What to look for when you’re hiring a Head of Growth

scaling growth into millions of users. The first few stages are very different:

The Cold Start Problem = Getting a critical mass of users to prove product/market fit Tipping Point = Finding a playbook to find repeatable growth Escape Velocity = Scaling up growth across many efforts and channels

Context, goals, and assessment for The Cold Start Problem

The Cold Start Problem

Goal: Getting a critical mass of users to prove product/market fit
Roadmap: A series of “Hustle”-driven efforts — often idiosyncratic, entrepreneurial, and surprising
Outcomes: A stable “atomic network” of users who retain, are engaged, and provide a launching pad for the next phase

What’s needed to succeed at the Tipping Point

Tipping Point

Goal: Finding a playbook to find repeatable growth
Roadmap: Testing a series of more scalable growth channels, showing that if one network can be built, then multiple networks might be launched as well
Outcomes: At least one scalable growth strategy. Typically organic “pull” from the market combined with a scalable channel with reasonable metrics (CAC/LTV, or viral factor, or otherwise) going into in-app acquisition funnels

Next is Escape Velocity

At this point, the product is ready for Escape Velocity if it’s consistently growing >3-5x year-over-year growth rate with at least one (if not two) channels that are obvious levers

Escape Velocity

Goal: Scaling up growth across many efforts and channels
Roadmap: Multiple growth strategies — primarily 2 or 3 — that work in concert to grow the product to millions or tens of millions of users
Outcomes: Multiple scalable channels, combined with optimizing the in-app acquisition and engagement loops

The most common pitfall

The problem is, a startup’s growth is so fundamental that the founders have to take it on themselves.

The second biggest mistake is probably to hire the “executive” Head of Growth too soon.

In the end, the “Head of Growth” title is probably too vague. Each of these stages requires such different skills and are judged so differently that a single title feels like it doesn’t capture the nuance