Adam Wesolowski "How to start working on growth?"

How to start working on Growth?
Minsk 2017

I’m Adam and I help
companies to grow

Goal of this presentation - you
come back to your companies and
start working on Growth

Why I became interested in the
topic?

Because, as a CMO, I couldn’t
grow the business!

I started to question how do
marketing teams work...

...and whether they should be
responsible for business growth

Working on growth is a
multidisciplinary thing...

...that is a mix between the
product and distribution!

What is Growth Management
then (definition)?

Marketing + Product Management

Marketing + Product Management +
Sales

Sales + Customer Service

Sales + Customer Service
Together with Conversion Rate
Optimization and Data Analytics

All this while having in mind one thing -
Business Growth! More specifically...

...achieving Exponential Growth

Marketing is a part of Growth.
But separate Teams and Goals.

Ok, when to start working of Growth?

When you have your Product Market Fit!

Product Market Fit (aka people want to
buy your shit!)

buy your shit!) –
Being on the right market

buy your shit!) –
Being on the right market, with the right
product that can satisfy the market’s
needs

buy your shit!) –
Being on the right market, with the right
product that can satisfy the market’s
needs (Mark Anderssen)

Find a product the market
wants (product work +
customer development)
Optimize the product for the
market (growth)
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

What is key in achieving PMF quickly?

Customer Centric Organization!

Why is focusing on the customer crucial
for business’ growth?

Because it quickly allows us to
understand what and for whom are we
doing, what to fix, what to enforce
“make things people want”

Ask your customers/users!
“How would you feel if you could no
longer use the product”
If >40% will be very disappointed then we
have PMF!

Ok, I have my PMF and want to work on
Growth, what’s now?

What are the two key elements in the work
on Growth?

Strategy (what do we want to do) and
process (how are we doing it), because...

… the most important sentence of the day...

There are no silver bullets!
aka ”Can you tell me 3 growth
hacks so that we will grow 3x
faster…”

Work on Growth demands consistency,
constant analysis, tests and drawing
conclusions.

Growth is not accidental and is a sum of
many small steps.

Dedicated teams that have a clear focus
on Growth.

And the key to Growth is constant testing
and analysis.

Ok, so how to start working on Growth?

Get familiar with the Growth Framework
first - Pirate Metrics (AARRR)...

… understand how your users behave...

… and understand what to improve (where
the funnel is leaking)!

Users come to your site/product
from various sources

Users enjoy 1st visit: ‘happy’ user
experience and leave contact info

experience
Users come back, visit the site
multiple times

experience
multiple times
Users conduct some monetization
behavior

experience
multiple times
Users like the product so much they
refer it to others
Users conduct some monetization
behavior

You ask your friends to join because
you want to follow what they’re doing
You click on ads in your news feed
You come back to see what are your
friends doing
Add 5 or more friends
PR, Ambassadors at Uni, etc
Facebook

You need more space so you invite
your friends - invites give you both
more space
You need more space, so you buy it
You want to upload more files or use
the ones you’ve uploaded
Set up your account to store and
share files
Friends, press, SEO, referral
Dropbox

You and your friend both get free
codes for the referral
You start paying for rides because
your free codes are gone
You want to use your remaining free
rides / You never want to go back to
regular taxi services
Friends, press, SEO, referral
Your first ride (most likely for free)

Ok, so you know how the user goes down
the funnel, what’s next?

Every decision you make should be based
on the data.

Without the data you don’t know what to
improve!

20 (2%)
50 (5%)
100 (10%)
1000 (100%)

5 (0,5%)
20 (2%)
50 (5%)
100 (10%)
1000 (100%)

Test for a Facebook game name by James Currier
‘Thing’ of ‘Place’ - like Battle of Realms

◉ Egypt
◉ Xanadu
◉ Paris
◉ Shangri-La
◉ Heaven
◉ Atlantis
◉ China
◉ Planet X
◉ Mars
Place

◉ Egypt
◉ Xanadu
◉ Paris
◉ Shangri-La
◉ Heaven
◉ Atlantis
◉ China
◉ Planet X
◉ Mars
Place $800 later

◉ Amazons
◉ Dragons
◉ Realms
◉ Wars
◉ Battles
◉ Trolls
◉ Warlocks
◉ Wizards
Thing
Again
$800 later

Then they came to their senses and used
some intelligence and realized people
clicked Amazons just to see naked
breasts

◉ Amazons
◉ Dragons
◉ Realms
◉ Wars
◉ Battles
◉ Trolls
◉ Warlocks
◉ Wizards
Thing 2nd choice

They launched Dragons of Atlantis 5
months later
Second year brought $120M revenue

Ok, how to be smart in managing growth?

Testing - this is the key to success!

You have to test new solutions
to improve your funnel (AARRR)
quickly and cheaply and scale
what works

Test to discover vs. test to
optimize

In order to grow - you must
know in which direction, have
the proper framework and
implement tests in an agile way

Build
TestAnalyse
Approach based
on Lean
Methodology

Ok, what are the three things
crucial for growth?

Tell me more about the process!

First - set up goals to achieve,
metrics, strategy (for M,Q or Y)

◉ Which funnel level are we working
on? (like activation)
◉ What are we strong at? (i.e. SEO,
SEM)
◉ What budget do we have?
◉ What overall company goals to
achieve? (i.e. revenue increase 50%
YoY)
◉ What do we measure? What’s growth
for us?

Second - build a repeatable and
scalable machine, that looks like
this

Ideation
Prioritisatio
n
Experiment
s
Analysis

◉ Watch the competition
◉ Read, read, read and again - read a lot
(growthhackers.com , medium.com, Quora etc.)
◉ Brainstorm
◉ Organize workshops
◉ Use external advisors
◉ Ask the entire company to participate

Important - Every idea should be linked to
particular level of a funnel (AARRR)

Important - Each idea has to have a
hypothesis and KPIs (metrics)

So you know if it failed or succeeded -
based on data

Add scoring to every idea - I suggest the
ICE score

Impact (potential impact)
Confidence (how certain are you that it
will work)
Ease (how easy is to introduce it)
On a scale of 1-10
+ working hours, if needed
+ anything that suits an organisation

Let’s start testing our ideas in
weekly sprints!

Each test must have a
hypothesis, which we are
verifying

For example:
We have X traffic from Facebook a
week (no ads) and we want to
improve it. I think we should increase
the number of posts x2 daily and the
traffic will increase by 50%.

Each test must have an
experiment doc, which says
what we test

Experiment Doc:
1. What is the test?
2. What was the hypothesis?
3. What was the experiment configuration?
4. What were the texts, graphics
5. Did it succeed or not?
6. Why did it (not) work?
7. What can we improve?
8. What have we learned

Crucial– total focus on the sprint tests

Weekly tempo goal (ie. 3 tests a
week) – depending on the team

How to analyze results and draw
conclusions?

Did it work, did it not work, we don’t
know?

Ok, we know about the process, now
let’s systemize the tests!

Tell me more about the System!

Each test has to be analyzed and
described, keep learning (experiment
doc)!

Weekly growth meeting –
Settling on the priorities and growth
coordination

Growth Meeting agenda:
● 15 min: KPI review and update focus arena
● 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 ideas backlog

Don’t forget about
the proper tools!

Ideation
Prioritisation
Experiment
s
Analysis

Idea Backlog
- Excel
- Google Sheets
- Trello

Ideation
Prioritisatio
n
Experiments
Analysis

Ok, we know the process and the
system, but what about the growth
team?

How to build a Growth Team?
Use the lean approach!

First figure out the channels with
traction (by testing)
Then try using freelancers
If you see that there is a great
potential in a given channel then hire
for the specific channel

Examples:
SEM team:
SEO specialist, SEM specialist,
Content marketer
Social team:
Social specialist, graphic designer,
content marketer

Growth Team might consist of 1 - 2 -
3 - 4 - ∞

No matter the size, there has to be a
growth master (or growth hacker)

◉ Working on Growth needs consistency and
is a sum of small wins
◉ There are no silver bullets
◉ Measure everything
◉ Use Pirate Metrics as your framework
◉ Test, test, test
◉ Master the growth process
◉ Remember about the proper system, tools
and people

Any questions ?
Thanks!
Reach me out at:
adam@growthengine.xyz

Adam Wesolowski "How to start working on growth?"

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