The How Things Grow Podcast
How Things Grow is a podcast about, well, how things grow.Each episode features an interview with one of the leading growth practitioners, entrepreneurs, experts or historians in the world today. Host Shamanth Rao talks to these amazing people about the growth trajectories of some of the companies, trends or economic systems that absolutely took off - either in recent times or way back in the past.
Episodes
36 episodes
How Things Grow will take a break for now
How Things Grow will take a break for now. As the more perceptive of you might have noticed, a lot of our energy has recently shifted from How Things Grow to our other podcast The Mobile User Acqu...
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1:19
The rise of remote work – with Liam Martin (Co-Founder of TimeDoctor & Co-Organizer at Running Remote)
My guest today is Liam Martin - and this is a conversation about a topic that is near & dear to my heart - remote work. Liam is one of the world’s foremost experts on remote work, having started a remote-only company more than a decade befo...
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48:24
How to trigger massive career shifts by following your curiosity - with Hila Qu(former VP of Growth at Acorns)
My guest today is Hila Qu. Hila is the former VP of growth at Acorns - and there are very many reasons I’ve so admired her work. Hila had a background in biology - and with nothing in her background that was relevant to growth, she started work...
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59:49
How to launch a long-form journalism publication in an era of diminishing attention spans - with Noah Rosenberg (CEO at Narratively)
My guest today is Noah Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of Narratively. Narratively is a publication that I’ve both written for - and have been very very impressed by for some of the pioneering work they’ve done. Narratively very much defined a n...
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52:10
How to blow up a party - with Jabari Johnson (Founder at COLORS Worldwide)
My guest today is Jabari Johnson, the founder of COLORS Worldwide, a live events company that produces parties and music events across 45 cities in the United States. This is a fascinating conversation - both for Jabari’s personal story as well...
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51:38
How hypercasual games took over the appstores - with Jon Hook(CRO at Homa Games).
My guest today is Jon Hook, the CRO of Homa Games, the publishers behind hit hypercasual games like Tower Color, Tiny Cars, Balls vs. Lasers - and more. Jon has held a myriad of roles in mobile marketing before Homa - including being a co-found...
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55:08
How to grow a growth education business - with Brian Balfour(CEO at Reforge)
My guest today is Brian Balfour - and there could be no one better than Brian to kick off the third season of How Things Grow. Brian is seen as one of the most influential people in growth today - he has to his credit some truly ast...
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57:02
Season 3 of How Things Grow is coming soon!
I’m very excited to present to you the third season of How Things Grow! Thank you so much for the kind words, ratings and reviews for the episodes so far. As you perhaps know, each episode is a labor of love - and every rating and review matter...
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1:59
Season 2 ends - we'll be back with Season 3 soon!
Hi everyone - Welcome to How Things Grow. I’ve been very stoked to present some amazing stories as a part of season 2 of How Things Grow. As all good things do, this season has run its course. I’m taking a step back to reorient, r...
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0:56
How Things Dont Grow; Reflections on Failing To Be a Billionaire - with Sahil Lavingia (CEO at Gumroad)
My guest today is Sahil Lavingia, and this is an incredibly powerful, honest & inspiring episode. Sahil is today the founder & CEO of Gumroad, a platform that helps creators get paid for the work they do. What is significantly more impr...
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43:51
How viral content can trigger habit change at scale - with Victoria Repa (Founder & CEO - BetterMe)
My guest today is Victoria Repa. Victoria is the founder and CEO of BetterMe, a fitness app based out of Ukraine. I’m very excited to have Victoria on the show because she has such an incredibly unconventional background and story that I find v...
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49:58
On the art & science of making games fun - with Josh Lu(VP & Commercial Leader, Blizzard Entertainment)
My guest today is one of the leading experts in the world on games and growth in games. He’s a man who who has helped launch & grow many many hit mobile games. He started his gaming career at Playdom, where he helped the game Social City ge...
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53:06
Decoding freemium, the unlikely drivers of cybersecurity adoption & more - with Elena Verna(Growth Advisor, ex SVP of Growth, Marketing, Product & Design at Malwarebytes & ex SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey)
My guest today is Elena Verna. Elena is a growth advisor - she advises a number of companies - and helps scale businesses with marketing, product, analytics and growth. Elena joined SurveyMonkey as an analyst a year and a half out of college - ...
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50:18
The unseen forces driving mass-market adoption of technologies - 8 lessons from season 1 of How Things Grow.
In today’s episode, we take a very short break from regular programming - as I present to you my talk at my alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras last year. This is a talk called ‘The Unseen Forces Driving Mass Adoption Of Techn...
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39:37
Making the internet work, building an eCommerce business in the age of Amazon - and more; with Mauria Finley(CEO of Allume)
My guest today is Mauria Finley. Mauria has lived in very interesting times - and worked on some industry-defining products. Her first job out of college was at Netscape, where she not only saw from close up the large scale adoption of the inte...
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48:01
A brief history of mobile user acquisition - with Eric Seufert(Head of Platform at N3twork & Founder at MobileDevMemo)
My guest today is Eric Seufert. Eric is the Head of Platform at N3twork, the founder of MobileDevMemo.com, author of the book ‘Freemium Economics’ - and one of the foremost experts on mobile user acquisition today. Eric started his career as an...
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47:08
The inner workings of internet fame - with Sophia Yeh(Influencer Manager) & Adam Hadi(VP of Marketing at Current)
Today’s is a unique episode. I have two amazing guests to offer two different perspectives about a theme that I’ve always been very very fascinated by - influencer marketing, and the economics of internet fame. Sophia Yeh(aka Sophia Beatbox, or...
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50:46
Making design accessible to the world - with Cameron Adams(Co-founder & CPO at Canva)
My guest today is Cameron Adams. Cameron is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva, the graphic design tool website that recently was valued at over $1 billion. In today’s interview, we talk to Cameron about his long and checkered ca...
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49:50
Inside Facebook & Pinterest’s growth machines - with Cat Lee(Partner at Maveron, ex Facebook & Pinterest)
My guest today is Cat Lee. Cat Lee is the newest partner at Maveron, a $160MM consumer-tech fund, primarily focused on funding hyper-growth startups at the series A and seed rounds. Cat has had a long history of working on some groundbreaking g...
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49:29
The one word strategic plan - with Lomit Patel(VP of Growth at IMVU).
My guest today is Lomit Patel, VP of Growth at IMVU. Prior to IMVU, Lomit managed growth at many early stage startups including Roku (IPO), TrustedID (acquired by Equifax), Texture (acquired. by Apple) and Earthlink. Lomit is a frequent speaker...
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39:27
From hypervirality to sustainable growth - with Zack Onisko(CEO at Dribbble)
My guest today is the Zack Onisko, who is behind some incredible breakout growth stories. Zack was an early team member at Tickle, which is generally considered to have pioneered virality as we know it - and did this at a time before Facebook e...
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47:40
How to drive social change at scale - with Nick Allardice - VP of Product & Design at Change.org
My guest today is someone with a very unconventional background. Nick Allardice is the VP of Product & Design at Change.org. Nick started his career as an activist - about as far from the world of tech products as you can imagine. He joined...
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43:02
Inside Draw Something's perfect storm: from the brink to 50 million installs in 50 days: with Wilson Kriegel, CEO of HrtBeat Audio
My guest today is Wilson Kriegel - and he’s going to tell us the story of a perfect storm that he lived through that in many ways shaped & pioneered the way we think about virality and breakout growth. Wilson is today the CEO at HrtBeat Aud...
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52:29
The original growth hacker, and inside Dropbox’s blockbuster referral loop - with Sean Ellis from GrowthHackers.com
My guest today is Sean Ellis. Sean is widely regarded as the Godfather of Growth, and is credited with coining the phrase ‘growth hacking’. Where do I begin talking about him? Sean has held leadership roles with gaming platform Uproar and the r...
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52:11
Season 2 intro: How Things Grow Season 2 is coming soon.
The second season of How Things Grow will become available next Monday - and will include transcripts as well. As you may know, How Things Grow tells the stories of the people who help companies, technologies and economic systems take off. ...
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3:47
