10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)

Welcome back, Elena! (0s)

• Growth is a relatively new field with a lot of interest in growth hacks, but many tips and tricks shared are out of context or specific to one example and do not apply as a pattern (0s).
• Having a growth team is not necessary to figure out product-market fit and distribution, as it's not something that can be outsourced to somebody (32s).
• Rebranding or redesigning, especially a marketing site, does not produce good performance results, and new CMOs often design the brand based on their personal taste (48s).
• If every single initiative is an experiment, it's a problem, as it can be a paralyzing disease that prevents progress (1m17s).
• Elena Verna is an expert in B2B growth, having led growth at companies like Miro, Amplitude, Dropbox, and SurveyMonkey, and advised dozens of companies on growth (1m40s).
• Elena shares 10 growth strategies and tactics that never work, yet companies invest lots of resources into them (1m51s).
• She also covers her three favorite growth frameworks that help wrap your head around how to think about growth (2m2s).
• Elena discusses non-traditional career paths, including her own and the host's, for those working on product growth or leading people working on growth (2m6s).
• Cinch, the customer Communications Cloud, helps businesses send digital customer communications reliably, and is used by over 150,000 businesses, including eight of the top 10 largest tech companies globally (2m47s).
• Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a new messaging technology that provides a more secure and branded experience, with features like interactive carousels and suggested replies (3m1s).
• Vanta helps companies ensure top-notch security practices, making it easier to manage security and compliance (3m47s).
• Vanta is a market-leading trust management platform that helps companies continuously monitor compliance, reporting, and tracking risk, while also automating evidence collection, unifying risk management, and streamlining security reviews, with a $1,000 discount available at vanta.com/Lenny (4m26s).
• Elena Verna is a repeat guest on the podcast, with her first episode recorded almost two years ago in September 2022, and her insights have been well-received by the audience, with one comment praising her for sharing years of knowledge (5m13s).
• Elena's Northstar metric is "insights per minute," which she tries to optimize for in her live meetings, aiming to provide valuable information while also making the content feel good and relatable to her audience (5m24s).
• Elena believes that presenting insights effectively is crucial, and storytelling plays a big role in making them stick, as simply providing insight after insight is not enough (5m57s).

Common mistakes growth teams make (6m2s)

• Growth is a relatively new field compared to marketing, product management, or engineering, resulting in a high number of newcomers and a lower number of experienced professionals with 10 years or more of experience in growth (6m36s).
• The high ratio of newcomers to experienced professionals in the growth field leads to a strong interest in "growth hacks" or shortcuts to achieve growth, with many people seeking quick fixes to contribute to a company's success (6m55s).
• The abundance of tips and tricks shared on social media often leads to people adopting strategies that are out of context or specific to one example, resulting in failure and a high turnover rate in growth teams (7m18s).
• Growth teams have a higher head of growth firing rate than even CMOs, with many growth professionals facing high expectations to drive growth, and being let go when they fail to deliver (7m44s).
• There is a lot of misinformation about what growth actually is and how it should be done in companies, leading to a need for education and guidance on effective growth strategies (8m8s).
• The lack of information on effective growth strategies and the prevalence of misinformation lead to a cycle of failure and turnover in growth teams, with many companies struggling to find the right approach to growth (8m23s).

1: Hiring for growth roles too soon (8m31s)

• Hiring a growth team too soon is a common mistake, as it is not necessary to have a growth team to achieve initial growth, with many companies not creating growth teams until they reach $100-200 million in annual revenue (9m13s).
• Founders and founding teams must figure out how to make their company grow to the first $1-10 million in annual revenue before hiring a growth team, as product-market fit and distribution cannot be outsourced (9m32s).
• The concept of "founder-led growth" is not popularized enough, and founders should lead growth efforts until they have a large enough user base to run experiments and optimize (10m15s).
• Two specific reasons why a growth team is not necessary initially are the need for solid product-market fit (PMF) and data, with PMF meaning a solution to a problem with retaining customers (10m42s).
• A good retention rate and a high Net Promoter Score (NPS) are indicators of PMF, and data is necessary for growth to function, with 10 users or customers not being enough to constitute data (11m0s).
• Founders should continue to lead growth efforts for as long as possible, with waiting longer to hire a growth team being beneficial as it trains the entire company to be growth-oriented (11m55s).
• A common milestone for hiring a growth team is reaching $1 million in annual revenue, but many companies recommend waiting longer (11m59s).
• The decision to hire a head of growth versus a salesperson depends on how a company collects revenue, with sales-focused companies hiring sales teams first and potentially not needing a growth team. (12m41s)
• If a company's primary revenue collection method is through a sales team, they should hire sales personnel before growth teams, as sales handles monetization, activation, retention, and success efforts. (12m47s)
• However, if a company is starting to generate revenue through self-serve models, such as product-led growth, they may need to hire a growth person first, as growth teams can handle product-led activation, monetization, and retention. (13m32s)
• In general, it is advised to hire a head of growth only when a company has clear product-market fit, is product-led, and has reached a certain revenue milestone, ideally over $1 million in annual recurring revenue. (14m0s)
• Companies that rely on product-led growth, where the product is responsible for acquisition, activation, monetization, or retention, may need to bring in a growth team sooner, as growth teams can help optimize these product-led growth levers. (14m41s)

2: Hiring a head of growth to fix your problems (15m9s)

• Companies often hire a head of growth to fix their problems when their growth slows down, but this approach is unlikely to succeed if the underlying issues are deeper, such as core product and marketing problems (15m13s).
• A growth team can optimize growth and potentially lift it by 10-15%, but it cannot fix fundamental issues with the product or marketing strategy (16m2s).
• If a business is slowing down, it's essential to address the underlying reasons for the decline rather than just hiring a growth team and expecting them to solve the problem (16m23s).
• Growth teams can amplify great product-market fit and help businesses grow faster, but they cannot solve problems with product-market fit or go-to-market strategy (17m10s).
• Hiring a large growth team to tackle every product flow and interface can be a huge expense with a low return on investment, especially if the underlying issues are not addressed (17m34s).
• The name "growth team" can be misleading, as it implies that the team can single-handedly drive growth, when in reality, growth is often dependent on other factors (18m1s).
• There is no silver bullet for a perfect head of growth or growth team that can reverse the trajectory of a declining business (18m16s).
• Companies should consider hiring a head of growth when they have an established product and marketing strategy, and their growth has plateaued or is showing signs of life, rather than when they are in decline (18m30s).

3: Doing a rebrand to drive growth (19m20s)

• Rebranding and homepage redesigns are often ineffective in driving growth, despite being expensive and time-consuming, with costs sometimes exceeding $1 million and development times of 8-10 months or more (19m21s).
• These redesigns can be a step back in performance, requiring significant optimization to return to previous results, and may not lead to meaningful improvements in acquisition, category penetration, or awareness (19m41s).
• Companies may undertake rebranding and redesigns for valid reasons, such as entering a new market or updating their product, but these efforts should be viewed as a necessary step rather than a growth driver (20m1s).
• New CMOs may be tempted to redesign the website or brand to reflect their personal taste, but this approach often fails to deliver promised results and can lead to significant agency spending and internal disagreements (20m34s).
• Redesigns can be worthwhile if done with a clear understanding that they will not drive immediate growth, but rather set the stage for a future world-class brand, and teams should be educated on the time and effort required to achieve desired results (22m3s).
• Similar issues can arise with product redesigns, which can require significant engineering work and resources without yielding meaningful results (22m48s).
• Launching a redesigned product or website can be driven by the need to justify the investment of time and resources, rather than a clear expectation of growth or improvement (23m15s).
• Rebranding is often a shot in the dark and may not necessarily lead to better performance, despite potentially being aesthetically pleasing (23m41s).
• Even if rebranding works, it is likely an outlier and should not be treated as a pattern, with the best-case scenario being net neutral results and improved ability to optimize towards something bigger (24m13s).
• The primary goal of rebranding should not be to drive increased performance immediately after launch, but rather to allow 2-3 months, ideally 6 months, to optimize and potentially outperform the previous experience (24m37s).
• Companies and teams often forget to allocate sufficient time for optimization after a rebranding launch, instead moving on to the next project after the initial launch (24m59s).

4: Obsessing over your competition (25m11s)

• Obsessing over the competition can be detrimental to a company's growth, as blindly copying their tactics or strategies often leads to subpar results (25m12s).
• While being inspired by competitors' experiences can be beneficial, it's essential to understand that every experience is unique to their customers and channels (25m46s).
• Copying competitors' tactics without conducting user research, ideation, or experimentation can lead to failure, as it neglects the company's specific needs and goals (26m54s).
• Using competitors as inspiration for ideation, staying up-to-date with industry trends, and analyzing patterns can be valuable, but it's crucial to balance this with innovation and experimentation (27m10s).
• Web archives can be a useful tool for analyzing competitors' logged-out pages and understanding their design decisions (27m26s).
• Identifying patterns and elements that are commonly used by successful companies can be helpful, but it's essential to adapt these elements to the company's specific needs and goals (27m42s).
• Skipping the ideation, design, user research, customer interview, and experimentation steps can lead to mediocrity, as copying competitors' strategies without innovation will never make a company a leader (27m55s).
• Benchmarks can be misleading, as they often compare companies with different goals, customers, and channels, and may not accurately reflect a company's performance (28m40s).
• Growth benchmarks can be misleading as they may not account for differences in how companies define key metrics, such as signups, prospect visitors, and activated users, making it essential to understand the specific definitions used by each company before comparing benchmarks (28m52s).
• Blindly copying benchmarks from competitors can lead to failure, as these benchmarks may not be applicable due to differences in definitions and company-specific contexts (29m26s).
• Benchmarks can still be valuable as an input for decision-making, but they should not be used as the sole basis for setting goals or initiatives (29m44s).
• There are no shortcuts to growth, but rather patterns and frameworks that can be applied to achieve success (30m15s).
• It's essential to draw inspiration from competitors rather than copying them directly, as this allows for adaptation to a company's unique context and needs (30m22s).
• Using competitors as inspiration can help inform the design process, such as understanding how to collect information or resolve certain steps, but should not be used as a destination for the result (31m8s).
• Competitor research can be a useful input for ideation, but should not replace the design cycle or be used to simply replicate a competitor's approach (31m23s).
• Having a starting point, such as a competitor's approach, can be helpful, but it's essential to adapt and refine it to fit a company's specific needs and product (32m11s).
• Prototypes and flows from other companies should not be copied without putting in one's own effort to make them work, as they often involve guesswork and may not be as well-thought-out as they seem (32m25s).
• Companies, especially well-known ones, may have seemingly well-designed flows, but in reality, they may be the result of chaos and guesswork rather than careful planning and testing (32m43s).
• Even large companies like Dropbox may have outdated or poorly performing pages that were not intentionally made public, and copying these can lead to failure (33m4s).
• It's a common failure point to assume that successful companies have carefully thought out every detail, when in reality, there may be a lot of chaos and uncertainty behind the scenes (33m35s).
• People often try to copy the strategies of successful companies without understanding the context and effort that went into creating them, which can lead to poor results (32m57s).

5: Believing that your problems are unique (34m0s)

• Many companies believe their growth problems are unique, but this is rarely the case, and trying to re-engineer a solution from scratch can result in time lost to market and huge opportunity costs (34m3s).
• Instead of starting from scratch, companies should look at how their competitors are solving similar problems and find people who have already solved the issue, as they can provide valuable insights and shortcuts (35m41s).
• People who have solved similar problems can be found through LinkedIn, networking, or asking around, and they often love to talk about their experiences and solutions (36m5s).
• Solving a problem uniquely is extremely inefficient, and companies should focus on finding frameworks and patterns to solve not only the current problem but also future ones (36m27s).
• By finding a framework or pattern, companies can get to 60% of the solution quickly and then implement their own authentic solution, rather than trying to go from 0 to 60 manually (37m2s).
• An example of this is when Elena Verna was tasked with standing up a community at Miro, and instead of trying to figure it out from scratch, she could have talked to people who had already solved similar problems and saved time and effort (37m35s).
• At Miro, Elena Verna was initially approaching the task of standing up a community like finding product-market fit, but she realized that she would fail a lot doing it that way, and it would be more efficient to find people who had already solved similar problems (38m4s).
• Companies often have limited time to achieve traction, and if a project is not successful, it may be shut down, resulting in a huge failure for both the individual and the company (38m10s).
• When building a community, it's essential to consider different types of communities, such as user, agency, or partner communities, and not just focus on users (38m42s).
• Starting with agency or partner communities can yield better results than starting with a user community (38m57s).
• It's crucial to acknowledge that you don't know everything and be humble enough to ask for help, which can earn you more credit and lead to better outcomes (39m23s).
• Failing to admit that you don't know how to solve a problem can lead to starting from scratch and hitting every failure point along the way (39m47s).
• Failing is an inevitable part of growth, and the key is to learn from failures and shorten the timeline for failure cycles (40m13s).
• One Schema, a company that helps product teams import CSVs from tricky systems like ERPs, has launched a new product called One Schema File Feeds, which allows users to build an integration with any system in 15 minutes (41m23s).
• One Schema File Feeds aims to help product teams avoid getting stuck with hacks and workarounds and enable customers to offer seamless integrations with their systems (41m41s).
• Thousands of integrations can be created without involving the engineering team, which would be beneficial in taking it off the roadmap and using something like one schema for building and maintaining it forever (41m44s).
• Many horror stories have been heard about multi-day outages caused by even just a handful of bad records, which is why integration reliability is a key focus to help teams end distractions that come up with integrations (41m59s).
• One schema has a built-in validation layer that stops any bad data from entering the system and notifies the team immediately of any data that looks incorrect (42m10s).
• Importing incorrect data can cause pain for customers and quickly lose their trust (42m19s).
• One schema aims to help teams avoid these issues and more information can be found on their website (42m27s).

6: Prioritizing other growth channels above earned channels (42m32s)

• Waiting too long to hire a head of growth can hinder a company's progress, but it's also important to wait until the product has reached market fit, which may be around $1 million in annual recurring revenue, especially for self-serve oriented businesses (42m32s).
• Hiring a head of growth won't solve the problem of declining growth, so it's essential to first stop the decline (42m47s).
• Redesigning a home page or rebranding is unlikely to help with growth and may even hurt it, so it's crucial to approach such changes with caution (42m54s).
• Copying the competition's strategies is not an effective way to grow, as it's essential to understand the underlying problems and find unique solutions, and it's likely that someone has already solved similar problems in the past (43m6s).
• Growth teams should prioritize owning channels, such as earned or user-generated content, rather than relying on acquisition channels like SEO, SEM, or social media, as these channels can be controlled by algorithms and are subject to change (43m57s).
• Owned or earned channels, such as user-generated content and community, are more valuable than paid marketing channels, as they provide a unique and uncontrollable source of acquisition (44m34s).
• Product-led growth acquisition, which relies on virality, word of mouth, and user-generated content, is a more effective way to attract new customers than paid marketing channels (45m40s).
• Building a community and user-generated content can provide a unique and sustainable source of growth, as competitors cannot replicate it (46m5s).
• Referrals and word of mouth are powerful acquisition tactics, as they are based on personal recommendations and are more effective than paid marketing advertisements (46m21s).
• The shift towards AI interfaces is changing the way people interact with search, and this may reduce the effectiveness of paid marketing channels (46m40s).
• The growth landscape is changing, with AI-driven UIs emerging and reducing control over user interfaces, making it crucial for companies to focus on earned channels they own, as relying on external channels can lead to increased costs and competition (46m48s).
• Failing to prioritize virality and user-generated content can be a fundamental growth team failure point, as it's a powerful and effective way to create earned acquisition channels (47m36s).
• While creating earned channels may not be applicable or cost-effective for every company, it's a strategy that can be applied to more products than people realize, as most products have team functionality or roles that can drive word-of-mouth loops or recommendations (48m26s).
• Even if a product can't drive word-of-mouth loops, it can still create user-generated content, making it essential for growth teams to explore and invest in earned channels to avoid leaving their growth future in the hands of external factors (49m8s).
• Growth teams should diversify their strategies, focusing on owned channels, such as virality and user-generated content, rather than relying solely on external channels like SEM and paid growth (49m27s).
• Dropbox is an example of a company that has successfully leveraged earned channels, with over 50% of its acquisition coming through sharing, which also solves brand awareness and educates recipients about the product (49m43s).
• A growth pod focuses on optimizing both the sender experience and the recipient experience, as it is a powerful growth loop and engine that can drive a company's growth (50m33s).
• Every business should attempt to create a growth loop, as it can be a significant push for growth teams to think about what they can do to achieve this (50m46s).

7: Failing to evolve your growth model (50m55s)

• Every company starts with growth efforts focused on either product-led growth or sales and marketing, but not overlaying different growth models as the company evolves is a huge mistake (50m55s).
• Product-market fit is not going to last forever, and companies need to have a second horizon, a product-market fit expansion effort, to continue growing (51m56s).
• The same principle applies to growth models - if a growth model works, it's essential to optimize it, but it's also necessary to evolve it by overlaying other growth models to avoid relying on just one model (52m16s).
• Over-optimizing the same growth model can lead to minimal returns, and some growth models have limited time spans, typically between five to seven years (52m52s).
• Companies need to continuously introduce different growth models, such as product-led growth, marketing-led growth, and sales-led growth, to maintain long-term growth (53m22s).
• This approach separates companies that can continue growing for extended periods from those that experience rapid growth but eventually slow down (53m36s).
• It's essential to think about different ways to attract people and grow the business before growth slows down, to avoid leaving a gap in the market for competitors (53m50s).
• The concept of s-curves applies to every growth model and growth lever, where growth eventually slows down, and companies need to find the next growth lever to maintain momentum (54m13s).
• Growth teams often focus on a single successful initiative, but it's crucial to diversify and explore new growth models to sustain long-term growth (54m26s).
• Growth teams should realize that there's a limit to how much growth can be achieved through a single tactic, and it's essential to introduce new growth loops, channels, or tactics every 18 months to continue evolving, as many of these new initiatives will fail (54m55s).
• Every five years, a new significant growth engine or tactic should be introduced to power the growth engine, such as overlaying sales on top of self-service or increasing marketing efforts (55m11s).
• It's crucial to focus 20-25% of the growth team's time annually on introducing new growth loops, channels, or tactics that can potentially bring additional growth, even if many of these initiatives will fail (56m25s).
• New growth initiatives should be given time to evolve and should not be immediately expected to meet monetization or acquisition metrics, as this can hinder their potential for growth (56m50s).
• The example of Miroverse, a user-generated content library, shows that it took 18 months to start putting metrics expectations on it, and it eventually became an engagement and acquisition engine (57m4s).
• Constantly giving the team room to try new ideas is essential to prevent growth loops and engines from slowing down, and to avoid finding oneself in a situation where growth is slowing down, and it's impossible to recover (57m33s).
• Growth loops, on average, take six months to a year and a half to start producing visible revenue, which is why it's essential to start layering new initiatives soon (57m58s).
• Creating a growth loop out of user-generated content is a valuable strategy, as it can be used for activation and acquisition purposes, and can be a key differentiator in content strategy, especially with the current developments in AI and SEO (58m29s).
• Investing in a library of user-generated content, such as templates, case studies, and reviews, can be beneficial for sparking conversations and driving growth (58m53s).
• Implementing a referral mechanism can be an effective growth tactic, whether it's for B2C products through traditional referrals or for B2B products by inviting other team members to use the product (59m16s).
• Creating additional product functionality that encourages users to invite others to use the product can help create growth loops (59m44s).
• Understanding and exploring various earned tactics, such as user-generated content and referrals, is crucial for growth, especially for companies relying on search engines for acquisition (59m54s).
• While earned channels are valuable, it's also important to explore other tactics, such as SEO, paid growth, sales, and resellers, as they can be effective growth strategies (1h0m27s).
• Paid growth channels may not be suitable for every company, and some may be using them too soon, but they can be a viable option for certain businesses (1h0m32s).
• Earned channels, such as user-generated content and referrals, can provide long-term benefits and are less likely to be taken away, making them a valuable investment for growth (1h0m52s).

8: Not hiring advisors (1h1m6s)

• Not hiring advisors is a growth tactic that doesn't work, as it can significantly amplify one's career and business by providing access to a network of people with valuable data points and patterns (1h1m9s).
• Hiring advisors can propel growth forward by offering additional input into decision-making, and it's possible to hire advisors from successful companies like Atlassian or Airbnb who have lived through similar problems (1h1m13s).
• Even experienced individuals can benefit from hiring advisors, as it's the fastest way to learn and gain new insights (1h2m45s).
• Not having advisors can lead to underperformance, especially in a field with a big asymmetry of information, where there's limited available knowledge due to competition (1h2m40s).
• When interviewing potential advisors, it's recommended to conduct a workshop with them to see how they interact with the team and provide valuable information before hiring them on an ongoing retainer basis (1h4m0s).
• This approach creates a practical interview loop that helps determine whether the advisor can contribute to the team and whether they can work together effectively (1h5m6s).
• It's essential to evaluate the advisor's value every month and decide whether they should continue working with the company (1h5m19s).
• Advisors should not have monetary expectations, such as revenue attributions, but rather provide valuable conversations and insights (1h5m35s).

9: Over experimenting (1h5m55s)

• Over-experimenting is a common problem in growth teams, where every initiative is treated as an experiment, leading to a paralyzing disease that slows down progress, velocity, and learnings (1h5m55s).
• This approach creates terrible consequences for the output that growth teams produce, as they become afraid to make any changes without testing them first (1h7m29s).
• To find a balance, it's essential to trust intuition and not rely solely on data, especially when dealing with low-volume real estate that would take too long to reach a conclusive answer (1h7m52s).
• A rule of thumb is to not test something if it would take more than a month to collect a sample size, and instead, use pre versus post analysis, which is a powerful way to assess impact and roll back if needed (1h8m13s).
• Experimentation should not be the only way to make decisions in a company, as there's still value in knowing the user, understanding the market, and using intuition to connect the dots (1h8m37s).
• Scientific data is crucial for big strategic pivots or high-traffic real estate, but for other initiatives, it's better to move forward quickly and measure the impact later (1h9m1s).
• Releasing and moving on, while still measuring the impact at different intervals, is a better approach than testing everything, which can be debilitating to growth teams (1h9m21s).
• It's essential to look at initiatives and determine where precision is necessary and can be obtained quickly, versus where it's better to take a risk and move forward (1h9m44s).
• Failure is inevitable, and statistics can be tricky, so it's essential to use data as a directional data point rather than taking it at face value (1h10m7s).
• Relying too heavily on data can lead to neglecting intuition, which is still a valuable tool in making decisions (1h10m37s).

10: Color optimizations, third-party signups, one email wonders, and removing friction (1h10m44s)

• Color optimizations are not an effective growth tactic, as the difference between shades of a color or testing against other colors will not drive significant results, and it's recommended to pick a color and move on, as this tactic is outdated and doesn't work anymore (1h11m3s).
• Third-party signups can be useful in certain cases, such as for developer products where GitHub integration is necessary, but for most cases, such as productivity products, it's not a growth tactic and will only cause a mix shift into more people using it, without improving acquisition, activation, or retention (1h11m24s).
• One-off emails, also known as "one email wonders," are not effective and will never cause significant lift, as too few people open and click on them, and it's recommended to think about email as a series and a whole strategy, rather than stressing about a single email (1h12m14s).
• Removing friction is not always an effective growth tactic, as simply removing steps or simplifying things to an extreme can lead to losing the identity of what the product does or is capable of doing, and it's recommended to focus on removing cognitive load and friction that causes confusion, rather than just simplifying for the sake of simplifying (1h13m10s).

Elena’s favorite growth frameworks (1h15m0s)

• Favorite growth frameworks are patterns that exist across almost every company and serve as a starting point for ideation and finding solutions, rather than trying to define a problem on its own (1h15m33s).
• The first favorite growth framework is growth Loops, which involve thinking about action and reaction that generates another action, creating a self-contained flywheel that can spin with a lot of resources (1h15m52s).
• Resources on growth Loops can be found at Reforge, written by Brian Balfour, Casey Winters, and Andrew Chen (1h16m27s).
• The second favorite growth framework is the RACECAR framework, written by Lenny and Dan, which separates growth initiatives into engines, fuel, turbo boosts, and lubrications to help think about the different parts of growth initiatives and their results (1h16m36s).
• The RACECAR framework helps to identify which initiatives are long-term, short-term, and how much they will produce in results (1h16m42s).
• The third favorite growth framework is the Adjacent User Theory by Bengali, which is powerful in thinking about growth evolution and adding different growth models to a growth ecosystem (1h17m29s).
• The Adjacent User Theory involves thinking about users outside of the ideal customer profile and how growth teams can bring them in and add additional value to the product without expanding the product market fit (1h17m44s).
• These three growth frameworks are considered the most powerful and can change people's lives if adopted and learned (1h18m5s).

Contrarian corner: full-time jobs (1h18m50s)

• A contrarian opinion is that full-time jobs are not the best way to monetize one's skills, and people should explore other options that are available and best suited for their personalities, interests, and skill sets (1h18m53s).
• Full-time roles can be beneficial for learning, gaining expertise, and career advancement, but they can also box people into one company that may not be a great fit culturally, skill-wise, or ambition-wise (1h20m7s).
• Alternative options to full-time roles include freelancing, contracting, advising, consulting, interim engagements, fractional engagements, creating and monetizing courses, and creating and monetizing newsletters (1h20m57s).
• Freelancing and contracting allow for horizontal work across multiple companies, while interim and fractional engagements offer more flexibility and a predetermined end date or part-time work (1h21m1s).
• Creating and monetizing courses and newsletters can provide additional income streams and allow for more control over one's work (1h21m48s).
• People are often paralyzed by fear of instability when exploring alternative options, but creating diversification and stability is possible by exploring different options and creating multiple income streams (1h21m55s).
• Increasing optionality is a key concept, which involves creating more choices and opportunities for oneself, rather than relying solely on a full-time job (1h22m35s).
• Having career optionality is a more effective goal than striving for a specific title, as it allows individuals to choose what fits their life, skills, and personality, and can bring happiness and energy to their job (1h22m42s).
• Setting a title as a goal can be misleading, as people may find themselves dissatisfied or depressed when they reach their desired position, and it's essential to consider whether a job will increase one's options or not (1h23m10s).
• To achieve career optionality, individuals should think about their progression differently, focusing on what they can do next to increase their option pool, rather than just getting to a higher title (1h23m57s).
• When evaluating opportunities, it's crucial to consider whether they will increase one's options, and individuals should be willing to stay at a company, move to a different role, or leave the company if it will increase their options (1h24m18s).
• Building depth and actual experience is essential to create a strong foundation for career optionality, and individuals should earn their right to unlock optionality by gaining experience in full-time jobs (1h24m58s).
• Having a full-time job is not the only option, and individuals should start thinking about unlocking new options and testing the market at some point in their careers (1h25m28s).
• It's possible to have a non-linear career path, moving between full-time jobs, advising, and other roles, and individuals should be open to exploring different options and not shutting the door on any opportunities (1h25m41s).

Lightning round and final thoughts (1h26m5s)

• The recommended books include "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir, "Bobby Verse" which explores the concept of uploading human consciousness into AI, and "Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge, a space opera that features AI as a significant element. (1h26m25s)
• The favorite recent movie or TV shows include "Beef" on Netflix, "Veep" on HBO, and "The Last of Us", a zombie apocalypse series. (1h27m51s)
• A recently discovered favorite product is heated shoes with heated wires that can be charged via USB, which has been a game-changer for cold feet. (1h29m7s)
• Elena Verna's favorite life motto is "progress over perfection," as she believes the velocity of information is more important than perfection, and perfection is an outcome that can be achieved through progress (1h30m20s).
• Elena Verna is a proponent of using humor, especially memes, to disarm people and point out painful situations in a non-confrontational way, making complex corporate situations more relatable and understandable (1h31m20s).
• Elena Verna's favorite meme is one she created, inspired by Family Guy, which depicts an elephant (representing product) and a penguin (representing marketing) with a child that has a penguin body and an elephant head, symbolizing growth as a weird byproduct of product and marketing merged together (1h32m27s).
• Elena Verna believes memes are an effective way to communicate complex situations, unite people, and address heart problems in a more approachable manner (1h32m11s).
• Elena Verna's love language is something heated, and she recently got AirPod Max headphones, which she loves for their sound quality, and also enjoys heated shoes (1h29m54s).
• Elena Verna is known for being one of the smartest and funniest people on social media, especially on LinkedIn, where she often shares memes and humorous content (1h30m55s).
• Elena Verna can be found online on LinkedIn, where she shares memes, and on her Substack, where she shares her thoughts and learnings, at elenavera.com. (1h33m35s)
• Listeners can be useful to Elena Verna by sharing the specific problems they are facing, which can inspire her to write about or research the topic, and help connect the dots for those facing the issue. (1h33m56s)
• The best way for listeners to share their problems with Elena Verna is by replying to her Substack newsletter email, which goes directly to her personal inbox, or by DMing her on LinkedIn. (1h34m24s)
• Elena Verna reads every reply to her Substack newsletter email personally. (1h34m30s)
• When replying to a Substack email, the response goes straight to the author. (1h34m33s)
• Listeners can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or their favorite podcast app, and are encouraged to give a rating or leave a review to help other listeners find the podcast. (1h34m46s)
• All past episodes and more information about the show can be found at lennypodcast.com. (1h34m58s)