#4 Learning Growth with Julian Shapiro and Asher King Abramson (Demand Curve)

 In this special episode of the Growth Machine Podcast, Nat interviews Julian Shapiro and Asher King Abramson to talk about learning growth. Julian and Asher are partners of the Bell Curve growth agency, and also Demand Curve, a growth school where they teach everything they've learned about growing businesses. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Julian Shapiro Asher King Abramson Bell Curve Demand Curve Streak [1:04] Clearbit [1:04] Imperfect Produce [1:04] Tovala [1:06] Envoy [1:07] Facebook Ads [11:07] Instagram Ads [11:07] Webflow [12:57] Heap Analytics [12:57] Cup & Leaf [14:16] UpWork [15:09] Google Shopping [16:35] Pinterest Ads [16:57] Shopify [22:00] Recharge Payments [27:55] Google Analytics [29:24] Mixpanel [31:34] Whois [36:52] Articles mentioned First part of the training [16:57] Julian Shapiro Growth Marketing Guide [18:10] Show Topics 1:04 – How Julian faked till he make it to learn growth to the point that companies hired him. "Once you get growth results for yourself and people start seeing them, they start asking if you can help them". What is one of the most important labor shortages in Silicon Valley. 3:33 – How Julian and Asher met at a dinner because of their unique skills: guide writing and freestyle rap. How software engineers neglect the importance of growth. What is growth. Asher first experiences cold outreaching recruiters. 5:42 – How Asher started learning about growth and moving away from engineering. Working for a Private Equity firm that flipped websites. Experimenting and specializing in conversion. Joining Bell Curve. The principles Julian used to partner with Asher and how he thought him growth. 8:45 – Why it is hard to find good growth people, if one can learn in 90 days. Structure and data as the keys to accelerate your growth. Learning alone vs learning from an expert. Instilling confidence with data. A specific example of a subscription ecommerce business: giving the specs, which ad channel one should use, what messaging and which segmentation? 11:36 – The amount of money and time needed to test growth. The need to spend money to learn ads, compared to other skills that don't. How they get advantage of previous clients' experience. 14:15 – Starting ads for Cup & Leaf case example. How to approach spending on ads without expertise and with a limited amount of cash. Why going with a freelancer or a new agency is cheaper than going alone. Prioritizing ads channels based on the type of product and business model. Mastering Google Shopping in an afternoon. 18:02 – Julian's original approach to get insights directly from the source. How to get first hand information from other marketing agency owners. Places to level up growth without saturating the technique. 21:02 – Conversion Rate Optimization. The symbiosis about ads and CRO. Qualitative approaches looking for low hanging fruits. Free Shipping under the Buy Now button. Removing the Buy button from above-the-fold portion of website. Quantitative process and stripping it down looking where people get stuck in the funnel. When to skip A/B testing. When to apply and what to expect from qualitative and quantitative improvements. 26:00 –  The bugged health insurance app story. Debugging a funnel to find why people don't buy even after selecting a plan. Recharge vs the shopping cart on Cup & Leaf. Auditing websites to find what's broken and setting up tools to track anomalies. 29:20 – The principle to get the best from Google Analytics. "I use Google Analytics as a fundamental source of truth". 32:14 – How the growth training works at Demand Curve. 4 stages: strategy, acquisition, conversion, job placement. The 2 arms: startups training and income share. 35:20 – Which areas someone should focus to be more useful for their employer as a growth marketer. 3 core skills that people should know: Facebook and Instagram Ads, Google Ads, intelligent cold outreach. A different type of outreach. The channels that work most for Bell Curve clients. 38:20 – Find Julian at his blog julian.com or on twitter at @julian and Asher on @akingabramson Go to growthmachinepodcast.com/freecourse to get the 7 part, in-depth series about building a blog to success. Go to growthmachinepodcast.com and subscribe for future episodes. Lookf for growthmachinepodcast.com on iTunes and Stitcher. If you are enjoying the show, leave a review!