New Head of Growth? Here's My 30/60/90 Day Plan Blueprint
Swipe my plan and hit the ground running (without someone else telling you what to do)
Starting a new growth job? This article contains a 30–60–90 day plan for heads of growth working at a new company. You can also download a PDF version of this plan and fill it out as you go.
I’ve spent the majority of the last fifteen years working at startups. I love startups. I’m addicted to the action.
I was one of the first 200 employees at HubSpot, and saw first hand what a rocket ship felt like from the inside. Then I was employee number 40 at Wistia, where I started and scaled the Growth Team, and later led the marketing efforts for their video marketing product.
But, when I accepted a new role as Head of Growth at Postscript, a fast growing YC company, in November 2020, I felt nervous to start over.
I was excited to put my stamp on the company and help them scale, but I wasn’t sure how to approach my first 90 days in a growth leadership role at a new company.
I wanted to hit the ground running.
My brain was buzzing with growth model ideas, acquisition playbooks, onboarding and activation experiments to impact retention and conversion. I was excited, but at the same time, I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes during my first few weeks before I understood the company culture and operating system.
Leading a growth team is fundamentally different from leading a traditional team, like marketing or product. It’s extremely cross-functional. So making sure that you’re aligned from day 1 is super important for your long-term success.
So I searched Google for ideas. I figured someone smarter than me must have thought about this before. I was hoping to find a framework, plan, roadmap, or document I could apply at new my gig, but I didn’t find much.
After chatting it over with my professional coach, I bought the book The First 90 Days, which is an incredible read, and used it to create an onboarding plan specifically for my situation.
The plan helped me dive right into my new role. Since then, I’ve shared it with other growth leaders, who have adapted it to their situations, and been successful as well.
The framework was designed specifically for growth folks (Heads of Growth, Growth Marketers, and Growth Product Managers) working at fast paced startups and early stage companies but the principles and priorities will apply to larger organizations as well.
So rather than showing-up and figuring it out as you go, come in with a plan already in place so you can deliver value from day one.
The first ninety days are critical for heads of growth
No matter how successful you’ve been in the past or how much experience you have — the first ninety days are critical for anyone switching jobs. This is especially true in a growth role at a startup or early-stage company.
As the first growth hire, your company is hiring you as the expert. The scope and responsibilities for the role usually isn’t well defined. Your job is to teach them what should be done and how to do it.
The opportunity to own the strategic direction and have a huge impact is exciting. However, without a plan, and other “growth people” to bounce ideas off, the lack of clarity can be intimidating and lead to imposter syndrome.
There’s so much to do during those first 90 days. You’ve got to:
Learn about the business.
Establish relationships with your manager and co-workers.
Educate everyone about growth and your process.
Learn how work gets done at this new company.
Figure out what resources are available.
Set up a reporting infrastructure.
Start identifying opportunities.
Begin working.
Prove that you know what you’re doing.
Impress your new team.
Not step on anyone’s toes.
Overwhelming, right?
Read the full plan at deliveringvalue.co: https://deliveringvalue.co/growth-essays/head-of-growth