Law Talk with the Flock

What is Growth Hacking and How Does It Fit In To The Legal Field?

August 17, 2020 Jeana Goosmann, Carol Tran, Tom Dorwart Season 1 Episode 25
Law Talk with the Flock
What is Growth Hacking and How Does It Fit In To The Legal Field?
Show Notes Transcript

Host Jeana Goosmann is joined by guest Carol Tran, head of growth at Dolby Laboratories, and Tom Dorwart, Omaha attorney at Goosmann Law Firm. The three discuss growth hacking, entrepreneurship, and how to grow your business. In this episode you will learn:

  1. What Growth Hacking means  
  2. How Growth Hacking ties in to the legal field 
  3. How start-up businesses get on their feet and become successful 

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Goosmann Law Firm :

Do complex legal issues hold you back? Let's get energized and bring clarity to your top legal questions. This is Law Talk With the Flock. By Goosmann Law Firm.

Jeana Goosmann:

Hi, I'm Jeana Goosmann. Your host of Law Talk with the Flock. I am a CEO managing partner, attorney, and author here to help navigate you and your life as a leader and your way through the law. I'm super excited to have with me today, two different guests I have with me, Carol Tran and Tom Dorwart welcome you two.

Carol Tran :

Hi!

Jeana Goosmann:

And Carol is a growth hacker and a growth expert and a leader that speaks at conferences and really got to know Tom recently. And we were so excited to have her on the podcast today. Carol, could you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Carol Tran :

Yes. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for having me here. It's such a great pleasure getting to have a conversation with you and learn more about what you're doing and seeing how growth hacking, you know, applies in all businesses. So I currently am the head of growth at Adobe Laboratories, but I am an entrepreneur by heart and ended up growing several startups and consulted several of them as well.

Jeana Goosmann:

Outstanding. And Tom is a business attorney at the Goosmann Law Firm. Tom, Do you wanna introduce yourself?

Tom Dorwart:

Sure. I started at the firm in, in February and I have an entrepreneurial streak. I've been involved in a couple of startups and so I'm very interested in growth, as well. And then working with, with businesses to help them grow.

Jeana Goosmann:

Outstanding. Well, I'm excited to have a dialogue about growth of businesses and how we can work together and what growth hacking really means. And so Carol, maybe you can explain that to our listeners. When you talk about growth hacking, what are you referring to?

Carol Tran :

Well growth hacking to me, actually looking at the entire business and really seeing how can you grow? Um, and I know a lot of individuals have called it growth marketing. Um, yes, there are such a thing that is such a thing as growth marketing, cause it focuses on marketing how to grow it and taking it in a different level rather than looking at it as a cost center. But it's more of a revenue generating, area, but growth hacking, I see it is beyond that. If you're trying to grow a business, you can't just rely only on marketing. You have to look at what's going on in product engineering, customer success, finance, even HR. So when I look at it as the best way of analogy is that the business is like a ship, right? And as a growth hacker, I am the compass. I am the map to the captain of the ship. And that captain of the ship is the founder, the CEO, the leader of that department, whether a startup or all the way to large, how many whoever's leading that business unit or a big gigantic company is that ship. But the captain ship is saying, okay, everybody row, row to the North Island, it's right there. I see it clear as day. And I'm looking at my compass, which is my data is information from the environment of the ocean, which is your competitors. The customers, you know, needs and wants and what is going on and trending in society. So I'm looking at this and I'm like, okay, It looks like to me that we need to actually make a little bit of a detour and go Northwest instead of going actually, you know, straight. And they're like, no, no, no, Carol, I see clear as day, just go. And I said, no, it doesn't as a growth hacker, I'm actually realizing that we have to avoid the storm. The storm is coming up. That could be the, you know, volatility like what we're currently going through, unfortunately in our world crises. But also I have to look internally, why is marketing rowing forward? And then I see engineering world backwards and I see HR or customer success or sales, not doing anything. They're not rolling pulling their way. So what you need is to having the rhythm going all the same time, but also looking outside of the ship and saying, Oh my gosh, there's a pirate. That's actually a competitor. How can we extend it? Like literally smooth, smoothly. So by doing that, I have to look at data, but I also have to be creative. How are we going to be resourceful? Um, some companies may have tons of money and be able to pour in all this extra stuff. So you may say hey, let's do marketing. Let's put more ads in, but then I'm like, no, our problem is that we're not rolling at the same time by pouring ads in, it's only supposed to add fuel. It's like putting jet fuel in, but if you can't identify what the problem is, then you're only going to cover up that situation. And my next analogy is literally like Carol, I come into your place and technically it's not my place, but let's say you're coming into this room and you're trying to throw a party. And everyone's like this smells here. Um, you know, but maybe we could just put Febreze that Ferbreze is just like paid ads, but you gotta remove that dirty sock, right? Because when the Febreze is over and you're not paying more ads, you're going to see things dwindle Not many people are gonna come in. So growth hacking is hacking ways that are shortcuts, but there are no shortcuts when you hear that people are like, Oh, I can do shortcuts. I can do tricks and all that. There are tricks because anything you do in life, there's an easier way. So, but there's no shortcuts to like being a millionaire or short cuts through any of that. It has to be your skill, your drive, a determination to get up and do it again, cause it's experimentation. But at the same time, putting yourself in a lucky situation with all of those ingredients that you have. So you can sail that ship safely to that Island, which is whatever that goal is for the year.

Jeana Goosmann:

Outstanding and Tom, how does legal fit into this?

Tom Dorwart:

Well, that's a, it's a great question. I really liked Carol's analogy of the boat. I read a book recently called"The Boys in the Boat" and I learned a lot about crew and the same thing in, in the crew boat, you have to be on the same page to move the boat forward. So I really liked that analogy a lot and legal fits in, I think as Carol deals with growth and as companies grow all sorts of new legal issues come up in terms of litigation or a potential acquisition, protecting intellectual property, all sorts of things like that, trademarks and, and other intellectual property that really could be disputed down the road. You want to have a strong, legal team behind it to protect your growth.

Jeana Goosmann:

And Carol, have you had to interact with lawyers quite a bit as you've been an entrepreneur multiple times and as you're getting into businesses and growth hacking them?

Carol Tran :

Yes. I actually went to law school and business school. And so my career path was completely different before, it was, again, how I treated, my earlier days is the same way, how I look at growth hacking. So I had to start a business, for my business course. Well, so I did a joint degree and then it turns out that I just wanted to get an A, but because I presented my business in detail, I ended up being able to sell that and I was like, wow, that was an accident. But I always look at accidents could either go either direction. It could be an accident with like, Oh, that's a funny story that happened to me. You know, I started this business and it's just another distant memory or it's an accident and Oh my God, that's amazing. Well, put intention to make that accident into reality. So when you see there's something going on, then take advantage of that situation, look at the environment. What can you learn from it? And I think it's like, okay, other people like this. Okay. So what can I do when I continue doing that and building on it? So with that said, um, of course I also ended up having excellent, council of individuals that I knew because of law, school connections and stuff, and guiding me through the whole process of, you know, business. So yes, I have a lot of contact with, um, lawyers and, you know, I pay tribute to a lot of my education from law school of my thinking process is completely different. How I, uh, hacking, you know, you can go too far on the other side and it's just wrong. So I'm on that line where it's like, that's bold Carol, but I also don't do what most individuals do in startups where they always have that saying, like, just do an ask for permission later, but that depending on what it is that permission later could actually take away everything you've built.

Jeana Goosmann:

So, yeah, Carol, I know you're in California and you're on the coast and are close to Silicon Valley. How does that compare with the business culture and environment and your experience in working in the Midwest?

Carol Tran :

Well, my only context is I have not visited out there yet, I would like to eventually, but I have so much experience working with individuals out in the Midwest. Um, it's a different culture I would have to say. and of course over here you have that stereotype, right? Very cut throat individuals. Like you hear about certain things that happen. Um, it is all true. It depends on which business you're talking about. Right? Some, maybe a little bit more extreme, some are not. And it happens everywhere in the whole world, but over here it's more heightened because it's Silicon Valley, San Francisco. It is the start of where everything happened with the, you know, the boom for technology, right? But technology is everywhere now, but their approach here is like fast or you'll die. Uh, what do you mean? This is not working right now. Okay. Um, and it's always male dominated and nothing's wrong with that. And it's just because it has a long history in that women are rising up and we are respected and we still have to go through certain hurdles. But it is to the point where the main focus is so much on the business of like, we don't want to kill this business. We got to move faster. Sometimes things are being compensated where it doesn't have, uh, people in mind first. To, whereas the Midwest, I mean, I have nothing but positive things and, um, hard worker kind, but still say, OK, um, even if they disagree, they will say in a, such a very polite manner. I'm not saying over here, we're not polite. It's just a different, approach t o things. So it's been incredible working with individual and I love working with remote individuals even before, you know, unfortunately our world crises. And, u m, I apologize for that. U m, and so with that said, I think, b ecause I already had the mentality of working with remote workers. I think it makes it, easy for me to transition over when we had all this plus, there was no break into how the output of the results are, b ecause I'm an entrepreneur by heart. So I always look for individuals wh o a re hard workers, individuals who want to, y ou know, ou tput t hings in. And because I'm an entrepreneur, I also look at Adobe as a way of getting individuals coming here, proving that we can save costs and also treat it like a startup.

Jeana Goosmann:

So when you're working with these businesses, through your company, as a consultant, how do you know when they need to do something different? Like, maybe partner with another company or look at an acquisition or potentially selling, or are restructuring their business in some way, and that might be holding them back.

Carol Tran :

Yeah. I've helped a company before where they were having a hard time scaling. Their technology was great, but it was not product market fit at the time. They built this before I came in and I was going to help educate customers, consumers, it was a B to C and it was a mobile app. Now, when you try to educate consumers on a habit that they didn't have naturally, it's going to be difficult, but I know eventually it will happen, but they didn't want to scrap everything. And they were in panic and they're like, we need to scale this Carol. So I actually came in and said, well, we have options here. We can try to scale it. But it will be a temporary patch, right. Or we can actually get acquired. There was a company that was missing, certain features that this mobile app had. So, that company ended up acquiring the mobile app. Uh, it's a large company, Hulu. So that's how it happened.

Jeana Goosmann:

It's so fun to learn the story behind the story. Isn't it? And Tom, is that part of why you like what you do and the work that you get to get involved in? You get to be on the inside?

Tom Dorwart:

Uh, definitely, especially, yes because, it's helping companies grow. I especially like working with startups and, and helping them get to that next level and seeing the story unfold. So that's, that's really what gets me inspired. Um, I worked with one startup that had to fold, but it was around for five years. And so it was very fun to be a part of that process. But then I worked with another one t hat I'm no longer working with them, but it's still going and it's going strong. So it's very exciting to see the success of those. But I also like helping larger companies with their growth and whether they need an acquisition or a partnership or something like that.

Jeana Goosmann:

And Carol, if someone wants to engage with you to help them grow their business and figure out what's going on and diagnose that, how do they do so?

Carol Tran :

They can reach me at caroltran.com. It's literally my first and last name.com. Um, so it can direct them to my site. Currently it's on, it directs them to LinkedIn because currently I'm working my website, but that Carol tran.com should just go straight there and you can always contact me, but, or, you know, if certain companies are not ready yet because they don't have the funding or finances and stuff, I'm always open to help individuals on a, more of like how advice here and there, but mostly through emails and stuff like that. There's a certain extent though, but I have no problems jumping on a quick, like 10, 15 minute call. Um, because I do believe in sometimes individuals need a little bit of a helping hand because I know I started from there. So I have no issues with that, but, you know, businesses can contact me. And, you know, it's not just only me if the team wants to go really fast, I also have a core set of individuals to contact, um, as well to join in, in executing, whatever that project is.

Jeana Goosmann:

Outstanding. Well, thank you both so much for joining us today on the podcast. I think it's really exciting to learn and hear what is going on in this entrepreneurial space and how you go and grow these businesses and the expertise that you bring in that insight. So thank you so much.

Carol Tran :

Well, thank you so much.

Jeana Goosmann:

And to our listeners go make it worth it.

Goosmann Law Firm :

Thanks for joining us for Law Talk with the Flock by Goosmann Law Firm. We hope you feel energized and ready to soar past your goals. Become a flock fan and subscribe to our podcast for weekly episodes. Learn more at goosmannlaw.com.