What do first time growth product managers get wrong, and how do you recommend avoiding those traps?

Avoid artificial growth! A good growth PM or a good PM, in general, will only look for sustainable growth opportunities. There was this one time at Yahoo when a bad growth PM said to me, "let's grow video consumption by auto-playing every video on every page." This is a horrible idea because you will grow video consumption at the expense of user satisfaction, and time spent. Doing these types of trade-offs is NOT "growing," it's "trading". A good growth PM would say "hmm let's find real opportun ...Read More

The key mistake new PMs make is focusing on delivering over impact.  It is inevitable that PMs hit a point where the backlog runs dry. The instinct in this moment is to panic to get something ready for dev, push forward the first idea that jumps to mind. The problem is this reduces the level of rigor, making it likely the work will not have sufficient reach or impact to matter. It also increases execution risk, increasing the likelihood specs are incomplete and engineering has to work with parti ...Read More

The number one thing first time growth PMs get wrong is only focusing on wins and not involving their team. When creating a Growth squad, your number one enemy isn't not making the number bigger, it's xfn attrition. Designers and engineers who are new to Growth have historically been rewarded for releasing new features. When joining a Growth team, you have to be able to prepare them to launch something and then delete it. This is very new behavior and goes against what they are used to doing.  S ...Read More

Expecting glory right off the gate. The thrill of launching a first test is huge. The disappointment from reality vs. expectations might be huger. Any number of things may go wrong in the beginning. Something may be off with the test setup (dang, that missed attribute), the test might fail gloriously (think big red stat sig negative), the test may be a disappointing win (whoaaa….wait, that’s it? I was hoping 10X impact…), or something totally out of one’s control derails the test (sorry, data ou ...Read More

This is a tricky question. Lots of program managers struggle with prioritization and impact analysis. They also struggle to get alignment on the prioritization across among the stakeholders. Some of the best program managers are good at understanding customer cohorts, their behavior on the application, and what they like & dislike. Not understanding customer behavior leads to bad (or gut-based) product decisions. Almost always, it comes down to first principles. Good product managers invest ...Read More

The biggest mistake I see is PM thinking they should just apply frameworks, and that they "know" what to do, without having the legitimacy they need. Product management, in which I see growth PM as a sub-category, is an art, not a science. And like every art it takes time to craft and master it. Product management is a late rewarding career, you will see the impact you are making after 10-15-20 years. It happens by working with other people, by creating relationships. Without relationships and t ...Read More