Panda Q&A with David Arnoux, founder of Growth Tribe

Whether you’re a growth marketing expert, or completely new to it all, you’re in for a treat today! I recently caught up with David Arnoux, founder of Growth Tribe - Europe’s first Growth Marketing Academy - to find out more about the man behind the academy. I wanted to know, how did David discover growth marketing? And what inspired him to found the first growth marketing training company?

Curious? Here’s what I discovered…

Amanda Panda (AP): In 140 characters or less, how would you describe Growth Tribe?

David Arnoux (DA): We’re Europe’s first growth marketing and technical academy and we train tomorrow’s leading growth experts.

AP: Tell us a little more about your background…

DA: I started my first company – an import export company – at 21. Working with two others, we imported and exported everything our clients wanted. During this time, we found some amazing suppliers of men’s accessories and we decided to open an online store in Paris. I was in the ecommerce trenches, acquiring users at the lowest possible cost and persuading customers to convert with the highest possible basket value. As we were only a three-person company, I had to use a bunch of skills that I didn’t even know I had: persuasion tricks, UX, front-end development, analytics, paid acquisition, SEO, hacking PR.

Our online success led to the development of a chain of offline stores; the business became a well-known multichannel retailer and it’s still flourishing today.

Following on from this, I founded a SaaS teamwork tool. Similar in concept to Slack, I launched the product in a very competitive market. It was here that I discovered more about behavioural segmentation, user onboarding, monthly and weekly retention and - most importantly - driving traffic to a B2B self-service solution at the lowest possible cost. In the product’s first year, with a £0 marketing budget, I managed to get 40,000 people signed up to the website.

In growth marketing, we focus heavily on data. An early signal is something that we look for - an early indicator that the market is ripe for what you’re offering. I found this early signal for growth marketing when I began blogging about it. I was writing about the tools and processes that I was using and thousands of readers were sharing my content and contacting me.

I then started a growth marketing meetup in Amsterdam. Within a week, 250 people had signed up. I began running the Meetup monthly and the retention rate for attendees was incredible. It was through these events that I met my partners Peter Van Sabben and Quentin Lacointa, and together, we began working on a number of growth consultancy projects.

AP: What inspired you to bring Growth Tribe to life?

DA: It was really more of a continual process of experimentation, rather than vision driven. We saw the early signals from the content I was creating and the huge traction on the Meetup group. After this, people began approaching me for consultancy on growth.

I was doing consultancy work with Quentin for about a year before founding Growth Tribe. We discovered that, when we left a business, the growth marketing process and mind-set weren’t embedded within the company. We then changed our tactics and started teaching interns and marketers how to implement the tools and processes that we were using. When we called the company 4 – 5 months later, all of our processes were still in place. It became clear that training – and not just consulting - was a much more powerful way of embedding growth within a business. From here, creating Growth Tribe was the next natural step.

AP: How has creating Growth Tribe changed your life?

DA: I am now surrounded with the smartest marketing and product people on the market. Our team is a mix of UX specialists, data analysts, marketeers, designers, data scientists and branding experts – we learn from each other every day. We meet loads of inspiring people and learn from them too. All of this is because of Growth Tribe; it’s mind expanding.

AP: What one piece of advice would you give to entrepreneurs?

DA: Focus on a niche, experiment and don’t get distracted. When you experiment, trust early signals. Test, iterate – try three times and then change; know when to give up.

Want to learn more about growth marketing? View Growth Tribe's upcoming growth marketing courses!