Let's say you want to do this "Growth" thing.

When creating a new "function" in an organization the initial reaction is to hire a "Head of..."

In the case of "Growth" there are 2 problems associated with this. The fundamental misunderstanding of what "Growth" is as a function. It's NOT just acquisition.

Hiring a growth department head without yet having full accountability set up in an organization is a recipe for disaster.

• Cultural overload: There is an effect of overload for people in an organization with newer concepts. Growth is one of those. If neither your engineers, designers or PM’s understand what you want from them it’s just a fancy title for something murky.

• You can do “Growth” without labeling it “Growth”. Many motions out of a growth mindset are beneficial to your company either way and fit fantastically on other distribution frameworks like product-led growth. For both, you need excellent data tracking and a behavioral understanding of what your customers do and why. What “Success” means to them,

I made this mistake when advising another Series A about a year ago and suggested hiring a senior growth leader right away.

Luckily we never went fully through with it as I noticed my mistake later. I over-indexed my experience with companies that already were extremely outcome-focused. These also had already product market fit.

They already had the conditions in place to bring in "Growth" as a separate function. This was not the case for the account I ill-advised.

Should have listened to my more experienced peers here on LinkedIn but now I'm a bit less stupid and less embarrassed.

I tried to condense the way I look at it now in this flow chart. There are fantastic more in-depth resources out there in detail but this might prevent a costly mistake.

Just because you know how something works, does not mean you know how to implement it in an existing organization.

Babysteps.

#growth #consulting