Learning Path: Growth Fundamentals

Who This Is For

You're a PM taking on growth responsibilities for the first time, a founder trying to understand why your product isn't growing, or a marketer transitioning into a growth PM role. This path covers the foundational frameworks for acquisition, activation, retention, and experimentation.

What You'll Learn

Understand the "physics" of growth and why some companies grow faster than others
Design acquisition strategies that match your product and market
Build activation flows that get users to their "aha moment" faster
Create retention loops that keep users engaged long-term
Run experiments that generate real learning (not just vanity metrics)
Build a growth model that predicts and guides your efforts

Time Commitment

Total Estimated Time: 18-25 hours
Recommended Pace: 3-4 hours/week over 6 weeks
Can Be Compressed: Yes, to 3-4 weeks for intensive study

Module 1: The Physics of Growth

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Understand why some products grow exponentially while others plateau
Identify your product's natural growth constraints
Map your existing growth loops (qualitative and quantitative)

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Brian Balfour	Growth frameworks	Growth loops compound; funnels don't
Andy Johns	Growth fundamentals	The foundational principles from FB, Twitter, Quora
Casey Winters	Growth strategy	How to think strategically about growth
Elena Verna	PLG and growth strategy	Growth is a system, not a tactic

Key Frameworks

Physics of Growth - Understand market, product, model, and channel constraints
Growth Loop Model - Map qualitative and quantitative growth loops
Three Engines of Growth - Viral, sticky, or paid: each has its own feedback loop

Exercises

Growth Audit: Map your product's current growth loops. Are they viral, content, paid, or sales-driven? Where do they break down?
Constraint Analysis: Identify the #1 constraint holding back your growth right now. Is it market size, product quality, business model, or channel efficiency?
Benchmark Research: Find 3-5 companies in your space. How did they grow? What can you learn from their trajectory?

Reflection Questions

What type of growth engine is your product naturally suited for? Why?
If you could only focus on one growth loop, which would have the highest leverage?
What's the difference between growth tactics and a growth strategy?

Module 2: Acquisition Strategies

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Choose between PLG, sales-led, and hybrid go-to-market motions
Build acquisition channels that compound over time
Distinguish between "rented" and "owned" distribution

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Elena Verna	PLG deep dive	PLG means product's job is to grow revenue
Merci Grace	Product-led growth at Slack	How Slack grew through the product
Eli Schwartz	Product-led SEO	SEO is a product problem, not marketing
Sean Ellis	Growth hacking secrets	Finding your growth lever

Key Frameworks

PLG Definition - Product-led growth means product's job is to grow revenue
Bottom-Up GTM Motion - Get ICs to love your product, then spread it
Earned vs Owned Channels - Prioritize channels you own over rented ones

Exercises

Channel Assessment: List all your current acquisition channels. For each, note: cost per acquisition, channel ownership (owned/rented), scalability potential.
PLG Audit: Does your product have a natural PLG motion? If yes, map the user journey from first touch to conversion. If no, why not?
Viral Coefficient Calculation: Calculate your product's current viral coefficient (invites sent × conversion rate). What would it take to get above 1.0?

Reflection Questions

Is your acquisition strategy building an asset or renting someone else's audience?
What would break if your top acquisition channel suddenly disappeared?
How does your acquisition strategy align with your product's natural strengths?

Module 3: Activation and Onboarding

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Define your product's activation metric (not just "aha moment")
Identify and remove friction from the early user experience
Design onboarding that creates habits, not just feature tours

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Lauryn Isford	Mastering onboarding	The art and science of getting users to value
Bangaly Kaba	Growth loops and metrics	Activation defines everything downstream
Nir Eyal	Focus and distraction	How habits form and break
Rahul Vohra	Superhuman's success	Designing for the "aha moment"

Key Frameworks

Opinionated Defaults - Make it hard to do wrong, easy to do right
Team-Based Activation - For B2B: teams forming habits, not individual users
Early User Experience Focus - Fix the first experience, not re-engagement

Exercises

Activation Metric Definition: Define (or refine) your product's activation metric. It should predict long-term retention.
Time-to-Value Analysis: Measure how long it takes new users to reach activation. What are the top 3 friction points?
Onboarding Teardown: Sign up for 3 competitor products. Document their onboarding flows. What do they do better than you?

Reflection Questions

What's the difference between "aha moment" and "activation"? Why does the distinction matter?
Are you optimizing for activation or just feature adoption?
How much of your onboarding is education vs. motivation vs. friction removal?

Module 4: Retention Deep Dive

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Build retention loops that bring users back naturally
Understand cohort analysis and how to interpret retention curves
Distinguish between resurrection (bad) and prevention (good)

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Sarah Tavel	Hierarchy of engagement	The three levels: growing, engaged, and accrued benefits
Brian Balfour	Retention frameworks	Retention is the foundation of all growth
Nir Eyal	Habit formation	The hook model for product engagement
Yuriy Timen	Subscription business growth	Retention in subscription products

Key Frameworks

60% Retention Rule - Free consumer products need 60% week-one retention
Engagement Loops - Three mechanisms: synthetic, organic, positioning
Remarkability Principle - Products so good people can't help but talk about them

Exercises

Cohort Analysis: Build a cohort retention analysis for your product. What does your retention curve look like at week 1, 4, 12?
Churn Interviews: Interview 5 recently churned users. What was the real reason they left?
Engagement Loop Design: Map your product's current engagement loops. Where are the weak points?

Reflection Questions

Is your retention curve flattening or continuing to decline? What does that tell you?
What would happen to your growth if you improved 30-day retention by 10%?
Are you investing more in acquisition or retention? Is that the right balance?

Module 5: Experimentation and Metrics

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Design experiments that generate real learning
Avoid common A/B testing pitfalls
Build a metrics hierarchy that focuses the team

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Ronny Kohavi	A/B testing guide	30-40% of "wins" show no long-term lift
Christopher Miller	A/B testing at scale	Lessons from Booking.com's experimentation culture
Laura Schaffer	A/B testing and selling to engineers	Making experimentation stick
Crystal Widjaja	Data-driven product	Building a data-informed culture

Key Frameworks

Long-Term Holdout Experiments - Monitor at 3, 6, 9, 12 months
Pre vs Post Measurement - When you can't get sample size, compare before/after
Absolute Numbers Over Conversion Rates - Rates can be gamed; absolutes can't

Exercises

Experiment Design: Design an A/B test for one activation improvement. Include hypothesis, metrics, sample size, and runtime.
Metrics Audit: List your team's current metrics. Are you measuring inputs or outputs? Leading or lagging?
Past Experiment Review: Review 3 experiments from the past 6 months. Did you measure long-term impact? What did you learn?

Reflection Questions

What's the difference between statistical significance and practical significance?
How do you avoid the trap of optimizing for a proxy metric that doesn't drive real value?
When is it appropriate to ship without A/B testing?

Module 6: Building Your Growth Model

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

Build a spreadsheet model that predicts growth
Identify the levers with the highest sensitivity
Use models to align the team and set goals

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Ben Williams	Product management craft	Building models that drive strategy
Sri Batchu	Scaling Ramp	Growth modeling at a high-growth company
Elena Verna	B2B growth deep dive	Modeling B2B growth
Adam Fishman	Building high-performing growth teams	How growth teams operate

Key Frameworks

Growth Model Building - Spreadsheet model to understand which levers matter
Compounding Growth Loops - Layer multiple engines for exponential results
Growth Model Evolution (18-Month Rule) - Layer new models every 18 months

Exercises

Basic Growth Model: Build a spreadsheet model for your product. Include acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue.
Sensitivity Analysis: Identify the top 3 levers in your model. What happens if each improves by 10%? 50%?
Forecast: Use your model to forecast 12 months out. What assumptions drive the biggest uncertainty?

Reflection Questions

What's the primary purpose of a growth model: prediction or alignment?
How often should you update your model? What triggers a refresh?
What's the most counterintuitive insight from your model?

Customization Notes

By Product Type

Consumer/B2C: Focus heavily on Modules 3 (activation) and 4 (retention). Viral and content loops often matter more.
B2B SaaS: Module 2 (acquisition) and Module 6 (modeling) are critical. Don't skip team-based activation.
Marketplace: Retention is about both sides. You may need to model supply and demand separately.

By Stage

Pre-PMF: Focus on retention first (Module 4). If users don't stick, acquisition won't matter.
Post-PMF, Pre-Scale: Modules 2 and 3 become critical. Find your repeatable acquisition motion.
Scale: Module 5 (experimentation) and 6 (modeling) enable optimization at scale.

Next Steps After Completion

Deep Dive on Pricing: Take the Pricing & Monetization path
Build Strategic Skills: Progress to Product Strategy
Interactive Learning: Run /learn retention or /learn experimentation for deeper exploration
Test Knowledge: Run /quiz growth to validate your understanding
Explore Frameworks: Run /frameworks growth to browse all 65+ growth frameworks