The Cheap Growth Playbook:
How Deel Built $300M
in Revenue Without Ads

Meltem Kuran Berkowitz

Head of Growth, Deel

LENNY'S PODCAST

The Foundation

The Deel Growth Arc: $0 → $300M in 3 Years

$300M

ARR in 2023

✓

EBITDA positive

Meltem joined as employee ~20 at $1M ARR (July 2020)
Jan 2021: $4M ARR (6 months in)
Dec 2021: $57M ARR (18 months in)
Apr 2022: $100M ARR (less than 2 years)
Growth funded largely by non-paid channels

Cheap Channels Framework

Where People Ask Questions = Where You Grow

80%

non-paid early growth

50%

non-paid today

The core insight: People don't want to be sold to, they want their problems answered
Reddit setup: Set keyword alerts for when people ask about "hiring internationally" or "compliance," then personally answer with genuine help
The value-add approach: "Yes, it's doable. No, it's not doable. Here are the constraints. If you want to learn more, come chat with us."
Automated is never an option: Every interaction was manual, co-founders, growth team, all hands. Never automated responses

Meltem's first action at DeelDay 1: Set up Reddit keyword tracking. Still running 3+ years later. This single tactic seeded the entire growth machine.

The SEO Layer

SEO: The Long Game That Compounds

The SEO mistake: Shoving keywords into articles people don't want to read. Bounces kill ranking
The SEO question: "Is the Google search over?" If someone reads your article, do they go back to Google or do they have their answer?
Compliance & tax expertise: Deel hired in-house experts to answer the hardest questions (country-specific payroll, contractor vs. employee taxes, immigration rules)
Content operations: Treat content like an operational process with clear frameworks, not creative guesswork
Update cadence: Regulations change constantly, proactively update articles when answers shift

The IRS validation story

Previous company wrote a comprehensive PPP loan guide during COVID. The IRS linked to it as the definitive answer. Became a major growth driver during that window. Proof: answer the question better than anyone else, and influencers will send people your way.

What questions to answer

Not "What's the best payroll?" but "How do I pay taxes for an engineer in Turkey?" or "Contractor vs. employee in Germany?", specific, use-case-driven questions people actually search for.

"The biggest mistake people make is they shove keywords. The main thing to think about is: is the Google search over? Are they going back to Google or do they have their answer?"

Paid Growth Playbook

How to Win at Paid

Track the full funnel, not just leads. How many leads → qualified opportunities → closed deals? How much did you actually make?
Build a real-time dashboard with your data team that tracks unit economics by channel
Creative fatigue is real. Rotate ads monthly (except Google ads, which need to be sharp and direct)
Keep messaging aligned with your product as it evolves, even if an ad works, it may be stale
Understand your CAC payback period and LTV to decide how much you can afford to spend

The paid gotchaYou can't run successful paid campaigns if your website is slow, your SEO isn't working, or your funnel is broken. Fix the fundamentals first.

Contrarian

Growth Myths Meltem Challenges

✗Start with paid adsINSTEAD →✓ Build the foundation first: fast website, searchable, organic channels proven. Then add paid on top.

✗High-volume leads = successINSTEAD →✓ Track to closed revenue and payback. A low-volume, high-conversion channel beats a high-volume noise channel every time.

✗Partner with anyone who shares your audienceINSTEAD →✓ Partner only with trusted advisors. VCs recommend portfolio companies; tech partners don't. Know who people actually ask.

✗SEO doesn't matter for fast-growing startupsINSTEAD →✓ 50% of Deel's growth still comes from non-paid channels. SEO + communities compound for years while paid is temporary.

Based on Meltem Kuran Berkowitz's episode on Lenny's Podcast. All ideas on this page are from the episode.Watch on YouTube Follow @meltemkuran on X

GO DEEPER IN THE EPISODE

04:21 What Deel does 06:32 How Meltem leverages low-cost growth channels 13:18 How to answer questions in a value-add way 14:52 Leveraging closed communities 15:48 Breaking down Deel’s impressive growth 16:33 SEO best practices 18:32 Deel’s “traffic light system” framework for publishing content 20:03 The step-by-step process of publishing an SEO article 21:55 How Deel structures their content team 23:18 Why you can’t cut corners when doing SEO 25:15 Businesses that should not invest in SEO 26:40 The growth channels Deel prioritized early on 32:12 Why Meltem is not a fan of early awareness campaigns for B2B businesses 33:54 What Notion did right with their ad campaigns 36:16 How Deel can help your company 38:15 Deel’s blog post that caught the attention of the IRS 40:06 Paid ads tips 42:12 Why acquisition channels are useless without a great product 44:19 How the pandemic helped drive growth at Deel 47:11 Structuring early growth teams 51:23 Building a startup culture 1:01:10 The story behind Meltem’s unique workspace 1:05:22 Closing thoughts on growth 1:06:05 Lightning round

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