Meltem Kuran
Meltem Kuran (also known as Meltem Kuran Berkowitz) was employee #19–20 at Deel, joining in July 2020 as Head of Growth when the company had less than $1M ARR. Under her growth leadership, Deel grew from <$1M to $295M ARR while remaining EBITDA positive — one of the fastest SaaS growth trajectories on record.
Key ideas
- Skeleton before makeup: website speed → SEO foundations → content → paid ads. Most teams reverse this order and waste spend on a product the market cannot find organically.
- Cheap channels: find where potential customers are asking questions (Reddit, Quora, Twitter, YC/Discord/Slack communities) and answer genuinely. Kuran set up Reddit keyword monitoring on day one.
- Traffic light SEO: 700-keyword database colour-coded by buyer intent. Publish green (commercial intent) first, at highest volume. Never publish red (informational — searchers are not buyers).
- First three growth hires: (1) product marketing, (2) copywriter, (3) data analyst. Hiring out of order crowds out measurement of a story you haven’t yet told.
- Deel’s operating culture: “Deel speed” (urgency), “default optimism,” “little hands” (everyone does the nitty-gritty).