growth-product-manager

What this skill does

# Growth Product Manager

Strategic growth product management expertise for SaaS companies — from growth loops and activation to retention, monetization, and PLG strategies.

## Philosophy

Growth isn't about hacks. It's about building **compounding systems** that create sustainable, defensible growth.

The best growth product strategies:
1. **Systems over tactics** — Growth loops compound; growth hacks don't
2. **Activation is everything** — If users don't activate, nothing else matters
3. **Retention is growth** — Churn kills; retained users compound
4. **Measure what matters** — One north star metric, ruthlessly tracked

## How This Skill Works

When invoked, apply the guidelines in `rules/` organized by:

- `loops-*` — Growth loops, flywheels, viral mechanics
- `activation-*` — First-time user experience, onboarding, time-to-value
- `retention-*` — Engagement, habit formation, churn prevention
- `monetization-*` — Pricing, upgrades, expansion revenue
- `experimentation-*` — Growth experiments, A/B testing, metrics
- `plg-*` — Product-led growth strategies and patterns

## Core Frameworks

### Growth Loop Types

| Loop Type | Mechanism | Example | Key Metric |
|-----------|-----------|---------|------------|
| **Viral** | Users invite users | Dropbox, Calendly | K-factor |
| **Content** | Users create discoverable content | Notion templates, Figma Community | Indexed pages |
| **Paid** | Revenue funds acquisition | Any SaaS with paid ads | CAC payback |
| **Sales** | Revenue funds sales team | Enterprise SaaS | ACV / CAC |
| **SEO** | Content ranks, drives traffic | HubSpot, Zapier | Organic traffic |

### The Growth Equation

```
Growth = Acquisition × Activation × Retention × Monetization × Referral

Each multiplier matters:
- 10% improvement across 5 areas = 61% total improvement
- 50% drop in one area = 50% total drop
```

### The AARRR Funnel (Pirate Metrics)

```
    ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │              ACQUISITION                     │
    │         (How do users find us?)             │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              ACTIVATION                      │
    │       (Do users have a great first          │
    │              experience?)                    │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              RETENTION                       │
    │         (Do users come back?)               │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              REVENUE                         │
    │        (Do users pay us money?)             │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              REFERRAL                        │
    │      (Do users tell others about us?)       │
    └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### PLG Motion Types

| Motion | Best For | Key Lever |
|--------|----------|-----------|
| **Free Trial** | Complex products, considered purchases | Trial conversion rate |
| **Freemium** | Simple products, network effects | Free → paid conversion |
| **Open Source** | Developer tools, infrastructure | Community adoption |
| **Reverse Trial** | High-value products, sticky usage | Premium feature discovery |
| **Usage-Based** | Variable consumption, API products | Usage expansion |

### North Star Metric Framework

```
North Star Metric
       │
       ├── Measures value delivered to customers
       │
       ├── Leading indicator of revenue
       │
       ├── Reflects product strategy
       │
       └── Actionable by product team

Examples:
- Slack: Daily Active Users sending messages
- Airbnb: Nights booked
- Amplitude: Weekly Learning Users
- Figma: Weekly Active Editors
```

## Growth Model Overview

| Stage | Focus | Metrics | Experiments |
|-------|-------|---------|-------------|
| **Early (0-$1M ARR)** | Activation, retention | Activation rate, D7 retention | 5-10/quarter |
| **Growth ($1M-$10M)** | Loops, monetization | Growth rate, payback period | 20-50/quarter |
| **Scale ($10M+)** | Efficiency, expansion | Net revenue retention, LTV/CAC | 50-100/quarter |

## Anti-Patterns

- **Optimizing acquisition before activation** — Filling a leaky bucket
- **Vanity metrics** — MAU without engagement is meaningless
- **Copy-paste growth tactics** — What worked for Dropbox won't work for you
- **Growth team in a silo** — Growth is everyone's job
- **Experimentation theater** — Running tests without statistical rigor
- **Ignoring retention** — New users are 5-25x more expensive than retained ones
- **Feature bloat over activation** — Building more vs ensuring adoption