20Growth: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 101 | The Rise of User Generated Content and How to Use It | TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality | Hiring for Growth: When and Who with Sandy Diao

20Growth: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 101 | The Rise of User Generated Content and How to Use It | TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality | Hiring for Growth: When and Who with Sandy Diao

Author: Harry Stebbings October 24, 2025 Duration: 1:16:18

Sandy Diao is one of the most exceptional growth leaders of the last decade. Sandy has scaled products to over 200M+ users and led growth teams at Descript, Meta and Pinterest. She is also a prolific writer all on things growth here. 

AGENDA: 

03:59 Biggest Growth Lessons from Pinterest

08:01 What is a Good vs a Bad Growth Hypothesis

11:11 Common Mistakes in Growth Strategies

14:57 Channel Fit: When You Have It & What To Do

25:43 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) 101: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine

30:08 How to Do SEO and Long-Term Growth Investments

33:22 Doubling Down on Successful Channels

36:31 The Unchanging Foundations of SEO

37:52 Generative AI Engines vs. Traditional Search Engines

41:12 Paid Marketing Channels: What's Overrated?

43:42 The Rise of User-Generated Content (UGC)

46:34 TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality

49:55 Brand Marketing: What is Real vs What is BS?

53:33 The Importance of Feature Launches

01:01:50 Hiring for Growth: When and Who?

01:08:55 Quick Fire Round: Onboarding, Notifications, and Growth Channels

 

 


Hosted by Harry Stebbings, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) pulls back the curtain on the high-stakes worlds of venture capital and startup building. Each episode is a compact, twenty-minute dive into the minds shaping the future of technology. You’ll hear candid conversations with legendary investors, the very individuals who fund and guide the next generation of companies, featuring voices like Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Beyond the capital, this podcast dedicates time to the founders themselves. Weekly, Stebbings sits down with transformative entrepreneurs such as Spotify's Daniel Ek, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman, unpacking the real journeys behind their iconic companies. The format is direct and focused, cutting straight to the core insights on funding strategies, pitch dynamics, and the personal philosophies that drive success. Tuning into this podcast means gaining an unfiltered perspective from both sides of the table, all delivered in a concise and accessible style that fits into your day.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Podcast Episodes
20VC: Marc Andreessen on The Future of Venture Capital: Will a16z Go Public | Why Labour Displacement with AI is Wrong | Why Introspection is Dangerous | Why "Diamonds in the Rough" is BS in VC | Why a16z Invested $300M into Adam Neumann [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:16
Marc Andreessen is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. The firm now manages over $90BN and has invested in the likes of OpenAI, Airbnb, Coinbase, Anduril and many more. Marc is an innovator and creat…
20VC: The Venture Model is Broken | You Need to be Greedy and Selfish to Win Early Stage Investing | Why Margins Do Not Matter for Early-Stage Startups | The Growth Rate that is Required in a World of AI with Gili Raanan, Founder @ Cyberstarts [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:37
Gili Raanan is the Founder of Cyberstarts, one of the best performing venture funds of the last decade. He is famed for being the seed investor in Wiz, Islands and Cyera, leading to multiple 10x+ funds. He has the only r…
20VC: Inside Anduril's $20BN Army Contract & Why Anduril Must Go Public | Why 99% of Drone Companies Will Die | Why There is Never an Ethical Question of How Anduril Products are Used with Matthew Steckman, President @ Anduril [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:51
Matthew Steckman is the President and Chief Business Officer of Anduril. Matt played a central role in securing the $20BN contract Anduril just won with the US military. Prior to Anduril, Matt served as Chief Revenue Off…
20VC: The Return of Travis Kalanick: Uber Would Be $1TRN Today With Him | NVIDIA Predicts $1TRN in Revenue: Everything You Need to Know From GTC | Anduril Lands $20BN Army Contract | Adobe CEO Shock Exit: The Dominos Falling [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:15
AGENDA: 04:02 NVIDIA's GTC: What You Need to Know 11:39 Meta's 20% Layoffs & Atlassian Lets Go of 1,600 21:42 How to Test AI Fluency in Employees 30:59 Anduril Lands $20BN Army Contract 46:46 Travis Kalanick Returns With…
20VC: The 8 Moats of Enduring Software Companies: How to Analyse for Durability and Defensibility in a World of AI | Why Dropouts are "AI Maxing" the World & Remote Early-Stage Companies are Dying with Gokul Rajaram [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:21
Gokul Rajaram is one of the greatest operators turned investors of the last 2 decades. He is trusted as the go to advisor for the greatest founders in the world. Today he serves as a Board Director at three public compan…
20VC: Inside Accel's $4BN Growth Investing Machine | Cursor is Dead is Total BS: Here is Why | What Missing Rippling and ElevenLabs Taught Us | Are $2BN-$10BN IPOs Dead | Why Now is a Great Time to be Thoma Bravo with Miles Clements [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:02
Miles Clements is a Partner @ Accel where he helps to lead their growth fund. At Accel, Miles has led or invested in Atlassian, Cursor, Linear, and more. AGENDA: 03:38 Where is True Alpha and Value in a World of AI 05:10…