My Journey in Growth Marketing - Decoding a Decade
Hi,
First things first, this article is purely based on my own personal experiences and contains my subjective opinions. 🙂
My goal here is to share my perspective on the relationship and experiences between growth marketing and startups.
(This isn't a long post, just a quick peek.)
So, who am I?
After graduating from university, I dove straight into the startup world. (Of course, my friends and I dabbled in some amateur ventures during our studies.) A two-month bank internship during university clearly showed me that corporate life was not for me :)
I have been working in the marketing/sales domain within the startup ecosystem for over 12 years, with a recent focus solely on growth marketing.
Before leaving to face new challenges, I worked at Turkey’s largest taxi app, which grew from thousands to over 4 million members during my tenure. Then, I switched from the mobile app sphere to the SaaS realm with Adsby, enjoying the thrill of making a big impact with our fantastic team.
Why growth marketing?
Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work in various roles across sales, marketing, data, and product management. Why is growth my favorite field? I’ll answer that with my own subjective views as mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Growth marketing is the perfect niche for me because it's less about creative aesthetics (like design) and more about analytical thinking - merging marketing, data, and product. It satisfies me because I'm involved in marketing while staying connected to product development and making data-driven decisions that influence both marketing strategies and the future direction of the product.
In short, growth marketing touches and significantly impacts most aspects of a product, especially in startups.
What I’ve learned in Growth Marketing
I respect experts in the field, but I’m skeptical about anyone claiming to be a guru who knows everything in the startup world. From what I’ve seen and experienced, every business has its unique path and life, like a personal fingerprint. You are the guru for your own business, the future successful version of yourself—strive to discover that.
Why do I say this? In growth marketing or any business field, I can’t just hand you a recipe for guaranteed success. Sure, there are hundreds of effective strategies and tactics out there. What's crucial is figuring out which ones will work for you. My general advice is this: Test many tactics, analyze them, and if they don’t work, move on to the next.
Key lessons for me
Continuous Learning and Experimentation: Anyone involved in growth marketing must always be open to learning and trying new things.
No Standard Recipe for Growth: There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for business success. Every business must find its own path.
Success Comes Through Trials: Achieving growth often requires numerous attempts and a lot of testing.
Building a Business from Scratch is Rewarding: Despite all the challenges, reaching your business goals from the ground up is a profoundly satisfying experience.
Before I wrap this up, there’s one more thing I want to discuss
Product Led Growth
I can’t imagine a growth strategy that isn’t product-focused as a growth marketer. If you don’t have this mindset, you might as well be stuck in a pre-growth marketing era :)
