Do product organizations need growth product managers?
The role of "growth product manager" has always left me in a fix. In the age of product-led growth, shouldn’t every product manager inherently be responsible for a product's growth?
Why would you come up with a roadmap that would not contribute to growth? Why would you make any decisions that are not contributing to growth?
If at all this role requires the person to focus on tactical growth strategies, growth hacking etc, it should fall under the marketing function and be called a growth marketer. But a product manager being called a growth product manager is redundant.
I shared my observation on Linkedin to benefit from the knowledge of the crowd. And I received a lot of different inputs that broadened my perspective.
Let me share some of the important opinions:
Melissa Peri, CEO, Produx Labs and author of Escaping the Build Trap had this to say:
I think all product managers should be focused on growth long term, but that does not mean that every goal they have will be growth oriented for their product. I think it should be more about the company’s growth. For example, I’ve come into many enterprise companies that needed products shut down or streamlined so the company can grow. So while I think all product managers should be growth oriented, I think they should be thinking about growing the system not necessarily just their product. I think product growth is more a responsibility of the growth marketer. Usually if it’s called growth product manager they are focused solely on acquisition anyway... but I see that more as a marketing function.
Wes Bush, author of Product-Led Growth had this to say:
I'm with you on this, but I do find that teams find it helpful internally to communicate who's in charge of growth. Identifying an individual in charge of the growth brings clarity and accountability. Growth product manager is a role defined when there is no growth marketer to support the role.
Ankit Gupta, VP, Head of Growth, Gojek
Ankit is someone I admire greatly and had finished an awesome podcast recently made a solid point on the difference between marketing and product growth.
Most of the marketing and CRM teams focus on short term campaigns and initiatives, but a Growth PM actually builds product solutions and feature which automate them and make it sustainable for longer term. Focus on mix of tactical & strategic initiates which focus on business problems is what makes growth PM different from other PMs (who may focus on long term eg 2 year roadmap) who focus mainly on long term customer problems.
Nivedita Pandey, Growth, Microsoft
Nivedita from Microsoft also had quite a sanguine opinion on the topic. Here is what she said:
In my experience - different companies define Growth roles differently. I do focus on growth - but my work has involved using product (based on user feedback), marketing, and strategic partnerships, as levers to deliver growth. But in most Growth interviews - I was asked solely about running ad campaigns on publishing platforms etc, that I found quite limiting.
Growth Product Manager is perhaps companies’ way to define roles that do involve product enhancements / launches to deliver growth, rather than being limited to digital marketing.
The role scope depends on kind of product - B2C /B2B2C or B2B, and the stage / priorities of the biz. Same goes for PM Roles - some involve having business/ user/ market understanding, while some expect you to take inputs from business and user insights teams - and just build with engineering.
Venkatesh Balan, Product Lead, Regis Corporation
Venkatesh simplified the clutter with ease. He said:
Growth marketer focuses on top of funnel user acquisition using paid / organic channels but not engagement and retention that are key to avoid leaky bucket.
Also growth marketer does not experiment variations in product to drive the core metrics (North Star) and building viral and other growth loops in product that will eventually result in product led growth
Summary:
What I learnt from opening up this topic to my network is that there is certainly no consensus on the role definition of growth product manager.
However, there seems to be a marked difference what a growth marketer is supposed to do and what a ‘growth product manager’ is supposed to do. A growth marketer is a digital marketer responsible for top of funnel acquisition. And a growth product manager is responsible for growth through product, packaging, pricing and business case modelling. It could include in-product tactics like shortening time to value, inculcating growth loops through product usage. As Venkatesh pointed out, engagement and retention instead of acquisition become key factors for growth PMs.
However, I still feel such concerns should be for all product managers and not for an individual alone with a Growth title. I am still not convinced and don’t buy-in to the point of having one individual responsible for the growth from the product side of things.