20Growth: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 101 | The Rise of User Generared Content and How to Use It | TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality | Hiring for Growth: When and Who with Sandy Diao
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
Sandy Diao, one of the most exceptional growth leaders of the last decade, shares her tactical expertise from scaling products to over 200 million users at Pinterest, Meta, and Descript. (04:24) This episode dives deep into growth fundamentals, from crafting data-inspired hypotheses to building scalable acquisition channels. Sandy emphasizes the importance of finding your natural distribution advantages rather than copying competitors, and explains why the fastest-growing companies experience a power law of distribution by focusing on one or two channels that drive outsized returns.
- Main Theme: Building systematic, repeatable growth engines through channel fit, proper hypothesis formation, and leveraging your product's unique advantages for distribution.
Speakers
Sandy Diao
Sandy Diao is one of the most exceptional growth leaders of the last decade, having scaled products to over 200 million users across Pinterest, Meta, and Descript. She led growth teams at these major tech companies and is also a prolific writer on all things growth. Her experience ranges from answering 500 support tickets in her first week at Pinterest to building sophisticated acquisition engines at Meta serving 3 billion family of apps users.
Key Takeaways
Start with Data-Inspired Hypotheses, Not Data-Driven Ones
Sandy emphasizes that good growth hypotheses require two components: an insight backed by data and a customer story that explains what that data means. (08:48) At Descript, she learned this lesson when they launched a web version expecting massive growth, but conversion rates actually dropped. The context they missed was that customers who download desktop apps are more committed and engaged than web visitors. This taught her that data without customer understanding leads to failed initiatives.
Find Your Natural Distribution Advantages
Instead of testing every possible marketing channel, focus on channels that align with your product's inherent strengths. (20:00) For Descript, this meant leveraging the fact that content creators naturally share their work. They built an affiliate program offering 15% recurring commission to creators who mentioned Descript in their content, which drove over 25% of new users that year with minimal effort.
Channel Saturation Comes from Audience Exhaustion, Not Channel Failure
Channels get worse over time not because the channel stops working, but because you exhaust your target audience. (16:47) Sandy explains that you can overcome this by expanding your addressable audience - for example, Descript started targeting transcription and podcasting, then expanded to video editing and short-form content creation. This allows you to continue seeing step function increases in channel efficacy.
Focus on Breakeven First, Then Optimize ROAS
Don't expect 3-5x ROAS immediately from new paid channels. (25:43) Sandy recommends starting with breakeven or better as your initial target, then optimizing through audience targeting, creative testing, and budget adjustments. Most teams give up on paid channels too early because they haven't given enough time to experiment across all variables like creative formats, audience types, and budget levels.
Hire Growth Early with the Right Mindset
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Sandy believes you can hire for growth earlier than most companies think. (61:58) The key is hiring someone willing to be hands-on and adaptable, whether they're a hungry generalist or an experienced growth leader. Both can work as long as they're willing to experiment and learn quickly in the constantly changing growth landscape.
Statistics & Facts
- Pinterest scaled to over 200 million users during Sandy's tenure, where she started by answering 500 support tickets in her first week to understand customer pain points. (06:09)
- Descript's affiliate program drove over 25% of new users in a year with 15% recurring commission to content creators who mentioned the product. (24:47)
- Meta served 3 billion family of apps users across all products during Sandy's time there, giving her experience with growth at massive scale. (12:48)
