How to build a high-performing growth team | Adam Fishman (Patreon, Lyft, Imperfect Foods)

Fishman's competency model is meant to expose gaps across a team, not find one person who excels at everything. The hiring choice depends on the team's current needs. Discuss the skills the founder expects and be candid about strengths and areas still developing.

His execution bucket includes channel fluency, experimentation and productizing learnings. A practitioner should generate hypotheses, learn from them and turn that knowledge into product changes. Ask for examples of this progression, not only a list of experiments shipped.

The customer-knowledge bucket combines data fluency and instrumentation with user psychology and learning how to talk to customers. Growth work needs an understanding of the people using the product. A dashboard alone cannot supply all that understanding.

Growth strategy includes modeling growth loops, allocating capital and forecasting, and prioritizing a roadmap. Sequence the work in light of how the product acquires, retains and monetizes customers. Finance collaboration matters because both money and people limit what the team can test.

Communication and influence include strategic communication, team leadership and stakeholder management. Fishman stresses that experiments should connect to a larger bet. Growth and thoughtful product quality need not be opposing goals, but teams may need help seeing that connection.

Fishman sees onboarding as the first chance to deliver the promise made in marketing. When that promise and the product experience diverge, customers can be disappointed immediately. Use this moment to learn about users and help them get useful value, not simply shorten a form.

He argues that churn often occurs in early usage and that onboarding can help people form a habit. His reported improvements are examples from his work, not a predicted return for another product. This selected summary omits Patreon human-support revenue figures and the closing layoff discussion.