The Initial

My Job Title is ‘Head of Failure’ (& we do 50 Experiments /Month)

How do you pitch 50 experiments a month? ...by making them impossible to refuse. Steal Grace Miller’s framework for "tiny loss" proposals that guarantee a "Yes" from even the most risk-averse clients, it's in this month's newsletter: https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/ [https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/] in this episode… Grace Miller is building one of the most advanced experimentation cultures in media. she doesn’t just run tests; she turns entire teams into experimenters. as head of experimentation and failure at Flight Story, the company behind Diary of a CEO, she’s scaling experimentation across 15+ teams, from thumbnails to full customer journeys. it’s about: * how to build a culture where everyone runs experiments (not just one team) * “kill the guesswork”: using data to drive decisions across the entire business * why failure, rewards, and rituals (like experimenter of the week) accelerate growth * how to prioritize experiments that actually impact company KPIs * scaling learnings across brands, platforms, and audiences without forcing what doesn’t fit Find Grace on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-miller-linked-in/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-miller-linked-in/]

Stop Trying to Trigger Emotion: Do This Instead

If you enjoy learning about these topics, follow our newsletter to get all the frameworks and insights: https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/ [https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/] in this episode… Talia Wolf has been shaping the CRO industry since its earliest days. she doesn’t just run experiments; she decodes how people make decisions. as the creator of the emotional targeting framework, she’s helped companies move beyond surface-level optimization and into truly understanding what drives conversions: human behavior. it’s about: → why conversions are decisions, and how to reverse engineer them → emotional targeting: understanding pains, desires, and real customer motivations → how to turn customer research into high-impact experiment → creating emotional resonance by meeting users where they already are → getting buy-in: treating stakeholders like customers Find Talia on Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/taliagw [https://uk.linkedin.com/in/taliagw]

Use High Velocity as Stress Test while Scaling Experimentation

get Luiza's playbook in our newsletter: https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/ [https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/] apply to work with us: https://the-initial.com/ [https://the-initial.com/] in this episode... Luiza de Lange has taken companies from zero to over 100 experiments a year. she doesn't just run tests; she builds engines. currently leading experimentation at LeoVegas, she’s an award-winning practitioner who knows exactly where the "handshakes" fail in a growing business. this conversation isn’t about just tweaking button colors. it’s about: → how to move from "gut feeling" releases to validating every piece of code → why high velocity is actually the best way to audit your technical infrastructure → the "avoided loss" metric: how to prove you saved the company millions by not shipping → why "quantity improves quality" in the early stages of a culture shift → clarifying the raci: who is actually responsible for the hypothesis sign-off? Find Luiza on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luizadelange/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/luizadelange/]

how a €1M mistake at Booking.com didn’t kill his career

Maarten van Pijpen spent 15 years at Booking.com. a place where experimentation wasn’t a project. it was the culture. now he’s chief growth officer at Unravel. a travel app that feels like TikTok, but lets you book instantly. in his first 35 days, he: – chose an experimentation tool – lined up 10 experiments – started building a data foundation but this conversation isn’t about tooling. it’s about: → how to move from top-down founder energy to bottom-up ownership → why shipping fast without tracking is dangerous → how a €1M mistake didn’t kill his career (but actually strengthened it) → why failures were celebrated at Booking → how to scale leadership so you’re not the bottleneck we talk about culture. trust. empowerment. and what it really takes to build a data-driven company — without killing speed. if you care about experimentation, growth, or leading teams in scale-ups and how all of these dynamics work, this podcast is for you.

25,000 students, & this is what he actually teaches: don't insert CRO in teams, bring it to them.

the wrong Culture inside a company, kills even the best specialists. this is what Ruben de Boer, 15+ years in Experimentation, has noticed again and again: we need to create the right environment for CRO & Experimentation to flourish. not by pushing CRO but by bringing it to people and teams his course on Udemy has 25000+ students and is very much about the basics of CRO and Experimentation, but these days Ruben teaches how to make Experimentation mátter to the business, and to leadership follow him on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rgdeboer/?originalSubdomain=nl or take one of his Udemy courses: https://www.udemy.com/user/rubendeboer/