Leveraging growth advisors, hiring well, mastering SEO, and honing your craft | Luc Levesque (Shopify, Meta, TripAdvisor)

1. Focus on Impact, Not Activity

Leaders and companies should focus exclusively on ‘impact’ (outcomes) rather than just ‘activity’ (how hard people work or what they do), as this laser focus drives progress towards the mission. This distinction ensures efforts are directed towards measurable results.

2. Prioritize Hiring as a Leader

As you scale as a leader, recognize that hiring becomes the most important skill to become world-class at, because the bulk of your team’s success will largely depend on the quality of your hires. Dedicate significant effort to refining your hiring playbook.

3. Be Relentless in Hiring

Don’t give up on top talent and don’t let momentum drop during the hiring process, as ’no’ doesn’t always mean no. Persistence and sustained engagement can ultimately secure great hires, even over several months.

4. Recruit Executive Help for Hiring

When hiring, involve the entire executive team, not just recruiters or HR, as all leaders understand the importance of talent and are usually happy to help close candidates. Leverage your peers and leaders to assist in the recruitment process.

5. Personalize Hiring Process

Involve a candidate’s spouse and family in the hiring process, especially for significant moves, as changing companies is a very personal decision involving the whole family. This approach can address personal concerns and strengthen the candidate’s commitment.

6. Seek Signs of Excellence

When finding talent, look for ‘signs of excellence’ or repeated past performance (work-related or not) as the best predictor of future performance. Aim for candidates who have demonstrated a consistent ability to stand above the crowd.

7. Poached Talent: Strong Signal

Consider it a strong signal of excellence if a candidate’s former boss leaves a company and then tries to poach them. This indicates high performance and trust, as the former leader has the most direct knowledge of the individual’s capabilities.

8. Growth: Whatever It Takes

Define ‘growth’ broadly as ‘whatever it takes to move the needle,’ encompassing zero-to-one product building, M&A, SEO, social, onboarding, or partnerships, rather than restricting it to a small subset of channels. Test many different things and lean into what works.

9. YOLO Product Changes for Speed

Don’t feel every product change needs to be a slow, rigorous experiment; sometimes, making a direct change (‘YOLOing’) for a better product experience or a known solution can be faster and more impactful. This approach prioritizes speed, while still monitoring for major damage.

10. Wait for Product Market Fit

Generally, wait until you have clear product market fit (a product users love with strong retention or a good loop) before heavily investing in growth. Growing a product that lacks product market fit can do more damage than good by exposing users to a poor experience.

11. Test Growth in Isolated Markets

If you need users to test product market fit before full growth, try to do it in smaller, ‘off-the-grid’ markets (e.g., an English-speaking country) to contain growth and get feedback without broad exposure. This minimizes potential negative impact on your brand.

12. Vet Growth Advisors with Experts

If you’re looking for a growth advisor or hiring growth talent, leverage existing advisors or trusted network contacts who know growth to help vet candidates. For someone who knows growth, it’s an easy ask to assess another person’s talent.

13. Compensate Advisors with Equity

Structure advisor relationships with equity compensation, if possible, to align incentives between the advisor and the founder. This ensures both parties are working towards the same successful outcomes for the company.

14. Front-Load Advisor Equity Vesting

Structure advisor equity vesting to be front-loaded (vesting earlier rather than later) to incentivize them to deliver as much value as possible quickly and train your team. The ideal engagement is for an advisor to deliver value and then for the team to learn and become self-sufficient.

15. Implement 3-Month Advisor Cliff

Include a three-month cliff in advisor agreements, allowing either party to terminate the deal if it’s not working. This de-risks the partnership for both sides and further incentivizes the advisor to add significant value quickly.

16. Ensure Long-Term Advisor Equity Tail

For growth advisors working for equity, ensure the deal structure includes a long tail (e.g., 10+ years) for options or RSUs. Company success and liquidity can take a very long time, and this aligns incentives for the long haul.

17. Source Advisors from VCs

To find good growth advisors, start by asking your investors (VCs often have amazing networks), or ask other founders who have had good experiences. These networks are often the best source for high-quality, impactful advisors.

18. Avoid Public Halo Hires

When vetting growth advisors or talent, don’t rely solely on their public ‘halo’ (e.g., conference presentations, large social media following); instead, focus on past performance, team experience, and deep craft knowledge. A large following does not automatically equate to high performance.

19. Prioritize Internal Growth Talent

Always prefer to hire internal growth talent over agencies or pure advisors, as internal hires embed growth into the culture, can do more, and ensure knowledge stays within the company. Agencies should generally be a last resort.

20. Surround Internal Talent with Advisors

If you hire internal growth talent (even if they don’t know growth initially), surround them with a set of growth advisors so they can learn and embed that knowledge into the company culture. This helps build internal capability and reduces long-term external dependency.

21. Identify SEO Fit Early

Consider your product a good fit for SEO if there’s existing demand in Google for your product area, and especially if your product naturally generates thousands or millions of user-generated content pages (like profiles or listings). This indicates a large optimization surface for potential impact.

22. Create Content for SEO

If your site has a small number of pages, implement a content strategy (e.g., a blog or new site sections) to create high-quality answers to questions your audience might have, to drive SEO traffic. This is a tried and true approach to build authority and capture demand.

23. Focus SEO on High-Impact Keywords

Recognize that entire industries or businesses can be built around ranking for a single, high-volume keyword, so don’t underestimate the exponential impact of owning top search results for critical terms. It’s not crazy to have an entire SEO team focused on a small number of keywords.

24. Prepare for AI’s SEO Impact

Anticipate significant changes in SEO over the next 12-24 months due to AI-powered search results (like Google’s AI box), especially for informational keywords. This may lead to fewer organic clicks and a potential shift towards paid channels, requiring new optimization strategies.

25. Hire Amazing Internal SEO Talent

For SEO, prioritize hiring an amazing, experienced SEO person internally. If not possible, hire a relentless doer and surround them with great SEO advisors, as internal talent is preferred over agencies for long-term knowledge and impact.

26. Expect SEO Impact 3-12 Months

While SEO impact can sometimes be immediate for existing, well-ranking content, expect it to take between three to twelve months to see significant results, especially when building new content or site sections. This timeframe allows for Google to build trust and rank new content.

27. Practice Structured Self-Reflection

Dedicate time (e.g., an hour daily) for structured self-reflection using a dashboard to track progress in various life areas (e.g., friend, spouse, parent, leader). Identify what’s going well, what’s not, why, and what to do about it to make constant progress.

28. Build ‘Bootloader’ Morning Routine

Develop a consistent morning routine (e.g., exercise, stretching, meditation, cold plunge, reading) to ‘boot you up’ for the day. This routine can significantly improve daily performance, mood, and overall well-being.

29. Incorporate Cold Plunges for Mood, Sleep

Consider adding cold plunges to your routine, starting slowly and gradually decreasing temperature, as they can significantly boost mood for several hours and improve sleep. Experiment with different durations and temperatures to find your sweet spot.

30. Seek Family Feedback

Actively ask family members (e.g., children, spouse) for feedback on how you can be a better parent, partner, or friend. Their insights can lead to meaningful changes and stronger relationships, as they provide a unique perspective on your behavior.

31. Implement Family Routines

Based on family feedback, establish consistent routines (e.g., a bi-weekly ‘daddy date’ with each child) to ensure desired interactions and relationship building are repeatable, not just one-off events. This ensures consistent quality time and connection.

32. Host ‘Guild’ Dinners

Organize regular ‘guild’ dinners (5-8 interesting people, catered, at your home) focused on specific topics (e.g., consumer product, SEO, growth) to foster learning, networking, and recruiting. People enjoy connecting and discussing mutual interests in a comfortable setting.

33. Read ‘Spark’ for Exercise

Read ‘Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain’ to understand the neuroscience of exercise and how specific routines can boost cognition and performance, beyond just physical fitness. This book provides a blueprint for leveraging exercise for brain health.

34. Read ‘Smart Brevity’ for Communication

Read ‘Smart Brevity’ to learn how to write crisply and communicate tightly, which is crucial for getting your point across effectively in remote work environments with high message volume. This skill helps ensure your messages are digested and understood.

35. Reread ‘Influence’ for Growth

Reread ‘Influence’ by Cialdini at least once a year, as it provides the fundamental psychological underpinnings for many product and growth principles. This classic book offers timeless insights into human behavior and persuasion.