Today’s post comes from guest author Lauralynn Stubler, a growth marketer who’s been volunteering her time helping out 500 Startups’ brand new Batch 17 survive our Accelerator program’s (in)famous Marketing Hell Week.

In exchange for one mere week of indentured servitude to our Accelerator overlords, Lauralynn gets to learn / steal exclusive teachings from the world’s top growth marketers, through a program that’s otherwise only open to 500 Startups portfolio companies.

But, because we’re actual nice on the inside — and can’t resist a content marketing opportunity besides — Lauralynn is sharing the details of Marketing Hell Week in this post, including info on how you can join for FREE.

Marketing Hell Week. Yup, Hell, that’s what it’s called.

500 Startups welcomes Batch 17 this week (see their smiling faces above) with five long days packed with lectures, workshops, and masterclasses from the best marketers in the business … and I couldn’t be more excited. I get to be in the room with growth marketing greats like Aaron Blumenthal and Hiten Shah, while being surrounded by 150 of the smartest startup founders in the world.

For me, as a growth marketer who regularly works with early-stage founders, this is going to be like stumbling upon a tribe of unicorns in the woods rolling around on a pile of lucky charm rainbow marshmallows under the aurora borealis.

5 marketing-stuffed days with 23 growth marketing greats & 10 workshops. Founders aren’t just going to “learn some marketing stuff” – they’re going eat, sleep, and breathe growth. 3 months of learnings crammed into 1 week.

• Email for Acquisition & Onboarding – Susan Su
• A/B testing –  Hiten Shan
• UX for Growth w/ Michael Burkett
• SEO for F*cking Startups – Aaron Blumenthal
• Customer Segmentation – Dan Riaz
• Paid Acquisition – Remarketing – Susan Coelius
• Paid Acquisition – Display + Psychographic Marketing – Mike Collela
• Engagement Hierarchy [B2C] – Sarah Tavel
• Referral Marketing for Startups – Ivan Kirgin
• Retention for Startups – Casey Winters
• Predictable Revenue + Hiring on Upwork – Elizabeth Yin
• And a shit-ton more

(see the entire schedule)

If you’d like an insider’s perspective on how rigorous the program is, check out Troy Sultan’s journal of his experience – starting with his first week, Inside the 500 Accelerator Weeks 1 & 2.

The frantic pace that we were running at to be ready for monday (“Build this! Tweet that!”), takes me back to my time in an accelerated program like this. 18 months ago I was going through Tradecraft, a 3-month immersive growth marketing program.

It was, hands down, the toughest, most rewarding experience I’ve ever been through. I remember feeling like I couldn’t learn fast enough, that I was in over my head, that there was never enough time in the day. Exponential FOMO.

So I’m feeling a deep empathy for the founders who may (or may not) know what the next 3 months will hold for them.

And I want to say … Welcome to the rollercoaster. You’re going to think you’re not good enough one day, and the next you’re going to feel like an unstoppable champion.

The days will be so long that whatever happened yesterday will feel like a week ago, and they’ll be so short you’ll run out of hours every time.

Drinking from the firehose is exhausting and overwhelming.

But this is the beginning of a most amazing journey. We’re already in Day 3 of Marketing Hell Week and the sheer volume of knowledge is staggering.

Quotables from this week already.

“Search engines have taken away our ability to think. 33% of all searched that come into Google are new searches never seen before.” (Aaron Blumenthal on SEO)

“If you don’t have a process, you won’t continuously improve.” (Hiten Shah on A/B Testing)

“Segment your users by engagement and answer the How’s and Why’s. Then optimize ad spend for power users so you can maximize ROI on a limited budget.” (Dan Riaz on Customer Segmentation)

Luckily, the days are being livestreamed for free so everyone has access the learnings, and viewers are able to ask the speakers questions too! All you have to do is SIGN UP HERE to get access to live streaming and all the content and resources.
[Lauralynn is a growth marketer for startups, specializing in eCommerce and Subscription services. You can reach her here.]