Morgan Brown · Instrumented

Rendered — ms DOM — nodes HTML — kB Words — Viewport — All readings real — nothing estimated

Fig. 01.0 — The subject, measured Units — px · ms · count · nothing estimated

Morgan Brown

Growth & product executive. Co-author of Hacking Growth. Everything he knows about product growth, to inspire and drive your business.

§ 02 Operator’s record Baseline readings

Every business leader, product owner, or entrepreneur has the same challenge: unlocking growth.

Morgan Brown has spent his career helping companies and products do just that — leading growth and product organizations at Opendoor, Shopify, and Meta, and before that helping build GrowthHackers as founding COO, running operations at Qualaroo, and leading growth at TrueVault. The constant across all of them: treating growth as a property of the product, not a department beside it.

He writes and speaks about how to grow — from acquisition to retention, revenue to referrals — for audiences and teams around the world. Not stunts or spend: instrumented loops, disciplined experimentation, and the patience to let retention do the arithmetic.

§ 03 The arithmetic of growth Fig. 03.0 — 03.4

The first instruction in Hacking Growth: before you test anything, write your growth as an equation — every factor measurable, every term yours to move. The one below is his own, drafted during his Inman News COO tenure. Four of the book’s identities follow, worked through to the number.

Fig. 03.0 — Subscriber revenue, Inman News · the operator’s own equation

Every term above sat on a dashboard. Move any one and the result moves.

Fig. 03.1 — Daily compounding, worked through logs
WORKED · DAILY COMPOUNDING x  =  1.01365 ln x  =  365 · ln 1.01 =  365 × 0.0099503  =  3.6319 x  =  e3.6319  =   37.78… 0.99365 :  ln  =  365 × (−0.0100503)  =  −3.6684 =  e−3.6684  ≈  0.026 same effort · different slope
Fig. 03.2 — Growth accounting, three periods
GROWTH ACCOUNTING · THREE PERIODS MAU(t+1)  =  MAU(t) + new + resurrected − churned start + new + resurrected − churned net end APR 10,200 1,480 310 1,210 +580 10,780 MAY 10,780 1,520 340 1,260 +600 11,380 JUN 11,380 1,490 360 1,300 +550 11,930 retention is the integral
Fig. 03.3 — Unit economics · LTV / CAC
UNIT ECONOMICS · LTV / CAC LTV  =   ARPU × margin churn = $42 × 0.78 0.024 =  $1,365 2.4% / mo per customer CAC  =  $410  blended LTV CAC = 1,365 410 = 3.3 threshold ≥ 3 below this line, growth is rented
Fig. 03.4 — The viral factor, summed
VIRALITY · WORKED K  =  i × c  =  3.5 × 0.20  =  0.70 invites × conversion reach  =  1 + K + K2 + K3 + … = 1 1 − K =  1 1.00 + 0.70 1.70 + 0.49 2.19 + 0.34 2.53 + … → 3.33 Σ =  1 / 0.30  =   3.3× K = 0.7 → paid spend × 3.3 K must be > 1 K amplifies paid too

§ 04 Readings Fig. 04.0 — 04.2

800K 600K 400K 200K 0 0 12 24 36 48 60 WEEKS SINCE LAUNCH → ACTIVE USERS LOOP CLOSES — COMPOUNDING BEGINS PROJECTED

Fig. 04.0 — Retention-driven compounding (illustrative). Solid: observed. Dashed: projection. The flat part is where most teams quit.

90k 152k 2014 2015 MAU TESTS / WK 3 / wk TEMPO COMPOUNDS
Fig. 04.1 — Test tempo vs. monthly actives, GrowthHackers.com, 2014–15 (after Hacking Growth). Past three tests a week, the plateau breaks.
MONTHLY COHORTS · ACTIVE USERS m01 m04 m08 m12
Fig. 04.2 — The layer cake. Each cohort stands on the retained floor of the ones before — growth you can bank.

§ 05 The book, on record Exhibit 05.0

TitleHacking Growth
SubtitleHow Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
Co-authorSean Ellis
Publisher / YearCrown Business, 2017
Copies in print750,000+
Languages16+

* Trim dimensions draft — pending verification.

“Doing for market-share growth what The Lean Startup did for product development.”

The book’s promise — morganbrown.co

Fig. 05.1 — Recorded praise, three entries on file
  1. “Hacking Growth provides a compelling answer to this urgent need for speed, offering companies a methodology for finding and optimizing new strategies to increase their market share and quickly.”

    Eric Ries / Bestselling author, The Lean Startup

  2. “…growth-hacking pioneers Ellis and Brown show how to break down those traditional barriers and marry powerful data analysis, technical know-how, and marketing savvy to quickly devise and test ways to fuel breakout growth.”

    Nir Eyal / Bestselling author, Hooked

  3. “Hacking Growth will teach you how to think like a marketer of tomorrow.”

    Josh Elman / Partner, Greylock Partners

§ 06 Record of appointments Table 06.0

  1. Growth & Product — Opendoor
    2020 — NOW*
  2. Director of Product, Growth — Shopify
    2017 — 2020*
  3. Product Management, Growth — Meta / Instagram
    2015 — 2017*
  4. Founding COO — GrowthHackers
    2013 — 2015*
  5. COO — Qualaroo
    2012 — 2013*
  6. Head of Growth — TrueVault
    2011 — 2012*

* Years approximate — draft copy, pending verification.

§ 07 Talks, delivered Three titles on record

  • T.01

    Building a Growth Engine

    Organize your team and change how you work to build a scalable engine of growth for your product.

  • T.02

    Creating Compounding Growth

    The secret to increasing returns is harnessing the power of compounding growth.

  • T.03

    High Tempo Testing

    Fast growth requires rapid learning. The best growth teams run laps around competitors with fast-paced, quantified learning.

§ 08 Correspondence Two fields, no noise

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