growth-experimentation

# Growth Experimentation ## Overview The companies with the highest growth rates don't have better ideas — they have better systems for testing ideas. A high-velocity experimentation system runs 15-30 experiments per month across acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization. Most experiments fail. That's by design. The team that learns fastest from each failure wins. ## When to Use - "Build an experimentation program" - "Set up growth sprints" - "Prioritize experiments with ICE" - "Increase our test velocity" - "Create a learning repository" ## Authoritative Foundations - **Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown (Hacking Growth)** — coined "growth hacking." North Star Metric. Growth experimentation loop: analyze → ideate → prioritize → test → learn. - **Brian Balfour (Reforge, ex-HubSpot VP Growth)** — increasing HubSpot's experiment velocity from 5 to 20/week produced 3x growth rate improvement. Four Fits Framework: Market-Product, Product-Channel, Channel-Model, Model-Market. - **Andrew Chen (a16z, ex-Uber Growth)** — The Cold Start Problem. Growth teams at scale. - **Fareed Mosavat (Reforge, ex-Slack Growth)** — experimentation systems. ## Step-by-Step Process ### Phase 1: Set the North Star Metric One metric that captures core value delivery. If this moves up, the business is healthier. All experiments ladder to this metric. ### Phase 2: ICE Scoring Score every experiment idea 1-10 on Impact, Confidence, Ease. Average the three. Prioritize by ICE score. Re-sco...