Lessons from Airtable’s unconventional growth strategy | Zoelle Egner

Brought to you by OneSchema—import CSV data 10x faster: https://oneschema.co/lenny; Pando—always-on employee progression: https://www.pando.com/lenny; and Lenny’s Job Board—hire the best product people, find the best product gigs: https://www.lennysjobs.com/talent.—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-unconventionalWhere 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: