How to build a high performance growth team
Growth teams across Silicon Valley and beyond are driving unprecedented results. But contrary to popular mythology, their results are not based on a grab bag of secret growth hacks. Instead, these growth teams are applying a rigorous process of testing and analysis to uncover and optimize sustainable and scalable growth drivers. Sean’s presentation will explain how and when to implement this proven growth process at your startup.
2. About Me
• Early career: Led marketing from launch to IPO (Uproar
and LogMeIn)
• Shifted focus to Early Stage: interim growth roles
(Xobni, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Lookout)
• Now: Founder/CEO of GrowthHackers
4. Product Market Fit
• Most important factor for driving growth
• “Must have” for large addressable market
• Ask users: “How would you feel if you could no longer
use this product?”
– Very disappointed (40%+)
– Somewhat disappointed
– Not disappointed
– N/A – I already stopped using
6. Stacking the Odds for Growth
Understand “must have” users
• Who are they?
• Why is it a must have (key benefit)?
• How are they using product?
Optimize value delivery engine
• Relevant, powerful promise
• Onboarding to “must have experience”
12. Growth Team Drives Testing
• Day 1 – No certainty how you will grow
• More Testing = More Discovery
• Rapid testing across all vectors
Acquisition Referral
Activation Revenue
Retention
Resurrection
13. Building Growth Team
• Core growth team can start ad hoc
• Add dedicated people to core team as needed to hit tempo goals
(PM, engineer, design…)
• Contract temporary specialists for unproven channels (FTE for
proven)
14. Example: Need for High Tempo
• Twitter started growth team in 2009
• Growth slowed in 2010 when team averaged only 1 – 2
tests/month*
• In 2011 accelerated to 10+ tests/week
*Satya Patel - Agile Marketing Meetup Presentation Q&A
24. Unbridled Ideation Details
• Unbridled ideation from full team
• Ideas across all vectors
• Individual and team accountability
Acquisition Referral
Activation Revenue
Retention
26. Formalize Ideas in Experiment Doc
• Include research, hypothesis, target lever…
27. Prioritize by ICE Score
Assign 1 – 10 score for impact, confidence and Ease (10 best)
• Impact: If it works, what is
potential impact?
• Confidence: Evidence that it will
work?
• Ease: How easy is it to test your
hypothesis?
29. Test at High Tempo
• Tempo quickly identifies opportunities
• Weekly growth meeting drives tempo
30. Weekly Growth Meeting
• No brainstorming (that’s rest of week)
• Nominate ideas to test before meeting
• Optimize process to hit testing target
* GH weekly growth meeting includes CEO, CTO, VP Product, Head of
Growth, Head of Design, Growth Engineer, and Analyst
31. Weekly Growth Meeting Agenda
15 min: KPI review & update focus area
10 min: Review last week’s testing sprint
15 min: Key lessons learned from analyzed tests
15 min: Select tests for this week’s sprint
5 min: Check growth of idea backlog
32. Set Weekly Test Launch Goal
• Start small (i.e. 2 tests per week)
• Right size tests to hit goal
• Add more ambitious tests
• Increase weekly test goal
36. Team + Process = Silver Bullet
Unbridled
ideation
Prioritize
backlog
Launch
tests
Capture
learning
37. Ultimate Goal: Growth Culture
• CEO must be on board for day one (recognize & praise
early participants)
• Patience to get others on board
• Transparent about results and process
• Everyone keep eye out for growth opps