Introducing Growth Loop Teardown ♻️
Unpacking how the world's best companies really grow - one loop at a time
How it started…
I recently stumbled across an old file in Notion of Growth Loop that had me feeling nostalgic. It was from 2021.
At the time, we had been doing a lot of discovery and design work at BUNCH to understand how we could leverage social features and content to grow our app, an AI coach for new managers.
As the growth lead and a recent Reforge Growth Series alum, I wanted to help the team start thinking in “loops”, and show in detail how they work to make them more tangible.
So I made a collection of inspiring products and analyzed their growth loops!
What’s in a Teardown?
For each one, I did a deep dive into:
👉 What "loops" I think drive most of the product's actual growth
👉 How do they work (w/ diagrams, screenshots etc.)
👉 Why it works well for them
👉 What we could imitate or steal
Going public
It was a surprisingly fun exercise, and finding it made me wonder: would my network be interested to see this kind of "teardown" analysis for different products?
I asked on LinkedIn, and after some encouragement from some of the people I respect the most when it comes to Growth content, I decided to give it a shot!
Why the emphasis on growth loops?
The concept of growth loops changed the way I think about building and growing a business (shout out to Reforge).
Loops are the best way to describe how the most successful companies actually grow, and I’ve found they are incredibly helpful for cutting through the noise of "“What Brand X does” and zeroing in the actual drivers of growth.
Growth loops create magic, and understanding them feels magical.
And when you see how you can apply a similar loop in your own company, it’s also powerful.
Hopefully you’ll see that too!
The inaugural Teardown: AllTrails ♻️
Newly inspired, I embarked on a longer-than-intended rabbit hole 🐇 to product the pilot edition, digging into the most important growth loop(s) at AllTrails, one of the coolest and most inspiring consumer subscription businesses I know.
I debuted it as a carousel on LinkedIn, but will post it here on Substack as well as my next post. I’ll be doing more of these in the coming weeks and months - so stay tuned!