Articles by Casey Winters
Pinterest and Grubhub’s Growth Lead on Building Content LoopsCasey Winters, a scaling and growth advisor, has suggests that startups explore an overlooked growth approach: building a content loop. Content loops pay dividends, and he cites his own success as the growth marketing functions leader at Grubhub and Pinterest. At Grubhub, Winters' content and SEO strategy helped turn the online food ordering site into a $10bn public company with three million users and 1,000 employees. At Pinterest, he introduced a content loop and scaled SEO strategy that led to over 200 million users and a $12bn valuation. Winters outlined the five-step process he followed and shared three more advanced strategies for early-stage startups looking to build a plan for steep and sustainable growth.
The Unexpected Value of PR for StartupsWhile press coverage can be intoxicating for startups, Casey argues that public relations should not be the primary focus or used to drive growth directly. Founders are advised to build sustainable growth engines by delivering great products and focusing on customer value instead of chasing press. However, PR can strategically support fundraising, recruiting, and SEO through third-party validation and links. A few outliers like Twitter and Uber were able to achieve sustained growth through press by creating self-perpetuating stories, but these are anomalies. Most startups will not drive significant growth directly from media coverage alone. Casey recommends startups use PR judiciously for its proper purposes rather than viewing it as a direct growth channel.
A Primer on Startup SEOCasey discusses how startups can assess whether they should focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and, if so, how they should develop an SEO strategy. He recommends beginning with keyword research, using a variety of terms to identify how much search volume exists for your products or services. He advises creating combinations of keywords in a spreadsheet and using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner to determine how competitive those search terms are. He lays out 4 SEO scenarios depending on the level of search volume and competition: 1. High Search Volume/Low Competition: Make SEO a Priority 2. High search volume/High Competition: Play for Long Term/Make Core Competency 3. Low Search Volume/Low Competition: Focus on Content Marketing 4. Low Search Volume/High Competition: Ignore SEO Finally, Casey provides tips on how to work on SEO, such as making pages discoverable and readable, optimizing the page title and H1 and H2 tags, and ensuring that the page is unique compared to others in the index.
When and How to Build Second ProductsBuilding second products is important for long-term sustainable growth. The need for new products depends on factors like the business model, market size/growth, and natural product adjacencies. New products work best when they address a core company need, like expanding the addressable market or improving monetization. Geographic, category and format expansions are often easier than new value propositions. To be successful, new products don't need product-market fit on their own, but should influence overall company acquisition, retention or growth. Understanding growth trajectories through modeling helps determine when to invest in new products. As an example, Calm found success expanding into sleep products which helped build a more durable habit for its users.
Centralization Vs. Decentralization in Marketplaces and Scaling CompaniesCasey talks through how to structure teams, particularly in marketplaces that have a geography- or city-based approach.
- Pinterest and Grubhub’s Growth Lead on Building Content Loops
Casey Winters, a scaling and growth advisor, has suggests that startups explore an overlooked growth approach: building a content loop. Content loops pay dividends, and he cites his own success as the growth marketing functions leader at Grubhub and Pinterest. At Grubhub, Winters' content and SEO strategy helped turn the online food ordering site into a $10bn public company with three million users and 1,000 employees. At Pinterest, he introduced a content loop and scaled SEO strategy that led to over 200 million users and a $12bn valuation. Winters outlined the five-step process he followed and shared three more advanced strategies for early-stage startups looking to build a plan for steep and sustainable growth.
- The Right Way to Involve a Qualitative Research Team
Casey covers: • Learning and Applying from Research • When to Research and When to Experiment • But I Don’t Even Have a Research Team
- Three Mistakes Integrating Growth and Design Teams and How to Address Them
Casey explains what can go wrong when the first designer joins an already-existing growth team. Watch out for making sure there is a decision-making balance between growth and design, design best practices are adaptive, and that the designer receives a thorough onboarding on what is growth.
Four Strategies to Win Big with Low Frequency MarketplacesCasey reviews four strategies for low frequency marketplaces: SEO, pricing low, insurance, and building a second, high-frequency product.
- The Analyst Career Path
The data analysis department is generally smaller than departments like engineering and product management, which leads to more questions about how to progress through a data analysis career. Casey provides 3 career pathway options based on his experience managing data analysts: • Option 1: Graduate into Data Science • Option 2: Become an Analytics Manager • Option 3: Graduate into Product Management
- Why Onboarding is the Most Crucial Part of Your Growth Strategy
Casey explains what is needed to define successful onboarding for your product: understanding your target frequency and your key action. He then provides 3 principles around how to provide value to users: 1. Get to product value as fast as possible — but not faster 2. Remove all friction that distracts the user from experiencing product value 3. Don’t be afraid to educate contextually