When and how to invest in new acquisition channels

Adam Grenier, a growth and marketing leader who has built growth teams at Uber, Lambda School and Masterclass and now advises founders and invests, discusses how to evaluate and test emerging acquisition channels, what a 'Growth CMO' looks like, and how to recognize burnout versus depression. The conversation also touches on applying improv principles to cross-functional work and on the challenge of moving from early adopters to a broader market.

01Key learnings

• Before investing in an emerging channel, check three things: whether the channel's strengths match your customers' needs and company goals, whether the channel's trajectory and monetization model fit you, and whether your company has the risk appetite and staff to be a first mover.
• Don't assume a hot channel is right for you; a channel like Clubhouse may be a green light for one company and a yellow light for another depending on its strengths versus your goals.
• Keep early experiments small, such as half a person's time, and cap them around a quarter, defining in advance what momentum signal you're looking for.
• Treat new channels as a bet with a low success rate; Adam estimates they work only about 5% of the time, so plan for most experiments to fail.
• When a product changes or the market shifts, assume you may no longer have product-market fit and start over, rather than just adding a new channel to patch the problem.
• Growth-minded marketing leaders should learn agile product development and how product teams plan sprints, since that mindset makes them better partners to product and better able to iterate on brand and funnel, not just campaigns.
• Distinguish burnout from depression by noticing whether you still enjoy the things you normally love outside work; losing interest in those activities and adaptability to change are warning signs to take seriously.
• Check your company's benefits for mental health resources such as therapy coverage, and build a few friends you can be transparent with about hard stretches.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.