Sri Batchu

Sri Batchu currently leads Growth at Ramp. He previously led Growth Strategy and Operations at Instacart where he also helped grow their Ads business. Prior to that, he was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams including Analytics, Sales, and Pricing. During his time, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ revenue and to 1500+ people. He started his career in management consulting at McKinsey and also held various investing roles including in private equity at Bain Capital. In Today's Episode with Sri Batchu We Discuss: 1. From Harvard to Private Equity to Leading the Best Growth Teams: How did Sri make his way into the world of growth with Instacart and Opendoor? What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his time at Instacart? How did it change his approach and mindset towards growth? How did Zilllow burn themselves by buying homes? What did that teach Sri about hitting metrics and goal setting in growth teams? 2. Growth Teams Should Fail and Fail Fast: What is the right ratio of success to failure within growth teams? What are specific ways that growth teams can increase the speed with which they fail? How are the best post-mortems run? Who joins them? Who leads the agenda? What are Sri's biggest lessons on how to set the right goals? Where do so many growth teams go wrong with the North Star that they set for themselves? 3. Building the Bench: Hiring a Growth Team: When is the right time to make your first growth hires? What profile should your first growth hires be? How should one structure the interview process when hiring growth teams? What is the first question Sri asks all new hires? Why does Sri believe you have to hire slowly? Should candidates do case studies as part of the process, if so, on a new company or on the company they are interviewing for? 4. When Operators Become Investors: Why does Sri believe the best investors of the next 10 years will be operators? Why does Sri believe that operators can do due diligence to a higher level than traditional VCs? Why does Sri believe that investors should not take cold emails? Why does Sri believe that it is not wrong for an investor to hire from their portfolio companies? What does Sri believe the future of venture holds over the next 10 years?

Sri Batchu

Head of Growth

Ramp

Brought to you by Attio—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups | Coda—Meet the evolution of docs | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments — Sri Batchu currently leads growth at Ramp, the fastest-growing SaaS business (and fintech business) in history. Previously, he led growth strategy and operations at Instacart and was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor, where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams, including analytics, sales, and pricing. During his time there, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ in revenue and to 1,500+ people. In this episode, we discuss:• The surprising tactics behind Ramp’s unprecedented early growth• A breakdown of Ramp’s current growth org and growth channels• Why you need to be “failing conclusively”• Ramp’s unique approach to metrics and measurement• Examples of Ramp’s “secret sauce”: a data- and technology-driven approach to everything• Why Sri prioritizes employee autonomy and flexibility over hours worked• Why team structure is a red herring for growth teams, and what Sri focuses on instead• How to set good North Star metrics, and why you should have more than one• Why Sri prefers payback periods over CAC for measuring investment ROI — Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-scaling-ramp-sri-batchu — Where to find Sri Batchu: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/sri_batchu • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sribatchu/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Sri’s background (04:07) Stats surrounding Ramp’s hypergrowth (06:20) How Ramp set the stage for their remarkable growth (09:19) New customers vs. customer expansion (10:20) How Ramp has prioritized data-driven decisions (12:12) Ramp’s growth engineering team, and how it supports the sales team (13:41) The structure of the growth team at Ramp (14:36) The “skunk works” team (15:49) How Ramp maintains working at such high velocity (19:11) How Ramp boosts morale and keeps employees engaged and excited (21:45) How to promote hard work (25:10) Optimizing efficiency in your growth engine (27:28) Leveraging PR and fundraising (29:20) Traditional media vs. newsletters and podcasts (30:49) Building a repeatable and scalable growth process (32:28) Examples of good North Star metrics (37:09) Lower-level metrics (40:30) When it makes sense to use the North Star framework (42:03) Why Ramp doesn’t allow signups through personal emails, and how to reach out if you’re in that position (43:11) Efficiency metrics and volume metrics (46:49) Payback period vs. CAC for measuring ROI (48:55) Defining payback period and contribution margin (49:51) How to sequence growth tactics for B2B (52:18) Experimentation and the importance of failing conclusively (58:06) Ramp’s tool stack (1:00:32) How to hire great people (1:03:21) The importance of compensating employees properly (1:06:28) The MECE framework (1:09:21) Lightning round — Referenced: • How Ramp builds product, in Lenny’s Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ramp-builds-product • Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/ • Keith Rabois on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith/ • Packy McCormick’s article on Ramp: https://www.notboring.co/p/ramps-double-unicorn-rounds-behind • Gibson Biddle’s framework: https://gibsonbiddle.medium.com/9-the-gem-model-65c89face5de • DoorDash’s business model: https://businessmodelanalyst.com/doordash-business-model/ • Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/ • Mutiny: https://www.mutinyhq.com/ • Gokul Rajaram on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gokulr • Claire Hughes Johnson on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-scaling-stripe/ • MECE principle: https://productfolio.com/mece-principal/ • Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805 • Stories of Your Life and Others: https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122/r • Everything Everywhere All at Once on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/movie/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-fa320000-8cf3-46fc-8c45-df5ec67b71f2 • Fellow kettles: https://fellowproducts.com/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Sri Batchu

Head of Growth

Ramp