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growth-product-manager skill

This skill provides growth product guidance for SaaS, helping you design activation loops, retention systems, and PLG strategies that compound over time.

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---
name: growth-product-manager
description: Expert growth product management guidance for SaaS applications. Use when designing growth loops, optimizing activation and onboarding, building retention systems, creating referral mechanics, running growth experiments, defining north star metrics, or implementing PLG strategies. Covers the full growth lifecycle from acquisition to monetization.
---

# Growth Product Manager

Strategic growth product management expertise for SaaS companies — from growth loops and activation to retention, monetization, and PLG strategies.

## Philosophy

Growth isn't about hacks. It's about building **compounding systems** that create sustainable, defensible growth.

The best growth product strategies:
1. **Systems over tactics** — Growth loops compound; growth hacks don't
2. **Activation is everything** — If users don't activate, nothing else matters
3. **Retention is growth** — Churn kills; retained users compound
4. **Measure what matters** — One north star metric, ruthlessly tracked

## How This Skill Works

When invoked, apply the guidelines in `rules/` organized by:

- `loops-*` — Growth loops, flywheels, viral mechanics
- `activation-*` — First-time user experience, onboarding, time-to-value
- `retention-*` — Engagement, habit formation, churn prevention
- `monetization-*` — Pricing, upgrades, expansion revenue
- `experimentation-*` — Growth experiments, A/B testing, metrics
- `plg-*` — Product-led growth strategies and patterns

## Core Frameworks

### Growth Loop Types

| Loop Type | Mechanism | Example | Key Metric |
|-----------|-----------|---------|------------|
| **Viral** | Users invite users | Dropbox, Calendly | K-factor |
| **Content** | Users create discoverable content | Notion templates, Figma Community | Indexed pages |
| **Paid** | Revenue funds acquisition | Any SaaS with paid ads | CAC payback |
| **Sales** | Revenue funds sales team | Enterprise SaaS | ACV / CAC |
| **SEO** | Content ranks, drives traffic | HubSpot, Zapier | Organic traffic |

### The Growth Equation

```
Growth = Acquisition × Activation × Retention × Monetization × Referral

Each multiplier matters:
- 10% improvement across 5 areas = 61% total improvement
- 50% drop in one area = 50% total drop
```

### The AARRR Funnel (Pirate Metrics)

```
    ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │              ACQUISITION                     │
    │         (How do users find us?)             │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              ACTIVATION                      │
    │       (Do users have a great first          │
    │              experience?)                    │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              RETENTION                       │
    │         (Do users come back?)               │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              REVENUE                         │
    │        (Do users pay us money?)             │
    ├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │              REFERRAL                        │
    │      (Do users tell others about us?)       │
    └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### PLG Motion Types

| Motion | Best For | Key Lever |
|--------|----------|-----------|
| **Free Trial** | Complex products, considered purchases | Trial conversion rate |
| **Freemium** | Simple products, network effects | Free → paid conversion |
| **Open Source** | Developer tools, infrastructure | Community adoption |
| **Reverse Trial** | High-value products, sticky usage | Premium feature discovery |
| **Usage-Based** | Variable consumption, API products | Usage expansion |

### North Star Metric Framework

```
North Star Metric
       │
       ├── Measures value delivered to customers
       │
       ├── Leading indicator of revenue
       │
       ├── Reflects product strategy
       │
       └── Actionable by product team

Examples:
- Slack: Daily Active Users sending messages
- Airbnb: Nights booked
- Amplitude: Weekly Learning Users
- Figma: Weekly Active Editors
```

## Growth Model Overview

| Stage | Focus | Metrics | Experiments |
|-------|-------|---------|-------------|
| **Early (0-$1M ARR)** | Activation, retention | Activation rate, D7 retention | 5-10/quarter |
| **Growth ($1M-$10M)** | Loops, monetization | Growth rate, payback period | 20-50/quarter |
| **Scale ($10M+)** | Efficiency, expansion | Net revenue retention, LTV/CAC | 50-100/quarter |

## Anti-Patterns

- **Optimizing acquisition before activation** — Filling a leaky bucket
- **Vanity metrics** — MAU without engagement is meaningless
- **Copy-paste growth tactics** — What worked for Dropbox won't work for you
- **Growth team in a silo** — Growth is everyone's job
- **Experimentation theater** — Running tests without statistical rigor
- **Ignoring retention** — New users are 5-25x more expensive than retained ones
- **Feature bloat over activation** — Building more vs ensuring adoption

Overview

This skill delivers expert growth product management guidance tailored to SaaS applications. It focuses on designing compounding growth systems across acquisition, activation, retention, monetization, and referral. Use it for practical frameworks, experiments, and playbook-level recommendations that scale product-led growth.

How this skill works

When invoked, the skill applies structured frameworks for growth loops, activation flows, retention systems, monetization patterns, experimentation design, and PLG motions. It inspects the product lifecycle stage and recommends prioritized levers, metrics, and concrete experiments. Outputs include target north star candidates, loop designs, onboarding improvements, A/B test outlines, and monetization tactics tailored to your ARR stage.

When to use it

Design or iterate growth loops and viral mechanics
Optimize first-time user activation and onboarding
Build retention and habit-forming systems
Plan pricing, packaging, and expansion strategies
Run rigorous growth experiments and A/B tests
Define or validate a north star metric for the product

Best practices

Prioritize systems over hacks: build repeatable loops that compound rather than chase one-off wins
Focus on activation first: stop acquisition until activation and early retention are solved
Measure one clear north star metric and a small set of supporting metrics
Treat retention as the primary growth lever; model cohort behavior and run retention-targeted experiments
Run high-quality experiments: pre-register hypotheses, define success criteria, and ensure statistical rigor
Avoid vanity metrics and feature bloat; instrument meaningful engagement signals

Example use cases

Design a viral invite loop and estimate K-factor to forecast organic growth
Redesign onboarding to reduce time-to-value and improve D7 activation rate
Create a referral program with incentive alignment and measurable lift tests
Define a north star metric for a freemium SaaS and map supporting metrics to revenue
Set up an experimentation roadmap with 20 tests/quarter for a $2M ARR product

FAQ

What north star should I pick?

Pick a metric that best captures delivered customer value and predicts revenue—e.g., weekly active users doing the core action, seats interacting, or consumable units (nights booked, messages sent). Validate it against churn and expansion signals.

How do I prioritize growth experiments?

Score experiments by expected impact × confidence ÷ effort, prioritize high-impact, high-confidence, low-effort tests, and maintain a mix of activation, retention, and monetization experiments.