Course Content
Mastering Growth Program Overview
What to expect as you go.
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Learning Material
Quick start guide
Module 1: Introduction to Growth
Learn the fundamentals of growth and learn how to incorporate growth at your company the right way. We’ll start with defining what growth does and where it sits in the organization, and will show you how to make sure you have the right foundation on which to grow. This module includes digging into attribution and event tracking, data, and analysis and includes a review of the tools you’ll need to ensure success.
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Overview of Growth
Pirate Metrics & the Customer Journey
Why is growth important?
The Way We Build Features Is Often Broken
Growth led product development
Video: The Step Functions of Growth – Sandboxx Case Study
Composition of a Growth Team & Key Players
Case Study – Upside Business Travel Growth Team Structure
Interview – Seamus Leahy (Dropbox, Twitter, Thumbtack, Votion) – how the world’s fastest companies structure and scale growth teams (15:39)
5 Rules for Building Features and Products
Module 1 – Optional Homework
Mastering Growth Series – Foundations of Growth

The way we build features is often broken

Most products and features start with what seems like an amazing idea. This leads to product development (likely with UX happening first). Usually this takes a few days to few weeks. Then the feature gets launched. Expectations are generally high – you wouldn’t have built the feature in the first place if you didn’t think it’d be great, right?

The problem here is that most features are built with the right intention – to drive usage, get more revenue, increase retention. However, if you talk to most product managers and ask them why they are building the feature, they’ll tell you things like “well, we need this feature to round out our product” or “I think if we get this done, our customers will tell all their co-workers about us, and we’ll get more leads.” When you ask why this will happen because of that feature, you’ll often get a quick and compelling answer back from the PM that sounds really convincing: “Well, I know when Uber launched their give a ride, get a ride referral feature it really propelled them – we have the same network effects, so it’ll work for us too!”

Most of the time, this is entirely the wrong process!

The problem here is the team is working off of assumptions, and likely doesn’t have the data – quantitative or qualitative – to justify the time for building the feature. 

Here’s what usually happens after the feature is launched:

This turns into a never-ending feature parade. At well funded startups this is a real problem, since entire teams support the product roadmap, and justifying the build is critical for one’s job security.

Plus, if you’re not overly concerned with runway, you’re likely not feeling the burn of having to build the right thing at the right time. 

Whether this is intentional or not it doesn’t really matter – the process itself is broken.

In the next lesson we’ll look at an approach to building features and products that will save you a ton of time by taking the guesswork out of feature development, and it’s likely an approach that will save you money too.

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