right back on track but like if you just assume like you need to
0:23.2	launch a new channel to fix this problem like you're gonna be wrong because like
0:27.3	your entire customer-based change not just the next 10% of customers that you're
0:31.7	looking for.
0:33.0	Welcome to Lenny's podcast.
0:36.0	I'm Lenny and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products.
0:41.0	I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won
0:44.6	experiences building and scaling today's most successful companies. Today, my guest is Adam
0:50.2	Grinier. Adam was head of growth marketing and innovation at Uber, where he basically
0:54.9	built their growth marketing infrastructure and the team from the ground up. Then he went on to
0:59.6	VP of Product and Marketing at Lambda School, and most recently he was VP of marketing at Masterclass.
1:06.0	These days Adam advises companies large and small on growth and marketing strategy.
1:10.8	In our conversation, we cover how to decide when to try new and emerging acquisition channels like Tik-Tock, VR, newsletter ads, and how to go about testing them out.
1:20.0	We get into the Growth CMO role, which is an emerging role that Adam has
1:24.9	helped pioneer. And we get into some real talk about burnout and depression and
1:30.1	mental health issues that often come with working in tech.
1:33.0	This was a really powerful and insightful conversation
	...

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