Lessons from the Front Lines of Growth: My Journey as a Growth Marketer

Growth marketing is often talked about in frameworks and playbooks, but the reality is far messier—and far more human. I want to share my experience as a growth marketer, what I’ve learned along the way, the mistakes we made, and how these lessons continue to shape how I think about growth today.

Where It Started: Scaling a Crypto Exchange in Its Early Days

I joined a crypto exchange startup as a growth marketer in August 2020, when COVID was in its heyday. At the time, the company was still early in its growth phase, but the momentum was palpable as crypto adoption was accelerating. We had the rare combination of timing, ambition, and a product that could genuinely compete.

When I joined, the platform had fewer than 10,000 users. At the peak of our growth, we scaled to well over 100,000 monthly active users through a combination of paid and organic channels and multiple growth marketing initiatives and efforts. Our strongest drivers early on were PR and word of mouth—particularly referrals—which helped us build trust quickly in a market where credibility mattered.

From a product perspective, we focused heavily on simplicity and ease of use. Our core value proposition was clear: a user-friendly exchange with low spreads and zero fees. That hook allowed us to acquire users efficiently in the early stages and created a strong foundation for scaling.

Product-Led Growth as a Catalyst

A significant portion of our early growth was product-led. One of our most impactful launches was a staking product that allowed users to earn interest on their crypto with no lock-in period and no minimum amount. This lowered the barrier to entry significantly.

We layered a referral program on top of this product launch, which proved to be a powerful acquisition and activation engine. Users were incentivized to invite others, and new users had an immediate reason to onboard and engage with the platform. Referrals helped us to scale fast and cheaply.

This momentum was amplified through digital marketing efforts across paid channels, where we ran a mix of conversion-focused and awareness campaigns to drive acquisition and improve conversion rates.

This worked really well for us because it put the product at the centre of growth, not marketing, and used marketing to amplify credibility and growth.

Scaling Beyond Digital: Brand, Community, and Offline Presence

As the brand matured, we expanded beyond digital-first channels and invested in out-of-home (OOH) marketing. This included billboards, train takeovers, events, and mall activations—meeting users where they already were. Any media space that was available - we wanted to buy it.

We even set up a physical experience centre where crypto enthusiasts could attend events, participate in educational activities, and learn more about digital assets. This was something that the early players were also adopting but we made it an educational, fun centre in the heart of town anyone could easily drop by and access. What’s more, the Princess of Thailand even dropped by to visit once - her fashion boutique was located opposite where we were - and brought her dogs! The celebrities, ambassadors and partnerships we led gave us alot of credibility and awareness to help us scale to the level that we needed to.

Community played a huge role in sustaining growth. We built strong social media channels and active communities on platforms like LINE Open Chat and Telegram. Members were tiered and given access to community specialists who provided light support and engagement. At our peak, our social channels reached over 300,000 followers, with engagement rates of around 10%, which is unusually high at that scale.

Content and lifecycle marketing were also key pillars. We ran CRM campaigns across the user journey—from awareness and acquisition to activation and retention—using organic content, notifications, and targeted messaging to improve conversion and engagement.

Growth Is a Team Sport

Many of our growth wins came from well-designed campaigns—some incentive-driven, others not—that lowered acquisition costs and encouraged sign-ups. We also worked closely with KOLs and influencers, building affiliate programs with trade rebates and signup mechanics that drove reach and early activations.

While I was responsible for much of the initial setup, activation strategy, and campaign mechanics, growth at this scale was never an individual effort. It required close collaboration with product, data, and engineering to optimize activation throughout the user journey. This included identifying friction points in onboarding, especially during KYC, and working to improve those experiences.

We invested early in data infrastructure, hiring experienced data professionals to build a self-serve analytics foundation for business teams. Once that base was in place, we layered on more advanced analytics and ETL capabilities to support deeper insights and faster decision-making.

It was a period of rapid growth, constant iteration, and frequent change—working within a highly international, matrixed organization that was fast-paced and relentlessly results-driven. I loved the pace, the drive and most of all, the culture of the company and the people I met along the way, many of whom I still retain close relationships with.

The trust I’ve built with my co-workers is part of the brand and professional identity I’ve built. Maintaining trusted and close relationships with co-workers, who hold equally high stakes and understand what it means to be working in the environment we were in, created a very strong bond for us.

What I Learned Along the Way

Early-stage growth is about momentum just as much as it is about people and product. You need all three to work in sync.

Choosing the first marketing channels is often straightforward; scaling them effectively is where the real challenge lies.

You can’t do everything, but you can prioritize big bets early, learn quickly, and iterate fast. One example was CRM. We started with a simple setup, then later migrated to a more scalable platform that worked seamlessly with our mobile app. Features like price alerts and notifications significantly boosted engagement and translated directly into trading activity.

We also bet early on referrals—one of our biggest wins. To this day, I believe that referrals remain one of the most effective growth channels for B2C businesses with strong product-market fit because I’ve seen how big of a lever it truly is.

Mistakes We Made (and Why They Mattered)

We spent too much, too quickly, on certain channels—particularly OOH. While these efforts drove strong brand awareness, they didn’t always translate into proportional user growth.

At times, we focused on branding when the product wasn’t fully ready. This created a gap between marketing promise and product experience, which is a risky place to be.

We also scaled the team too quickly. While we had the funding and resources, rapid expansion led to structural chaos and unclear roles and responsibilities. In hindsight, a significant portion of the work we were doing—perhaps 30% to 50%—was not critical to near-term growth. We were busy, but not always focused on the fundamentals.

Looking Ahead

This experience shaped how I think about growth today: growth is not about tactics in isolation, but about alignment—between product, people, data, and strategy. The tools and channels will change, but the principles remain the same.

Overall, I’m immensely grateful for the lessons, the pace, and the people I worked with during that period. It was intense, imperfect, and incredibly formative—and it continues to inform where I’m going next as a growth marketer.

In my next blog, I’ll dive deeper into some of the experiments I’ve run as a growth marketer and share the key insights I’ve learned in my time as one. Stay tuned!