Andrew Capland’s Post

The Capland crew are expecting a new baby girl on June 7th! We're super excited (and a lil nervous) to become a family of 4! There's no playbook for self-employed parental leave. But I'm planning to take June off to be with my family, and will resume client work mid-July. So this May, I'm taking sales calls for new clients who want to start this summer! If you've ever been interested in working together, nows a great time for us to chat! As a reminder, coaching is a great fit for Heads of Growth/ Directors of Growth who: - Want to fully "step into" the role, but aren't sure how. - Feel like you're not having the influence or impact you want. - Need to level-up, so this opportunity/role doesn't outgrow your skillset. - Might be going through a transition (new role, new company, new boss, etc) Advising is a great fit for PLG teams who: - Are in the building/ optimizing stages of their PLG motion. - Don't have someone with extensive PLG experience in-house. - Focused on improving user activation, retention, and conversion to paid. - Want help identifying opportunities, stress-testing their roadmap, guiding their approach, and help avoiding the most common speed bumps along the way. Interested? Hit me up and let's see if we're a fit! deliveringvalue.co Not interested? Send me your parenting tips!

“I was completely floored. I kept asking myself where I missed connecting the dots. Because I obviously missed something big.” It was early in his career and Adam Goyette had been driving meaningful results as an individual contributor. He thought he was killing it. Then one day, his boss left the company. Adam was the most senior person on the team and assumed he would be promoted. Or at least take on more responsibility. That didn't happen. A week later, the leadership team announced they had promoted the summer intern to be their new Director of Marketing. What?!? “The intern had an Ivy League pedigree, but no marketing skill set,” Adam shared. “I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong that I wasn’t even considered for the role.” “I naively assumed that doing a good job was enough. But the intern was 100 times better than me at navigating the room — at doing the internal marketing.” Our convo covered a couple more big speed bumps in his career and his strategies for handling stress, managing self doubt, and building strong professional relationships. Just search for Delivering Value Podcast wherever you usually listen. Or watch right here: https://lnkd.in/epx2VvCw

Want free advice from a former 2x head of growth turned coach? Share the biggest career challenges/questions/frustrations you face as a growth leader - and I’ll make a short video coaching you through them. (I won’t use any names and will keep things anonymous.) You can send me a DM or share in the comments below if you're comfortable.

Two years ago, you could do (almost) nothing and hit your growth targets. Right now, you can do amazing work and miss badly because of the macro economic conditions. Here's two skills to help you stand out and grow your career - even during a slow-growth period: 1. Prioritization: the most effective growth leaders don't have 10 priorities, they have 2-3. It's time to lock-in. Figure out which 2-3 initiatives will give you the most leverage. Then put everything else on the "not right now" list. 2. Managing-up: bring everyone along by sharing what you're working on - and why It's not enough to present at show & tell once a month. You need to keep your senior stakeholders constantly in the loop about what you're prioritizing, how your priorities may have changed, which threats have your attention, and which long-term initiatives are on your radar. Make those part of your weekly updates. You can still be impactful and grow your career even when company growth has slowed down.

Shoutout to the team leads who schedule that message for tomorrow instead of sending a late night Slack.

A lovely spring monday to everyone, except companies that: - Hire extremely talented people to lead their growth teams. - Treat them like individual contributors vs team leads. - Say you trust them, then undermine their decisions. - Don't support them with the resources they need. - Hire them for rigor, then manage them for speed. - Still expect them to overdeliver. Ya'll gotta get it together.

3 years ago, I felt broken. Startup life had worn me down. After 13 years in tech, I was tired and anxious... like all the time. Leading growth teams was a big part of my identify. I loved solving growth problems, but I didn't always love the head of growth job. I thought that title might make me happy. Or fulfilled. Or like I “made it.” Most of my time was spent: Presenting Interviewing Managing people Alignment meetings Standardizing processes Negotiating for budget and resources All that jazz. So in June 2021, I quit my job to focus on my side-hustle. 35 months later I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be: My energy is back I'm full of creative ideas My anxiety is 2 out of 10 I spend most Fridays outside in nature I'm having a ton of fun working on this business This isn't a brag in public post. The journey hasn't been easy. And there's been moments when I've been stressed and thought it was over. (If you follow me, you know I try and share those moments openly and honestly) I share this story to inspire anyone with a side hustle that's scared to take the plunge. I'm just a normal dude who works in LLBean slippers. If I can make it work, you can too.

Normally, I share here. But today, I'm asking for a favor. I'm a full time solopreneur. That means my entire income comes from working with clients and content sponsorships Twice a month, I publish a podcast/email to 3000+ people exploring the hardest parts of being a head of growth job (along with tips to help folks navigate it). The more subscribers I get, the more people I can reach, the more brands will want to sponsor the content I make (and the more diapers we can buy). Subscribe at https://hubs.ly/Q02tpzZ_0 Don't want to subscribe? No prob. It's a beautiful spring day. Just send good vibes instead.

It's tempting to want guidance from someone who's "made it". But those people usually make crummy mentors. You can't be vulnerable with someone 10 steps ahead. They can't remember what it's like to solve the challenges you're facing. And they probably can't help you problem-solve in the ways you're hoping. This is exactly why you should look for mentors that are 2-3 steps ahead of you... not 10 steps ahead. This came up in my conversion with Claire Suellentrop on the Delivering Value Podcast last summer.

At one company, Director of Growth means that you're leading a cross-functional team with ownership over the entire growth model and accountable for revenue. At another company, it means that you're an individual contributor focused on acquisition. So if you want a new growth job - don't just list accomplishments on your resume. You need to orient people to what your job was first. For example, instead of: - Accomplishment 1: increased conversion from X% -> Y% - Accomplishment 2: grew customers from 1 -> 2 - Accomplishment 3: product engagement went from 0 -> hero Start with: - Led a cross-functional growth team of 7 people that had ownership over the entire PLG funnel and accountability for driving self-service revenue. Then list your accomplishments. Hiring managers are flooded with applications right now. This will help yours stand out.