20Growth: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs | Why ElevenLabs...

The discussion explores how ElevenLabs' horizontal AI audio model offering has succeeded despite common advice to focus on a narrow ICP, highlighting their strategy of sharding the company and assigning dedicated growth teams to each product line, supported by horizontal channel specialists.

Luke advises founders to build discrete products and shard the company, with each shard having its own dedicated growth team and marketer, further supported by a horizontal team of channel specialists.

The recommended initial growth hires are a generalist growth marketer responsible for all aspects from messaging to channel testing, followed by a front-end leaning growth engineer for implementing growth initiatives.

Video is emphasized as a critical component for growth, with motion design being particularly effective for launches due to its ability to convey complex value propositions quickly and engagingly.

ElevenLabs utilizes a tiered launch system (Tier 1 for major new models/products, Tier 2 for significant features, Tier 3 for changelog updates), focusing most attention on Tier 1 launches with a dedicated growth lead.

A core launch strategy involves being "loud" across all channels, using a Slack channel to amplify launch announcements, and leveraging social algorithms by generating initial engagement to boost visibility.

The importance of being "shameless" and manually reaching out to existing contacts and followers to boost launches is stressed, as is the value of early, non-scalable efforts for initial traction.

Effective tweet threads for launches require a clear hook, concise messaging, a strong launch video, and strategic placement of the call-to-action in the latter tweets to avoid downranking.

Blog posts remain crucial for technical audiences and SEO, serving as a central hub for detailed information, benchmarks, and backlinks, with "tool pages" being particularly resilient for SEO.

For enterprise products, the value of "mini-tools" that allow users to experience a product's value quickly is crucial, necessitating early hires of front-end growth engineers to build these.

Distribution strategy involves cross-posting across multiple channels while focusing efforts on platforms where the core audience resides, such as X and LinkedIn.

A key mistake identified is not hiring dedicated personnel for channels early enough, even when initial traction is observed, emphasizing the need to staff up specific growth functions proactively.

The discussion questions the relevance of CAC to LTV ratios due to their transient nature, advocating for CAC to payback period as a more practical metric, with varying payback periods set for different product lines.

Counter-positioning is highlighted as a powerful marketing strategy, where a brand defines itself in opposition to a competitor's core messaging, exemplified by Ramp's strategy against Brex.

ElevenLabs operates without Product Managers, believing engineers should own the product roadmap and development, merging product and marketing responsibilities into growth roles.

The company maintains this structure by keeping growth teams lean, ensuring engineers have the autonomy to drive product development, and hiring engineers who demonstrate product thinking capabilities.

The role of PMs is predicted to evolve towards growth or product engineering, with AI tools enabling more engineers to handle product development end-to-end.

The sustainability of revenue for Gen AI companies is debated, with the consensus being that if companies solve real problems and maintain strong retention, their revenues are legitimate.

Discerning winners in the crowded AI market is difficult due to the prevalence of impressive traction across many competitors, making strong customer retention and problem-solving key differentiators.

Retention metrics are viewed differently for consumer/prosumer products compared to enterprise, with consumer products leveraging organic virality to boost overall Net Revenue Retention (NRR).

The most common and expensive mistake for early-stage B2B founders is launching paid marketing before achieving Product-Market Fit (PMF).

LinkedIn organic content is identified as the most underappreciated growth channel, offering a lower barrier to entry for impactful content compared to platforms like Twitter.

LinkedIn ads are considered a "polluted" channel due to high CPMs, with a preference for investing in organic content creation and distribution.

The most crucial skill for someone starting in a growth role is exceptional copywriting.

A significant critique of the growth world is the tendency to launch products that are not yet ready, exemplified by Apple's marketing of unreleased features.

The perceived viability of voice AI agents and conversational AI has changed, with the speaker now preferring AI customer support agents due to their efficiency and knowledge.

Inbound SDR roles are considered dead, replaceable by conversational AI agents that can handle data collection and pre-screening more efficiently.

Brian Johnson's marketing strategy, characterized by controversy, strong branding, and consistent engagement, is highlighted as a highly effective and impressive growth strategy.

Discussion on ElevenLabs' horizontal strategy and sharded teams for growth.

Advice on building discrete products and sharding companies with dedicated growth teams.

Recommendations for initial growth hires: a generalist growth marketer and a growth engineer.

Emphasis on video, particularly motion design, for impactful product launches.

Explanation of ElevenLabs' tiered launch system and focus on Tier 1.

Launch strategy focused on being "loud" across all channels and amplifying through internal communication.

The importance of "shameless" outreach and non-scalable early efforts for launch boosting.

Best practices for crafting effective tweet threads for product launches.

The continued relevance of blog posts for technical audiences and SEO, especially "tool pages."

The necessity of "mini-tools" for enterprise products and the role of growth engineers in building them.

Distribution strategy of cross-posting and focusing on core audience channels.

The mistake of not hiring dedicated channel personnel early enough.

The debate on the relevance of CAC to LTV vs. CAC to payback period.

The concept and application of counter-positioning in marketing.

ElevenLabs' model of eliminating PMs and empowering engineers.

Strategies to maintain the engineer-led product ownership model.

The evolving role of PMs in tech companies due to AI.

Discussion on the sustainability of Gen AI company revenues.

The challenge of identifying market winners in the crowded AI space.

Differentiating retention strategies for consumer vs. enterprise markets.

The primary mistake for early B2B founders: premature paid marketing.

LinkedIn organic content as an underappreciated growth channel.

Cautionary advice on LinkedIn ads due to high CPMs.

The critical skill of copywriting for growth professionals.

Critique of launching unready products, using Apple as an example.

The growing acceptance and preference for voice AI agents in customer support.

The obsolescence of inbound SDR roles due to AI.

Analysis of Brian Johnson's effective marketing and brand-building strategies.