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

Jun 25, 2023 1h 17m 23 insights Episode Page ↗
Shree Bachu, Head of Growth at Ramp (fastest-growing SaaS/fintech), discusses Ramp's growth strategies, team structure, and how they operationalize velocity. He shares insights on early tactics, prioritization frameworks, and North Star metrics.
Actionable Insights

1. Prioritize Velocity & Bias to Action

Culturally reinforce a razor-sharp focus on reducing cycle time and bias to action, emphasizing that work is done in “days” (e.g., days.ramp.com) and never delaying tasks. This attracts and retains high-performers motivated by success.

2. Build a Data-Driven Growth Engine

Make all growth investments (sales, marketing) technology and data-driven by dedicating growth engineering teams to automate workflows, prioritize leads, and craft messaging. This creates a competitive moat and boosts efficiency.

3. Implement North Star Metric Translation

For larger companies, create a financial/data-driven translation layer that converts every sub-team’s local metric into the company’s singular North Star metric (e.g., load time impact on Monthly Active Orders). This unifies teams, simplifies cross-prioritization, and aids resource allocation.

4. Sequence B2B Growth Channels

Follow a general B2B growth path: start with founder-led sales, then hire salespeople, introduce low-cost targeted marketing (content, community, small events, PR), and only then move to paid/brand efforts and SEO. This progression aligns with increasing channel cost and effectiveness as customer understanding grows.

5. Fail Conclusively, Maximize Treatment

Design experiments to fail conclusively, especially for large or costly tests, by maximizing the “treatment effect” (throwing all possible tactics at a hypothesis). This ensures clear learning, prevents repeated re-testing, and allows for cost-rationalization if successful.

6. Reward 10X Operators with 10X Comp

Design a compensation system that rewards top-performing “10X operators” with significantly higher compensation. This strategy helps differentially hire and retain the best talent, creating a competitive advantage through small, high-impact teams.

7. Leverage Cap Table for Early Growth

Actively get early-stage founders, influential operators, and advisors onto the company’s cap table. This can generate initial customers and foster strong community support among tech founders.

8. Structure Growth Teams for Experimentation

Organize growth into channel-based teams, support them with a dedicated product engineering team, and include a small “innovation” or “skunk works” team for cross-channel experimentation and testing new platforms (e.g., TikTok, Reddit). This structure enables specialized focus and continuous innovation.

9. Measure ROI with Payback Period

Prioritize measuring investment ROI using payback period (months of contribution margin to repay acquisition cost) over just CAC or LTV to CAC. This provides a more reliable and quickly evaluable metric, preventing overspending based on uncertain long-term LTV predictions.

10. Hire Top Talent Data-Drivenly

Use a data-driven approach to hiring by identifying companies excelling in specific functions (e.g., high email traffic for CRM roles via SimilarWeb) and then sourcing talent from those teams, complementing traditional network searches.

11. Maintain High Communication Responsiveness

Foster a culture of quick responses on Slack and rapid action on tasks, ensuring clear ownership and deadlines. This prevents organizational slowdowns as the company scales.

12. Manage Time with Calendar Audits

Implement calendar blocking for focused work and response times, and conduct regular calendar audits (personal and team) to ensure time allocation aligns with strategic priorities. This optimizes individual and team productivity.

13. Prioritize GEM (Growth, Engagement, Monetization)

Align the company on prioritizing one of three goals at a time—Growth, Engagement, or Monetization—as it’s difficult to optimize all three simultaneously. Clear prioritization focuses efforts effectively.

14. Use PR for Thoughtful Market Moments

Strategically leverage PR by creating thoughtful market moments, such as combining fundraising announcements with unique business insights, rather than just generic company news. This can drive top-of-funnel leads and enhance recruiting.

15. Define Clear Success & Activation Metrics

Establish success metrics that clearly link to business value and are intuitive for teams to impact, often including both volume and efficiency. For activation, identify “escape velocity” metrics (specific actions within a timeframe) that predict long-term user engagement.

16. Foster Work-Life Balance through Impact

Attract and retain talent by focusing on providing autonomy, flexibility, and mission alignment, and celebrating the impact of their work, rather than solely on hours. This motivates high-performers who seek fulfillment.

17. Celebrate Wins Publicly and Frequently

Consistently appreciate team efforts and celebrate wins, both big and small, by fostering an open internal culture of sharing achievements. This boosts morale and maintains high engagement across the company.

18. Build vs. Buy for Efficiency

Be strategic about building tools in-house versus buying external solutions, opting for off-the-shelf products for non-proprietary or non-strategic functions. This saves time and resources, enabling faster execution.

19. Manage Out Poor Fits Directly

Be willing to part ways directly with individuals who are not the right fit for a role, even if they are not “bad actors.” This is crucial for maintaining a high talent bar and overall team performance.

20. Apply MISI for Problem Solving

Utilize the MISI (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) framework when approaching problems or brainstorming solutions. This ensures all possible factors are considered, preventing oversights and building confidence in comprehensive solution development.

21. Negotiate All Contracts

Always attempt to negotiate contracts for software and services, especially near quarter-ends for salespeople, as vendors often have quotas and flexibility for discounts. This can lead to significant cost savings.

22. Hire Slower, Stretch Teams

Adopt a strategy of hiring slower, only when existing teams are genuinely stretched. This ensures ample scope for new hires, maximizes their impact, and aligns with a cost-effective approach that values small, high-performing teams.

23. Use ‘Bad At But Do’ Interview Question

Ask candidates, “What’s something you’re really bad at, but you still do, and why?” This question helps identify individuals who cultivate interests beyond immediate success, indicating resilience and broader motivations.