Sachin Rekhi
4 Major Problems With The Lean Startup ...

In the past decade since The Lean Startup’s introduction, many seasoned entrepreneurs have come to believe that it largely fails at the very thing it sought to accomplish: enabling entrepreneurs to more predictably and successfully bring new products to market.

Startup veterans from the likes of PayPal, Wealthfront, Pinterest, Netscape, and more, have identified four core challenges with the Lean Startup. Let’s now break down each of these four challenges in more detail.

4 Major Problems With The Lean Startup Methodology
Adam Fishman
The Growth Competency Model: Build Stronger ...

As a Growth Leader, accurately evaluating your organization and team members is a very important, and time-consuming, part of the job.

But if we plan on creating an engaging career path for future Growth Leaders, we need a process to provide objective feedback across the whole team. This is where the Growth Competency Model comes in.

The Growth Competency Model provides a framework that can be used by Growth Leaders to identify and close gaps in their team, as well as to provide direct feedback and career development advice to their team members.

The Growth Competency Model: Build Stronger Growth Teams
Valerie Wagoner
How The Best International Growth Decisions Are ...

As your company scales, it will naturally approach market saturation. Growth rates will start to slow, and you’ll need to expand into new user segments, use cases, or geographies.

Saturation is natural, and actually something to be (momentarily) celebrated, as it’s usually a marker of initial product market fit.

At this point, many companies choose to invest in international growth. Yet most struggle to effectively grow their reach beyond their primary domestic market, due to three key factors…

How The Best International Growth Decisions Are Made
Ryan McCready
5 Ways To Boost Your Career Progression In 2022

Top talent now has the power to go to a new company or a team that fits their personal and professional goals.

It seems like they are planning on exercising that power too. With 72% of tech workers saying that they are exploring a new opportunity in the next year. In fact, lack of career progression was the top reason stated for leaving.

We are not surprised. The old playbook of career progression was already on its way out the door as the world shifted to a remote-first workforce. Now it seems even more outdated because of this increased demand for talent.

But what are the new rules? No one is really sure yet.

Thankfully we talked to some of our EIRs recently about the best ways to up-level your role this year.

5 Ways To Boost Your Career Progression In 2022
Natalie Rothfels & Adam Fishman
3 Ways Marketing and Product Teams Can Improve ...

Building and growing a business is a team sport that requires everyone to be on the same page. This is especially critical for product and marketing teams, who cannot move the business forward without each other.

To improve cross-departmental collaboration between these two pivotal teams, Reforge OIR Natalie Rothfels and EIR Adam Fishman reveal the three threads that weave marketing and product teams together to create something stronger and more durable than what each individual team could create on their own.

3 Ways Marketing and Product Teams Can Improve Collaboration — And Drive Better Business Outcomes

Ely Lerner

Product Strategy is Really About Offense vs. Defense

Product Strategy is Really About Offense vs. Defense

You’ve probably been there: The teams are shipping, but it’s unclear how much the work will actually impact your overall business metrics.

Product leaders must be able to create clear, opinionated strategies that grow their business today and set up for future growth tomorrow.

Unfortunately, many struggle with balancing their portfolio of different product bets and driving meaningful impact on the top-level business metrics. New product leaders tend to over-index on whatever type of product work they’re most familiar with, instead of approaching different types of work with the appropriate toolset. This leads to being held back by massive opportunity cost: working too much on initiatives with diminishing returns, and missing out on the step-function investments that change the trajectory of the company.

When faced with the challenge of creating a strategic portfolio, product leaders need a framework to ensure they’re spending the right amount of time and effort on the right priorities.