Growth Studio

Growth Studio helps early stage and high-growth founders scale from $3m to $25m ARR through strategic growth direction and execution. 

We start with deep customer research to build your growth roadmap, then take ownership of implementation—managing your paid acquisition, optimizing conversion funnels, designing growth experiments, and orchestrating your retention strategy. 

Built by operators who've scaled companies to $XXM+ ARR, we provide the strategic leadership of a CMO plus hands-on campaign management, all without the overhead of building an in-house team.

Founder

Samantha Leal • Growth & Marketing Advisor

I help early-stage startups with acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies to scale to 8-figures.

If you're a founder, here are some of the areas that I can help you with:
• Growth Loops
• Acquisition Strategy
• Paid Social
• Lifecycle / Email Marketing
• Customer Research / JTBD development
• Content Marketing
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Engagement & Retention
• Monetization
• Team building / Hiring


Companies I've worked with:
- Kinedu (500 Startups, StartX): Leading early childhood development app that empowers parents with personalized, science-based activities and tracking tools to optimize their baby's cognitive growth.
- Leadsales (StartX, Latitud): B2B sales automation platform that transforms cold leads into warm conversations through intelligent outreach and engagement.
- Terapify (YC, 500 Startups) - The leading spanish-speaking mental health platform connecting Latin American users with licensed therapists through online therapy sessions.
- Prequel - Education company building the common core of life skills that schools aren't teaching, empowering kids aged 9-18 to launch businesses, build products, and achieve real-world success.
- Curious Cardinals - Online platform connecting high-achieving college students from top universities with K-12 students for personalized mentorship and academic enrichment.
- Huex Labs - Enterprise AI solutions provider specializing in automating complex business processes through custom machine learning models.
-Mely AI - Cutting-edge AI platform that streamlines customer service operations through intelligent automation and natural language processing.

Growth & Marketing Advisor

Prequel

Leading all marketing and growth efforts for Prequel.

We often underestimate what kids can do, but at Prequel, we not only empower them – we are setting a new standard.

At Prequel, we help 9-18 year olds accomplish what their parents think is impossible.

Head of Growth & Marketing

Prequel is a group of EdTech brands that aims to help the world's most ambitious kids learn 21st century skills that prepares them for the new global economy. Our brands include: AlphaX, Beta Camp, and Apollo School.

Head of Marketing

Synthesis

Scaling the best ideas from Ad Astra, the school our cofounder started with Elon Musk at SpaceX. Synthesis teaches kids 8 to 14 collaboration, critical thinking, and decision-making skills by challenging them to wrestle with complex simulations of real-world problems.

As the Director of Marketing I was responsible for setting the strategy and overseeing marketing functions including user acquisition, customer LTV through communication strategies, lifecycle engagement campaigns, conversion efforts, and product marketing.

Within 8 months, as a team of 3 in the marketing team, managed to spearhead their growth efforts and scale the number of paying subscribers by 340%

Director of Marketing

YSpace, York University

YSpace is York University’s entrepreneurship hub creating positive change by fostering a community of innovators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers. 

As a Growth Consultant, I provided strategic and tactical guidance to specifically assigned ventures on their user and revenue development goals.

Two of the companies I mentored, ended as the top 5 finalists on YSpace Tech Accelerator Demo Day.

• Huex Labs - developed AIDA, a voice-enabled conversational AI to enable food chains and brands to better serve their customers in live business environments.

• Mely AI - an enterprise AI-powered solution, with a proprietary technology to extract key information from complex documents and specialized in Supply Chain and Logistics.

Growth Consultant

Kinedu

Kinedu's mission is to unleash early childhood development at scale by fostering quality learning experiences at home, school, and everywhere in between. 

Trusted by more than 8MM parents worldwide, Kinedu's iOS and Android app is available in 3 languages (English, Spanish, and Portuguese) and provides personalized, engaging video-based developmental activities for children under the age of 4.

Joined Kinedu in early 2014 as the 1st marketing hire and employee #4.

Responsible for all consumer growth-related functions including user acquisition, customer LTV through communication strategies, lifecycle engagement campaigns, conversion efforts, product marketing, partnerships, and pricing.

VP of Growth Marketing

Joined Kinedu in early 2014 as the 1st marketing hire and employee #4.

- Define marketing objectives and strategies to support the company’s goals.
- Plan and execute marketing, email, and social media, and user acquisition campaigns
- Design, build and maintain social media presence and community management
- Measure and report performance of all digital marketing campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and KPIs)
- Analyze user behavior, conversion data and customer journeys, funnel analysis and multi-channel attribution
- Identify trends to optimize spend and performance
- Design and implement new growth strategies
- Plan, execute, and measure experiments and conversion tests
- Collaborate with Product and Design teams to optimize user experience and increase conversion rates
- Customer insights, and feedback loops

Content

Hey, I'm Sam 👋
When I discovered growth marketing, something clicked. It perfectly blends what fascinates me: understanding people and building systems that make businesses grow.

Over the past decade, I've helped startups scale from 0 to 8-figures by looking at growth holistically. For me, it's never just about finding one magic lever - it's about building a complete system that works. From scaling products to 8M+ users to helping founders navigate their path to $XXM in revenue, I've learned that sustainable growth comes from understanding the full picture.

What sets my approach apart? I look at your entire customer journey - from acquisition to activation, conversion to monetization. It starts with deeply understanding your customers and product, then building a growth system that connects all these pieces. No generic playbooks, no isolated tactics - just strategic moves that compound over time.

I'm known for moving fast and diving deep. Instead of following generic playbooks, I help startups find their unique path to scale by deeply understanding their customers. The result? Growth strategies that actually work for their specific business.

If you're at $3M+ ARR and want to scale efficiently while maintaining strong unit economics, would love to chat.

Want to know more? Check out samanthaleal.io

Samantha Leal

I write Drunk Business Advice, lead Stealth Mastermind, and shitpost on LinkedIn.

Kristin Kenzy

My husband was just a college sophomore, watching commercial jets crash into The World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

But he was also an ROTC Midshipman, having made the decision to commit to serving his country at just 18 years old.

In that one day, the outlook of his entire future changed. And he went to war.

To him, and to all our veterans - thank you. ❤️ 🇺🇸

I miss the days when I didn't have to come up with a catchy one-liner for LinkedIn.

My last Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Pararade as a Manhattan resident! 🥹

It’s so damn joyful. Impossible not to smile.

And happy eat-too-much-food-and-drink-too-much-wine day to all my friends.🍗🍷

No alternative text description for this image

My hips don't... HEAL. 🤦‍♀️ 

For those who have been following along, I had reconstructive hip surgery 6 months ago. The finest orthopedic surgeons in all the land (that's not an exaggeration, they're objectively the best) sawed me in half and screwed me back together.

Unfortunately, in less than 6% of cases, patients with my condition develop a stress fracture in recovery, and this superstar developed TWO!

And mine won't f*cking heal. 

The metabolic bone specialists can't find anything wrong with me. I'm healthy has a racehorse. So my fractures, and their slow-as-molasses healing, is pretty much just my shitty luck.

Thank god I have Logan Z..

I had an in-depth conversation with him a couple of weeks ago about my chronic pain and orthopedic complications from surgery, and he recommended that I ask my doctor about:

1) Peptide Injections
2) Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

When I brought these therapies up with my doctor today, he was excited for me to try them. It turns out, he's been studying them, and plans to get a functional medicine certification next year so he can be fully credentialed to prescribe them to his patients.

Y'all -- this is why it's SO IMPORTANT to educate yourself on alternative therapies (or just let Logan Z. educate you lol). Doctors are bound by their credentials, but are often supportive of patients exploring therapies that live outside of their area of certification. You just gotta ask.

It feels great to have options.

Here's your Friday "f*ck around and find out"...

(Maybe I should make this a regular segment?)

I've spent well over $25k over the years at Raymour & Flanigan Furniture and Mattresses. Why? Because their products and service were always reliable. They're my go-to.

Last week, I was browsing Raymour & Flanigan Furniture and Mattresses's website, and stumbled upon the perfect couch for our new apartment. I bought it without hesitation.

Shortly after, I received a no-reply email giving me a delivery window for Saturday, and a number to call if I needed assistance. No worries. Saturday was perfect.

On Saturday, I received a call at the end of the delivery window from a warehouse worker saying they didn't have the couch in the warehouse, and wouldn't be able to deliver it until Thursday. No apologies. No idea what time on Thursday. And frankly, almost no English.

Whatevs. One blip in 15 years of reliability wasn't going to ruffle my feathers. I made a joke about it, and moved on.

On Monday, I called the number on my original confirmation email to get the Thursday delivery sorted. I navigated through a labyrinth of prompts, then heard relentless ringing followed by "please call back during business hours or leave a message." 

Um. It was definitely business hours. But I left a message.

No call back.

So I called again on Tuesday, and went through the same ordeal. No call back.

Right as I was about to call again on Wednesday, I received the same no-reply email with a delivery window for Thursday. I was peeved, but I could make that window work, so whatever.

Finally, that delivery window rolls around, and I get a call from the same warehouse worker saying they don't have the couch... AT ALL. So they were cancelling our order. No apologies.

Y'all -- I gave my old couch away LAST FRIDAY so I would be able to receive this delivery. I've now been couch-less for a week, and I'm having guests over tonight. I hope they like sitting on the floor.

Raymour & Flanigan Furniture and Mattresses f*cked around, and found out. 

They've lost one of their most loyal customers. And I'm a loud one. 🤦‍♀️

Couchless: A Poem

When you don't have a couch
You sit on your bed and drink coffee
While talking to your mom on the phone

And miss
Your mouth
Coffee
Everywhere

When you spill coffee in your bed
Your husband rushes to help
While (oh no) bleeding from his thumb

He doesn't
Realize it
Blood 
Everywhere

When you don't have a couch
You get coffee and blood in your bed
I hope I get a couch soon

I can't take any more of this shit

Our new couch was supposed to be delivered today.

We already gave our old couch away to our Super.

30-minutes before the end of the delivery window, I got a call saying they can’t deliver it until… THURSDAY.

My husband was at work, and I knew he would arrive disappointed with our couchless home.

But don’t fret — I got creative.

The brilliant John R. Nolan entered my life 13 years ago when we were working our tushies off to build the largest ice sports center in the world.

(Yep. For those who've only met me recently, I used to build ice rinks for a living. Cool job. 😎 )

The project (sadly) died, but I can't complain. I got a fierce mentor, advocate, and drinking buddy out of the deal.

Just an all-around-good-egg.

Holy shit. I've officially published 80 ISSUES of Drunk Business Advice. 

That's over 120k words. That's me nervously hitting "send" every week for 80 weeks straight.

I don't say this to boast (even though I'm pretty damn proud). I say this because:

1) I wasn't a "writer" when I started. But I'm definitely a writer now.

2) I only had a handful of friends and family on my list when I published my first issue. Today, my stories have received 63,500+ unique reads.

3) I launched Drunk Business Advice nearly a year AFTER I had the idea. I should NOT have waited so long.

So if you're thinking about starting a newsletter, let this be the kick-in-the-ass you need to just do it.

And if you want some inspiration, subscribe to Drunk Business Advice. It's 100% helpful, 50% of the time.

My ex-husband, and a bunch of other shit-posters.

Those are the beautiful souls in my "also viewed" group, and frankly, I couldn't be prouder. This is evidence of a perfectly curated community for my wtf personality here on LinkedIn. 

Thank you, all. 🥹

Alright Joybird. You're up next. 🤞 

For those who haven't been following -- my ass is permanently bruised from sitting on the floor for weeks.

We gave away our beloved 15-year-old sofa to make space for a new couch that was supposed to be delivered from Raymour & Flanigan Furniture and Mattresses the following day.

Long story short -- it WASN'T delivered, and after a week of their customer service line not even bothering to pick up or return a damn phone call, their warehouse cancelled our order. (And they STILL haven't refunded us).

So we walked over to West Elm, picked out the most expensive couch on their showroom floor, and couldn't get an employee to sell it to us. Seriously. We said "we want to buy this couch", and they just left us waiting. 

So we eventually walked out. 🤷‍♀️ 

A few months ago, before we were quite ready to buy, we peeked into a Joybird store in Philadelphia. The service was attentive, and every couch we sat on was super comfy.

So we just ordered a custom-designed sofa from their website (similar to the one pictured). The only problem is, since it's custom, it's not scheduled for delivery until the second week of January.

That's a totally reasonable timeline for a custom piece of furniture. 

But if Joybird wants to make a very stressed-out customer swoon with JOY, an expedited delivery that gets it here before Christmas would just make my heart sing. ❤️ 

And my sore bum will be soooooo relieved.

These absolute BADASSES just wrapped up the final 10-week Stealth Mastermind sprint of the year.

✔️ Books written
✔️ Podcasts published
✔️ New products launched
✔️ Business development nailed
✔️ And most importantly -- failures clarified

Now we're gonna relax and eat turkey and gear up for the first sprint of 2026 (holy shit where has this year gone??).

Love you, killers!

Alexandria Seydel, J.D., Amanda Black, Angela M., Blamah Sarnor, Jacob Stone, Jacqui Myslinski, Jason D., Katie Lukashow, Kellie Larsen, Logan Z., Maxim Cramer, Michael Jacobs, Megan Janel Zimmer, CED, Pranav Ghatraju, Tyler Cook

For those who are spending this chilly Monday obsessing over the impact of AI on humanity, I just had this conversation with Alexa:

Kristin: "Alexa, connect to Spotify."

Alexa: "Connected to Spotify." (no music plays)

Kristin: "Alexa, connect to Spotify."

Alexa "Connected to Spotify." (still no music)

Kristin: "Ugh, Alexa what's wrong?!"

Alexa: "Wrong. Adjective. First definition: not correct or true; incorrect. Second definition..." 🙄 🤣

F*ck yes, Tyler Cook.

Yesterday, a Stealth Mastermind member (not Gabe) dropped a Black Friday question in our Slack. And Tyler leapt in to provide a detailed, data-backed, step-by-step solution.

Not only is he brilliant, he's the world's nicest guy.

Go get yourself a Tyler for Christmas.

Starbucks thinks it's solving a societal ill. Ain't that cute. 🙄 

In Sunday's issue of Drunk Business Advice, I wrote about the plight of the "third place".

If that term looks familiar to you, it might be because Starbucks’ newest CEO has been shouting from the rooftops that he’s positioning the brand to “reclaim the third place”. 

But frankly, Howard Schultz has been touting that BS since the 90s.

It didn’t work then. And it won’t work now.

Because a third place isn’t an overstuffed chair where you can linger over a latte while hunched over your MacBook with T-Swift thumping in your AirPods. 

That’s just a pumpkin-spiced-environment for people to do the SAME SHIT they do in their first place (home) and second place (work).

That positioning isn’t about competing with other coffee joints, or even other gathering places—

It’s about competing with your couch. 🛋️ 

And it’s a losing battle.

If you haven't read this issue yet, hop to it. It's sitting in you inbox, crying out to be opened and devoured.

Not subscribed to Drunk Business Advice? Why the hell not? It's free. Hit "view my newsletter" under my name to join the party.

Here's your weekly "f*ck around and find out" Friday story!

(Back by popular demand.)

Have you ever had a founder outright LIE to your face? 

I'm going through this right now. Like... in this very moment. I currently have a stomach ache over this shit.

And since we're in the thick of it, I can't use names quite yet, but trust me, they have F*CKED AROUND AND WILL BE FINDING OUT in due time.

But here's the general situation...

I invested in a company a few years ago with an absolutely killer product, and even better founding team. I've been a huge fan of the founding product designer for -I kid you not- 30 years. 

It all went downhill almost immediately because the founding team just couldn't get along. (That's a whole 'nother story, and not what I'm here to talk about today.)

So I recently got on a call with one of the founders who wanted to "reassure" me that everything is still moving forward, and the company isn't dead. As part of that pep talk he excitedly told me about a new partnership they had in the bag.

He had no idea that I am very close to the company he was claiming they were partnering with. They're a former client of mine, and it's far from a secret that we worked together extensively.

And that company has never heard of him. 🤦‍♀️ 

If you're gonna spout lies, you should probably know who you're lying to.
.
.
.
And if you want more chaotic stories about the absurd world of work, subscribe (for free) to my newsletter, Drunk Business Advice. Hit "view my newsletter" under my name, and join the party. 👊

Writing a newsletter is the best f*cking habit I've ever adopted.

When you have a newsletter habit, you have a:

-Writing habit
-Reflection habit
-Research habit
-Publishing habit
-Creative habit
-Curiosity habit

But most importantly, you have a habit that attracts BADASS OPPORTUNITIES (and people) into your life.

So let this be the kick-in-the-butt you need. (Butt-kicking is one of my greatest strengths btw, so it's a good one.)

And if you're not subscribed to MY newsletter, Drunk Business Advice, why the hell not? It's free. Click "view my newsletter" under my name.

taplio

The Battle

Samantha Leal

Kristin Kenzy

Followers

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taplio

The Battle

Samantha Leal

Kristin Kenzy

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kristin Kenzy's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreKristin Kenzy's LinkedIn Performance