This post is meant to be a guide for current and prospective Growth/Marketing team members for how we work. It goes over high-level working principles, and then walks through the steps involved in our major workstreams.

Table of contents

Team Culture

• We work iteratively.
  • We launch minimally viable campaigns even before they are optimized because we can learn earlier. Subscribe to the pareto 80/20 principle.
  • We ship work incrementally especially if it helps us learn.
  • This helps with resource allocation and learning. The earlier we prove a hypothesis, the more we can allocate to doubling down. The earlier we disprove a hypothesis, the more we conserve time and resources.
• We share drafts as early as possible.
  • We can adjust directions early on.
  • We don’t risk green-lighting something because of sunk costs.
  • This is analogous to the rule of shipping small PRs.
• We value working in public (specifically working within the company; not externally).
  • We frequently demo our work to the company.
  • We use public Slack channels to discuss projects.
  • We post important updates from meetings into public Slack channels to keep everyone informed.
• We work collaboratively.
  • We loop in teammates early in the project.
  • We plan our quarters so that no one works in silos.
• We have a strong bias toward action.
  • The saying is “Always be shipping”
• We speak with users and/or customers regularly.
  • Every Growth/marketing member meets them at least once a week.

Document culture

• Documents are the main unit of work in our team, especially because we work remotely.
• We use Google Docs for project documents, and Notion for memorializing documentation.
• The default for every project or workstream is to write a document. But be pragmatic.
  • Signs that you should be writing a doc:
    • You are starting a project larger than a tweet or piece of content
    • You are starting a new type of workstream and there are open questions
    • You are figuring out a strategy
    • There is a debate in Slack about how to go about the workstream
  • Signs you shouldn’t be writing a doc
    • The content fits into a small Slack message, e.g. kicking off an experiment
    • The content fits into a Linear ticket
    • The work is mostly visual and is better described using visuals
    • The idea is nascent and needs preliminary discussion or research
• Doc reviews are important for quality control of projects and campaigns. As such, we enforce reviews on every document.
• Treat document reviews that block work as high priority.
• Lifecycle of a review:
  • 1. The reviewer adds comments throughout the document, and then adds a top-level comment on whether the piece has been approved or still needs work
    • Keep the tone focused on improvement. Frame your feedback as suggestions. Focus on the high-level issues (as opposed to copy editing) first and foremost. For example, check:
      • Is this the right prioritization?
      • Does this adhere to our brand guidelines?
      • Will this reach the right audiences?
    • Do not rewrite copy. It could change the tone of the piece and also deprives the opportunity for discussion. If need be, you can suggest copy changes via comments.
  • 2. The author makes revisions and replies to the top level comment when it’s ready for a second round of review.
  • 3. Repeat 1 and 2 until the reviewer gives the final approval.
• For the author:
  • Tag 1-2 reviewers at the start of the document.
    • In cases where it is not clear whether to tag someone, tag the Head of Growth, who can then triage who to tag. They will also know whether to escalate to the CEO.
    • A failure mode is tagging so many people that no one replies (bystander effect) or you have trouble getting everyone to reply. Even when you do get everyone to reply, in cases of conflicting opinion, it’s hard to know which review is more important.
  • QA your work. You are responsible for ensuring all elements are error-free.
  • Where applicable, test your work before sending/publishing.

Experiments