🎙️ Interview with Samantha Leal
Five questions with Samantha about goal-setting, media diet, and waking up at 4:24
Hi there 👋
This week I was thinking about how often I say “yes” to things and how the prevailing wisdom is to say “no” more often than you say “yes.” Oops. What do you do when you’re asked to give of your time and energy? I’m certainly grateful for the many people I’ve asked to interview on this newsletter, including Samantha (today’s interview). Thank you for saying yes!
Wishing you a great week ahead,
Kevan
(ᵔᴥᵔ)
Thank you for being part of this newsletter. Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world and my time at Oyster, Buffer, and more.
Say hi anytime at hello@kevanlee.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Interview with Samantha Leal
Samantha Leal (SL) is one of my very favorite marketers and human beings. You may have come across her on social media where she is an influential voice on #MarketingTwitter and LinkedIn. She’s also very influential when it comes to company-building! She’s been early-stage at a handful of cool startups and now is a full-time advisor, helping companies scale marketing and growth.
You can say hello to her on Twitter or LinkedIn. I’m sure she’ll love to hear from you!
The history of Samantha
From Content Creator to VP of Growth Marketing @ Kinedu (2014 - 2021)
Kinedu is software for childhood education. Samantha joined as the first marketing hire and employee number four.
Director of Marketing @ Synthesis (2021 - 2022)
Synthesis teaches kids 8 to 14 collaboration, critical thinking, and decision-making skills by challenging them to wrestle with complex simulations of real-world problems.
Growth advisor and coach (2022 - current)
Advising early stage startups to tackle their growth challenges and scale to 8 figures.
Samantha is also starting a newsletter! 🍿 You can subscribe to the Growth Code here.
Q&A
1. How do you explain what you do to your parents, friends, kids, or non-industry people?
SL: I help companies grow and become known.
2. What does your morning routine look like?
SL: I wake up at 4:24 a.m. and go exercise. I know … 😅 pretty specific! But I found that time is when my body resents it less. Even though I've stuck to this waking time for years, my body still wants to sleep a bit more. Working out clears my head, and it’s the only time of day where I’m truly uninterrupted. It’s me time.
After I take a shower, I cook breakfast while listening to an audiobook or podcast. I adopted this habit about five to six years ago and it has been game-changing.
After breakfast, I do some prep work before my daughter wakes up. At around 7:00 a.m. I give her breakfast then get her to daycare.
I have the fortune of working remotely, so once I get home, I try to block the first hours to do deep work. Mornings are a treasure for me. That's when I do my best work.
3. Can you share a photo of your phone’s home screen, your computer desktop, or your browser window?
4. How do you measure success in your role?
I like to measure it in 5 buckets:
Acquisition
Activation
Conversion
Retention
Team happiness
It's a balance between those five key areas. I may be hitting the numbers in terms of acquisition and conversion with sign ups and purchases, but if I have a retention problem, there's a leaky bucket I need to fix.
Same with the team. My team's well-being is paramount. I like to keep a pulse on how they are feeling, especially around stress. Being remote is tough because you struggle to see how they are really feeling. Burnout creeps in. So during team meetings and 1:1s, I need to pay close attention to their body language and tone and to ask the right questions.
5. Which work project are you most excited about right now? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Building something new… will share more soon :)
6. What are three staples of your "media diet"?
1 - Newsletters: I really enjoy reading about psychology, behavioral science, business, and decision-making
2 - Podcasts: My favorite podcast topics are business, entertainment, storytelling, and health. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed:
3 - Books - I love to read. During the past couple of years I started to read for a specific purpose, trying to get one nugget of wisdom and then jumping on different books as questions arise or new topics catch my attention.
I may be reading 5 different books at a time. The system may seem chaotic but it works great for me. Now I have the freedom to drop books that don’t grab me or those where I already got the information I wanted from.
BONUS: How did you get your current job?
I got my last job at Synthesis through Twitter!
I wanted to create an audience and share my learnings about marketing with the world, so began to be active on Twitter and LinkedIn.
After a few months, I started following prominent people in the EdTech space, and landed on a company that was truly different and making a huge impact. Eventually decided to DM the CEO and shoot my shot. Got a meeting and after a series of interviews with the team, I got the job 😊
About this newsletter …
Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. If you enjoy what’s in this newsletter, you can share some love by hitting the heart button at the top or bottom.💙
About Kevan
I’m a marketing exec who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I currently lead the marketing team at Oyster (we’re hiring!). I previously built brands at Buffer, Polly, and Vox.
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