 Hi everyone, my name is Debbie and today I'm super excited to be here with product school I'm sharing my experience driving product growth I will share from my experience as a founder and then now I'm working within multinational to drive product growth Both internally and externally Okay, let's take a step backwards and just give you a bit of framework around me and then where I'm coming from and where My journey has been so far I would always say that my core focus has always been around business and community I'm so very passionate about that intersection between businesses and the community or societies in which they operate and now the reason why that is is I genuinely feel like businesses cannot thrive if they do not have a good relationship with the community or society that they operate in And then the same thing for the society and they need functioning businesses They need businesses that are growing a skill for them to be able to actually grow and so based off that my entire Journey all through product has luckily found me working within organizations or starting organizations that we're very focused on that intersection between businesses and community and so when I think about product growth I always think about product growth from a perspective of how are you benefiting the customers? How are you benefiting the users? How much value are you providing to them? And then once the value is very clear like everything product management It's very easy for you to get more customers. It's very easy for you to see your your product to grow It's very easy for you to just see a natural referral process happening Because people are getting a lot of value from your product and so based off that I have a PhD in corporate social responsibility I started a if it's that up called Afro hub Afro hub market is pretty much a Marketplace for black owned businesses to gain access to a wider audience of consumers To also help them thrive and grow so we started with a lot of mom-and-pop shops And then we helped them to have an online presence and helped them to release kill beyond their immediate environment and move on to a global space Also, I worked with Yammer specifically well now Microsoft Viva engage and beyond my product role as the product manager for the community space I was very involved in the product growth internally So just driving internal adoption of Yammer or Microsoft Viva engage within the organization itself And then now I work with AWS IQ on a product that is helping businesses to thrive By moving them into the cloud and providing the resources and experts that they can Gain from a gain value from Fun fact, I've lived and worked on three different continents. So I'm originally from Nigeria But then I did most of my schooling in Dublin Ireland as well as Scotland Aberdeen And so I lived there. I worked there and now I am in North America So lived and worked in Canada US as well Okay, now let's go on to the fun facts here So in terms of roadmap, there's just three major things that I'm going to talk about on this call on this conversation today The first thing is just understanding what data-driven growth is Product growth is is very interesting because there's no one that starts a business or starts a product or builds a product That is not thinking about skill that is not thinking about beauty beyond your immediate reach But then one thing is oh, I want to grow my business and then the other thing is I want to grow my product Based on data, I want to grow my product based on what customers want And so I'm just going to touch up around I'm touch a little bit around what data-driven growth is Then moving forward, I will provide a framework the typical framework that we know the a are our framework But I'm going to apply it specifically to product growth and helping us think about it from the angle And then finally I will tell you us about product growth Sorry, I'm going to talk about product the product manager and how the product manager's role is very different when it comes to a growth PM Compared to a traditional PM and how they have to leverage Partnerships and ecosystems to build. Okay. All right. So I think we can go into quick definitions So when we think about product growth The key thing that we're really looking at is what are the strategies that you as a product manager have kept in place? Or what are the tactics that you have as a product manager have kept in place that is aimed at successfully Sustainably increasing your user base. So I have underlined Sustainably here because I feel like a lot of times when we think about product growth We just think oh, I want my user base to increase I want engagement to increase today. I want my revenue to increase today But that's all good and great, but it needs to be sustainable So you don't want to turn x today if when you turn x today in the next few weeks It goes back to where it was in the past. So product growth is sustainable It's it's it moves in a in a sequence that has to continuously grow If your business grows for a short period and it stops growing If your product grows for a short period and stops growing then you're missing out on something now Moving on to the next layer of this is data-driven growth So it's one thing to grow based off, you know Your ideas based off your thoughts as a product manager because we're usually very opinionated But then there's another aspect of growth which is buy data and everything product management ideally should be buy data But when I really say data-driven growth I'm saying how are you leveraging the knowledge that you have about your consumers into your growth strategy? How are you getting data? So are you speaking to your customers directly? Are you having conversations with them? Are you having focus groups? Are you sending out surveys? Are you putting in metrics within your product itself to measure users engagement and to measure what they want and what they're interested in And then based off their needs Are you then adding those things as features to grow your business? And so the growth that is sustainable is when it is customer centric because that means that whatever your Building is based off your understanding of what your customers want And so it's easier for you to get them to be engaged So if you're building a feature for example, you're not building a feature because oh every other business that is doing Something similar is doing this or every other product that is in our same Competitive market is doing this feature. No, you're building the feature because customers actually want that And so when you do it that way you realize that they are more engaged So if you've read the book the book hooked you see that your engaged user happens Because you are actually fulfilling the needs that they want and so you have to you put in less work You're really getting them to move on to the next day I'm gonna think about this from an application perspective So in my current in my experience when I worked at Afro hub when I said at Afro hub We started technically as a business directory So what we wanted to do at the initial stage was just create this space where anyone that is looking for a black-owned business In Vancouver, Canada could easily just go onto this website or these database and then see the different businesses in the different Industries and then patronize them But then when we started speaking to customers more when customers will come on to our website Realize that, you know, we had a lot of pop-ups. We had a lot of Like two boxes where they could give feedbacks or feedback loops So we got a lot of feedback from customers that they wanted to not just find out about these businesses But they wanted to actually purchase the products from this business is from one central space And so for us, it was just a no-brainer that okay So now we've ready scale already grown in the sense that customers know about our application They know about our database But now what customers want to move to the next level is for us to Ensure that the product of this business is I in one space for them And so based off that we're able to launch the marketplace because it was the need of the customers We didn't have to do so much in getting them to actually use the product It was easy for them to use our product. It was great and from the initiative I think from the first three first three months already got our target Activation numbers, which is really great because again, we had built a product to that day wanted So with this understanding in the next few slides, I'm gonna think make us think about Product growth from the key different frameworks that would actually help Okay, so today we're gonna use the pirate metrics which everyone uses you think about this metric from every aspect of a product Manages live where we're thinking it was the acquisition activation retention referral revenue But today I want to apply this more from a growth perspective It's very important first to do it that depends on the stage that you are as a business depends on the stage You are as a product different aspects of this framework could be more important to you And so starting with the first one acquisition It's also important first to know that when we think about growth Growth can happen from two different core types of users It could happen from a new users perspective So new to your product never used your product before or never actually went going on to the next stage With your product and it could also happen from a repeat business a repeat buyer perspective But in the acquisition stage we're looking more at the new users angle in the sense of how do you acquire new users? Where are you putting where your placements? What are you doing in terms of campaigns in terms of marketing in terms of? Conversations sales etc. I know when we think about product growth We always assume that all those other things do not matter But in acquisition they do in product growth even if it's product-led growth Acquisition still involves some level of marketing It doesn't have to be your typical marketing your that everyone uses But there's some level of outreach that needs to happen for new users to actually come to your product The next aspect we look at is the activation and so with activation where it is saying now this people have come into your product now This potential users have come into your product. How do we get them to make their first meaningful action within the product? How do you get them from visitors to requesters? How do you get them from visitors to buyers? How do you get them from visitors to actually putting things into their cart? Within your product for them to move on to the next stage in the funnel and then the next part is retention So we're retention very simple, you know, they've come in you've acquired them They've started playing around with your product. They made a purchase. Wow your first purchase amazing But then how do you encourage them to come back to become return users? Because it's usually cheaper to have a return user Then for you to acquire new users because return users already have an understanding of your product They already understand your value probe They already understand the benefits that you give to them and they have already used your product And so it's usually easier or cheaper for you to get them to come back again But you have to have certain things in place. You have to have certain features in place to encourage this behavior from the users And then there's referral and then revenue All of these are very important when we think about growth because you are as a business or as a product Am I did you're probably trying to make money or make some sort of revenue? Which is important for you to see you are growing as a business. Okay Okay, so that's how the first one acquisition acquisition is the first stage when it comes to growth the end Remember, this is targeting new users. So the key question you have to be asking yourself is how can I put myself in such a place? How can I put my product in such a place that it is attracting and converting users? So these are users that most likely do not have an idea what your product is They don't have enough information about what your product is So anything any messaging that you have to give to them at this early stage in the funnel needs to be very attractive It needs to really touch on your value proposition It must really talk about the needs that they have and then giving them enough incentive or enough information to actually get them to move on to the next stage in funnel Acquisition is so important be especially even from a startup perspective, right? So I think about this from an Afro hop perspective when we started We were really just all up in the faces of the businesses and the consumers that we wanted So from the business perspective remember to two-sided market from the business perspective, you know, we're going to trade fears We're having one-on-one conversations. We're going to anywhere businesses are anywhere black owned businesses are where they're Explaining to them the benefit of coming on to an online marketplace We're explaining to them all the benefits of going online the value that they would get from you know Moving from where they are right now to joining our application And so by being very present and they're not just being present anywhere But being present with the right message we're able to acquire these businesses onto our application And then from the business from the consumers perspective, it's exactly the same thing So a consumer needs to understand what exactly am I going to benefit from shopping online? I'm not just online shopping from your own application And so that means that our word in our you know our home page the words on our home page Needed to showcase the value that we're given to these businesses in our ads in our email marketing You know people have such short attention span So our email marketing means that it needed to be concise needed to be clear The value prop needed to shout out for us to get this users to actually click on the emails that they saw The same thing whenever we placed, you know ads in let's say LinkedIn or we did the display art or where you know We did SEOs we needed to make sure that our value prop was very clear because we wanted to get them from our witness So I know about this product I know about this product that can help me to access a wider range of black owned businesses But beyond that how exactly am I going to what value am I going to get from this? And so we needed to make sure that it was very clear So when you think about acquisition always think about it from an angle of how can I make sure that from the first interaction that my user has Or my potential user has they really understand the value probe They really understand the benefits that they would get from coming on to my product Okay. All right next part is activation. So you've gotten this users Amazing, you know, they've come on to your home page Amazing, how can you ensure that they stay? How can you ensure that they stay a long enough to actually take the next step? So they become active users. So visiting is great, but beyond visiting How can I get them to move on to the next stage in the funnel for us at Afro hub, right? Moving on to the next stage in the funnel pretty much meant browsing the catalog It meant engaging with all products on our application It meant putting things into your cart and not abandoning the cart And so activation is also just as important as acquisition Because you don't want to spend so much money and then marketing is quite expensive You don't want to spend so much money marketing your product and then when they come on to your product They don't feel the need users don't feel the urge. You don't feel the urgency. They don't feel the desire So actually move ahead with the next step on your product. And so with activation, you know things that we use was Personalization so everybody wants to feel like when they come on to your product Everything is targeting them as an individual. I want to see my name or if for example your product is let's say a community or Yes, let's say community. I want to join and feel like this actually is related to me I want to see my interest I want to see things that are passion and passionate about when I join your product or when I start using your product So using things like personalization Educational content and showing that the onboarding process is very smooth Ensuring that users know what to do when they get on to your product is very important If you want to move them for the next to next stage of the funnel All right, then yay amazing, you know for us in Afro hub We had gotten this users to come on to our application. They had not just come on to the application They have browsed through our catalogs after browsing through our catalogs They had kept things into their cart, which is amazing. That is in the acquisition stage. They are kept things into their cart Beyond putting things in their cart. They had actually paid and then Giving us some money. So we're getting some revenue from this users But that is all great and nice if this users do not come back a second time We have lost a huge chunk of users and so with retention What we're really saying is how many of your customers are coming back? Remember earlier on we talked about growth And I said growth can happen from two angles growth can happen from the new users perspective But at the same time a huge component of growth is also repeat business And so with retention we're now looking at those customers that have gone through the first stages And now are coming back to your product and this I think really retention is really where a huge portion of product Management comes into play because these users already have engaged with your product. So they already understand your value prop So the next thing now is beyond the basic value prop What else can your product offer that makes it's important for them to actually stay back? What else does your product offer that makes it important for them to leave their your competitors and stay with your product? And so this aspect of retention is where I believe Experimentation is really important. So with experimentation. We're really saying all right. You've come on to our application You know with Afro for example, you've come on to our application You've seen the benefit of shopping with us. How else can we improve this? Maybe if we did not start with the catalogue at the top left We provided some content about you know educational content about these businesses We showcased these businesses beyond the actual products that they have if we provided that information Will that help you to you know always come back afterwards. Um, so we experimentation You know, I believe that we experimentation It's a very cheap and fast way for you to learn what extra value, you know Consumers would want what did I value their product can offer to your business to your to your customers? And so Retention really gives us the opportunity for continuous improvement. So this person has come back the first come to our application The first time they've come back the second time. How else can we keep providing them with opportunities? How else can we provide them with value? What else can we do to make sure that they always return? The good part about retention is retention is way cheaper than getting new users with new users Yeah, again, like I said earlier, you're buying this new users quote-unquote by putting yourself in so many other places There's a lot of interactions that you have to do to get them to really believe that there's a value in your product But with retention, you know, these are users that already got in some value from your product So it's easier for you to just tap back into that value and increase it And so with retention, you're really looking at how can I engage my customers? And then a good part of this is always by rewarding loyalty From an Afro ops perspective What we really did to grow retention rates was really by providing some sort of reward for return buyers So you would for example recently, I just know did this huge buy from Sephora because as a member that has bought from Sephora over a period of time They would give you a certain percentage during their sale And so you will have extra money to buy more because you think that you're getting a lot of value And so we did very same a very similar tactic with Afro hub, right? Where we really just gave return users more value than initial buyers So for example by your second purchase, you get 50% off by your third purchase You get free delivery by your first purchase You have this and you have that and so adding all of these extra loyalty rewards or rewards to the consumers Thought process just helps them to stay more attached with your product and helps them to feel like I want to come back Because I'm getting more value, right? The next step is referral. So think about this from the funnel again at the beginning stage this consumers have Gotting knowledge about your business. They've seen your value prop. They've come on to your product They have made a purchase Afro, for example, they had made a purchase I'm dead come back and you know bought a second time or bought a third time And then the next part when you want to grow your business is how can you get this users to actually tell their friends? tell their families tell other people about the product that you have and referral becomes really important because Compared to you buying or trying to get new users with referral You are actually getting people that are personalizing the messaging around your business So when I'm talking to my friends about a product that I really really enjoyed I Really ship it in such a way that it fits into their own use case and that is the advantage of referral Referral encourages your retained users to introduce your products to new potential users You're leveraging your users as promoters to accelerate growth for your own business And it creates a very valuable feedback loop So what really happens we refer all is now you can hear back directly from your customers And from the people like if no one is referring your product Maybe that's a problem if I now stop here is in the revenue So from the revenue perspective we're really saying that how can we ensure that we've kept transparent pricing and monetization? Strategies that will help these customers and consumers to stick to our product to still see the value and then Retain or come back again become repeat businesses and even get to the stage of putting our referrals or Telling their friends and families and other people about our product from an Afro perspective You know, we really use the freemium process when it comes to our revenue especially from the business's perspective So for the businesses on our application at the initial stage You know, we told them that hey we wanted to just try this model that we've created We've created this business that can help you access a wider range of customers a wider audience In the first month try it and see you're not going to pay any fees to be on our application It's completely free for you But by the second month depends on, you know The amount of business that you're bringing in you're going to fall into either of the three tiers that we had Where you know for a particular tier is for low No, no value low volume businesses for another CS for middle volume and then finally for, you know The big the big volume businesses and so with this with this model, you know The businesses were able to try first see value based on value decide Which of the different tiers that they wanted to be a part of and then that gave us revenue But at the same time it also gave them a reason to keep staying on our product So think about it from a revenue angle, you know You have to make sure that your product is strong enough and sometimes businesses or customers Do not see how strong your product is so they actually try it and that's why you hear a lot of businesses having You know value based pricing where you have the free for a while And then if you don't want ads for example to Spotify or apple You know, if you don't want if you don't want ads or even youtube you don't want ads and you pay for a certain level Which is the next step All right So moving on I want to now tie all of these things together and think about it again from an Afrohub's perspective For us acquisition really just meant, you know paid ad campaigns So we're you know linked in we were in um, we're on different websites You know, we did SEOs where we are trade fairs We even freemium to come into acquisition parts You know, we really dangled in front of customers the idea that you can Try our product and use it for a period of time And after a while you can determine if you've gotten any value from it And so where we acquire customers just using some of this methods moving forward the next part was activation So now they know about Afrohub But then we needed to make sure that they really felt like they were getting value from the product And so that meant that the onboarding experience and the onboarding system was very good and very strong For both the businesses and the individuals on the application to get both of them to actually engage So we needed to make sure that it was easy for a customer for example that has come to Afrohub To be able to put things into their cart beyond putting things into your cart Wanted to make sure that it was easy for you to go ahead to the next step of payment We needed to make sure that it was easy for you to go all the way to you know Finalizing your your your order and getting it shipped to you Um, and then also trying all of this back to a personalized experience You know when people feel like the product is really targeted to them. Thank you for AI ML You know, they really are they really find more value because they don't feel like they're just a face They feel like this is really really beautiful me So for us activation really was just creating a personalized experience Creating a strong onboarding system that was very seamless and could get customers from Visits all the way to payments in very quick steps. Um, the next part was retention So you've paid the first time and they will want you to keep coming back We don't want you to just leave after a period of time And so we retention and creating things like reward cards creating things like discounts So that when they come the second time, it's cheaper. There's no shipping costs There are other things that you can do that can help them to really really get enough value from the product itself And then just engagement. So gamification You know giving points so for every time that you buy one extra product you get a setting point That just kept them coming back kept them returning feeling like there was more value every single time Beyond that, you know, I mentioned experimentation earlier on just experimenting Adding more value to our products working around the UX making sure that every single time that a customer comes back They feel like your product is better than the last time that they were there And they're just creating this very little experience is think about this It's always a two-way door most times. It's a two-way door when it comes to retention Um, I want you to keep coming back So I'm going to make changes as quick as possible to fit your needs at every given time So that you are staying on the application and you are not going away The next part is referral. So again referral is a very cheap way to to get new customers So giving customers the opportunity to tell authors tell their friends tell their family About your product is we did through referral bonuses, you know, we made sure that reviews were a big part of our product The same thing also just doing with, you know, customer success stories So what are the benefits that you've got in and then saying this over and over again and letting people really see that there is Social proof. Yeah, that's the word So social proof just making sure that others can see that there's a benefit from using your product And then getting them to come back over and over again And then for us revenue was revenue per customer Which is based of how much they paid in extra for the products that they were buying from application From the business's perspective, it was also the fee that we're getting from them for using our application Now before we end this it's also important for us to know that when we think about growth pm A huge part of a growth pm's role is actually partnerships Compared to your traditional pm that, you know, most times you're working with mostly just engineers and your designers and user research A growth pm skill set goes beyond that for a growth pm. You have to understand marketing Marketing lingo. You have to understand sales lingo. You have to understand customer success functions You have to understand seos. You have to understand Clicks, you know, you have to start paid ads all of these things are very important because you are working with sometimes Working with newer users and to get newer users in the acquisition aspect You need to understand how to get those users Also, um, the growth pm does a lot of work that is outside They are all in terms of they they work higher up So they are more involved in business goals If you're trying to improve your product engagement by 10 percent Or if you're trying to grow your user base by 10 percent A lot of times that is tied back to whatever your org's goal or your organization's goal or main body goal is Because you have to make sure that they align and so think about it from like my own angle Um, you know within afro hub within aws within yammer microsoft I did a lot of go-to-market strategies Yes, as a product manager you do go-to-market strategies, but this one you I'm creating call for growth market strategies Um, you know creating adoption strategies creating templates to help other businesses or help users to really use and understand your product So as a growth pm really working on, um, You know really defining growth within an organization or within a particular product A huge part of your work is actually in the market aspect compared to the actual product aspect All right, so just a quick summary of everything we've talked about over the last few minutes Um product growth only happens when you understand your customer needs So you need to make sure that you're you're providing value And the only way you can provide value is by knowing what your customers are looking for Um at every time you want to be in tune with your customers You cannot be a growth pm creating a product that is engaging if your customers do not Feel like they can benefit from it. You cannot be a growth pm if your customers You're not talking to your customers You can't create a growth pm by just ideating within yourself on what customers want They need to engage and for them to engage you must know what exactly they want you need to be in tune with their needs Um, the pirate framework is really great when you think about measuring and optimizing growth It's really great for every aspect of product management But from a good perspective It just serves as a core metric for you to really look at in creating a product that everybody loves Um experimentation. I always turn experimentation always turn two-way doors. Um, they move things faster Experimentation helps you to move quickly without wasting time when it comes to growth because of how the market is And how a user needs change over a period of time you want to try to move as quickly as possible So you need to embrace experimentation and when you can experiment just try it if it doesn't work You can roll back. Um, as long as you know, you've created the right guidelines. I've created the right processes there Again, you know for you to retain your customers You need to invest in continuous improvements Customers should not come to your website or your application over and over again and not feel like they're getting new value So you have to always think about it from how can I improve my product in such a way that I would get customers to come back and um, yeah, so this is this is really it You remember data-driven product management or data-driven growth product strategy is strategy that is Based on the customer needs that is based on what they actually want because You have engaged with these customers either through your in-app product Experience or even outside the products where you're doing surveys or where you're having focus groups So you're having customer conversations customer calls as a growth p.m You need to be very involved in the customer success function within your organization Okay, so I hope this is really helpful. Um, thank you so much for having me I would love to connect with you as many people as would like to connect and you can connect to me on linkedin Um, the information is here in that slide and or you can connect with me on youtube Thank you