Sarah Stockdale, Founder, Growclass
Photo Credit: Sarah Stockdale/Growclass
When Sarah Stockdale graduated from her Master of Professional Communications program at the Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), she had two very different job offers on the table. One was with a well-established and traditional PR firm on Bay Street, and offered great pay and a stable and predictable career path (the direction she’d been heading in). The other was a three-month contract at an accounting software startup called Wave that paid next to nothing.
Even though her mother had been pushing her to find a stable job with longevity, a good pension and benefits for as long as she could remember, Stockdale chose the more unpredictable, low-paying job at Wave instead. In her mind, the startup would offer a better learning environment. That decision propelled her to nearly a decade of working with and growing various tech and financial startups, including starting her own growth consulting firm in 2017.
In that time, she recognized two significant problems within the startup and growth marketing ecosystems.
“One, not a lot of talent, specifically in Canada, for really in-demand jobs,” Stockdale said. From her own experience recruiting talent and building out growth teams, Stockdale noticed that Americans were being hired more often, even for Canadian companies, since the local talent pool wasn’t as extensive.
“And two, the people who were getting [the in-demands jobs] were being hired from the U.S., and they were predominantly white men. Almost all the time. The people doing the work in the trenches were the only women and underrepresented people at the company, but they were still making under $70,000 and the people who were making six figures and equity were all white men.”
Thinking about those gaps in opportunities made her wonder what she could to fix it.
“I know from experience how gate kept education for [those jobs] are because I had to learn it myself,” Stockdale said. “What if there was a space that we could teach people these skills and help them build the network to get into those roles, and then use whatever power and privilege that we have to push the tech sector in the direction that we want to see the world going in?”
At that point, Stockdale came up with the idea for Growclass, a growth marketing training program. The program includes self-paced courses, a certification program, a team of instructors who are highly knowledgeable and experienced in their fields, and an ever-growing community for students to lean on.
When Stockdale started Growclass, she wanted to ensure that when members signed up for the course, they would leave with a loaded toolbelt of practical skills and knowledge they could easily apply at their own jobs and companies.
“When you come into Growclass, you have to be applying it to something. If you are working at a company and your company is funding you to come, you are running the experiments on the company that you are working at. If you have your own startup or personal project, you are running your experiments on that. If you don’t have any of that, we built a fake company that has… everything that an average two year old startup would have, that you can then go and build a portfolio off of and run your experiments on.”
What makes Growclass more unique than some of its competitors isn’t just the accessible price point, but also the ability for students to interact with and learn from a team of mentors and coaches at any time. Stockdale recognizes that it isn’t always a lack of skills that holds some folks back from achieving high-paying, in-demand jobs, so the coaches are there to help with things like executive presence, pay negotiations, interviewing and confidence building.
“The coaching piece is incredibly important to us, and it’s usually not something traditional education focuses on. But we’ve seen huge outcomes just from having really thoughtful, kind, experienced coaches as part of our program that students have access to throughout the first six months that they’re with us.”
Having grown up within the startup environment, usually one of only a handful of women, she knows how difficult it can be to have no one around who thinks or looks like you. She often felt the pressure to act like one of the guys, something she calls the ‘cool girl syndrome.’ And she wishes she’d had a supportive community where she could just be herself, inst
“I had a myriad of gross experiences being a young woman in tech. Take your pick. It’s a super disgusting buffet. And I sampled all of it,” Stockdale said. “I wanted to create that [community] for other people so they don’t have to be the cool girl in their early 20’s and figure out that this is a sham and a trap. We can build the support system for people early on. That’s what I wanted.”
When it comes to Stockdale’s commitment to closing the pay gaps for gender and racially diverse people, Growclass’s numbers are a testament to how effective the program has been so far.
“[Of] our cohort who graduated in March, the women are seeing an average salary increase of 26%, racialized folks see an average salary increase of 44%, and two 2SLGBTQ folks have seen an average salary increase of 34%. And it’s 11% overall, upon completing. So that’s a bit of a snapshot.”
Stockdale made Growclass to be as comprehensive as possible. Students learn how to set and execute 30, 60 and 90 day growth marketing strategies. They learn how to forecast, how to interview clients, and how to get the most insightful and useful feedback from clients. They learn how to use various industry softwares, copywriting and email marketing. The goal, Stockdale says, is to ensure that students leave the course prepared to step into any role.
“If you were to join as a growth manager, at any type of company, you would feel very well equipped to get in there and get your hands dirty. We’ve taught you not just the high level pieces, but also the tools that you have to go in and use.”
And to Stockdale, she wants students to not just be equipped for work, but for the future too. Her team is building AI into their curriculum to ensure Growclass members step into their roles prepared to adopt new technologies and tools, in the most effective way possible.
“We want to focus on the ethical use of AI in marketing and how our students can be a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to companies starting to adopt some of these tools, and to prepare themselves for a different landscape of work.
