Stacking the Odds for GrowthHow Product and Marketing Work

Together to Drive Growth

December 10, 2015

Everyone Wants Explosive Growth

But Extreme Competition for Attention

$0

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$60

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$120

$140

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3.5X more online ad $/user in USA last 12

years

3.5x

And Channels in Constant Flux

Credit: James Currier

Today’s Requirements for Growth

1. Unlock organic growth

2. Clear North Star metric

3. Full company participation

4. High tempo testing process

Today’s Requirements for Growth

1. Unlock organic growth

2. Clear North Star metric

3. Full company participation

4. High tempo testing process

Requires Product/Market Fit

• Without PM Fit, all growth unsustainable

Validate Product Market Fit

• Leading indicator: 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

• Lagging indicator: Retention cohorts

Understand Product Market Fit

Understand “Must Have” Users• Why did they seek product (intent)?

• How are they using product?

• How describe when recommend it?

Key Benefit - Narrow by Must Have• Ask 1st group: “What is key benefit?” (open ended)

• Ask 2nd group: “What is key benefit?” (multiple choice), “Why is that benefit important?” (open ended)

Leverage to Unlock Organic Growth

Home Page Messaging• Hook: A/B test “hook” based on intent

• Promise: A/B test promise statements (stay true to “must have benefit”)

• Description: A/B test descriptions(best response)

Onboarding to “must have experience”

Today’s Requirements for Growth

1. Unlock organic growth

2. Clear North Star metric

3. Full company participation

4. High tempo testing process

North Star Metric for Growth

• Reflects value delivered to your customers

• Examples: Airbnb nights booked, Uber rides

• Captures several metrics (i.e. retention reflected in MRR and MAU)

Lens for All Growth Efforts

Ask: How does this test impact our North Star metric?

Submetrics via Growth Accounting

AcquisitionActivationReferral

Retention Revenue(expand)

Simple Example

North Star Metric

Today’s Requirements for Growth

1. Unlock organic growth

2. Clear North Star metric

3. Full company participation

4. High tempo testing process

Product

support

Growth is Cross Functional

External Channels

Promise

1st Experience

Ongoing Experience

Acquisition

Activation

Revenue

Retention

Referral

biz devMarketing

PR

Product

Growth Team Coordinates Efforts

External Channels

Promise

1st Experience

Ongoing Experience

Acquisition

Activation

Revenue

Retention

Referral

Marketing PR

support

biz dev

Growth Team

Building Core Growth Team

• Start with Growth Master (PM Growth)

• Add dedicated people to core as needed to hit testing tempo goals

• Core often includes designers, growth engineers, analysts…

• Execute High Tempo Testing Process

Today’s Requirements for Growth

• Unlock organic growth

• Clear North Star metric

• Full company participation

• High tempo testing process

Testing Drives Growth

• Day 1: No certainty about how you will grow

• Rapid testing across all levers

• More testing = More learning

AcquisitionReferralActivationRevenueRetentionResurrection

High Tempo Testing: Twitter

High Tempo Testing Process

Unbridled Ideation

Unbridled Ideation

• Build large backlog of ideas (my team now 700+)

Inputs for Growth Testing Ideas

External Experts

Internal Experts

Ideas Tests Results

Core Growth Team Drives Process

Prioritize Backlog

Formalize ideas in Experiment Doc

• Include research, hypothesis, target lever

Compare Ideas by ICE Score

Launch Tests

Select Tests in Weekly Meeting

• Choose tests to launch (no brainstorming)• Assign a project manager to each test• PM Growth assist in releasing each test

Example 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

Capture Learning

Capture Learning Details

• Every test leads to learning• Organize learning for easy access

Share Learning with Team+

External Experts

Internal Experts

Ideas Tests Results

Core Growth Team Drives Process

Example: New User To-do-list

• Data: low % of newly registered users commenting in 1st week

• Hypothesis: Increase % of first week commenters

• Test: Use a to-do-list to guide new users (start with easy activities)

Result: New User To-do-list

• Result: over 700% lift in 1st week commenting

• Idea credit: community manager (inspiration Quora)

Another Example - oEmbed

• Data: Embeds = longer sessions

• Hypothesis: Same action = more embeds

• Result: 41% increase in embedded media

• Idea Credit: EngineerSlides

Videos

Recap: Requirements for Growth

1. Unlock organic growth

2. Clear North Star metric

3. Full company participation

4. High tempo testing process

Join GH Projects Private Betaat Projects.GrowthHackers.com

Where Teams Drive Results with High Tempo Testing:

1) Team Ideation 2) Prioritize Testing 3) Capture Learning