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Melissa Tan
Head of Growth at Webflow (formerly Dropbox)
Melissa Tan is a growth leader and advisor who was Dropbox's first growth PM and longtime head of B2B growth, and has advised Canva, Grammarly, Miro, and Ro on growth strategy.
Dimension Profile
Strategic Vision 70%
Execution & Craft 70%
Data & Experimentation 75%
Growth & Distribution 90%
Team & Leadership 75%
User Empathy & Research 65%
Key Themes
first principles growth innovation building growth teams B2B growth strategy hiring for first principles thinking go-to-market alignment high-performing team culture
Episode Summary
Melissa Tan shares how she built growth teams at Dropbox and Webflow, emphasizing the power of hiring smart generalists who approach problems from first principles rather than following playbooks. She covers building high-performing growth teams, aligning sales and product motions, and the transition from advising to operating roles.
Leadership Principles
- → Hire smart people who've never done the job before — they innovate because they don't know the rules
- → First principles thinking drives the best go-to-market innovation
- → People with deep user context from one role create breakthrough insights when they move to another
Notable Quotes
"We would hire a ton of really smart people that had never done sales and had them do sales. That's how we got our very innovative go-to-market motions."
— On how Dropbox's unconventional hiring drove growth innovation
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