Podcasts

Season 1

Episode 31

Simon Zhang of GrowingIO: Learning to Grow, Chinese Style

Interviewed by Hans Tung and Zara Zhang.

GGV Capital’s Hans Tung and Zara Zhang interview Simon Zhang, (张溪梦), the founder and CEO of GrowingIO, a data analytics startup in China that helps product managers and marketers analyze mobile apps and websites without adding manual tracking codes. GrowingIO now counts over 6000 companies as its customers, including the likes of Didi, Momo, Tujia, and others.

Previously, Simon was senior director of business analytics at LinkedIn in its Silicon Valley headquarters, and before that, worked as a senior manager of site analytics at eBay. In 2015, he left a decade-long career in Silicon Valley to return to China and started his current startup, GrowingIO. But prior to all of this, Simon worked as a brain surgeon in China, and attended medical school in Tianjin. He also obtained an MBA from Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. Simon is also the author of the Chinese book 《首席增长官》 (“Chief Growth Officer”) and is a thought leader in the field of data-driven growth in China.

Simon discussed how Chinese engineers in Silicon Valley can crack the “bamboo ceiling”, how Chinese-style growth differs from Silicon Valley-style growth, and why “raising too much money” could create challenges for a startup.

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