SEO Solves Quora Traffic

A story about how a growth expert leveraged his SEO expertise to build valuable relationships in Silicon Valley.

"I met this guy who was a growth expert - not like the Twitter/YouTube type who charges $500/hour, but someone who actually ran growth teams at major Silicon Valley products.

We were walking in Palo Alto, passing by Steve Jobs' house, Larry Page's house, and Mark Zuckerberg's house. I asked him how he got connected with these people. He said he had built expertise in SEO from his previous companies and really understood it better than most people.

Someone introduced him to Adam D'Angelo from Quora. Quora had an SEO problem - they were heavily dependent on SEO traffic and a Google update was hurting them. On one call, he identified the exact issue and told them how to fix it. He did one more call, suggested one more change, and Quora's growth curve improved dramatically.

Adam called and offered to hire him as a consultant, willing to pay any number. Instead of taking the money, he said 'I'll do this for free, but when the time comes, I'd love some introductions since you're well-connected in Silicon Valley.'

This turned out to be way more valuable. When he later cashed in that chip, people would say 'Not only did Adam vouch for you, Adam never makes intros - this must be your first one.' The intro came with extreme credibility because Adam had such a high bar for making introductions."