The Initial

Lucia ran 1000+ A/B tests and worked for 20+ leading brands,together: we learn from mistakes made,the nitty-gritty of how brands started, and their unique perspectives.each episode is a candid convo with the people who build, break, and rebuild: product leaders, experimentation experts, founders, cmo’s, investors, analysts and morewe talk about their first experiment, when and how the company started,how they grew to be more data-drivenand where they are now

The Initial is a business podcast hosted by Lucia van den Brink, with 17 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Lucia van den Brink hosts The Initial, a business show with 17 episodes published.

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  The Initial

  Why Is Nobody Acting on Your A/B Test Results? Here's Why & What to Do About It

  Sep 28, 202621 min

  Get Simon's framework for scaling experimentation across product teams in this month's newsletter: ⁠ https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/⁠ in this episode… Simon Born is head of analytics and experimentation at Kaufland — Europe's fastest growing marketplace. he's been there six years, executed over 1,500 experiments himself, and right now has 80 experiments running simultaneously. he didn't build this from zero — but he scaled it to something most companies can only dream of. it's about: → how to go from 2 experiments in parallel to 80 running at the same time → the C-level move that got every team to start experimenting (without forcing it) → why trustworthiness is the most underrated metric in any experimentation program → build vs. buy: the tooling decision that shapes everything

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  The Initial

  I Got the Best Experimentation Program Investment — Now I'm on The Hook for a $30M Revenue Valuation Goal

  Sep 9, 202634 min

  in this episode… Muqtadaa Miandara is the senior manager of experimentation at Upbound Group — the company behind Rent-A-Center, Acima, and Bridget. he went from not knowing what tagging was on a Friday to acing a technical interview on Monday. and he's been figuring things out at speed ever since. this year? his team is targeting 300 tests, a 30 million dollar revenue valuation, and a leaderboard that makes ops teams compete for experimentation glory. it's about: → how to go from 12 tests a month to 12 tests a week — without burning your team out → the good, better, best investment pitch that got his CGO to say "I want the biggest one" → why win rate is a smoke screen (and what to measure instead) → the ideation workshop format that turns any team into experiment generators → empathy, ethics, and context switching: the 3 traits every great experimenter needs Get the QBR reporting framework Muqtadaa uses with executives in this month's newsletter: ⁠ https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/⁠

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  The Initial

  How You Can Build an Experimentation Program from Scratch (from the Senior Optimization Manager at The AA)

  Aug 24, 202631 min

  Get Stuart's framework for building an experimentation process from scratch in this month's newsletter: ⁠https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/⁠ in this episode… Stuart Clare is the senior manager of digital trading, optimization, and personalization at the AA — one of the UK's most iconic brands. he's spent four years building an experimentation program from scratch, across five different product journeys, with a team of four. calm under pressure, process-obsessed, and still checking dashboards first thing every morning, just like he did when he was A/B testing email subject lines. it's about: → how to build an experimentation program from nothing — and get leadership to fund it → the loss prevention argument that makes any business case impossible to ignore → why a 25% win rate is healthy (and why chasing a higher one is actually dangerous) → app testing: why it's a completely different beast and what nobody tells you about it → the 1 thing that has stayed consistent across every company, every product, every journey

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  The Initial

  You're Already in Love With the Solution (That's the Problem)

  Aug 10, 202630 min

  Daniël Granja Baltazar⁠ is a CRO Specialist at one of the Netherlands' biggest telecoms VodafoneZiggo, and proving that CRO goes way beyond A/B testing. If you enjoy learning about these topics, follow our newsletter to get all the frameworks and insights: ⁠https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/⁠ in this episode… → what a 300+ experiments per year experimentation program looks like → why B2B experimentation can't just copy B2C playbooks → the MVP mindset: stop falling in love with solutions, start defining the problem → how qualitative research fills the gap when traffic is too low to test → using sales knowledge to rewrite product pages (and 10x your leads) → building an AI-powered experiment library so no learning ever gets lost Find Daniël on Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgbaltazar/

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  The Initial

  Stop Testing Only Your Website — There's a Whole World Out There

  Jul 29, 202643 min

  Gabriel Marçal⁠ is a growth PM at AIOS Medical, and one of the quietest, sharpest minds in experimentation. Solving bigger problems than just running A/B tests for checkouts. follow our newsletter to learn all his frameworks and insights: ⁠⁠https://increaseconversionrate.substack.com/⁠⁠ in this episode… from his early days at a CRO agency in Brazil to running experiments on sales call scripts, physical medication boxes, and mobile apps, Gabriel refuses to stay in a box. it's about: → why your website isn't the only surface worth testing (and what to do when you're blocked) → how a lean 2-person team scaled to 10x growth without scaling headcount → the no-show rate problem: how experimenting with sales reminders moved the needle from 70% to 80%+ → subscriptions as a retention game-changer — and why 90%+ adoption doesn't happen by accident → Bayesian vs. frequentist? the answer that will surprise you Find Gabriel on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabmarcal/

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