Growth is about systems, not hacks or ideas
Growth is about systems, not hacks or ideas. ATTACH
People like to brag about Airbnb’s improvement on high-quality images and its impact in the early growth of the business — however, the story lacks the hundreds of unsuccessful experiments that were necessary to get to the ones that performed well.
The 2020 State of Growth research found out that the most successful teams are also the ones failing the most.
Systematizing Growth
The way Etsy manages its product teams is a great example of how to approach growth in a systematic way. The focus is on WHICH problems the team solves, not on HOW they solve. Twice a month, the CEO gets together with their product-squad-leader to get a review of how many experiments have been executed and how much the needle has actually moved towards where they need to go.
“94% of most problems and possibilities for improvement belong to the system, not the individual.” — from Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.
To get there, ask yourself the following questions across the three main pillars of growth: strategy, process, and culture:
- [strategy] Does your growth team have a clear objective to be achieved?
- [strategy] Do you have a measurable metric to measure if you’ve gotten there?
- [process] Does everyone in the company know how to collaborate?
- [process] Are you running your growth meetings religiously?
- [process] Do you have consistency in terms of test volume?
- [culture] Can your superiors clearly keep track of your work?
- [culture] Is there a way to promote wins and deliveries?