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Adam Grenier

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2022-09-15

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2022-09-15

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1. “And then the third main ingredient is just your own company DNA. And so I think risk profile is a big one. Like, do you actually have comfort in being a first mover? Like a true first mover. Like nobody knows anything. Tracking's not going to work. It's not going to be programmatic. It's not like you're probably going to show up on content that's offensive. You're probably like going to ask for refunds that won't happen. It's going to be really painful to be a true first mover. Do you have that appetite? Do you have the staff to actually be able to like put someone on that and not distract from everything else? And then the other piece on the company side is just your current channel mix. There's very few companies that I recommend saying like, yes, go put energy on this brand new channel that you don't know how to scale yet before you've figured out some type of like volume on Google and Facebook. If you're trying to do it, like every now and then there may be”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “You got to make this work for a long time, not just, you know, it's part of the challenge you see with some new channels flipping to the other side of growing an ads business. Will gravitate towards, oh, I want to get Disney on here, but like Disney is very campaign driven, or they have been traditionally, where it's like, yeah, you may get one big paycheck from them, but that doesn't, like, the way that UA driven gaming works is like you get that to work. That's a gift that keeps on giving forever, right? Because it's like there's not one of those companies, there's thousands of them. And they all do the same thing. So being able to drive that conversation is really helpful.”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “And for all of leisure and all, you know, those kinds of things, like that's the value of working with me. So that's another piece of kind of the channel DNA I like people to focus on.”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “For mobile installs. And it's like, I know this is a huge channel because I can use it on my online marketing, like my web marketing. But as a mobile acquisition, it's nowhere near as efficient as a lot of these other networks. And so as soon as they were doing that, I was able to basically position and say, like, look, you want to work with us. Let me end your alpha because I have five years of experience already buying mobile ads. I know the space. I know it'll work. And if you get us to work, we're a killer case study because we are a non-game. And like a lot of money is spent on gaming, but there's these whole other major categories that you're going to need other than gaming examples within that group. So you're going to be able to use me as a case study and like a lot of different scenarios than the gaming players. And so I”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “I don't know if it's odd or unusual is the right term. I like to spend a lot of time thinking about how they monetize. What is the monetization strategy of the channel? And the reason is because if you as a business can match or support their monetization strategy, it actually gives you a really interesting leg up with that channel because the likelihood of you being able to call them up and go do custom stuff with them or partner with them or that your solutions will actually like stick around for a while go up pretty drastically. And so this is like my key example of this was with when Facebook started exploring mobile ads, hotel tonight we were one of the like alpha testers of mobile ads because I'd been sitting here buying you know ad inventory on networks for the last five or six years and just waiting for Facebook to work because it just wasn't really working.”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Basically, anybody that took any action on Zynga, it would post on everybody else's page that you got 10 carats. And that was like a huge growth lever, right? But then Facebook just pulled the plug on that. And so it's like, well, if you put all of your energy into that, and that's it. Like, it was pretty clear that that was still an area that's like, this may not last forever, right? The last thing on the channel DNA that I like to look at that's a little bit more”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “I need to accept that they are so early in this curve, that there's a good chance this is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it'll be over. Next is not a repeatable action. It also is important because if you get something to work on a channel that's earlier in their growth curve, the likelihood that they will change is very high. You're going to need to commit a lot of cycles to keep it going, right? Because it's like, okay, well, their product is going to evolve drastically very quickly over the next two years. And so the thing that's working right now, and so a really great example is like Facebook early. I was at Zeusk. And so like Zeusk and companies like Zynga got tons of their early growth because of notifications on Facebook, which was one of their early features which allowed.”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Yep, yep, and how that overlaps with your customer and your business needs. The second is the channel DNA. And so this is looking at things like where are they in their trajectory? So Clubhouse is actually a perfect example because in a weird way, so Clubhouse got hot before Facebook got cold. And I was pretty amazed how many more people were trying to crack Clubhouse than TikTok. Like, because TikTok hadn't really released their ads solution yet, but neither had Clubhouse. But everybody was talking about Clubhouse. Like, TikTok is very clearly not going away anytime soon, where Clubhouse hopefully won't. Like, this is an amazing product. I really enjoyed it and loved it. But it was clearly like very early, very quickly at that point of hotness where everyone was just kind of like, that's the reason I should be there. And part of this reason is to accept like the”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Over the top, over the top. So it's instead of it being like cable TV, sorry, it's coming from a box. So it's primarily if you think of ads on Amazon or Hulu or even if you go to like cnn.com and you start streaming and you get an ad first. It's basically like video ads. A lot of them now are happening on televisions and on streaming services rather than just on websites.”

   2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “that is actually probably the piece I see people ignore the most which is they just want to know if a channel is hot or not and this gets especially hairy like in this world of a lot of B2B doing like more consumer-esque marketing and like like there's so many b2b companies that like just don't apply to emerging channels right emerging consumer channels right and it's just like please just stop i don't you know i i don't need a a notion clubhouse channel this week like there just isn't like and maybe there is maybe there's a world to do that but i think that's that's kind of number one is making sure that there's like even a reason that you should be there to put it on your radar right now”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Yeah, so the medium, like the strengths of the medium, right? So let's take influencer right now. Actually, like two of the channels that a lot of people are talking about right now are streaming TV or OTT and influencer marketing, right? And so to me, like one of the strengths of influencer marketing is hyper-targeted contextual marketing, right? And so I can go find the five influencers that are like hardcore alpha fans, right? And if I'm marketing alf something, like great, I can go find that specific thing. Whereas OTT is a lot harder to get like that specific. OTT strength is like broad reach and video storytelling and that type of stuff, right? So it's like, okay, well, maybe my medium is if I'm masterclass and I have a ton of video content and storytelling and things like that, like that channel actually makes a ton of sense probably, right? So it's kind of like, what are the strengths of that channel is something.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Yeah, even though paparazzi might have become the best, biggest channel ever, is that the thing you should be putting your time into? It would be like a yellow light for me at best, right?”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “The customers' needs are like discovery and more ways to maybe have deeper relationships with their music if you're a jazz fan. Can you learn new jazz artists or more about the artists that you love, things like that? And then take those two channels if you take something like Clubhouse, it's audio first. It's almost like live podcast radio type feel to it. You can get into these rooms with just like people with really amazing esoteric knowledge about something. And so its strengths have like a really clean overlap to me with the goals of Spotify the needs of the customer and the strengths of that. And so that to me is like great. That is probably a green light in terms of is it even worth our time, right? Versus like paparazzi is like very photo driven and like nothing really to do with music or anything like that. And so it's like.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Yeah, so exploring emerging channels framework that I'll take either my teams or companies that I'm advising through has kind of three core ingredients that I like to spend time with. So the first is really understanding if there is an overlap between what the customers need is what your company's goals are, and what the channel actually does really well. So the example I've used in the past is Spotify in the moment of things like Clubhouse and Paparazzi and stuff like that becoming really popular. Well, for Spotify, you know, they are, you know, they're trying to get more people to consume music and be entertained by music and things like that. And it's all audio driven, right? And so their growth goals are probably around new customers or deeper engagement with.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Or, you know, have accountability and just say, like, hey guys, I know that I've been pushing back on things lately. I want to really try to embrace and grow off of ideas better. Hold me accountable. Like call me out and be like, Adam, yes and this, please. Or, you know, like we can giving people permission to push back on that when it doesn't happen. I think also just opens the door for more productive conversations with people and ability to hold yourself accountable and keep trying it.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “I mean, that's one. I would say that I'll say that all the time to people, like, do some improv classes. And I get a lot of people like, no, I'm not funny or I don't want to do improv. And I think it's still a really great class to take, even if you have zero interest in doing improv or public speaking or any of that kind of stuff. Because again, like improv 101 is taught everywhere. Like every city has it somewhere. And it's rarely ever like people that are trying to do improv professionally, right? It's just like it's all games. Like you said, like the classes that you all did at Airbnb is what improv 101 is, right? It's just like, hey, let's just have fun. Let's just get out of our skin and things like that. So I do think everybody should take improv classes. I think it's also something with a lot of goals or skills that you want to develop. I think being really public and open about you wanting to develop that. So if you're managing a team and you want to sharpen the skills, like make it a team goal.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Important to the business? Why are you doing that? Like, that type of energy when cross functional work, like it just kills the scene, right? It kills that progress. And then you just, you don't build relationships, you don't build the right solutions, all that type of stuff.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Find that you hear it every now and then. I don't usually literally say it. I think one of the areas that I found it to be valuable is when you've got like cross-functional work. So obviously at Uber we dealt with city teams a lot. And so a lot of the times the way that the central team would scope a problem versus a local team would scope a problem would almost feel at odds with each other. And if you approach it with that yes and, it's often still true, right? It's like, oh, both of these things can be true at once. You could have a different goal than I have. Or you have a system problem local to you that is important to you and it's not important to me. Like that's okay. The both things can exist. So now that we accept both and can work off of each other, like we're more likely to build both a better rapport and energy among ourselves because we're not just saying like, no, no, no, no, you're wrong. Like, that's not true. That's not important.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “in the way that maybe a biography would. That just opens up the exact problem that you're trying to solve. Like, what are other alternatives to that problem? Like, how are people consuming that? So I think the gift of details in good improv and learning those skills is something that I really value and look for kind of in every aspect of my business life as well.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Remember Alf, but I remember he was always trying to get the family cat. So those kinds of details add a ton of value. And you take that into the business world and so use masterclass, for instance, if I say like, yeah, masterclass, we've got this way to build content that is both entertainment and education. Like that's interesting, right? But if I say we create content that is both education and entertainment to solve people's deep curiosities.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “In growth in business is super important to be able to say, like, yes, I do see your idea, or yes, we did accomplish this. And like this is what we want to do next. And this is how it's going to build on it, I think is super important. The other one. If someone's starting a scene and they're clearly watching television and clicking through the channels and I walk up and just say like, oh, you're watching TV, cool. Like that's a yes statement. I'm not denying what they did. But if I come up and say like, oh, cool, you're watching TV. Is that an ALF episode? I haven't seen Alf since I was a kid. It reminds me this one time I actually ate my own cat, like just giving those specific details of elf and me as a kid. And I ate a cat, which if people don't know, elf, like he ate cats. I don't remember.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Yeah, so I think generally the whole suite of skills that you develop in improv are pretty applicable, right? Because you're getting comfortable on your feet with change, with teamwork building off of each other, experimenting, trying new things. A little bit of everything. I think a couple of the key rules or themes of improv that I really try to hammer home with people are like, obviously the yes and side of improv, which everyone's probably heard, which is, you know, in a scene, the worst thing you could do is deny somebody because you're actually just like stopping progress and you're not building off of anything. So the appropriate approach is to say like, yes, that is true and add to it. So if someone's like, hey, you have a chicken on your head, like not saying, no, I don't, just kind of ruins that scene versus saying like, yes, I do. And it's a name is Sally. Like, what's your chicken's name? Like builds on that and like gives it more opportunity. And so I think that in”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Yeah, good question. Serious in the sense that I've done it for a very long time and I still do it and I try to do it regularly. Sirius is in my aiming to make money off of it and like have a career out of it. Unfortunately not. There was a point in my life that that is what I wanted to do. I lived in Chicago, did Second City Improv Olympic, a variety of different places, did quite a bit of performing, but also got into corporate paychecks early as well. And so kind of built a lifestyle that made doing improv full-time probably not the best path for me at the time. And so it made a pretty conscious choice early on that it was more of a hobby. And if something ever came of it, cool, but if not, that's okay. It's still something I keep coming back to because it's very grounding and fulfilling in ways that, you know, work and family life and things like that don't quite hit for me.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “I mean, kind of all of them. I'm like, I just embrace what gets thrown at me and allow it to organically happen. So each kind of phase has had its pros and cons and ups and downs. And so I think they've all fit pretty well into where I was in my career.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Yeah, yeah, you hit most of the key points. I think pre-Uber, the first kind of chunk of my career was on the advertising side. So worked in agency world. So I kind of think of this is phase three of my life. Ads world was phase one, kind of startup and growth world, phase two. And now really just spending time helping entrepreneurs and founders and build companies and that type of stuff. So yeah.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “One of the biggest pieces of advice I'm giving to people that are like how should we adjust our marketing with the economic changes and things like that. I was like, start by assuming you no longer have product market fit. Because you had product market fit in a different market. It's a different market now, so you have to start over. And hopefully you do, or it's pretty close to it, and you just have to adjust a couple of things, and you can be right back on track. But like, if you just assume you need to launch a new channel to fix this problem, you're going to be wrong. Because your entire customer base change, not just the next 10% of customers that you're looking for.”

    2022-09-15 · Lenny's Podcast · When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source