samarv/growth-flying-formation

The "Flying Formation" is an operating model designed to integrate growth into the core of a company’s product development. It replaces friction with shared accountability by defining exactly how growth, product, and marketing interact through specific roles, scopes, and rhythms.

1. Define High-Ownership Scope

To maintain a high-performance culture, each growth owner must have a scope they can run independently. Avoid splitting teams so thinly that they only own "small" optimizations (e.g., just the checkout button).

• Problem-Based Scopes: Assign teams to solve meaty user problems rather than just managing website sections.
• Funnel-Based Scopes: Define clear handoff points.
  • Example (Webflow): Growth Marketing owns everything up to the signup (CAC and Signups); Product Growth owns everything downstream of signup (Activation, Monetization, ARR).
• Metric Integrity: Ensure the scope is large enough for a single PM to drive significant impact (at Dropbox, each growth PM was expected to drive >$1M in ARR).

2. Implement the DACI Framework

Use the DACI model to clarify decision-making and prevent "stepping on toes" between Growth and Core Product teams.

• Driver (D): The person leading the project (e.g., the Growth PM).
• Accountable (A): The final decision-maker. This person has the most context and is ultimately responsible for the outcome.
• Contributor (C): Teams that provide engineering, design, or data support.
• Informed (I): Stakeholders who must be kept in the loop but do not have a vote (e.g., Sales or Finance).

3. Establish Operating Rhythms

Regular cadences ensure the "flying formation" stays in sync without constant ad-hoc meetings.

• Weekly Metrics Review: A joint meeting between Growth Marketing and Product Growth to look at the full funnel together.
• Quarterly Planning: Collaborative sessions to identify projects where teams need to support each other (e.g., Marketing needs a new landing page from Product).
• Asynchronous Visibility: Use tools like Loom to share 5-10 minute project updates or experiment results. This builds visibility with leadership without clogging calendars.

4. The "Prep-Call" Interview Workflow

High-performing growth teams require "First Principles" thinkers. Use this specific interview step to identify them:

1. Assign a Presentation: Ask the candidate to solve a real company problem (e.g., "How would you improve our current pricing page?").
2. The Prep Call: Schedule a 30-minute "support call" with the candidate before their final presentation.
3. Give Direct Feedback: Provide specific critiques of their draft slides or strategy during the call.
4. Observe the Pivot: In the final interview, evaluate how they incorporated your feedback. This provides the ultimate signal for what it’s actually like to work with them and whether they have a "growth mindset."

Examples

Example 1: Balancing Growth and Core Product

• Context: A Growth PM wants to experiment on the onboarding flow, which is technically "owned" by the Core Product team.
• Application: Set the Growth PM as the Driver and the Core Product Lead as a Contributor. Use the "Flying Formation" doc to pre-agree that Growth is Accountable for the Activation metric, giving them the "right to play" in that code area as long as they provide the Core team with "Informed" status on experiment results.
• Output: The experiment runs without a month-long debate over "ownership," and the Core team receives data that helps their own roadmap.

Example 2: Identifying First Principles Talent

• Context: Interviewing a PM for a new Pricing and Packaging role.
• Application: During the "Prep Call," tell the candidate, "We are actually moving away from seats-based pricing toward usage-based pricing."
• Output: In the final presentation, a "Framework-only" candidate will stick to their original seats-based slides. A "First Principles" candidate will have rebuilt their logic to address the nuances of usage-based pricing, demonstrating they can synthesize new context immediately.

Common Pitfalls

• Treating Growth as a "Layer": If growth is added after product development is finished, it becomes a band-aid. Growth must be infused into the initial go-to-market strategy and pricing model.
• False Precision (The "Expert" Trap): Hiring "experts" who rely on "best practices" from other companies. Growth is context-dependent; prioritize candidates who ask "Why?" until they find a first-principles solution for your specific data.
• The "Checkout Page" Mistake: Changing too many variables at once in an experiment (UX, copy, and price). When it fails, you won't know why. Distill every experiment into a single, testable hypothesis.
• Over-Hiring: Doubling the growth team just because current metrics are good. If you can't define a distinct, meaty "scope" for a new hire to own, the team will become inefficient and lose its ownership mentality.