#StartupLife: Scaling Fast
With a Micro Team
Joelle Irvine
Head of Growth & Marketing, Billdr
billdr.co | @billdrHQ | @joelleirvine
October 1, 2021

5 things to know about Joelle
1) Head of Growth & Marketing at Billdr 🚀
2) Previously Director of Marketing & Growth at Bookmark (WPP) 📈
3) Spent 2020 updating different rooms in my home 🤩
4) Excited that it’s October - Love fall fashion! 👢
5) I love pop-culture 🍿
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Billdr is reinventing the home renovation industry
Market Network
#growthfestival @joelleirvine
Homeowners
Permit offices
General
Contractors
Architects
Structural
Engineers
Interior
Designers

Why should you listen to me?
I’ve been there and I can prove it.
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

20
Billdr by the numbers
#growthfestival @joelleirvine
Full-time employees vs.
four founders a year ago.
4
months until my first
marketing hire.

10x
Billdr by the numbers
#growthfestival @joelleirvine
more users/day than in
December 2020.
2
new cities across two
countries in 2021!
LAUNCHED

10x
Billdr by the numbers
#growthfestival @joelleirvine
more projects
posted/week than in
December 2020.
+86%
average project
posted growth MoM

What we will cover today
1) What’s expected of a marketer working at a
Startup
2) Biggest challenges in year one
3) How to prioritize short vs. long term goals
4) How to balance brand awareness vs.
acquisition goals
5) When to experiment with new tactics vs.
sticking to what works
Photo credit: Netflix Girlboss

What’s expected of you
As a marketer in Startupland
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

What I realized very quickly
working at a Startup
What you need to do
● Build brand awareness
● Engage audiences
● Generate leads
● Acquire clients
● Grow at scale
Photo credit: Mindy Project

What I realized very quickly
working at a Startup
What’s expected of you
● Generate leads
● More leads!
● Even more leads!!
● And do it fast(er)!
Photo credit: Glengarry Glen Ross

Challenges
That are amplified by #startuplife
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

BUDGET

PEOPLE
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

TIME

EXTERNAL
FORCES

What can you control?
Budget
• Small
• How to use it?
People
• Team size
• Support from other teams
• Challenges hiring
Time
• Not enough of it
• Need to move fast
• Understanding seasonality shifts & trends
External forces
• Algorithms
• Competition
• Economic/political
• Global pandemics!!
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How to prioritize goals
Short- vs. long-term
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

#growthfestival @joelleirvine
Startup
growth
trajectory is
not linear.
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Marketing goals
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Dive into each goal
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Dive into each goal
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Dive into each goal
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Dive into each goal
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Dive into each goal
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine
How do you drive
advocacy and
growth?

How do you decide what is a short vs. long term goal?
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
How do you drive
advocacy and
growth?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

What is critical to achieve fast growth?
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
How do you drive
advocacy and
growth?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

What is critical to achieve fast growth?
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
How do you drive
advocacy and
growth?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

What is critical to achieve fast growth?
Build awareness Engage audiences Generate leads Acquire clients Scale
How will people
discover you?
How will they know
how your
product/service
can help them?
How do you drive
interest?
How will people
interact with your
brand?
How can people
sign-up? Or get
started?
How do you make
money and make
customers happy?
How do you drive
advocacy and
growth?
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How do we prioritize what to focus on with limited resources?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media &
Partnerships
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Social Media
Email
# Subscriptions
Open rate/CTR
Engagement
Guides
Case studies
# Inquiries
Time on page
Source/Medium
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
Reviews
UGC &
Referrals
Backlinks
# Leads
/referral
channels
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Engage audiences Lead gen Acquire clients Scale
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How to balance goals
Awareness vs. acquisition in a new market
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

First thing, remove all the longer term goals
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media &
Partnerships
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Social Media
Email
# Subscriptions
Open rate/CTR
Engagement
Guides
Case studies
# Inquiries
Time on page
Source/Medium
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
Reviews
UGC &
Referrals
Backlinks
# Leads
/referral
channels
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Engage audiences Lead gen Acquire clients Scale
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Now, how do we balance awareness vs. acquisition?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Lead gen Acquire clients
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Now, how do we balance awareness vs. acquisition?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Lead gen Acquire clients
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Now, how do we balance awareness vs. acquisition?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Lead gen Acquire clients
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How we approach awareness
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness
New product/service/market = needs awareness!
In-house
• Focus on strategy & planning
• Set up analytics/tracking for data accuracy
• Create & optimize awareness content
• Distribute through organic channels
• Track, monitor, report
• Ideate, test, adapt
Outsource
• Paid media
• PR
• Writing/Design to support content creation
Budget will mostly go toward staff and paid media
awareness & search campaigns
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How about lead generation?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
GOALS
PRIORITY
Fast growth = Lead generation is a must!
In-house
• Focus on strategy & planning
• Set up analytics/tracking for data accuracy
• Create & optimize lead flows, landing pages, forms
• Distribute through organic channels
• Track, monitor, report
• Ideate, test, adapt
Outsource
• Paid media
• Writing/Design to support content creation
Budget will mostly go toward staff and paid media
conversion & search campaigns
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
Lead gen Acquire clients
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Did you notice the overlap?
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
GOALS
PRIORITY
Fast growth = Lead generation is a must!
In-house
• Focus on strategy & planning
• Set up analytics/tracking for data accuracy
• Create & optimize lead flows, landing pages, forms
• Distribute through organic channels
• Track, monitor, report
• Ideate, test, adapt
Outsource
• Paid media
• Writing/Design to support content creation
• PR (but PR can also drive leads!)
Budget will mostly go toward staff and paid media
conversion & search campaigns
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
Lead gen Acquire clients
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

What does this mean?
Think about resource and budget allocation
Team hours
• Spend time understanding your customer
• Plan, create & optimize content that supports
conversion first
• Set up goals and events in Analytics Platform early on
• Then split time between everything else (all goals)
• Report results, share learnings
Budget
• Paid media budget should be split by goal
• Invest in PR when you have a solid story to tell!
• Get help from freelancers for execution
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

As you grow, layer in the other goals & tactics
TACTICS/
CONTENT
KPIS
SEO, Social,
Digital PR
New users
Rank Position
Time on Page
Backlinks
Paid media &
Partnerships
# Users
Conversion rate
CPC/CPM
Social Media
Email
# Subscriptions
Open rate/CTR
Engagement
Guides
Case studies
# Inquiries
Time on page
Source/Medium
Paid media
Forms
# Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost/Lead
P2P
Contracts
signed
Cost/Acquisition
# New Projects
ROI
Reviews
UGC &
Referrals
Backlinks
# Leads
/referral
channels
GOALS
PRIORITY Build brand awareness Engage audiences Lead gen Acquire clients Scale
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

How to make data-driven
decisions?
And when to experiment!
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Trick question?
Kind of...
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Set up data tracking early on...
Having accurate data is key to making
smart and strategic decisions.
● Set up goals & events in Google
Analytics with Google Tag Manager (or
whatever Analytics platform you use)
● Set up server-side tracking if you run
social media ad campaigns
● Create dashboards with Google Data
Studio (or your platform of choice)
Photo credit: Hidden Figures
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

When to experiment?
Make sure your idea is worth testing
● Is something underperforming?
● Has something been performing
but stagnant/not improving for a
while?
● Are you entering a new market?
You may not have 1st party data.
● Are you seeing a shift in your user
demographic or behavioural
data?
These are all great times to test!
Photo credit: Glengarry Glen Ross
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Photo credit: marketoonist.com
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Test 1: Post your project form
Problem: Post your project form too long
Solution: Shorten it. But where? Behaviour
was no longer being tracked. Added
tracking and waited 4 weeks.
Result: Success!
● From 11 to 5 pages
● +10% form completions
What we learned:
● Tracking user behaviour will help you
make data driven decisions AND
generate more leads!
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Test 1: We also took the opportunity to update the look & feel 🔥
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Test 2: Webinar events for homeowners
Problem: Hard to get traction in a new market
Solution: Invite industry professionals to speak
about a relevant topic.
Result: Fail
● 10 attendees
● No immediate inquiries
● People still sign up to watch the replay!
What we learned:
● The event was well planned and executed -
amazing guests, excellent content!
● We needed to spend more time and budget
promoting it. It was too early. We were
spreading ourselves too thin.
#BilldrLive
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Test 3: Chinese WeChat Community
Problem: Hard to get traction in a new market
Solution: Reach an existing community with a
need for our service
Result: Fail
● 22 unique website visitors
● No inquiries
What we learned:
● If your positioning & messaging are not
aligned, you are not setting yourself up for
success
● After my colleague interviewed local
Chinese homeowners, we realized that this
WeChat community was not a good fit
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Test 4: Local Tech newsletter
Problem: Hard to get traction in a new market
Solution: Reach an existing community with
similar values, interests, and demographics
Result: Success!
1st Campaign:
● Avg. CTR: 1.3%
● SQLs: 13
● Clients: 4
What we learned:
● When there’s a high level of TRUST in the
community, and your VALUES are very
aligned, this strategy works.
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Key takeaways
1) Prioritise based on budget, people, and
time – the things you can control
2) Balance your awareness and acquisition
efforts so that you are not just focusing on
quick conversions – that may not be the
best leads/clients
3) Set up tracking early on to make smart
and strategic decisions
4) Experiment - Test lots, fail fast, learn,
share, and adapt
Photo credit: Netflix Girlboss
#growthfestival @joelleirvine

Thank you!
Joelle Irvine
Head of Growth & Marketing, Billdr
billdr.co | @billdrHQ | @joelleirvine