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Laura Schaffer is the brand-new VP of Growth at Amplitude. Prior to this role, she spent over 10 years leading product management and growth teams at Twilio, Bandwidth, and Rapid. In today\u2019s episode, we talk about the role of experimentation and data in growth, and Laura shares stories of big wins from her time leading growth teams. She explains how customer insights helped her uplevel her career and how she (surprisingly) thinks about qualitative versus quantitative data. We wrap up our conversation by discussing where the best ideas come from and what you need to know if you\u2019re selling to developers.

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/career-frameworks-ab-testing-counterintuitive

Where to find Laura Schaffer:

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraschaffer/

Where to find Lenny:

\u2022 Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

\u2022 Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

Referenced:

\u2022 Elena Verna on Lenny\u2019s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/

\u2022 Bandwidth: https://www.bandwidth.com/

\u2022 Twilio: https://ahoy.twilio.com/

\u2022 Jeff Lawson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffiel/

\u2022 The Surprising Power of Online Experiments: https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-surprising-power-of-online-experiments

\u2022 Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/

\u2022 Online Experimentation at Microsoft: https://ai.stanford.edu/~ronnyk/ExPThinkWeek2009Public.pdf

\u2022 The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life: https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Path-Wealth-financial-independence/dp/1533667926

\u2022 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299/

\u2022 James Clear on The Tim Ferriss Show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/648-james-clear-atomic-habits-simple-strategies-for/id863897795?i=1000592431628

\u2022 The Great British Baking Show on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/food/shows/great-british-baking-show/

\u2022 Hotjar: https://www.hotjar.com/

\u2022 Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

\u2022 Builder: https://www.builder.io/

\u2022 ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/

\u2022 Lenny Bot: https://www.lennybot.com/

\u2022 Segment: https://segment.com/

\u2022 Senior Growth PM, Monetization,\xa0at Amplitude: https://boards.greenhouse.io/amplitude/jobs/6636704002

\u2022 Lead Growth PM\xa0at Builder: https://boards.greenhouse.io/builder/jobs/4814755004?gh_src=30cfda2d4us

\u2022 Growth PM\xa0at Rapid: https://jobs.lever.co/rapidapi/8d2611d1-6463-4919-9817-31f61e730831

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Laura\u2019s background

(04:15) How to carve your own career path, and an example from Bandwidth

(05:50) Laura\u2019s career growth framework

(10:18) The value of customer insights

(12:25) The \u201cvoice of the customer\u201d report

(16:14) Leaning into your strengths

(18:16) The experiment that shifted the way Laura thinks about friction

(20:20) Questions that improved Twilio\u2019s onboarding and conversion rate

(28:53) Thinking about the psyche of your users

(31:26) The hot dog analogy for burying \u201cscary stuff\u201d

(33:58) Why it\u2019s better to be iterative and why experiments fail

(36:21) Saving money by validating fast

(41:58) Where the best ideas come from

(49:51) Experimentation lessons

(52:54) The amount of time a growth team needs to be successful\xa0

(54:43) The big change at Twilio that led to tens of millions of dollars

(58:41) The need for both PLG and enterprise, and how Amplitude plans to tap into PLG

(1:05:42) What it\u2019s like to serve developers

(1:11:16) Lightning round

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.