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Craig Zingerline

6-time founder and growth expert

Craig Zingerline

Craig Zingerline is a serial entrepreneur and growth expert who currently serves as the Head of Growth at Runzy.13 He is also the founder of Growth Minded and previously founded Velocity Growth.134

Key Points About Craig Zingerline:

  • He has founded or co-founded 6 companies, several of which have had successful exits4
  • Prior to Runzy, he was the Chief Product Officer at Sandboxx1
  • He has advised and consulted dozens of companies on product strategy and growth5
  • He is a Venture Partner at Republic and a Growth Advisor for several startups1
  • He graduated from Syracuse University1
  • His LinkedIn username is craigzingerline1

Runzy is a personalized coaching and training program that helps athletes of all levels reach their fitness goals through running.2 As Head of Growth, Craig leverages his expertise to help Runzy expand its user base and drive revenue growth.3

Highlights

Sep 12 · linkedin

I advised a unicorn years before they became a unicorn on how to spot insights from their growth model to generate action items from.

The founders of that startup were so in the weeds with their numbers early on that it wasn't surprising to me that they became a unicorn.

If you are a startup founder and you don't yet have a growth model, I have a great (free) template for you.

This model was featured a few years back in Lenny's Newsletter and I've revamped it to include both the growth dashboard, model, and add-ons for various analytics you'll likely want to at least be thinking about tracking.

I'll launch this tomorrow in my newsletter. Get a sneak peek via the link below, and if you are not yet signed up, now is the time!

Sep 5 · linkedin

How do you think about choosing customer acquisition channels?

One framework that I use is focused on four key factors:

  1. Ability to find and target users within the channel

  2. Potential volume from the channel

  3. The cost to leverage it effectively

  4. The likelihood of success within that channel

Early-stage companies should experiment with different channels and test widely before narrowing down. Channels that don't align with your product or target market end up wasting resources.

But, if you don't do some level of testing across channels, you may spend time and money chasing leads in what really should be secondary or tertiary channels for you.

That said, there are some exceptions:

  • A company selling a cyber security product to the government likely won’t have luck with their Facebook Live events since Facebook is blocked from within the government firewall.

  • Or a B2C company selling running sneakers will likely have a hard time advertising successfully on LinkedIn.

I've found that it’s orders of magnitude faster to experiment in multiple channels to get a signal than to double down on a single channel you’re unsure of.

#CustomerAcquisition #GrowthMarketing #StartupStrategy

Related Questions

What strategies does Craig Zingerline use to advance product adoption at Runzy?
How has Craig Zingerline's experience as a six-time founder influenced his approach at Runzy?
What are some of the key achievements Craig Zingerline has had at Velocity Growth?
How does Runzy's personalized coaching differ from other fitness programs?
What companies has Craig Zingerline acquired or rolled up into Runzy?
Craig Zingerline
Craig Zingerline, photo 1
Craig Zingerline, photo 2
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Experience

Founder & CEO at Velocity Growth (July 2020 - Present)
Chief Product Officer at Sandboxx (November 2018 - March 2021), Extensive experience in roles like Co-Founder, CEO, Growth Advisor, and Partner at various companies since 1999

Location

Alexandria, Virginia, United States