Reforge Recap: Advanced Growth Strategy

Micro + Macro Loops

On the micro side, these are the more day-to-day levers that you are pulling to acquire and retain users.

Viral Loop: One person leads to another person signing up
Content Loop: Content brings in signups which enables more content
Paid Loop: Ads bring in signups which enables more ads

These are less tactical and more strategic tailwinds enabled by your product and business model.

Direct Network Effect: When value to a user increases as more people use the product
Cross-Side Network Effect: When value to one type of user increases as more users of another type use the product
Data Network Effect: When the quality or cost of the product improves as more usage data is collected
Economic of Scale: When volume grows, returns increase leading to more volume
Brand: When social capital is built through other compounding loops

Defining Your Growth Model ATTACH

Start by using the menu of loops above to build out something like this for your product:

Attacking Points of Leverage

Using the map above, start looking for points of leverage. Lean on the questions, “What can we reasonably increase?” and “What impact will an X% increase have on outcomes?” to guide your analysis.

These opportunities generally fall in three buckets:

Getting to minimum scope: Loops require a critical mass of inputs before they can really start spinning like you want them to.
Optimizing loops: Once a loop begins performing, your focus shifts to optimizing that loop.
Expanding loops: Last but not least, your established loops are probably driving a good bit of growth.

Communicating Your Strategy

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how effective your strategy is if you can’t align individuals, teams, and the broader org around it.

Company and team mission
Your high-level growth model
Closer look at core growth loops
Current constraints and points of leverage
Potential impact if you addressed them
Resourcing and action items