ultragrowth-ioslisted

# The app growth playbook, for the other kinds of app Most published app-growth advice is about one kind of app: a free social product for teenagers whose value comes from other people being on it. That advice is excellent and it is specific. Applied to a paid utility, a professional tool or a game, it is not merely useless but actively misleading, because it tells you to optimise a loop your product does not have. **Read `nikita-bier-consumer-apps` when the product is a dense-network social app.** This skill is for everything else, and for working out which one you have. --- ## THE FIRST QUESTION: WHAT SHAPE IS IT Brian Balfour's point, and the one this whole skill hangs on: a company needs *product-channel fit*, and the channel is not a choice you make freely. It follows from how people naturally discover, evaluate and buy a thing like yours. Pick the wrong channel for the shape and you will work very hard for nothing. Answer this before anything else: > **Where does the value come from, the first time somebody opens it?** | Answer | Shape | Where growth actually comes from | | --- | --- | --- | | From other people already being there | **Network** | Invitations. Bier's playbook. | | From it doing a job, alone, immediately | **Utility** | App Store search, overwhelmingly | | From a library of things to read or watch | **Content** | Web search and the open internet | | From it making somebody better at their work | **Professional** | The trade's own channels: communi