Lessons from scaling Ramp | Sri Batchu (Ramp, Instacart, Opendoor)

Brought to you by Attio—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups | Coda—Meet the evolution of docs | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments—Sri Batchu currently leads growth at Ramp, the fastest-growing SaaS business (and fintech business) in history. Previously, he led growth strategy and operations at Instacart and was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor, where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams, including analytics, sales, and pricing. During his time there, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ in revenue and to 1,500+ people. In this episode, we discuss:• The surprising tactics behind Ramp’s unprecedented early growth• A breakdown of Ramp’s current growth org and growth channels• Why you need to be “failing conclusively”• Ramp’s unique approach to metrics and measurement• Examples of Ramp’s “secret sauce”: a data- and technology-driven approach to everything• Why Sri prioritizes employee autonomy and flexibility over hours worked• Why team structure is a red herring for growth teams, and what Sri focuses on instead• How to set good North Star metrics, and why you should have more than one• Why Sri prefers payback periods over CAC for measuring investment ROI—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-scaling-ramp-sri-batchu—Where to find Sri Batchu:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sri_batchu• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sribatchu/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Sri’s background(04:07) Stats surrounding Ramp’s hypergrowth(06:20) How Ramp set the stage for their remarkable growth(09:19) New customers vs. customer expansion(10:20) How Ramp has prioritized data-driven decisions(12:12) Ramp’s growth engineering team, and how it supports the sales team(13:41) The structure of the growth team at Ramp(14:36) The “skunk works”