Office Hours: I’m the Director of Growth Product Marketing at Bumble. I’m Louisa Kinoshi. AMA!Featured

louisakinoshi·Aug 21, 2022

Posted in:Office Hours Product Marketing

Hey Elphas!

I’m Louisa Kinoshi and I’m the Director of Growth Product Marketing at Bumble. I like to describe myself as a poet and scientist. I believe in the power of data, but also believe it is important for brands to deepen connections with consumers.

As a growth marketer with over a decade of experience in consumer tech, clean energy fashion and beauty, my intuition drives testing, and the data drives decision making. My goal is to find fast, repeatable and scalable ways to acquire and retain users while increasing their lifetime value.

Before Bumble, I worked in growth marketing at various startups in the live stream fashion, influencer, beauty and market research industry.

During my downtime, I like traveling. I also like to keep a strong pulse on the next digital trends. Fun fact, I’m also a TikToker, and my content is around diversity in tech.

Ask me anything about product marketing, user acquisition, growth marketing and building a following on TikTok, or anything else!

ElphaStaff·Aug 21, 2022

Thanks so much for joining us @louisakinoshi!Elphas – please ask @louisakinoshi your questions before Friday, August 26th. @louisakinoshi may not have time to answer every questions, so emoji upvote your favorites 🔥👍🏾➕

sionalandveld·Aug 22, 2022

@louisakinoshi loved to read this! I’m helping women discover their unique talent and help them transition into their next career step. My question is: what is the biggest impact your career choices had on you personally. For example to come over fears you used to have?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

Surprisingly (or maybe not) my biggest challenge especially earlier in my career was building relationships. I spent so many years honing my skills but realized my growth will be capped until I worked on my internal connections. Mentorship (both internal and external) was really helpful and guided me and overcoming that challenge.

sionalandveld·Aug 27, 2022

That’s interesting! What do you think was especially difficult for you in building relationships and connecting with others?

abbynitta·Aug 22, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi, and thanks for taking the time to share your insights! Just followed you on TikTok 🤗What are some of your go-to trends and metrics to track when it comes to growth marketing for a product? If you had to build a growth strategy from the ground up, what would you focus on first?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

It depends but overall as a growth marketer I pay very close attention to retention metrics because that’s where you can identify risks. While acquisition and revenue metrics a the most “sexy” I think retention helps best determine the health of your growth strategy.

abbynitta·Aug 27, 2022

Thanks @louisakinoshi! Ah, so true -- it's easy to be drawn toward those 'sexy' metrics!

monicamcclain·Aug 22, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi! Thank you for doing this! I'm looking to transition away from the financial services industry. Startups look like a great way to do so. How did you make your way into the startup space?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

The startup space is a good place to kick off a career in tech. Fintech companies could be a great place to start. I would suggest connecting with folks in your network at startups or in roles you would like to be in. Taking the time to learn what their day-to-day is like can help start to make the connections between your current role and the role you would like to transition to.

monicamcclain·Aug 29, 2022

Thank you for the advice @louisakinoshi!

Cary200·Aug 23, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi ! Thanks for taking the time to share with us :) Question for you: Have you ever had to navigate a career decision where you had to compromise on diversity for career growth? Or do you have advice for such a scenario? I am currently struggling with a decision about whether/not to accept a great offer for a role that is exactly what I want to do next in my career, but at a company / industry that is known for its lack of diversity and noted gender discrimination. Would love to hear your thoughts!

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

As a black woman in tech, I’ve had very similar situations. To be honest, It’s never been worth it. There are lots of places that value talent like yours AND value diversity and I think it's important to find those places. It’s definitely not easy and may take a long time but it's worth it because to grow in your career at a company you have to feel safe.

marthacabaero·Aug 23, 2022

Hey @louisakinoshi, I enjoyed reading this! Big believer in being data driven and staying approachable to the customer as you grow. I'm the founder of a pre-seed startup, and I'm curious to know what you think of founders developing their personal brands + how closely this should be tied to their company's brand to generate growth?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

The most important part of growing a personal brand is to provide value to your audience. Growth comes from authenticity and that authenticity can be as tied to the company as possible. Ideally, your startup’s values should reflect yours, and here's where you can start to find your niche and build deeper connections with your audience.

jennifercote·Aug 23, 2022

Hi Louisa! :) Thanks so much for being here! I had a question with you about growth marketing. My history is in content marketing and SEO but i find myself being drawn to growth marketing, strategic planning and using content for more than SEO. Do you have any recommendations for how to shift out of content into growth marketing? There isn't a lot online for resources on making that shift and I feel unsure about where to start. Thank you so much!

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

Content marketing is a great skill that can be of value to a growth team. Your experience in content marketing shows you can develop go-to-market messaging that connects with users. In addition to speaking to folks in the role, you would like I would also take data analytics courses to make sure you have strong skills there. Most importantly, I would start to talk to folks in your network with roles you are interested in and learn about their day to day and start to connect what you currently do now to that and whatever is missing you can take a course to learn more on there are lots of free or low-cost courses on Google, LinkedIn, Udemy and Meta

JanaFreja·Aug 23, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi! I am currently establishing PMM, Growth, and I'd love to hear how your team is structured, especially vis-a-vis PM. If I can be super specific, I'd love to hear about the acquisition and website part. In my company, this is currently part of the PMM, Growth, but some overlaps are emerging with the PM team. So I'd love to hear whether you have any experience or insights on what works well in this area with structure and ownership. Thank you so much!

anyaSF·Aug 24, 2022

@louisakinoshi Thanks for sharing your experiences! What are the most effective ways you keep up with digital trends?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

There are so many digital trends it may be hard to keep up with as a growth marketer. Most important for me is being part of communities for marketing and tech professionals like Elpha and I’m also an AdWeek Executive Mentee. These groups allow me to connect with fellow marketers and learn about ways they are connecting with audiences via different channels. I also regularly read marketing news from publications like Business of Apps, AdWeek and Business Insider.

iceroche·Aug 24, 2022

So exciting! Thank you in advance for your time.My questions is: any lessons from B2C PMM that you would advise B2B PMMs and vice-versa? I'm always interested in learning more from the B2C PMM approach and compare to B2B. Maybe there are ideas that can overlap here. I'm a B2B PMM btw :) Thank you

Rae79·Aug 25, 2022

Hi! I'm a Bumble premium user with a feature request. Any chance you could add a tag for men like "Would consider being a stay-at-home-parent (SAHP)" / for women "Would consider being primary breadwinner"?Obviously this could be used by both genders, but I feel like it's harder to find potential stay-at-home-dads than moms without some type of filter.

ihuomaatanga·Aug 25, 2022

In your opinion, what's one way you would scale reach for a food product (CPG) on Tiktok

Sona54·Aug 25, 2022

Hi Louisa! What are the most important growth wins for a growth marketer to focus on while the product team is still struggling to find PMF?

Luna28·Aug 25, 2022

@louisakinoshi Any tips on creating content to build personal branding/thought leadership (like you do on TikTok) without your company realizing you're putting it out there because you're hunting for new jobs?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

More companies are realizing the benefits of a personal brand. On TikTok, I’ve noticed and I’m a part of “corporate influencers”. I think it is different for everyone but I’m honest with my colleagues about my social content. A lot of my content is around diversity in tech and getting more women of color to join the tech industry is something I’m super passionate about and also aligns with the companies I have worked for.

laurenbell88·Aug 23, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi!! First of all, I LOVE bumble! I met my husband on the app back in 2015 and we now have 3 dogs and 1 baby all because of that initial swipe 🐝 💛 I’m in a growing tech startup focused on Devs. We are looking for a talented (and ideally diverse) PMM to join the team. Do you have any sourcing or backchannel tips to finding talented PMMs?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

That's so exciting to hear you are a Bumble success story! I’m part of organizations like Product Marketing Alliance, Sister Circle: Black Women In Tech, and of course, Elpha. These are great organizations to post PMM roles and hopefully connect with talented PMMs.

Shawanda88·Aug 22, 2022

Hi @louisakinoshi! I work in Product for a small SaaS company. Sometimes leadership has trouble letting product lead the way in terms of what to build next. Have you dealt with this before? How did you handle it?

louisakinoshi·Aug 26, 2022

This has been a challenge in other roles. I think the most important thing you can do is garner the data and show the potential impact to the business of what your team wants to build. It’s easier to argue about opinions but much harder when it comes to data.