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

Why every startup needs a Head of Failure

Last week, I saw something that made me stop scrolling.

Steven Bartlett was talking about having a "Head of Failure" at his company.

At first, I laughed. Who wants that title?

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized - this was exactly what I needed 8 years ago.

I remembered my whiteboard from 2017. It was filled with "safe" ideas. Things that wouldn't break our existing funnels. Tweaks that wouldn't risk our current metrics.

The crazy ideas? The ones that could 10x our growth? They never made it past my mental filter.

I used to obsess over getting things perfect. Tweaking landing pages for weeks. A/B testing email subject lines until my eyes burned.

→ All because I was terrified of failure.

Then a mentor dropped a truth bomb that changed everything:

"The most successful startups don't have a 90% success rate. They have a 90% failure rate - and they're proud of it because they found the 10% that actually works."

Wait... what? 

Here's the counterintuitive truth nobody talks about:
→ The fastest-growing startups aren't the ones with the best ideas
→ They're the ones that fail the fastest, cheapest, and most strategically

After working with dozens of startups, I've noticed a pattern:
Companies stuck at $2-5M ARR often share the same fear - breaking what works.

But here's the thing
✅ Top performers run 100 experiments to find 10 winners
❌ Average ones run 10 experiments hoping for 9 winners

The math is simple: More swings = more hits.

The fastest-growing startups don't have the best ideas. They have the best learning rate.

Think about it...would you rather be right 90% of the time on 10 small bets, or find 10 game-changing wins out of 100 tries?

The next time you're afraid to test something new, remember: you're not failing - you're collecting data points.

What wild experiment have you been afraid to try? Maybe it's time to give yourself permission to fail brilliantly.

Grace, you're a rockstar.

Samantha Leal

Growth partner for tech startups looking to scale | Stop guessing why growth stalled and build a model for repeatable growth

Excited to share that I've been selected as a Maven Mentor! 🙌 

I'm joining The Art of SaaS Pricing and Monetization course with Ajit Ghuman and Jan Pasternak and honestly, the timing couldn't be better.

Over the last decade, I've helped grow startups from zero to 8 figures and scaled products to reach +8M users. But here's the thing - pricing isn't just about the dollar amount. It's about understanding value, finding your perfect customer fit, and figuring out what's the best packaging.

I learned this firsthand when I helped a startup grow from 7 to 8 figures in less than a year. The secret? We stopped trying to be everything to everyone. We niched down, aligned value, packaging and we weren't afraid to price higher, which actually helped us disqualify bad-fit customers.

That's why I'm diving deep into this course. When you're responsible for the full funnel - from acquisition to retention to monetization - you see how pricing impacts everything. It's not just about revenue; it's about repeatable and sustainable growth.

Really looking forward to learning from leaders who've shaped pricing strategies at Twilio, Zoom, and DocuSign, and bringing these insights to the high-impact startups I work with.

Want to get better at SaaS pricing? Join me: https://bit.ly/4iMzl6D
Maven

When founders ask me how much to spend on ads, I give them the same advice I’ve used myself: 

"Don’t spend a dollar until your funnel works."

The most expensive ad mistake?
Scaling before your funnel works.

Here's what most founders do:
→ See competitors running ads
→ Copy their creative
→ Set bigger budgets
→ Wonder why CAC is high

But great ads don't fix broken funnels.
They amplify what's already working.

Before you scale ads, check:
→ Does organic traffic convert?
→ Is your message resonating?
→ Do leads become customers?
→ Is retention strong?

A broken funnel at $100/day
is still broken at $10,000/day.
Just more expensive.

Fix the engine before adding fuel.
Test with pennies before spending dollars.

Validate before you accelerate.

The hidden cost of scaling channels:
A weak foundation.
Most founders rush to scale:
→ More ad spend
→ More events
→ More content

But here's what I learned the hard way:
Your channel is only as strong
as its support system.
Running events?
You need:
→ Pre-event engagement
→ Post-event sequences
→ Nurture automation
→ Follow-up system

Scaling ads?
Make sure you build:
→ Social proof engine
→ Email marketing backbone
→ Content library
→ Retargeting assets

Your success in any channel
depends on the infrastructure
you built before scaling it.

Build the machine before you fuel it.

The growth ecosystem myth:
It's not content vs. ads.
It's how they feed each other.

Think of your marketing like a forest:
→ Ads are the rainfall (immediate impact)
→ Content is the soil (builds over time)
→ Sales is the harvest (converts value)

Each piece makes the others stronger:
Content improves ad conversion
Ads amplify content reach
Both fuel sales conversations

Great content makes ads cheaper
Strong ads make content work faster
Together, they compound growth

The real strategy is timing and knowing how to orchestrate:
→ Ads for immediate growth
→ Content for lasting value
→ Each making the other better

Start building ecosystems.

Taplio

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