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Intro

Growth loops are when you take an output of your product and repurpose it as an input acquisition channel (where people put their attention).

Examples

• User-generated content (Reddit)
• Inherent Referral (Box)
• Branded/watermarked products (Livestrong bracelets)
• More examples (most of these are OK but not great)

Funnels vs. loops

Here’s a traditional marketing “funnel”. It’s a simplified version of the buyer’s journey.

It’s a very linear way to get customers. You pour people in the top of the funnel, they move through it, and get ejected at the other end. Sort of like a factory line: get ‘em in, get ‘em through, get ‘em out.

In contrast, growth loops feed back into themselves.

Why are growth loops so powerful? They compound. One user becomes two, two become four, four become eight, etc. It’s sweet, sweet, exponential growth.

Aside from the obvious benefit (more users), you can also afford to spend more to get users because each user now brings in many more. For example, if ads weren’t profitable in the past, they may be profitable now that you have a growth loop.

When we first work with company, we try to figure out the existing loops — the fire we can pour gas on.

If we can’t think of any, we move to brainstorming potential growth loops that might work for them. This is a much, much harder problem. But the payoffs are big.

Without clear growth loops, it’s hard to scale to more and more users. You have to invest a ton of money and effort to, e.g., optimize ads or write content. But with growth loops, all the work is done for you, and in most cases, users come for free.

How do I come up with growth loops?

#1: Think about all the outputs of your product.

Examples: