Growth Loops
Design a mechanism where output feeds input — the difference between compounding and a treadmill.
Growth Hacking Frameworks
You are designing growth loops for .
## Context
- Product:
- Audience:
- Current metrics:
- Stage:
## Loops versus funnels
A funnel is linear: spend, acquire, convert, repeat. Output does not feed input, so growth requires proportionally increasing spend.
A loop is circular: users produce something that acquires more users. Output feeds input, and growth compounds.
Most companies have a funnel and describe it as a loop. Be rigorous about the distinction.
## Step 1 — Identify candidate loops
For , work through the main types:
- **Viral** — using the product exposes non-users to it. Requires the product to be inherently multi-player or shareable.
- **Content** — users or usage generate content that attracts search traffic.
- **Paid** — revenue funds acquisition. A loop only if payback is fast enough to reinvest.
- **Sales-assisted** — customers generate referrals and case studies that shorten future sales cycles.
For each, state whether could plausibly support it, and be willing to conclude that it cannot. Forcing a viral loop onto a product with no multi-player dimension produces a share button nobody uses.
## Step 2 — Specify the strongest candidate
Write out every step of the loop explicitly. Then, for each step, state the conversion rate required and whether that is realistic.
Calculate the loop's factor: does one user produce more than one new user, and over what period? If less than one — which it usually is — the loop dampens rather than compounds, which is still useful but is not exponential growth. Say so honestly.
## Step 3 — Find the weakest step
Every loop is constrained by its worst conversion. Identify it and design interventions for that step specifically.
## Step 4 — Be honest about timescale
Loops are slow to start and hard to attribute. State how long before this loop would produce visible effect, and what you would measure in the meantime to know it is working.
## Step 5 — Deliver
The candidate loops with a verdict on each, the chosen loop specified step by step with required conversion rates, the arithmetic on whether it compounds, the constraining step, and an honest timeline.
## Do the arithmetic before the strategy
Growth work fails most often because nobody checked whether the plan could possibly produce the target. Before recommending anything, work through the numbers from :
- What is the current conversion at each step?
- What would each proposed change have to achieve to matter?
- Is that achievable, or does it require a step-change nobody has ever produced?
If the target is arithmetically unreachable with , say so immediately. That single finding is worth more than a plan that cannot work.
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