Growth advisor, Head of Growth at Lovable, formerly Amplitude and Miro
Elena Verna is head of growth at Lovable and has led growth at Miro, Amplitude, Dropbox and SurveyMonkey. Her rule for product-led growth is to start with product-led retention, measured by activation and engagement, and never with product-led acquisition. At Lovable, she says, the team cares more about engagement retention than paid retention, because the north star is usage.
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Distribution
Paid search and social are rented from an algorithm that can take them back. The earned channel is the one nobody can outbid you for.
you are paying them and you're paying for their distribution and access to their distribution
Elena Verna
sorts channels by ownership before performance. Paid search and paid social run on an algorithm somebody else controls, so spending there funds a competitor's distribution and leaves you exposed to a policy change you had no say in. She makes building the earned channel, powered by virality and word of mouth, the growth team's first priority.
puts paid ads alongside warm outreach, cold outreach and content as four equally valid channels, and tells founders to pick one and work it four hours a day for a quarter. On his account the failure is dabbling across all four, not choosing a channel someone else owns.
20VC
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Growth Loops Framework
Growth loops are closed systems where the output of one cycle becomes the input for the next, creating compounding growth. They differ from linear funnels.
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna
Adjacent User Theory
Focus on users just outside your core ICP who almost become customers but don't quite convert. Understanding and serving these adjacent users expands your addressable…
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna
Race Car Framework
Think of growth like a race car with an engine (growth loops), turbo boosters (one-time efforts), lubricants (optimization), and fuel (resources). Each requires…
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna
If you need to test everything, you're probably moving too slowly
Growth teams can become paralyzed by testing every single initiative
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna
