The Growth Show

Sarah Cooper finds the satire in a normal office job in her blog - The Cooper Review. Today, Sarah is a full-time comedian. This week, in our second episode from INBOUND 2016, Sarah tells us how she makes typical life hysterical and what companies get wrong when they try to make content for regular people. This episode features the song “Sorriso (Parvo)” by J-K, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

This week is the first of our episodes from INBOUND 2016. First up is Alec Baldwin -- actor, comedian, and most recently, Donald Trump impersonator on Saturday Night Live. In this episode, he tells us why the role of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock was the best job he’s ever had, how he prepared to play Trump, and why he almost didn’t take the gig in the first place. This episode features the song “Can't Shake You” by Mise, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Daniel Pink has been a leading voice in business for more than two decades. He’s written five best-selling books about work and management, including “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” and “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.” In this episode, Dan tells us what most managers get wrong when they try to motivate their employees, why feedback is key for younger employees, and why he thinks robots won’t be taking away everyone’s job anytime soon.

We’re looking back on a few of our favorite moments from the show this year. In this episode, we hear from basketball legend Bill Walton about his time working with coach John Wooden, author Charles Duhigg on why the making of the movie ‘Frozen’ was so chaotic, and a few other favorite past guests. Cheers to a great 2016! Thanks for listening.

Getting turned down is painful, whether it’s in your personal or your professional life. After a particularly harsh rejection, Jia Jiang decided to go out and face that pain head on. He purposefully tried to get rejected every day for 100 days in a row. In this episode, Jia tells us about how this experiment led him to fly a plane, drive a police car, give a college lecture, buy some specialty donuts, and much more.

While most publications are trying to keep their articles short and sweet, Tim Urban from 'Wait But Why' regularly dives deep on his topics, writing thousands of words on a given subject. He also illustrates every post - not with modern, sleek graphics, but with hand-drawn stick figures. In this episode, he explains just how he racks up a million pageviews regularly, how he builds and maintains his audience, and why not being an expert on something might make you better at teaching other people about it.

When seed stage venture capitalist Hunter Walk is evaluating whether to invest in a company, he doesn’t look at the product. To him, it’s all about finding a great team. Before Homebrew, he worked at YouTube and Google - and even worked for a time on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In this episode, Hunter explains why Conan was the first startup he worked for, how he identifies great companies when there’s no data to evaluate, and the three factors every company needs to be successful when taking VC fu

There are so many advantages to starting a company that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but founders and CEOs face more competition than ever. At Alchemist Accelerator, Ravi Belani has helped budding companies navigate these changes - and as a result, has many lessons to share. In this episode, Ravi gives some concrete advice about how to break into the startup scene in 2016, explains why growth purgatory is much worse than hell, and why persistence is more important than intelligence.

Chris Messina invented the hashtag and the concept of coworking spaces. Today, he works for Uber as a Developer Experience Lead. In this episode, Chris explains that the best thing you can do is to give your work away for free, why conversational interfaces will become commonplace by 2020, and how having an open source philosophy can make the internet a more diverse place.

A former journalist turned communications strategist, Karen Wickre has lead communication efforts for both Google and Twitter. Today, she advises other prominent companies on building an effective communication strategy. In this episode, she tells us where companies go wrong when trying to work with journalists, how to avoid mind-numbingly bad copy, and how content creators should work with the rest of the company to convince the rest of the company that their work is vital.

Buying clothing secondhand is nothing new -- but the way Anthony Marino is growing threadUP is. Before moving to thredUP, Marino worked for Virgin, under Richard Branson. He says thredUP is building many of Branson’s sensibilities into their growth strategy: Get the economics right first, then build your brand. In this episode, he talks about his personal crash course in ecommerce, how he innovates in a longstanding industry, and why consensus hiring is such a mistake for a growing company.

Hiten Shah has co-founded several successful businesses (Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg, and Quick Sprout), and advises an impressive roster of high-growth companies in his spare time. In this episode, Hiten shares some of his first-hand knowledge with us. He talks about how to avoid the common growth trap new companies fall into, what makes a great founder, and what you need to do to run a successful remote company. He even tells us a secret to parenthood!

Have you ever been tortured by an idea? Amy Chang, CEO of Accompany, knows this feeling well. In fact, it’s what drove her to leave her seven-year stint at Google to start something new. In this episode, Amy shares her thought process behind some of her bolder decisions - from leaving Google to raising $20 million in three years with a product in beta - and the lessons she learned along the way.

Ramit Sethi’s Counterintuitive Advice for Building a Richer Life

Earlier this year, all looked rosy at Buffer. But one day, Buffer’s CEO Joel Gascoigne and the rest of the management team realized their math didn’t add up. Buffer would be out of money in just five months. After running the numbers, the path seemed clear: They had to lay off 10% of their staff. In this episode, Joel shares how he navigated this tough decision, pivoted after realizing he made a mistake, and restored the company's faith in their vision through radical transparency.