How Pinterest supercharged its growth team

What We Still Have to Figure Out About Remote Work

Remote work is unnatural to us. We grew up in classrooms—there is an inherent need to see and be physically close to people. So, there is still a lot to figure out as remote work becomes increasingly common. This piece captures the things we’ve already solved for—and what we are still working on—when it comes to remote work support. Two places where I think innovation will happen soon: remote onboarding and visibility at scale.

Why So Many of the World's Oldest Companies Are in Japan

Here are a few mind-blowing statistics:  

• Of the 5,586 companies globally that are older than 200 years old, 56% of them are in Japan.  
• As of 2019, there are more than 33,000 businesses in Japan that are over a century old.

So what is it about Japan? And in a world focused on startups and emerging technologies, is there something we can learn from the East Asian island country? I think so. My biggest takeaway: There is enormous value in thinking long-term and sticking to a core competency while building a business.  

Your Product Sells Itself. Now Hire Sales.

It is not uncommon for product-led growth companies to de-emphasize the value of sales, and lean more heavily on organic and viral growth. But this article brings to light the importance of having a traditional sales team at some point. Of course, sales teams tend to focus on bigger customers with more specific and complicated needs, which can lead to product bloat down the road. But if you can avoid that outcome, having a sales team can be a smart decision. Here are some things to consider about how to best integrate traditional sales into a PLG business.

The Secret to Marketing Success: Building a Buyer Persona

If you haven't created a clear buyer persona for your product yet, now is the time. This is an easy step to skip, but making it a priority will save you a lot of time and energy down the road. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, and helps you better navigate not just your success in marketing, but also product development. Bonus: Create exclusionary buyer personas, too. Read more to learn how to do both. 

How Pinterest Supercharged Its Growth Team With Experiment Idea Review

Pinterest changed the structure of its growth team to be bottom-up, meaning everyone is expected to contribute quality experiment ideas—from engineers to product managers to designers. The team developed something called an Experiment Idea Review (EIR), which is a process that helps quickly train team members to find high-quality growth opportunities while continuously building a bigger idea backlog. Would it benefit your team to have a similar growth experiment idea generation process? 

How Not to Prioritize Growth Experiments

This is a good supplement to the article above on experiment idea reviews. The reality is that a very small percentage of startups achieve massive success—and the ultimate outcome difference comes down to the experiments a company chooses to try. This article highlights some important reminders, and I particularly appreciated these two: avoid voting on ideas, and make sure you're doing high-impact experiments with huge binary outcomes even though they require more risk. 

How Much Work Is Enough Work?

We have to eliminate the idea that the more we work, the more productive we'll be. In my experience, this leads to burnout faster than it does productivity. Here is a compelling case for doing not much more than four hours of highly productive, output-driven work per day—and using the rest of your time to recharge your creative batteries by doing things like reading, connecting, and exploring. These things may not feel like "work," but remember they directly enable you to do your most productive work in the long term.

A Shorter Workweek Might Make People Happier

Are you sensing a theme from these past two links? I'm an advocate for rethinking traditional ways of working to produce not just better companies, but happier people. This fascinating research paints a compelling picture about the potential correlative benefits of a shorter workweek. Of course, you can't draw conclusions from one study, but it is thought-provoking nonetheless. Do you think you'd be happier and more productive if you had an abbreviated workweek?