What We Discussed in the EVN Disrupt Podcast
- Breaking Into the Startup Ecosystem: Hamlet shares his entrepreneurial journey, highlighting his passion for early-stage startups. From helping twin founders at Harvard Business School to scaling startups by solving real-world problems, Hamlet explains how startups’ blank slate and potential captivated him.
- The Azarian Growth Agency Approach: A Data-Driven Growth Model: Hamlet details Azarian Growth Agency’s systematic, data-driven process for identifying pain points, building scalable acquisition channels, and lowering customer acquisition costs (CAC). He discusses how startups iterate through customer discovery calls, experiments, and validated products to achieve sustainable growth.
- The Role of Startup Leaders in Growth: Startups evolve rapidly, and Hamlet emphasizes the transformation of leaders alongside their businesses. Leaders must adapt, build new processes, and maintain organizational culture as teams grow from a few co-founders to hundreds of employees.
- Validating Startup Ideas: Hamlet stresses the importance of validating ideas before writing a single line of code. He shares a case study of leveraging the National Science Foundation grant process to engage CTOs and developers, highlighting the need for scalable solutions and customer willingness to pay for products.
Scaling Startups: Key Growth Phases and Metrics:
Hamlet breaks down critical growth stages:
- Idea Stage: Conduct customer discovery to validate pain points.
- MVP Stage: Build the first growth engine, focusing on a core customer persona and scalable acquisition channels.
- Seed to Series A: Grow revenue from $10k/month to $80k/month with systematic experiments and data-driven LTV-to-CAC metrics.
- Series A to Series B: Add secondary personas, expand growth channels, and build teams to optimize product and customer acquisition.
Azarian Growth Agency’s Involvement in Armenia’s Ecosystem
Hamlet discusses his work with Armenia’s SmartGate VC and Hero House, recognizing the untapped potential of Armenian talent—highly creative and analytical minds perfect for growth marketing.
The Growth Academy Initiative
To address gaps in startup marketing knowledge, Hamlet introduced Growth Academy.
This initiative pairs startups at the seed stage with students who learn growth marketing theories and apply experimentation roadmaps.
The academy aims to develop key roles like product marketing and bridge the knowledge gap through hands-on learning and webinars.
Key Takeaways for Startups and Leaders:
- Validate Ideas: Talk to potential customers before building products.
- Adopt a Data-Driven Approach: Use experimentation and data to iterate quickly.
- Build Scalable Engines: Identify repeatable acquisition channels to reduce CAC.
- Support Leadership Transformation: Leaders must adapt as startups scale.
- Focus on Long-Term Learning: Initiatives like Growth Academy democratize growth knowledge and empower the next generation of marketers.
Final Thoughts
Hamlet Azarian’s systematic approach to growth marketing and commitment to ecosystem development provide a roadmap for startups looking to validate ideas, gain traction, and scale sustainably.
Tune into the full episode to learn how Azarian Growth Agency’s strategies can help startups build scalable businesses and achieve long-term success.
Key Takeaways
18:04 – The Stage Companies the Azarian Growth Agency Works With
22:00 – Traction From MVP Stage To Series A And Beyond
26:03 – Hamlet Azarian’s Favorite Growth Strategies
27:52 – How AI is Changing the Overall Marketing Landscape
32:17 – Hamlet Introduces How He Got Involved in the Armenian EcoSystem
41:30 – [A] Growth Academy
46:01 – The Key Roles That Are Missing In Armenia
48:02 – Where Does Hamlet See the Azarian Growth Agency in 5-10 Years?
