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74 articles in Growth & Experimentation
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Cohort Analysis: The Key to Understanding User Behavior Over Time
Madhavan explains how cohort analysis segments users by shared characteristics or time periods to reveal behavioral patterns hidden in aggregate data. The article walks through practical examples of retention cohorts, behavioral cohorts, and acquisition cohorts, demonstrating how each reveals different insights for product and growth teams.
Classic Articles·12 min read·Mar 15, 2021
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Unit Economics: The Foundation of Sustainable Growth
Andreessen Horowitz explains why unit economics, particularly LTV/CAC ratios and contribution margins, are the most critical metrics for evaluating business viability. The article provides frameworks for calculating unit economics across different business models and explains how investors use these metrics to distinguish sustainable growth from subsidized growth.
Classic Articles·10 min read·Jun 1, 2020
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page
Evidence-based guide to landing page design covering visual hierarchy, persuasion patterns, and conversion optimization. Covers the inverted pyramid of information, social proof placement, form design best practices, and mobile-first considerations. Includes before/after case studies showing how design changes improved conversion rates by 30-200%.
Smashing Magazine·12 min read·Apr 1, 2020
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
The Art of Mentoring: How to Be a Great Mentor and Find One
Identifies the qualities that distinguish exceptional mentors—candor, active listening, and the ability to challenge without discouraging. Provides practical advice for both mentors and mentees on structuring the relationship, setting expectations, and creating psychological safety for honest developmental conversations.
Harvard Business Review·10 min read·Jan 15, 2020
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
How to Build a Pitch Deck That Gets Funded
Sequoia Capital's legendary business plan template distills decades of venture capital experience into a concise framework covering purpose, problem, solution, market size, competition, and team. The guide emphasizes clarity and brevity, demonstrating why the best pitch decks tell a compelling narrative in 15-20 slides.
Classic Articles·8 min read·Jan 15, 2020
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Business Model Innovation: Patterns That Transform Industries
Osterwalder introduces a systematic methodology for testing business ideas before scaling, using experiments to reduce uncertainty about value propositions and business models. The framework provides a library of experiment types ranked by cost and evidence strength, enabling entrepreneurs to validate assumptions with minimum viable tests.
Strategyzer·13 min read·Nov 12, 2019
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
The Big Idea: The Age of Continuous Connection
Siggelkow and Terwiesch describe how always-on digital connectivity is transforming business models from episodic transactions to continuous relationships. They introduce four connected strategies that progressively deepen customer engagement, from respond-to-desire through automatic execution, fundamentally reshaping competitive advantage.
Harvard Business Review·16 min read·May 1, 2019
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself
How companies like Dropbox, Slack, and Zoom built products that drive their own adoption. Covers the PLG flywheel: deliver value before capturing it, invest in the self-serve experience, use data to find conversion moments, and design for virality. Includes practical frameworks for measuring and improving product-led growth metrics.
First Round Review·14 min read·Apr 1, 2019
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Atomic Habits: How Tiny Changes Produce Remarkable Results
Introduces the four laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying—as a practical system for building good habits and breaking bad ones. Clear argues that focusing on systems rather than goals produces compounding improvements over time.
Classic Articles·12 min read·Oct 16, 2018
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit
A step-by-step framework for measuring and optimizing product/market fit using the Sean Ellis test, user segmentation, and a systematic approach to building what users love.
Classic Articles·23 min read·Jun 1, 2018
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
SaaS Metrics 2.0: A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters
Skok provides the definitive guide to SaaS metrics, covering MRR, ARR, churn, LTV, CAC, and the benchmarks that indicate healthy SaaS businesses. The comprehensive framework helps both operators and investors evaluate SaaS companies using the metrics that actually predict long-term success and capital efficiency.
Classic Articles·22 min read·Feb 15, 2018
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
A/B Testing: A Complete Guide to Designing and Analyzing Experiments
Kohavi and Thomke explain how controlled online experiments (A/B tests) enable data-driven product decisions at scale. Covers experimental design, statistical significance, common pitfalls like peeking at results too early, and how companies like Microsoft and Booking.com run thousands of experiments annually.
Harvard Business Review·15 min read·Sep 1, 2017
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
A Practical Guide to A/B Testing
Gallo provides an accessible refresher on A/B testing fundamentals, covering hypothesis formulation, sample size calculation, statistical significance, and common pitfalls. The article bridges the gap between data science and business decision-making, helping managers understand when and how to use controlled experiments to optimize outcomes.
Harvard Business Review·9 min read·Jun 28, 2017
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Behind Every Great Product
Behind every great product there is someone who led the product team to combine technology and design to solve real customer problems in a way that meets the needs of the business.
Classic Articles·27 min read·Jun 1, 2017
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Company Needs a Post-Sale Strategy
Magids, Zorfas, and Leemon present research showing that emotionally connected customers are 52% more valuable than merely satisfied ones. The article introduces a lexicon of emotional motivators and demonstrates how companies can systematically identify, measure, and cultivate emotional connections to drive customer lifetime value.
Harvard Business Review·15 min read·Oct 1, 2016
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Networking Effectively: Building Professional Relationships That Last
Addresses why many professionals find networking distasteful and provides research-backed strategies to overcome that aversion. Shows how reframing networking as learning and mutual benefit—rather than self-promotion—transforms it from a dreaded chore into a natural extension of genuine curiosity.
Harvard Business Review·11 min read·May 1, 2016
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Transform the Economy
How platform businesses (Uber, Airbnb, Amazon) have upended traditional pipeline businesses. Platforms create value by facilitating exchanges between producers and consumers. Covers network effects, winner-take-all dynamics, platform governance, and the shift from resource control to resource orchestration. Essential reading in digital strategy and technology management courses.
Harvard Business Review·12 min read·Apr 1, 2016
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
Hoffman and Yeh introduce blitzscaling as the strategy of prioritizing speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty, deliberately accepting the chaos of hyper-growth to capture winner-take-all markets. The article examines when blitzscaling makes sense, the organizational challenges it creates, and how companies like LinkedIn and Airbnb applied it.
Harvard Business Review·15 min read·Apr 1, 2016
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
Competition Is for Losers
Peter Thiel argues that capitalism and competition are opposites: a capitalist accumulates capital, while under perfect competition all profits are competed away. The most successful businesses are monopolies that create unique value. Every great company solves a unique problem; if you're competing, you're already losing. From his Stanford lecture series that became Zero to One.
Classic Articles·10 min read·Sep 12, 2014
Full ArticleGrowth & Experimentation
The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea
How to validate business ideas through customer conversations without leading the witness. Key rules: talk about their life, not your idea. Ask about specifics in the past, not generics about the future. Talk less, listen more. Never ask 'would you use this?' (everyone says yes). Instead ask about their current behavior, pain points, and what they've already tried. Essential for lean startup methodology.
First Round Review·10 min read·Nov 1, 2013