How would you answer these interview questions?

[rajabel]

Assumption: b2c seed stage travel startup.

1. How would you 10x growth in 6 months?
2. If with simple math multiple channels can work, how would you pick which to target?
3. Which would you pick: a) low impact low effort, high prop success b) high impact low effort, low probability of success ?

Assumption: series a b2b saas startup.

1. Within our early stage (less than 5 marketers), what do you think is the most important thing that marketing needs to accomplish? What’s the north star?
2. In general, how do you take small group of successful users and take that to the next level?
3. How do you go about prioritizing things that should be done?
4. In general if you have a product what are some ways you show the value to a group of people that have the problem?
5. In terms of brand, how do you think about brand and the role it plays in the marketing strategy?

I'm looking back at some interviews for growth/marketing positions and thought it'd be great to share some questions for those preparing for their own interview and for myself to improve on. Thanks

 

[tclifton59]

@rajabel For the travel startup:

1. Sounds like what they care about is revenue but usually you would look at the sales funnel and identify the bottlenecks to improvise first. Is the best spot to get 10x growth on impressions, page visits, bounce rate, conversions, etc. If you have 200k visits but only 2k conversions then maybe targeting is the issue, or maybe user journey. If you have 3k visits and 2k conversions then maybe look at how to fill the funnel in coordination with the marketing strategy.
2. Which channels have more of your target demographic? No point using a channel that is mostly high school kids.
3. what stage is the startup in? As a general rule I choose B because I am a go big or go home type of person but if the company is seed stage and struggling to get first traction then A is the right choice. If the company is rolling but growth has slowed and is having difficulty breaking the barrier to the next order of magnitude (as the 10x question sort of implies) then B is the right choice.

For the b2b saas startup:
1. tough question without knowing their strategy and what they have already. Number one is they need a good idea of who their customers are, why they make buying choices, who their competition is, and what your positioning is relative to them. If they have that already then the North Star is reinforce that positioning. There’s a good book on the nature of competition called When Coffee and Kale Compete, but the nugget is that customers will have limited money in their budget, they will need to take money away from something to give it to you, and therefore you need to communicate to the customers why they should do that. The theory is that a customer has a job to be done and “hires” your product to do that job. Classic example is coffee at home is to wake up, a ritual to start your day. Starbucks is a third space apart from work or home where you feel comfortable to spend time. Starbucks competes more closely with a bar than with Folgers. So anyway once you know that the North Star is to cement in the customers mind why they should hire you over the competition. Also with B2b know who the customer is. A company is many people. Who has the budget? What problem do you solve for them? If you want a pithy saying to sum it up, Know Your Customers.
2. talk to customers. In series A stage you might spend as much time getting feedback about the customer experience, their jobs to be done, how well you meet their needs, etc as you do communicating externally. You could develop use cases, adjust the user journey, all sorts of things but you need to talk to your customers. They use you. Why?
3. sounds like a personality question. I don’t know. Block time for deep work and keep office hours for last minute things? If you have five tasks and time for two how do you choose? Financial impact, time to finish, importance of customer, and how time sensitive it is?
4. dollars and cents. In general communicate value proposition. How much does not solving the problem cost? How much does the company risk by not solving it? How much can they increase revenues/efficiency by using you? Now as the company size you deal with gets bigger it might be less effective, you might deal with cost centers who don’t care about return. But still they care about budget and whether your solution fits into it. They care about convincing their boss that they made the right choice and again it comes down to value proposition. How does your value translate into money?
5. I consider branding super important with a series A b2B saas. It increases trust. Companies moving to SaaS will have part of their business depend on yours. If you fail then they scramble. You need to communicate that they can trust you with their stability. If they make 500k per year in revenue and are choosing whether to use your software, they need to trust you are stable, and a strong brand recognition, good design, and proper positioning help communicate that even if you don’t say it directly. As the business size goes up, the branding becomes more important. Trusting a 50m dollar production line to rely on the software of a series A startup is a big risk even if the price is low. Branding helps them make that choice.

 

[rajabel]

@tclifton59 Thanks for writing this up. Since these are all questions I was asked and I didn't get either job thought I'd write my answers & mistakes - would love your 2cents on it with a quick reply.

For the travel startup:

1. He wanted to get from 1k users to 10k users. I suggested the framework research -> optimizations -> Acquisition -> Activation -> Referral -> Revenue -> Retention. During our conversation he wanted me to assume no research phase and wanted to know where I'd get the visitors first, rather than optimizing. I said I'd experiment with 2 channels prioritized by impact & cost hypothesis then adjust after we learned from it. This conversation took a long time because he was not happy with my answer. So he kept saying I want your thought process and not understand etc.

How would you answer in 2-4 sentences?

1. I said "I would prioritize which channels could get us higher conversion at lowest cost. Then I’d focus on top two" , he then asked which I'd choose and then pointed out flaws. In general it was odd because I kept saying these are just assumptions, but he wanted a more thoughtful answer it felt like.

How would you answer this in a more thoughtful way? Any chance my answer was good but he was just pushing me to test me perhaps?

1. I said A "since it's a low hanging fruit", I like the way you explained both reasonings. I think that would've been a better answer. So I probably should've said B since he wanted 10x more users and we have to go hard or go home.
   
   Do I understand correctly?

For the b2b saas startup:

1. I had said you want to take the best aspects of the product and translate that with new marketing channels to new segments. While working with product team to experiment on getting the next user milestones.
   

To sum it up, I should've asked clarifying questions, then say "marketing needs to know who the customer is, why they need us, who the alternatives are, and what our positioning is compared to them. The north star is to cement in the customer's mind why they should choose us over alternatives."

Am I correct?

1. I think he meant: how do I take use cases from a small group of early adopters and how do I take that to the next level (ie next thousands of users). What do you think?
2. Yeah I screwed this answer up, not worth sharing what I said lol
3. I had said "I think you can show how the existing users are using it and share that content to show the value." Next time I'll say "communicate the value prop and how it solves their problem, what they risk by not using us, how much more effective they can be, the larger the companies we target may require a different approach ie convincing their bosses they made the right choice and how it translates into revenue"
   
   Does this sound right?
4. I had said "I think that helps us with the positioning of the product and also in comparison with competitors " I should've catered my answer more to their company and b2b SAAS: "Brand helps us establish trust, other's business depends on ours so we want to communicate that they can rely on us. We show them this with strong brand recognition, good design, proper positioning to show this. As we scale brand becomes even more important, which is why we should focus on it."
   
   Does thit sound right?