Running Lean, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Find Your Growth Rocket

Once you start to see predictable repeatability in your happy customer loop—that is, when your initial customer segments continue to demonstrate regular use of the product and are making measurable progress toward their desired outcomes, as evidenced by customer check-in interviews, dashboards, etc.—it’s time to shift some of your focus toward growth. By “growth,” I mean building a scalable channel or a growth rocket.

Up until now, you have relied on fairly high-touch (nonscalable) interactions for acquisition and value delivery in order to prioritize speed of learning over scalability. But in order to continue to deliver on your 90-day traction model goals, which should be getting increasingly more challenging, you need to start searching for more scalable paths to customers. While you may have outlined a few possible scalable channel options on your Lean Canvas, you need to identify which ones to double down on in order to get you to product/market fit and beyond.

Identifying your scalable channel or growth rocket can be a multicycle process, which is why I recommend starting early. This chapter outlines the high-level process for doing so.

The Altverse Team Learns About Growth Rockets

At the end of their latest 90-day cycle review, after Steve aligns the team on the next cycle’s goal, assumptions, and key constraint, Mary makes the following suggestion. “In addition to focusing on your constraint—continuing to drive retention—during the ...