A lot of companies are now looking to adopt growth principles and make them part of their team's operating model.
But, making growth a success in your company isn't easy.
Well, on this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Yara Paoli, who is the co-founder of GrowthOS and has previously held growth leadership roles at Preply and Skyscanner.
We talk to Yara about:
- How Skyscanner decided to adopt growth when their business growth began to stall, and the impact it had on both the marketing and product teams.
- The initiatives the growth team implemented at Skyscanner, and how they helped to make the growth org a success.
- Why growth isn't a bunch of hacks and tricks and is much more like an operating system that Yara now teaches to companies.
Happy Growing!
Time Stamped Notes
[4:30] - Some of the challenges Skyscanner wanted to solve by transitioning to a growth culture was finding better ways to create sustainable growth and removing silo's that existed between teams - marketing, product, engineering. But, the biggest was their growth had started to flatten.
[6:35] - The transition to a growth org in Skyscanner meant the role of marketing changed substantially. Skyscanner created new definitions of marketing roles, along with documented best practices for growth that the team adopted.
[8:15] - The role of the product team didn't change much during the transition. The growth team helped the core product team to measure AARRR metrics and adopt growth principles. The growth team took ownership of features that could help with AARRR. The core product team previously owned these.
[10:50] - A significant change for marketing is they went from acquiring users, to introducing users to the core value of Skyscanner's product. They began hiring people onto the team who had a growth mindset, and they started recruiting for a variety of skills, marketing, engineering, data analysis, and even product managers.
[12:55] - The other change was the growth team had engineers, had access to designers and could make changes to the Skyscanner product.
[14:40] - Growth reported into the COO at Skyscanner
[16:20] - Yara talks about growth and how they made it successful within Skyscanner. They were clear on the problems a growth function was tasked to solve, the CEO & COO sponsored their work, they were transparent about their priorities with the rest of the company, and respected product managers from the product org transitioned across to join the growth function.
[20:00] - Yara talks about the initial success the growth team had at Skyscanner, helping the company to find sustainable channels for growth (users who would retain). They also built a product-market fit score that the entire company adopted.
[25:00] - Yara details what went into Skyscanner's product-market fit score. It was a mix of internal metrics like traffic, NPS, retention, and external research, as the size of the tourism market in a region.
[27:30] - Yara talks about how Skyscanner used the product-market fit score
[29:30] - Yara's new company teaches companies a GrowthOS. It helps them to make growth a core part of their DNA.
[32:50] - The essential part of growth is creating a product that meets the needs of your users.
[34:15] - Two tools Yara is creating to help companies with growth is a product-market fit tool, and a GrowthOS questionnaire to help companies access how well their adopting growth principles.
[35:30] - Yara talks about why she transitioned from an internal leadership role in growth to starting her consultancy that now teaches other companies a GrowthOS.
– Yara on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn / Medium
– Scott on Twitter / Linked / Medium
