YouSaid · the spoken record

Meltem Kuran Berkowitz

lines on the record: 76
first: 2023-08-27
most recent: 2023-08-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I don't think everybody should be doing SEO. I think if you are in a space where people are looking for a solution, you should be doing SEO. But if you are a direct-to-consumer company selling people lipstick, which I'm a huge buyer of, you probably shouldn't invest in SEO all that much because people don't go to Google for that. They go to Instagram. They go to influencers. And even if someone types in the best lipstick of 2023, chances of your website ranking because you're not a third party objective comparing to other people is very low. So it really depends on the solution. But if you are in a space which most B2B products tend to be, that you're solving an active problem very specifically, then I would say SEO is a good idea. If you're a consumer good, maybe a little bit less effort should be put towards it.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We used to put out about 10 articles a week. That's net new. Whereas now we are doing more of five new articles and five article updates because the type of content we write, regulations change, things change all the time. So we need to make sure that even if something was published two years ago, it's up to date. So we have a team that is responsible for kind of continuously fact-checking. So we do about five article updates and five net new articles written. And of course, we do it across many different languages. So what started off as English only operations is now in other languages as well. So there's no shortage of work to go around.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The biggest mistake people make is SEO is one of those things that you can try and automate it, like you can do a lot of things that save you time, but it never stops being time consuming. And to do it well, it is going to be time consuming. So oftentimes people just get over it or they think it's below them to be going over and doing keyword research and doing all of those things one by one. And that's oftentimes where people lose out is they try to cut corners. And when you cut corners, you just don't create a good quality resource. Like that's what it comes down to. It's like, is your resource good quality? You have sort of no. So when you try to just be like, I want to rank and cut all those corners, your content is not going to be great. Nobody's going to want to read it and your program is not going to go anywhere. So I think it's one of those things that people as they become more senior think it's below them. And I think that's the biggest mistake.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fun fact about our content team, the person that leads it was one of the earliest employees at Deal. I want to say number two or three. So the person there is just so special to our entire company. And so the structure of the content team for us is it is led by our director of content. We have one person that is in charge of all of the operations. So that is working with our freelancers, making sure that the briefs are sent out, making sure that the fact checking is done on time, that the articles are published on the website and tracking and everything, that they kind of run the machinery on the back end. And then we have different people focused on different areas of content because you need to have expertise that you build over time to write properly. So we have one person looking after certain product lines. Another person would be focusing on behind different product lines. And very recently, we've set out a team for different types of content because content isn't just written article. It's also video. It's also education.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So figuring out what do people want to get out of this? And then there are myriad of SEO solutions tools that you can use out there to ensure that the content you've written is in a simple enough language, that someone, you know, with a fifth grade reading level can understand, that you actually did the right things. You know, you put the right keywords in the right places. I almost think of keywords as like, that's your address. Like that's how you give Google like, please send people my way. So you can use many tools. We use Clearscope. We love it. So those are the tools that you use. And then it gets published and oftentimes those tools will give you a score to say you're an A plus or you're a C minus. You need to make your language less sophisticated currently at university level and we need it to be at four screen reading level.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, step one is understanding the search intent. Why is someone typing that? Like, what are they trying to understand? And a part of that is going to Google and figuring out what is Google servicing today. So one of the examples that I always give people of when you type EOR to Google, it doesn't give you employer of record. It gives you enhanced oil recovery because most of the people typing EOR to Google is looking for that solution. Now, if my team blindly went in and said, we're going to rank for EOR, we're never going to rank for that because that's not what Google gives people because that's not what people have been looking for. So first is understanding what are people looking for and creating a content piece that answers those questions. Oftentimes the bottom part of Google, you know, where it says yes, like the next questions that you should be asking is a really good place to go to understand, okay, after someone's done with this search, what's the next question that they ask and the next one and the next one?”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wants our solution. The yellow light is intent could be there 50 50, you know, maybe they're looking to buy our solution. Maybe it's not soon enough. And then the red is, this person is not looking to buy our solution. They're just doing this search for any other reason. So when you do that, then you go from the greens highest volume to the lowest volume, yellows, highest volume to the lowest volume. And oftentimes you never get to the reds.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so I can take credit to this. This is all of our team's work, but we have this framework that we call the traffic light system. Essentially, we go whenever the team is going to do a content series. They will go and find up to 700 keywords. These are keywords that are related to what we do. So they might be closely related. They might be distant related. And then those set of keywords get ranked by highest volume to the lowest volume. So then you have an Excel sheet, keywords on the left, volume on the right. And then you go one by one. This does take time. And then say, what is the intent of someone searching this keyword? Is this a university student looking to write an article and they're never going to become our customer? Or is this someone that is actually looking to solve their existing solution and they are going to become our customer? So with that, you get the green light ones, which is the intent is very high.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of people wonder what an EOR is because that's an employer of record. They tend to be confused about exactly what that is. So we do very well in explaining to people what EOR is and isn't and what its limitations are because the first question that you will have after the EOR question is answered is, okay, what's the downside? When do I need to not use it? So that for us, that's one of the content pieces that does very well.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And our content team is amazing. I would say they're more of an operational team than they are a creative team. The way they run things, the way they publish the articles, there's a very clear framework that is used to decide what gets published when and what doesn't get published by the same token. So all of those things are very important to consider instead of just being like, oh, this keyword has 10,000 monthly visitors. I'm just going to write a bunch of things about that.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I would say for SEO, the biggest mistake people make is they will just shove keywords. They're like, okay, these are the keywords people are searching for. I need to make sure I mention it five times. Like, obviously do that. Like make sure that the content that you wrote answers the question, but the main thing to think about it is, you know, is the Google search over? Like if someone reads your content, if they typed in something to Google and then they read the article that you've published, are they going back to Google to continue reading more? Or is the Google search over? Because ultimately, that's what the search engines care about is I want to make sure this person gets their answer quickest way possible. So when you think from that perspective, it's much easier to actually write things that people want to read and you're not just like meandering and going on and on, shoving a bunch of keywords that people are just like, bored, I'm bouncing, I'm going somewhere else. So asking that question of, is the search over is a really good place to start instead of just shoving keywords?”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, today, roughly about, I would say 50% of growth continues to come from what we would consider non-paid channels through whether it be partnerships, SEO, these kinds of moderations. So early on, that was more close to 80 to 90 percent, but that number has grown. Like, again, the net number has grown, but the percentage of the overall value has shrunk because other channels have also grown significantly.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there are a lot of close communities. So there are still, you know, they could be Slack communities, Discord, places that founders choose to connect with other founders. Or we have partnerships with places like the White Combinator, where once you go through a certain program or you qualify to be in the club, whatever that club may be, you get to kind of get access to this community where you can talk to other people. So those are concerns.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was never automated, it still isn't today. We would never automate our interactions with people. So early days, it was myself, the other people on my team, our co-founders, which to this day, they still do, by the way. So it's a lot of people on the team. You know, every single person on the team kind of has access to these. And whoever is the first person to jump in will kind of flag it. And sometimes you'll see on a Twitter, someone will write a question. There's like three people from DL team has answered for like, okay. I think enough of us have provided value here.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say the least effective way would be hey, we've solved that problem, check out our website. Like, okay, cool. Like, if you have five seconds, do that. But the value add way would be explaining what the solution to that problem is. Because the reality is there are a lot of people out there who can probably solve this and then providing your solution. But like, answer their question first. And then let them decide if they want to come with you or go with someone else. But the whole point of someone asking a question isn't to be sold as solutions. Like, I just need an answer. So like genuinely treat this person like a friend of yours, answer their question, be like, yes, it's doable. No, it's not doable. Yes, you can do it, but you need to consider X, Y, Z if you want to learn more about it, you can chat with us.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is still roughly how I think about it. I would add social channels to that as well. I think Twitter's a great place people ask questions oftentimes to their communities. And when someone has answered that question, other people kind of piggyback off of that. But anywhere where someone is asking a question, I would consider to fall into this category of a cheap channel.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe I set up that little kind of keyboard tracking within the first day of me being starting my role at Deal. So it was very, very early. And we still do this, by the way. We still, you know, provide answers across Reddit, core communities. We're still out there connecting with people. Over time, of course, I went from maybe being 15% of our funnel to less than 5% of our funnel because the rest of our funnel has grown a lot. But the net number of people that we get to kind of share our solution with through those channels have continued to grow over time.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think over time, Reddit became the place that you go to when you want peer answers, whether that peer is someone right next to you or someone halfway across the world. So it was a very obvious place for me to go to understand, you know, what's top of mind for my audience, but also, you know, there were so many subreddits, whether it's founders or HR managers that people are just asking their community because oftentimes they have very specific questions. You can't just ask that to Google because they have one thing that means that they might not be able to qualify for the exact solution that is what's most used out there. So Reddit just became the place over the years for people to ask their specific questions semi-anonymously and get answers from their community and multiple answers to be able to judge which works better versus didn't. So it was just, it was one of the first places that myself and my team went to.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did a very janky if this then that set up. I'm now proud of it, but it works. Someone else out there built it and I just plugged in the keywords we were looking for into it.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, exactly. That's what we did. It's important to notice that if you're looking at a subreddit of about a thousand people, recognize the upper size of this audience. You're not going to win 5,000 businesses through that Reddit community, but you're maybe going to win 10% of the people there that are having this problem. So it's very important when investing in these cheap channels to focus on what's the upper limit of the audience size. And also, I see a lot of people sometimes go blindly into SEO. They're like, we're just going to write content, which I'm a huge fan of SEO. Happy to discuss that later. But if people aren't asking this question to Google, you can write all the content you want. It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to find it.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like just add value to people, answer their questions. And when you answer their questions and present your solution, if it's a fit to what they're looking. Repeatedly refine as long as we're not talking about a closed slack community, maybe a conversation happening in DMs. So when I think about cheap channels, I think about where are people asking the questions that might be Google or that might be Reddit or any other channel and providing them the answers so they know that your solution exists.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm happy to give away all and everything. So I think before we dive into the list of cheap channels, which I will get to, it's very important to notice, especially in the B2B world, like most of the businesses are started because there's an active problem. And so when you go out to the market and try to answer people's questions, like people don't want to be solved. They want their problem solved. So those cheaper channels are often places where people are just trying to get an answer to their question. So whether that be search engine optimization through the articles that you write for people, looking onto Reddit where people are asking these questions in communities, forming partnerships with other groups that are trying to answer these questions, existing communities where other business leaders are connecting with each other and looking at their peers to kind of find answers to shared problems that they're having or places like Quora, that's when you think about cheap channels. That's a really good place to start.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's true. Yeah. So Rant was the first one to be crowned the fastest growing, and then we kind of took that crown from them. So I think we're both right. And that's at a certain point in time, we've been the fastest growing, but they're amazing.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're proud of is that we've been even a positive. So that's something that we are very, very proud of on top of the ARR growth.”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so dealers payroll, HR, and compliance platform for global teams. So essentially, we help companies expand globally with tools like DLHR, immigration, employer of record hiring, independent contractor hiring, payroll, both global and US. So whether you're trying to hire someone as a full-time employee in Japan or you're trying to make sure your contractor in Germany has everything they need on day one, our platform allows you to take care of everything all in one place. When I joined a deal, actually that was around July 2020. We were less than a million dollars in ARR. And then over time, within the first year on January 2021, we were at $4 million ARR. We finished 2021 with 57 million. April 2022, we were looking at 100 million. And then we started off this year with 295 million dollars in ARR. And what we're particularly”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Early days, it's very important to just go back to the basics, you know, build the skeleton before you put on the makeup. So the first question I would ask is, do you have a website? Is it fast? Do the search engine know that it exists? Okay, great. The next step would be, can people find it? If they can't find it, do you need to write content to make sure that people find it? Only after all of those questions are answered should you then consider do I have money can I put it behind some paid ads to make sure people come to my website? You know, you can't run a successful paid ads program if you have a website that's loading in four plus seconds. So really going back to the basics and starting from a good experience of the core and then expanding step by step from there”
2023-08-27 · Lenny's Podcast · An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source