Dear Members,
Happy Friday once again! Phew, another 2 weeks just went by and suddenly, it’s September. Who knew that time flies when you’re not indoors or masked up everywhere? 😊
Thanks to everyone who contributed Q&As this past fortnight! (wow, that’s an awkward word, no wonder no one says it out loud). And if you haven’t already tried us out, hopefully some of our early feedback below could be a nudge to give us a go!
Through the Grapevine on our “Unsears”
"I found the response very helpful and thorough, helping identify a few areas that we had previously overlooked"
"Just wanted to say this is really good stuff, getting some valuable advice out of the newsletter already"
"Thank you for your response. It's very helpful"
"Hey, I got your email today. I'm eager to read Thomas Li's full post. Any way you can share that in advance?"
"I really liked it...one of the answers about hiring in India"
Top Q&As
How do I craft parental leave policy for a very early-stage start-up? We’re literally like 5 people right now.
Co-Founder and CEO, Fintech B2B, US
We asked Thach (Tak) Nguyen who was 2xCHRO at Sword Health and Care/of, former HRBP at Airbnb and who now runs his own executive search firm. He said,
I wouldn’t worry about putting policy together today. At two former companies, we didn’t roll out a parental leave policy until 50-75 people. Most employees understand it’s too early to create company-level policies at your stage
I would handle case-by-case with the employee to craft a plan that works for them. As long as you take care of them and provide benefits competitive with market (use data!), they’ll feel like they’re being treated fairly
This assumes that you’ve created culture where employees feel like they can trust the company to do right by them, which is a larger conversation.
How to run ads on LinkedIn for acquisition? Heard it’s very expensive and not sure if there are any growth hacks?
Co-Founder and CEO, Enterprise Data-as-a-Service, South Asia
This question came up with a group of founders in an informal discussion. Here’s what we got from them,
LinkedIn paid ads are notoriously expensive (not uncommon to hear upwards of $5 cost-per-click) but could be very targeted. Worth trying but most people found worse economics than other channels
Would first exhaust cheaper options of (1) posting your own content regularly to your network, (2) connecting with potential targets and (3) doing InMails
One other hack is to try giving value upfront to potential targets. These could be in the form of free reports or analysis that could significantly improve overall conversion (e.g., salary benchmarks for a job portal or spend benchmarks for accounting SaaS for example). Good ones are often re-shared, get more clicks, and are algorithmically promoted. Great way to capture emails.
How do we nudge creators to create more content on our platform?
Head of Growth, P2P Content Platform, Southeast Asia
Hui Yi Chia, who is an experienced PM who’s previously worked at consumer platforms Bytedance and Carousell had this to share,
Creators usually start off making stuff they enjoy. Getting them attention and eyeballs is usually the first step to continued content creation.
Most are creating content while juggling a full-time job, so monetization isn’t really the biggest thing they consider unless this is their full-time. Most do it because of social status and attention they can’t get in real life
Analytics and gamification can also help but tend to be secondary. Analytics help creators understand more about their audience (e.g., where they come from, watch time). Gamification like Google’s Local Guides allow creators to earn points when writing reviews.
Ultimately, it’s really about understanding the motivations of your creators - why did they decide to create content in the first place? What drives them?
A Personal Ask
Thanks to those of you who responded to my ask the last time and offered your time and insights!
If you are open to sitting down for 30-mins to chat about stuff you know really well, I would be most appreciative! If so, please drop me an email here. For people I know, it’ll be great to catch up, and for those I don’t, it’ll be great to make a new connection!
Worth a read
Eugene Wei talks about the role of status in product development in his hugely popular essay “Status as a Service”
This free e-book Founding Sales by Pete Kazanjy is a great read for anyone doing Enterprise Sales. Author is an ex-founder / sales guy who exited and now runs a 6k+ members-only, peer-education sales community
Learnings from 11 start-ups across Web1, Web2 and Web3 by Brent Annells (ex-Head of Brand at Facebook, ex-Director of Strategic Partnerships, Uber). Check out the sub-post on start-up learnings from partnering with enterprise brands