Beth’s career journey to becoming Growth Director at Flexa
In this blog, Beth reflects on the experiences that led her to become Growth Director at Flexa, and how she is shaping how we achieve our goals and connect with our audience.
By Beth Carter
Growth Director at Flexa
24th Jun 2024
• 5 minutes
At Flexa, we believe that every career journey is unique, and we’re excited to launch our At Flexa, we believe that every career journey is unique, and we’re excited to launch our Career Spotlight series to celebrate the diverse paths that have shaped our team. In this series, we’re inviting our employees to share their personal stories, insights, and experiences. From how they got started to the challenges they’ve overcome and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Whether it’s a journey from commercial operations to co-founder or from developer to team lead, we hope these stories inspire others to see the possibilities within their own career journeys. Stay tuned as we explore what it’s really like to work at Flexa through the eyes of the people who make it all happen.
Growth in a company like Flexa requires creativity, strategy, and plenty of problem-solving. At the heart of driving this growth is Beth Carter, whose innovative initiatives have played a key role in shaping how we achieve our goals and connect with our audience.
But where did Beth’s journey into growth begin? In this Q&A, we explore how she found her way into this career, what excites her most about the role, and the invaluable lessons she’s learned along the way.Hi Beth. What led you to a career focused on growth, and how did you end up at Flexa?
After working (very) briefly in advertising I started a company almost straight out of university – working with artisans across the Middle East. I loved getting to see the whole picture of a business and how everything slots together, which, when I left that role and started consulting I found restrictive about being seen as a ‘pure marketer’!
A lot has changed now and marketing is increasingly commercial, but 8 or so years ago that wasn’t so much the case.
I started hearing about Growth as a function, which was only really just starting to gain any traction and leapt in.
How I got to Flexa is an equally wiggly story - I’ve known the founders for over a decade and had invested in the company as my very first angel investment. A few years later they were looking for a growth person and after a few discussions over pints helping them to figure out who might be the right kind of fit they asked if I’d consider it myself.What prompted you to have a career in growth?
There are two things that are at the core of why I love Growth:
- It’s a positive, optimistic kind of role. You’re always looking for opportunities and figuring out how to take hold of them
- You get a sweeping view of the entire business - from creative to commercial to technical, you get to be involved in all of it.
What does growth mean for a business like Flexa, and how do you measure it?
Good question. Measuring growth is one of the most important aspects of the job and that’s because if you are measuring the wrong things, you’re also putting effort into the wrong things.
One of the frameworks of growth is called a Growth Model - and this can look like a diagram, a spreadsheet, or honestly sometimes just a jumble inside my own brain. But what you’re looking to do is understand what are the ‘things’ you do or can control that both grow the valuation of the business and grow the revenue of the business.
Every company will have a hierarchy of metrics from most to least important, and no you can’t work on them all at once - however tempting that is.How do you identify new opportunities to grow Flexa’s reach and impact?
We’re very led by the people who use Flexa! We listen to them in a bunch of different ways - sometimes by looking at the data of how they use the site, sometimes by interviewing or surveying them.
We combine this with our own business goals and what we know from years of testing works and, importantly, encourage everyone in the team to bring forward ideas and run with them!What’s the biggest challenge in balancing long-term growth with short-term wins?
This is a classic metrics issue again - it’s super easy to prioritise short term or ‘vanity’ metrics because they look great in the moment. But will they pay off long term? Hard to tell.
The closest you can get is really using the half art, half science method of growth and getting to know the customers of your product as best as you can. Then sense check that against what you’re seeing in the numbers.
Does this ‘make sense’ or is something feeling off? Usually short term wins will feel a bit confusing.How do you approach collaboration with other teams to drive growth?
This is a really common problem for growth teams, and understandably. Because growth can come from anywhere in an organisation the best growth teams are empowered by the founders or senior leaders to go and have a look at any part of the business they like. Restricting this restricts growth.
But then that’s tricky in itself. People don’t love you coming in and ‘making helpful suggestions’. So growth teams often get a bad rep for getting in everyone’s business.
To work towards better collaboration make sure all the goals and metrics are as clear as possible - and that teams are bought into this and see how their work contributes, and try to listen first.How do you stay ahead of trends in growth and marketing?
I’m not a huge fan of trends in growth - and I actually hate the term ‘growth hacking’. I believe that the best kind of growth is sustainable, now that doesn't mean ‘slower’ - it means that you truly understand why something is growing (or not growing!) and this comes from a deep understanding of your customer and your business.
The best way to stay in the game is to constantly be curious about what your customers care about and how that impacts their use of your products.What’s one thing about driving growth that people might not realise?
It changes hugely at each stage of a business, but it’s incredibly transferable across industries. The frameworks you should be using change as the business scales, but let’s say if you have 10 seed stage companies - they could be in wildly different industries and serving wildly different customers, but the same frameworks would apply.What excites you most about Flexa’s growth potential in the next year?
We’ve really hit our stride in understanding how the candidate market is changing, I think we’re further ahead in our thinking there than brands 100x our size.
This means we can take risks and provide a different perspective and hopefully keep up the pace we’ve seen in the last year with one of our key metrics increasing 415% year on year.What advice would you give to others wanting to develop in this area? For someone aspiring to work in growth, what steps or experiences would you recommend?
Start learning about how other departments work. What are their challenges, what are their opportunities? Start knitting together an understanding of how the entire business functions. Start with product and marketing, then sales, customer success and engineering, then work your way through the rest of the business!Share your career journey with us
Everyone’s career story is unique, and we’d love to hear yours. How did you get to where you are today? What challenges did you overcome, and what lessons have shaped your path? Whether your journey has been a straight road or a winding one, your story could inspire others to embrace their own career adventures.
Share your career story with us by emailing hello@flexa.careers. We can't wait to hear from you!