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Lessons from Airtable’s unconventional growth strategy | Zoelle Egner

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Jan 29, 2023

Guest

Zoelle Egner

Zoelle Egner, Head of Marketing and Growth at Block Party and former marketing lead at Airtable, shares insights from her remarkable journey in tech startups. She discusses Airtable’s inventive marketing strategies that helped them grow and connect with super-users. Zoelle elaborates on the importance of community engagement during the Vaccinate CA initiative and how unconventional advertising can enhance credibility. Tune in for valuable tips on customer feedback and the power of templates in driving user engagement!

01:13:51

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Episode notes

volunteer_activism

ADVICE

Repeater in Chief

Repeat key messages relentlessly, even if they seem obvious.
People often misinterpret or forget information, especially in large groups.

volunteer_activism

ADVICE

Small MVP

Start with a laughably small MVP to learn quickly and adapt.
VaccinateCA's initial "spreadsheet and phones" approach proved highly effective.

question_answer

ANECDOTE

Billboard Strategy

Airtable used billboards to signal legitimacy to large potential clients.
The billboards projected a larger-than-life image, boosting trust and deal closures.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Transforming Vaccine Access: The Story of Vaccinate CA

03:58 • 4min

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Community Unites for Vaccine Access

08:02 • 5min

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Mission-Driven Hiring and Startup Strategies

13:24 • 20min

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Creative Signaling for Credibility in Business

33:31 • 2min

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Understanding Billboard Costs and Targeted Growth Strategies

35:12 • 4min

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Marketing Innovation and User Empowerment

38:57 • 19min

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The Power of Templates and Customer Engagement

58:18 • 16min

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#7313

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In 'Badass: Making Users Awesome,' Kathy Sierra presents a unique approach to building sustainably successful products and services. The book emphasizes the importance of helping users have deeper, richer experiences, both while using the product and in their broader context. Sierra argues that the key to success lies not in the product itself, but in the users who use it. She uses cognitive science and psychology to explain why focusing on user expertise and context is more effective than relying on marketing budgets or PR stunts. The book is filled with counter-intuitive and simple techniques that can be applied by every role in the development process, from product development to user experience and support.

#12656

• Mentioned in 4 episodes

Ancillary Justice

Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice is a science fiction novel set thousands of years in the future in the expansionist Radch empire. The story follows Breq, who is both the sole survivor of the starship Justice of Toren and the vessel of that ship's artificial consciousness. Breq seeks revenge against the ruler of her civilization, navigating a complex world where the Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender. The novel explores themes of identity, humanity, social inequality, and gender, and it is the first in the Imperial Radch trilogy.

#74746

Computing Taste

Nick Seaver

In 'Computing Taste', Nick Seaver delves into the world of music recommendation systems, highlighting the intricate balance between human creativity and algorithmic logic. The book challenges the notion that algorithms operate independently of human influence, instead revealing how engineers' cultural and social contexts shape these systems. It explores how music recommendation algorithms have evolved from addressing information overload to capturing user attention.

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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.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-airtables-unconventional

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

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