Lean AI

Chapter 11. The Growth Stack

The growth stack is a framework that helps growth teams develop and evolve a user growth strategy for acquiring new customers. The stack can be applied at any stage during a product’s life cycle and to many different business models, although some layers and elements of the stack will be more relevant at different stages of the startup. The framework organizes the levers for growth by the key funnel stages (acquisition, engagement, retention, and monetization), helping growth practitioners consider everything they could do to drive growth of their mobile product at each stage, which in turn helps define focus areas and build a coherent strategy. The framework can use in-house or external platforms to support the growth team.

The Mobile Growth Stack, shown in Figure 11-1, was developed by Andy Carvell and Moritz Daan, based on their experience working with a range of businesses worldwide as mobile growth consultants at Phiture, which is a Berlin-based mobile growth consultancy.

Deciding what not to work on at each stage of growing a startup is as critical as choosing what to do; the stack is a framework to aid this strategic planning. The framework encourages consideration of all the included elements when devising a growth strategy, but it does not follow that all elements are necessary or equally valid for every business at every stage; quite the opposite. At its core, growth is driven through measurement and iterative experimentation, with an obsessive ...