My confusion comes from this. In main criteria examples, they say:
- You led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings, lines of code from public repos or similar evidence.
I struggle to understand it.
Led the growth of the technology company? Does it mean grew its revenue?
Or led the growth of product? What do they mean by the growth of product? Added features that grew the revenue?
And finally, led the growth of the team? Like I was a hiring manager and hired many new people? Or that I led a big team?
Most importantly, how is this different from this optional criteria?
at least 1 example of significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder or employee of a product-led digital technology company
It’s also about the growth of revenue. Does it mean that one evidence will be applicable to both main and optional criteria or I will have to choose?
Finally, how is it different from the second mandatory criteria evidence example:
You led the marketing or business development at a product-led digital technology company, demonstrably enabling substantial revenue and/or customer growth or major commercial success, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, senior global commercial executives inside the company and/or at company partners/customers, or similar evidence.
It sounds identical – all about growth and revenue
Generally product-led digital technology companies or startups grow in one or a combination of two ways: revenue or users. Another word that may describe the two is impact. So did you lead a digital tech company as a CxO? Were you the lead developer of the digital tech company’s product or team? What did you do in these roles that lead to growth (revenue, user base). This is how I understand it from my point of view.
One piece of evidence may meet more than one criteria but you may need to present it in a way that highlights and showcases the specific things the criteria is asking for.
Did you do any specific marketing or business development activities that led to growth?
Here is how I see it. The mandatory criteria is looking for evidence of leadership and the examples given are ways in which you can demonstrate leadership. When you peel back words and meanings in those sentences you may see that demonstrating leadership is at the core of the matter.
Hope you find this helpful. I am also putting together an application and what I have shared above are just my views. Those who have gotten endorsements here may provide some more info.