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We’re from TheVentureCity's Product-Led Growth Bootcamp. AMA

11 points by iggytvc ↗ HN
Hi, I’m Ricardo, one of the mentors & am the VP of Startup Growth at TheVentureCity.

Earlier I was the Head of Latin America for Pinterest, and the Head of Growth, Engagement and Mobile in South America for Facebook.

Founders will learn about how best to design user-centric products, acquire customers, and make data-driven decisions. At the end of the 5-day course two startups will be considered to join TheVentureCity’s Growth Accelerator Program, a five-month experience that includes a $100,000 investment. https://theventure.city/product-led-growth-week

I'm really happy to answer any questions.

9 comments

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egusa
For growth FB, Google, Whatsapp and Pinterest, did you find there was one primary method of growth they all used? (that's also applicable to founders of the new tech companies)
rsangion
Most of them counted on the product to be the main driver of growth.

Facebook: invite your friends, we made it super easy for users to scale this process, instead of asking emails one by one, we used contact importers for email and also phone contact list.

Pinterest: we created a very good SEO engine, since we have billions of well annotated images that are described in different ways and different languages by the community, helping with hundreds of different keywords for each single image.

Whatsapp: simple 1:1 network effect, you need your friends on the other side for the product to work. Whatsapp was able to run on very slow, weak signal mobile networks, better than any other. They also offered the received and read.

For Google, we know that the product was really fast and results were amazing, and we all think that it was the only thing that made them grow. However, Google bought placement in many different places, from websites to browsers, as the initial trigger to get to a point where word of mouth did the rest.

Every product/industry/market has a different set of challenges, there is no silver bullet, but for sure that are some different known levers that can be tested.

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rosajc
Hi all! Rosa here, another mentor and Chief Ecosystem Relations at TheVentureCity. Am looking forward to answering questions and sharing thoughts. I've spent the last decade+ at the #1 Spanish-language newspaper in the world, EL PAÍS, and was the first Spanish speaking Silicon Valley correspondent. I've interviewed top founders and executives like Sundar Pichai, Steve Wozniak, Kaz Hirai, Hiroshi Mikitani and Peter Thiel. Ask us anything, and then apply!
rsangion
Hi, it's a pleasure to have the opportunity to share more about what we are doing here at TheVentureCity

Happy to answer any questions that you might have about the program we are running next week, which is 100% remote, 100% free to join.

NAIJULU
who are some of the mentors of the bootcamp?
rsangion
Hi! Here are the speakers, they are all team members of TheVentureCity:

Katya Skorobogatova https://www.linkedin.com/in/skorobogatova/ David Smith https://www.linkedin.com/in/dksmith01/ Andrés Fajardo https://www.linkedin.com/in/andresfajardo/ Victor Servin https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorservin/ David Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidamarcus/ Roberto Carlos Navas https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcnavas/ Luis Guzmán https://www.linkedin.com/in/guzmanluis/ Jimena Zubiria https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimenazubiria/ Andy Areitio https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyareitio/

The full agenda and speakers with link are also on our website: http://theventure.city/product-led-growth-week/

alesjandrosossa
is this more for US or international startups?
rsangion
All sessions will be in English only, but what we are going to cover there is applicable to any software startup in any market. TheVentureCity invests in startups from the whole Americas and also from EMEA.