Is it always "move fastest," or do you plan around certain timely events? I can imagine how much this decision-making changes per project. So maybe tell us of a project you can explain in detail, of how you chose a special time 'when to execute' and why :)
I'm talking about the specifics of a growth strategy too, as most have a bunch of moving parts. How do you pin-point the best times for each part to go into motion? @DesignerDarius
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I'm going to focus on tech-enabled Startups with my response. A lot gets written about how to execute specific growth tactics. Generally they are in the form of paid and unpaid campaigns or on-page or in-app optimization of an activity. What I don't think gets enough attention is how to consider bigger picture implications before defining time-frames for what, when, how, to execute and why. Forgetting the bigger picture can have you 'moving fast' in a direction (aka busy) or worse, 'moving slow' or not at all in the right direction at the right time. If you want to just look at time-frames, skip to 'Agile Growth Hacking' below.
I start with a general mental model when thinking about growth that has three characteristics, then adapt from there:
1) Balancing financial and human resources available to do Growth experiments with founders even investors desires to achieve milestones, metrics, and validating hypothesis key to growing the business.
- I recommend a Lean Startup filter to chart 90-day planning cycles.
- steveblank.com/2015/05/06/build-measure-learn-throw-things-against-the-wall-and-see-if-they-work/
- leanstack.com/why-lean-canvas/
- Investors, if you have them, like metrics.
- tomtunguz.com/your-startups-10-most-important-metrics/
- a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/
2) Aligning Growth strategies with your Product Development team
- The Right Way To Ship Software
- firstround.com/review/the-right-way-to-ship-software/
- It's a 'Marketing Problem", The product is actually good – The Engineer's Myth
- bestengagingcommunities.com/2015/09/03/its-a-marketing-problem-the-product-is-actually-good-the-engineers-myth/
3) Agile Growth Hacking
- Weekly Sprints: 1-2 stand-ups and a rhythm of getting things done.
For example: Thursday planning for following week; Friday reporting; Monday standup for the week.
- Weekly reporting of new experiments that includes leading indicators like bounce rates and funnel metrics*
- Paid Experiments: between 2 days – 2 weeks
- Non-paid Experiments: between 2 weeks – 8 weeks
- On-page or in-App: between 1 week and up to 12 months if you're doing cohort analysis.
- blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-use-cohorts/
- andrewchen.co/the-easiest-spreadsheet-for-churn-mrr-and-cohort-analysis-guest-post/
- When an experiment is validated it gets moved into an ongoing activity until its usefulness has expired (ex. milestone achieved) or is trumped by a better tactic.
* search 'marketing funnel metrics' on Google
Any comments and suggestions welcome.
Mitch -- https://wiselike.com/mitchell-posada/
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