The “ABC”s of building a successful Growth team
As a Founder, you are constantly on the lookout for that one “Formula X” that takes your business to new heights overnight. And that’s where a Growth team comes into play!
Even though the “Growth” formula isn’t as fast as you need it to be, it does its work in the long run.
With his expertise in building and scaling growth teams, Udayan(UD) is here to give you the lowdown on what the growth team is all about and why it's so crucial for companies to have one. UD is the Founder of GrowthX- a social learning platform for leaders to learn about growth from the best.
We will discuss the session in two parts: the first part will collate the fundamentals behind the Growth team, and the second part will depict the structure and operationalisation side of it.
“Stop looking for a Superhero to scale growth.”
As we highlighted earlier, there is no shortcut or hack for growth. It takes time & a group of superstars from diverse backgrounds willing to grab new opportunities and make it happen. The Growth team comprises professionals from different disciplines, such as marketing, product, engineering, design, analytics, etc.
So, Why do you need a Growth Team?
To foster cross-functional collaboration & solve for alignment
To bring together stakeholders with similar OKRs
To help fulfil the North Star metric goals- core value
To make data-driven fast decisions and implementations
Now comes the “how” question! We now know that a company needs a growth team to function and drive growth rapidly, but is it really enough?
Finding your organisation’s core lever to growth is the key to a successful growth team & strategy. You need to understand the North Star Metric (Core value for growth) you are chasing for long-term success. Since we are here to solve for Growth, let’s start with an equation- Growth Equation. The deeper you dive into the various expressions, you will realise how different levers are impacting the North Star Metric.
Too complicated? Let’s break down everything with an example-
In a B2C company like Dunzo, If we are to drive a growth of approx. 100K to 1.5Million monthly orders in 13 months, the growth equation would look something like this:
Monthly orders = Total Users * Monthly orders/ Users
Here, Monthly Orders would be the North Star Metric- a core value that the company uses to focus on growth. Now, a quick look at this equation gives us an idea of the different levers affecting this metric.
Total Users - The sum of New, Retained & Resurrected Users (Core levers)
Channels from which New users are coming in- Organic, Paid & Referral (Sub levers)
Levers like Average sessions, Existing users for Retained & Resurrected users (Sub levers)
So, increasing or reducing any of these above core levers or sub levers can impact your metric. As a founder struggling to come up with a growth equation, this might help you give more clarity about what metrics you should be putting into it because this further becomes the basis of building your growth team.
“Understanding the core levers & sub levers is the basis of your growth hiring. If you hire people independent of these levers, then your growth team will most likely not work out. ”
A typical growth team productises decision-making and consists of key decision-makers from various fields at a small level. You need to look at your equation and understand who is the right fit for you.
Suppose we are to build a team based on a general framework. A typical growth team should have the following people-
This is not a one-size-fits-all process. Growth team composition can vary from organisation to organisation based on their function needs and scaling. If your growth metric includes sales, then you might bring sales into the team & the same applies to all other fields.
Summary: Whether you’re an enterprise company or a startup, you need to focus on building a growth team if your product has already hit the market. Start preparing your company’s growth equation and create a balanced team around these metrics, bridging the gap between Product, Marketing, and Engineering.
A Growth team can be a powerful asset in achieving various long-term and short-term goals by identifying, experimenting, and scaling successful new initiatives. It might have its own set of challenges, but hitting the right balance within teams can give excellent results in terms of sustainable growth.
To gain a better understanding of how to structure and operationalise a growth team in your organisation, stay tuned for the second part!
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