How I Scale (Growth) Teams? 30 Learnings
From scaling Miro’s growth org to 200+ people, Monster!
🤗 Who is this guide for?
Founders / CEOs
Product Leaders
Growth Product Leaders
Growth Marketing Leaders
Growth Design Leaders
Growth Analytics Leaders
Growth Engineering Leaders
❤️ Why should you care?
Did you know that Canva’s ($40B val.) Growth org is 400+ people? They care!
Who else cares? Grammarly, Airtable, Snyk, etc.
Just take a look at the Forbes ‘The Cloud 100’ list
✅ What do you get?
The guide has five sections:
Growth Marketing Teams (5 learnings)
Product Acquisition Teams (5 learnings)
Product Retention Teams (8 learnings)
Product Monetization Teams (6 learnings)
🎁 Bonus Tips (Best for Last) (6 learnings)
😑 Before we start!
Growth is about building systems (not hacks) to generate $$$.
You do it by leveraging your Product, Marketing, and Sales work in symbiosis to Acquire, Retain, and Monetize customers predictably, sustainably, and defensibly.
I will niche down to provide the most actionable value in this guide.
I will focus (mainly!) on scaling the Growth org through the lens of PLG.
This means leveraging your product to acquire, retain, and mobilize customers.
Now, we are ready.
🏁 Let's start!
Growth Marketing Teams
Growth Marketing is your partner in crime!
Growth Marketing is much more than a leads pump! Yes, they bring new users in ( = Performance Marketing). But they also bring existing users back ( = Lifecycle).
Lifecycle + Retention = ❤️
When Lifecycle brings users back, it re-enforces Retention ( = Activation + Engagement). Lifecycle is a massive opportunity. Lifecycle deserves a fully staffed team (or a group)! Give them wings!
Lifecycle is in-between!
If, in your Growth model, Lifecycle plays the first chair. Bring them to the Growth Product org (from the Growth Marketing org). Sorry, Growth Marketers...
Performance marketing is an expert’s game.
Leveraging channels (Paid, SEO) requires domain expertise per channel. Hire the Head of Growth Marketing to scale your Performance Marketing machine one acquisition channel at a time.
Pro tip! 😎
Channels are many; not all channels are acquisition channels. Email, SMS, Google Ads, Product Notifications, etc. are all channels. Figure out early on who owns which channel and how they scale and sync. It’s a company-level collaboration!
Product Acquisition Teams
Product Acquisition compliments Growth Marketing!
In the PLG land, your Product is your acquisition channel! Here, both Growth Marketing and Product Acquisition bring in new customers. Leverage both!
Virality rules!
If your core product is blessed with the virality gods (not every product is), meaning existing users can bring in new users, bank on it! It’s way beyond the ‘Invite’ and ‘Share’ experiences; find and manufacture those magic moments. There is so much to do here!
Bet on content!
Content should be on top of your mind. Figure out how to leverage Company / User / Community Generated Content. Content is a huge acquisition play. It’s also a big lift and requires a company-wide collab (SEO, Brand, Community, etc.)
Give your website spinach! (Popeye reference…)
Your website matters! Help users experience value before they reach your Core Product. It’s the easiest channel to run experiments on! Your website deserves attention. It’s where so many users land.
Pro tip! 😎
Experiment with pre-product experiences! In addition to the website. Dedicated experiences targeted at specific segments. Think about it as Level 100 landing pages on steroids. Treat it as an additional channel to acquire users.
🟢 Work with me!
There are three ways we can work together. Check those out. 😉
Product Retention Teams
Activation (always) first!
If we go Reforge. Retention = Activation + Engagement + Resurrection. Start with Activation, not with Engagement (on Engagement more in a bit). Give Resurrection to Lifecycle. Activation is your first priority!Activation is beyond the first session!
I we go Reforge again. Activation happens when a user creates a Habit around your Product. It’s a long journey! Getting from Setup to Habit can take weeks. The first session is only part of it... (although the most critical one).
Scale activation teams by journey!
Scale teams to own journeys. For example, supply/demand, creator/joiner, etc. Each owns an entire journey (Setup - Aha - Habit). Don’t scale teams by Activation moments (Setup / Aha / Habit)!
Generic experience sucks!
Qualify users early on! Say no to generic experiences. Personalize to activate. Personalize each journey by persona, use case, proficiency, entrance point, session, previous actions, etc. Onboarding questions work! Do it!
Keep your finger on the pulse!
Work closely with Growth Marketing and Product Acquisition to monitor how each segmented cohort activates compared to the forecast/growth model. Always know what’s going on. Remember! Users that can’t be activated can’t be monetized!
Don’t use templates as an excuse!
It’s true; Templates are a silver bullet feature (mostly...) for getting users Activated / Engaged. However, don’t be lazy. If your product experience sucks, Templates won’t fix it. Here I said it! 🤣
Engagement is a company play!
Don’t spin one Growth team expecting it to fix user Engagement. Empower the entire company to think and breathe Engagement. You know, non-engaged users churn!
Pro tip! 😎
It’s not about feature adoption but about adopting the right feature by the right user at the right time to solve an actual problem and drive delightful engagement. You can’t scale otherwise. Delightful Engagement > Feature Adoption.
Product Monetization Teams
You own Self-Serve (SS) ARR! 💸
Yes, Growth owns the SS ARR. Because if you do, your mindset changes. The way you think about Monetization changes. Both new, expansion, and churned revenue become your game.
The Monetization model is a fair yet cautious play!
The Monetization Model (per Reforge) is all the how much (price), what (features), and when you charge Qs. Those are the big lever, high-risk plays. Model it! Align with leadership! Advise with experts! And tread very lightly.
Scale teams around the monetization journey!
Align your Monetization teams across the monetization journey. Think free/trial to paid, expansion, and churn. The journey is the output of your growth and monetization models. No one structure fits all!
Bet on Monetization infrastructure!
Make it damn easy to pay and cheap to transact for you and the customer. This requires significant infrastructure investment. Out of the box, Stripe-like solutions are just a starting point. Build on top. Localize, globalize, and optimize the payments realm!
You need an expert talent!
To play with the monetization model, you need an experienced Growth team. Especially experienced Product and Analytics talent. To play with monetization infrastructure, you need domain experts. Focus on domain expert Product and Engineering talent.
Pro tip! 😎
The quality of your monetization, both low touch (self-serve) and high touch will be determined by the quality of your retention (activation and engagement). You can’t win monetization in Silo!
🎁 Bonus Tips
Layer on PLS on PLG!
Dear B2B, Product Led Sales works! It’s a fact. If you did your PLG right, you can start layering on PLS to qualify the high-tier (Enterprise) accounts. PLS complements sales; PLS doesn’t replace sales. PLS deserves a dedicated team!
Community-led growth is big!
In the context of Growth Product, think Community Generated Content. High-quality Community Generated Content fuels your Acquisition and Retention Loops. Miro did a superb job with building Miroverse. People trust People!
Infrastructure, again!
You can’t scale growth org without enabling this scale through proper infrastructure. Both horizontal (Experimentation and Localization) and vertical (Marketing Tech and Payments). You need to spend some to get some!
Bring in cross-functional leadership!
When you scale, hire Heads of Growth for Analytics, Product, Engineering, and Design to lead the growth org. The same goes for (most) groups of teams within the org, Product Retention, Product Monetization, etc.
Rockstart DNA!
Rockstar growth teams own the forecast, experiment a lot, fail most of the time, are amazing at distilling actionable learnings, and make allies by empowering other teams through sharing those learnings.
Breaking the rules!
Don’t be bound to the Acquisition - Retention - Monetization model of how to structure teams. There is no one right way. There are only guiding principles. Each company is different. Each growth model is unique. Experiment!
You can also check out the slick PDF version of this write-up. 👇
