Efficiency Is An Excuse To Not Do The Actual Work: How to Set Up, Hire and Scale a Growth Strategy and Team

Efficiency Is An Excuse To Not Do The Actual Work: How to Set Up, Hire and Scale a Growth Strategy and Team

Efficiency is often seen as a virtue in many aspects of life. We strive to optimize our processes, eliminate waste, and get things done as quickly and smoothly as possible. However, when it comes to personal goals and progress, efficiency can become an excuse to avoid doing the actual work.

In the world of engineering, there is a concept called pre-mature optimization, which refers to the tendency to focus on optimizing code before fully understanding the problem or requirements. This can lead to wasted time and effort, as the optimization may not even be necessary or effective. The same principle applies to personal goals. We often get caught up in finding the most efficient way to achieve our goals, instead of simply taking action and making progress.

"Done is better than perfect" is a mantra that many successful individuals live by. It emphasizes the importance of momentum and progress over perfection. It's better to complete a task or project, even if it's not perfect, than to endlessly strive for perfection and never actually accomplish anything. This mindset shift allows us to focus on moving forward and making tangible progress towards our goals.

Another important aspect of personal growth and progress is the role of morale. Often underestimated, morale plays a crucial role in maintaining motivation and momentum. When we feel discouraged or demotivated, it becomes difficult to take action and make progress. Building a positive and encouraging environment, whether it's through self-talk, surrounding ourselves with supportive people, or celebrating small wins along the way, can greatly enhance our ability to stay focused and make consistent progress.

Now, let's shift our focus to growth strategies and teams in a business context. The success of a company is not solely attributed to its growth team, but having a growth team in place early on can significantly accelerate the overall growth trajectory. Facebook is a prime example of this. The introduction of their growth team when they had around 50 million monthly active users played a crucial role in their rapid expansion to 2 billion monthly active users today.

However, it's important to note that hiring a full-fledged growth team should not be the first step. Before pouring significant resources into growth, it's essential to ensure that there are no fundamental issues with the product or service being offered. This is often referred to as the "leaky bucket" problem. Without addressing this issue, any growth efforts will be futile.

One key metric to focus on is long-term retention. It's important to benchmark your retention against companies in your specific vertical to determine whether your product and value proposition are improving. If newer cohorts are performing better than older cohorts in terms of retention, it indicates that you're moving in the right direction.

When building a growth team, experience is crucial. More than 90% of growth experts agree that prior growth experience is an important characteristic for the team lead to have. Interestingly, 60% of growth experts in interviews were former founders themselves. This highlights the value of entrepreneurial experience in driving growth.

Setting goals for the growth team is another critical aspect. It's important to set a goal that is challenging yet realistic. The most common advice from growth experts is to set a goal that is halfway between "Sandbagging" (setting a goal that is too easy) and "Too hard to achieve". This balance keeps the team motivated while pushing them to exceed expectations.

Identifying the right channels for growth is a crucial step. Most products find 1-2 relevant channels early on that work exceptionally well for them. Referrals are often cited as the top channel within the first year. Understanding your existing user behavior and leveraging it to identify potential growth channels can yield significant results.

To ensure consistent growth, it's vital to run experiments regularly. A company at scale typically runs one experiment per growth engineer per week. This highlights the importance of having a solid growth experiment dashboard from the early stages. Testing ideas that you wouldn't ship to everybody is not recommended. It's important to focus on experiments that have the potential to drive significant growth and impact.

In conclusion, efficiency can often become an excuse to avoid doing the actual work required for personal growth and progress. The mantra "Done is better than perfect" emphasizes the importance of momentum and progress. When it comes to scaling a growth strategy and team, hiring experienced individuals and setting realistic yet challenging goals are vital. Identifying relevant growth channels and running experiments consistently are key to achieving sustainable growth.

Actionable advice:

1. Focus on taking action and making progress rather than obsessing over efficiency. Done is better than perfect.
2. Build a positive and encouraging environment to maintain morale and motivation. Surround yourself with supportive people and celebrate small wins along the way.
3. When scaling a growth strategy and team, hire individuals with prior growth experience and set challenging yet realistic goals. Regularly run experiments to identify and optimize growth channels.

Remember, growth is not just a goal; it should be ingrained in the DNA of your company.