Here are the 16 Growth Mentors of May 2024

1. Irina Dan

Describe yourself

I am Irina Dan, a mobile marketing consultant based in Germany.
I have over 15 years of experience in sales, marketing, and product growth roles in fast-paced companies such as Google, Criteo, and Lifesum.
I bring a wealth of expertise in ASO, user acquisition, and retention strategies for subscription apps.
I have experience working with Lifesum, Mindvalley, Mindshine, Unibet, 2Houses, Digital Masterpieces, and Lake Coloring.
I am looking forward to sharing my expertise with awesome app companies around the world.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to become a growth mentor to help awesome mobile apps increase their chance of survival and success.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset means seeing obstacles and failures as part of the learning process and as opportunities to improve.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

If I could mentor on just one topic, it would be about leveraging organic and paid search to improve app discovery and downloads.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

When one of my clients mentioned the high user acquisition costs for their education app, I recommended creating a referral system for parents and teachers to help amplify the impact of paid advertising.

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2. Jordan Dalladay

Describe yourself

I’m Jordan, a UK-based product and design leader who’s helped teams take 8 businesses from zero to one, several to scale, and one to IPO. From a 17-year career spanning both scrappy high-growth startups and polished top-tier strategy consulting, today, I run a boutique product strategy consultancy helping digital leaders supercharge their product innovation focus and teams.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I have a deep passion for helping first-time founders avoid the many pitfalls in turning their ideas into reality, and maximizing their chances of success!

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Being aware of the need to challenge your own pre-conceptions, coupled with the courage and/or ambition to just try!

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

How to effectively test/validate the assumptions behind your bold ideas.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Doing a wizard-of-oz test with users using WhatsApp and human helpers to simulate a complex, chat & video-based data-science-driven product experience, taking mere days instead of many months to build/stand up!

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3. Julian Leach

Describe yourself

Hi, I’m Julian. I have 22 years of experience as a startup founder, CEO, and strategy consultant. Most recently I spent 11 years building the Australian last-mile business Parcelpoint from a garage startup to a national logistics network, working with the likes of Amazon and eBay. We got many things right (Net Promoter Score 81, Google rating 4.9 stars, very happy team). There’s also a lot I would do differently next time. Looking forward to connecting with this community, sharing my experiences, and seeing how I can help others to navigate the rollercoaster.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Having spent 11 years building a business as a Founder/CEO, I want to help early-stage startups and build my network of interesting and driven people.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

It’s about recognizing we can always improve our capabilities, knowledge, and connections. Having a bias to keep pushing forward, never resting on laurels. Treating setbacks as temporary – an opportunity to learn, and most importantly to advance. If we can be truly open, and challenge ourselves constantly… then the sky is the limit.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Go-to-market strategy. I get particularly excited about aligning product, sales, and marketing to build something special AND get traction with customers.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Designed and launched a unique last-mile delivery solution for cities with dense traffic, achieving 5 times greater efficiency than the competition.

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4. Lorena Martínez

Describe yourself

For the past 10 years, I have been at the intersection of marketing and product strategy, designing narratives, creating go-to-market strategies, and launching and scaling products, in both B2C and B2B spaces.

I can mostly support you with:

• Crafting a growth strategy from scratch
• Testing ideas and strategies quickly and on a tight budget
• Improving conversion rates
• Positioning your product and fine-tuning your message
• Understanding your market and customers better
• Planning and executing a successful product launch

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I’m very passionate about marketing, especially when it comes to startups, as I see marketing as the fuel that helps get ideas into the world. I want to help emerging entrepreneurs in doing just that—helping them launch their great ideas for everyone to see.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

To me, is approaching challenges as opportunities to learn, and recognizing that both successes and failures offer important valuable lessons.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Product Marketing.
Firstly, because it’s where I have the most experience, and secondly, because I see it as a crucial two-way street. It’s about understanding your audience to refine your product, and then taking that refined product back to an audience you now know even better. Mastering this dynamic interaction is, in my view, a fundamental step towards success.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Context: Parabol is a software designed to facilitate structured, efficient agile meetings like retrospectives, standups, estimation meetings, etc. We wanted to expand our audience and grow our top of the funnel with minimal development effort.

Analysis: I identified template usage as a key activation point and discovered extensive template creation in German, Spanish, and Portuguese on our English-based platform.

Experiment: I conducted A/B tests with search ads for German and Spanish homepages and found that German speakers preferred English pages. However, the Spanish homepage outperformed the English version, becoming our third-best converting landing page and contributing to 25% of our overall paid signups.

Implementation: We introduced Spanish templates with minimal effort, significantly boosting user growth and activation. This demonstrated a low-effort, high-impact method to attract non-English-speaking users and guided future strategies.

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5. Lucia Marin

Describe yourself

I’m Lucia, an entrepreneur with a proven track record in scaling and growing businesses both B2B and B2C.

While studying Law and Economics at university, I successfully sold my first company, which provided English language training to businesses, and relocated to London to pursue new ventures. In 2019, I founded Diluu, a B2B service company that pivoted to B2C during the pandemic to offer live online and interactive lessons.

We have expanded to 50 countries, acquired over 3,000 customers, and built a tech and product team that continues to drive innovation.

Currently, we are developing an AI-powered platform to enhance the learning experience, and have opened an investment round, securing our first investor from our client base.

My expertise lies in leading tech and product teams, optimizing and automating processes, and executing successful pivots to achieve significant growth.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I love helping other founders to grow and scale their businesses.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

To me, a growth mindset means believing that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication, hard work, and learning from experiences. It’s about embracing challenges, being persistent in the face of setbacks, and seeing effort as a path to mastery. A growth mindset involves being open to feedback and finding inspiration in others’ successes. It’s the understanding that growth comes from continuous improvement and a willingness to adapt and evolve.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

If I could mentor someone on just one topic, it would be creating and optimizing processes and systems. Streamlining operations and implementing effective automation is essential for freeing up time and resources, allowing a business to focus on growth and innovation. My passion lies in identifying inefficiencies, designing systems, and leveraging technology to automate routine tasks. This not only enhances productivity but also enables a business to scale efficiently. By sharing my expertise in this area, I can help others build a solid foundation that supports sustainable growth and long-term success.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

One out-of-the-box solution I devised involved creating automation and refining our sales pitch to significantly boost our conversion rate. We were facing a complex problem: our sales team was spending too much time on repetitive tasks and not enough on closing deals, leading to a stagnating conversion rate.

To tackle this, I developed an automated workflow that streamlined our lead nurturing process. We used CRM software to segment leads based on their behavior and interactions, automatically sending personalized follow-up emails and scheduling calls at optimal times. This ensured that our sales team only engaged with highly qualified leads who were more likely to convert.

Additionally, I refined our sales pitch by analyzing customer feedback and identifying key pain points. We then tailored our pitch to address these specific concerns, emphasizing the unique benefits of our service. The combination of automation and a targeted pitch resulted in a 30% increase in our conversion rate. This innovative approach not only saved time but also significantly improved our sales efficiency, making me realize the power of combining technology with strategic communication.

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6. Magdalena Gryko

Describe yourself

Hi there, my name is Maggie, and I’m the Director of Revenue for Storyboard – an AI-powered hands-free communication tool for truck drivers and dispatch teams. My prior experience includes leading B2B Revenue Operations at Airbnb and various operations roles at BlackRock iShares and Engine No. 1. I am a huge nerd about setting up teams for scale. At Storyboard, I handle operations, marketing, sales, and account management.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Looking to support and help founders and startups with similar go-to-market problems I have encountered over my career.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset is continuing to persevere and try different approaches despite the challenges and rejections you face.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Sales technology. Almost every company I have joined has over-complicated their tech stack. Salesforce is a powerful tool though oftentimes built with too much structure for startups whose product and sales process is still maturing.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

For all of my sales teams, I adjust Salesforce to use the Lightning Console view. This allows my teams to now only have one tab open for Salesforce and be able to navigate across leads, contacts, opportunities, and reports with a single click. Most individuals have never experienced this view, though everyone says this simple change increases their productivity and use of Salesforce significantly.

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7. Mayank Gupta

Describe yourself

Building e-commerce platform capabilities for Indian consumer tech; generated >$4 Bn in value.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Share knowledge/ wisdom to help young people through the early parts of their career, and get the best out of themselves.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Ability to look beyond the norm and believe in failing learning, and constantly evolving.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

I would love to work on the chasm of personal experiences and personality influencing professional decisions and career trajectory.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Enabling e-books and e-reading on Flipkart with little to no tech, and unlocking a massive engagement for a critical customer segment.

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8. Michael Disabato

Describe yourself

I have 20 years of experience as a Gartner analyst and over 50 years in information technology. I have worked with a wide range of industries and have spent a significant amount of time showing companies how to govern their operations to ensure growth and meet the requirements of the regulatory environment in which they operate. I am an excellent listener and teacher and look forward to helping companies grow.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I enjoy sharing information, teaching, and helping others grow.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Growth mindset does not involve thinking outside the box. It is the realization that first, you must burn the box.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

How to really view your product/service/technology from the standpoint of the customer. In the vernacular of the smart home, it’s the “spouse approval factor”.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

My favorite “out of the box” solution involved burning the box. After months of frustration with a technology solution, the client came to me. We discussed it and the optimum solution was determined to not use technology for that business function at all. Sometimes, you need to ignore the shiny and get back to basics.

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9. Paulo Tavares

Describe yourself

I’m an engineer by trade and a problem-solver by heart. Having extensive experience working in a startup environment in multiple stages, having been a part of growing one from 20+ employees to over 2000, and also having worked for 7 years at Google, I have been exposed to different problems, areas, needs, and opportunities that both startups and large-scale companies need to understand and tackle to keep growing successfully. I thrive in solving problems, and helping others grow and succeed, and look forward to being part of this community and giving back to it.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I want to give back to the community. I currently mentor social entrepreneurs on a small scale, and I’d like to be able to keep helping others in whatever capacity I can while learning in the process.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Strategy and go to market on a scalable, technical solution to solve financial literacy for future generations.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

I reorganized three user enablement content-creation groups inside the company to align under the same goal, having to align skills and competencies to the needs of the team, direct our work to what users needed – rather than internal teams – and massively changing the way we worked and thrived. I ended up delivering a conference talk on it, as well as being invited to do similar sessions to other training and documentation teams in a few companies that were struggling with the same: https://www.stc.org/event/technical-knowledge/

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10. Petr T Vocelka

Describe yourself

With 17+ years of global expertise at the intersection of SaaS, e-commerce, and tech, I’m a proven marketing leader known for developing strategies that drive revenue, customer engagement, and brand awareness.

I’ve led marketing efforts for both Fortune 500 and emerging brands across the US, Canada, and 19 European countries.

My track record includes significant business growth and enhanced brand visibility, but also adept leadership in navigating complex, cross-functional projects such as new product launches and brand expansions into new markets.

As a mentor, I take pride in my ability to nurture talent, having built and guided teams of 20+ members towards achieving collaborative success.

My passion lies in sharing this wealth of experience to empower startup and small business owners with the tools and strategies needed to flourish in today’s competitive market.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Having worked with startup and small business owners in my two most recent roles, I’ve been inspired by their passion and commitment. As a growth mentor, I’m eager to channel this enthusiasm into helping them achieve their marketing objectives.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

I believe that marketing skills evolve through conscious effort, a willingness to learn, and openness to constructive feedback. A growth mindset is pivotal for marketers to innovate, adapt, and turn challenges into opportunities.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Marketing strategy because it involves solving complex and often abstract tasks and turning them into tangible results.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

In launching a new brand across multiple international markets, I developed a marketing strategy that not only secured top spots in brand awareness in each of these countries but also drove triple-digit year-over-year growth in new customer acquisition.

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11. Rohit Narula

Describe yourself

Hi, I’m Rohit Narula, a Strategy & Product Growth professional working in the SaaS industry.
With over 8 years of experience across Acquisition, Retention, and Monetisation using Product-led Growth & Sales, I have been running experiments all across the user journey. I love interacting with people, understanding their pain points & problems and figuring out how to get the best outcome collaboratively.
I have spent 4 years in Business & Process excellence in the FMCG industry with hands-on experience in 0-1-10 scale-up of Lean & Six Sigma initiatives.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I have had great mentors in my career, so I would love to give back to the community and help them scale, based on my experiences, failures & successes.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Looking at the bigger picture and working as a TEAM to achieve the goals we’re aiming for. Plus, EXECUTION WITH CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Product-led Growth (How we can acquire, monetize & retain users with low CAC)
GTM strategy to identify Product-Channel-Market fit

I have a knack for data and user behavior. I love to uncover how can we guide users in the right direction with minimal intervention & great experience. I have been running experiments all along my professional journey for the same! 🙂

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Building a Product-led Sales team from scratch & scaling it up from a 3 to 20-member team with positive ROI.

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12. Srinivas Mothey

Describe yourself

I’m the founder of Quris8, which provides U.S. GTM, growth, and sales expertise to B2B startup founders. I’ve started and successfully exited 3 technology startups and led growth and sales teams achieving $0 to $200M in revenues and creating repeatable and predictable growth.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Offer GTM and growth expertise for startups to create repeatable revenue.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

The belief is about embracing challenges, persisting in the face of setbacks, and being able to convert them into opportunities.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Accelerate growth and build repeatable revenue. Velocity brings focus, and the ability to experiment and learn much faster to win.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Problem: At Paytm, we had a goal to increase revenue from $5M to $20M ARR within 2 years without doubling expenses for a mid-market SaaS product.
Solution: We identified 2-3 key areas of growth:

1. Grow and build new revenue- Accelerated sales to build a strong top funnel generating qualified leads and, with a strong process, converting them better.
2. Expand existing revenue- we had an existing base of 15 customers and identified ACV growth opportunities- Pricing, adjoining services, up-sell
3. Expansion of geography, product, and target segment- from one target segment we expanded to adjacent ICP segments which complemented the product without having to build new features.

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13. Tejaswi Agarwal

Describe yourself

I’m Tejaswi, a Senior Software Engineer at Uber with a decade of experience in the tech industry. I love building large-scale real-time infrastructure that is reliable, fault-tolerant, and helps improve people’s lives. Previously, I was on the founding team of the Oracle Autonomous Database.

Previously, I was also a mentor at Hackbright Academy a prominent coding boot camp focused on gender equity, I had the opportunity to guide aspiring developers. Witnessing their growth and success fueled my commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

As a seasoned Silicon Valley professional with a decade of experience, including leadership roles and strong backend engineering skills at Uber, I am eager to share my knowledge and insights to help guide and empower the next generation of talented individuals in the tech industry.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

Constantly striving for excellence in a field is what a growth mindset is. It involves finding your passion and working towards that. It also takes a bit of persistence, the ability to keep pushing forward, and being receptive to feedback.

In my experience, showing up, working hard, and being persistent have opened up tons of opportunities.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Growing as an Engineer – I’ve worked with diverse teams and organizations, each with unique challenges, and I’ve seen how the right guidance can help individuals and teams level up their skills and achieve incredible results.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

We had reached limits on a particular code binary size that made deployments very hard. Over 6 months, I removed 80% of the code from the repository by carefully building a shadow traffic pipeline and removing generated code with an equivalent replacement, while this system was serving business-critical traffic. This helped us scale this service for many years.

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14. Teodora Stancheva

Describe yourself

Hey there! I am so humbled to be here!
I am an SEO strategist with more than 5 years of experience growing e-commerce, online magazines, and SaaS organic performance.
For the last three years, I have been focusing only on the SaaS vertical, with the main goal of proving and increasing the results from organic.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Have the opportunity to contribute to the growth of meaningful startups through sharing my knowledge on SEO, growth marketing, and data-driven analysis and decision-making in marketing.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset is inventing a plane, while others are looking for ways to create faster trains.
It’s thinking out of the box, making brave decisions, and pushing the limits of the status quo.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Marketing strategy is built entirely on the customer motivations and pains and the way their product solves these for the user. And then analyzing the data that comes in to build a robust personalized marketing strategy to find their customers and present them with the solution.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

One example of an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem was using a pretty experimental content optimization method that incorporated AI-generated summaries and in-app user-generated content. This streamlined content creation but also significantly improved organic search rankings and user engagement.

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15. Victoria Alenich

Describe yourself

• I help startups enter the hyper-growth stage with customer acquisition and revenue growth.
• Spent over $30M on paid marketing developing paid social media and content strategies.
• I work a lot on creative strategy for paid marketing, but not limited to it. Experienced in data analytics, paid social media automation, and the technical side of marketing.

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

I would like to connect with startups in the growth stage, share my experience and knowledge in paid marketing, and observe the industry/market trends.

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A growth mindset means always looking for new and better ways to do things, not being afraid to question how we’ve always done them, and aiming to achieve goals that might seem out of reach to others.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Paid Social Media Strategy. It’s my bread and butter, I’ve been successfully doing it for 8+ years.

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Scaling paid social campaigns from 5 to 6 digits while keeping the ROAS stable by doing solely creative strategy!

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16. Vytas Dargis

Describe yourself

Hey, I’m Vytas – Senior Product Manager for Marketing Tech @ kiwi.com

In just one sentence, why do you want to become a growth mentor?

Share my experience and build a network

In your words, what does a growth mindset mean to you?

A systematic way to improve the north start metric is through problem-solving, with the right tools, and through continuous experimentation.

If you could mentor a startup on one topic, what would it be?

Product Management and Go-to-Market

Describe an out-of-the-box solution to a complex problem that made you proud of yourself.

Planned and implemented a self-service feature using Appcues. Mentioned on ReallyGoodUX: https://www.reallygoodux.io/blog/carts-guru-self-service-feature-tutorial-menu

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Interested in becoming a growth mentor?

What we’re looking for:

• Growth marketers, product managers, and designers, with extraordinary track records of success
• Inspirational founders that have “been there and done that.”
• Friendly people that take joy in helping other people.
• At least 5 years of demonstrable experience working in growth.
• GrowthMentor is a #givefirst platform. You should be cool with mentoring for free until you have three reviews.