How the Best Growth Teams Size up Opportunities

Oct 13, 2020 8:14:00 AM
Author: Kieran Flanagan

In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Yousuf Bhaijee, the ex VP of Growth at Eaze.

We talk to Yousuf about his time running growth at Eaze, an eCommerce company for on-demand Cannabis delivery. In that role, Yousuf was responsible for increasing revenue growth by 10% month on month.

We discuss why the best growth teams always do a sizing exercise before committing to work on a specific opportunity. We get into the prioritization framework Yousuf used to stack rank the growth teams projects. And, we'll discuss the article Yousuf wrote on Reforge, breaking down how to calculate a word of mouth coefficient for your product.

iTunes Stitcher Spotify


Time Stamped Notes

[3:25] - Eaze is an eCommerce company for on-demand cannabis delivery. Yousuf was responsible for building out the growth team for the consumer side of the business. Their goal was 10% revenue growth month over month. Where Yousuf initially started was customer acquisition and growing the top of their funnel. 

[7:45] - Yousuf prioritized opportunities for the growth team by using a threshold of what something would need to achieve for it to be worth their time. Anything the growth team worked on would need to generate over 2000 monthly paying customers.

[10:30] - Yousuf wanted people on his team to work on things that would have an impact, they're passionate about, and they have the resources to do. We told his team to start with a minimal version of what they planned to implement to size the opportunity properly. Yousuf gives examples of people on his team who ran through this process.

[13:55] - Yousuf believes you can always do a sizing exercise for a potential opportunity a growth team can work on; he thinks growth teams should have a portfolio of bets, from sure things to high-risk projects.

[16:00] - Yousuf will always let the numbers guide how he prioritizes his team's work.

[17:30] - The prioritization criteria Yousuf uses to stack rank opportunities is:

- Is the person passionate about the opportunity, excited to work on it?

- Can they size up the opportunity?

- Do they have the resources to do it?

- Do they have the ownership needed to execute on that task, e.g., do you need product or engineering resources that you don't' have.

[21:15] - Yousuf explains the word of mouth coefficient he recently wrote about on Reforge; it's a ratio that tracks the rate at which active users generate new users through word of mouth. It's similar to a framework that allows you to predict revenue from active users.

[22:40] - Yousuf talks about the origins of the word of mouth coefficient metric. 


– Yousuf on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Scott on Twitter / LinkedIn

Topics: Growth, Podcast, Leader

Join the Newsletter

Get my thoughts on repeatable playbooks for marketing, growth, hiring, and leadership.