Pillar · Loops
Growth Loops. Compounding engines.
Compounding mechanisms, loop design, systems thinking — the engines beneath the funnel that turn linear inputs into nonlinear output.
Loops · Essay forthcoming
Compounding engines. Compounding mechanisms, loop design, systems thinking — the engines beneath the funnel that turn linear inputs into nonlinear output. The full essay for this pillar is being written. In the meantime, the indexed studies and writing below sit underneath it.
Studies
Studies in this pillar. 16 indexed.
№ 01Airbnb's Craigslist Cross-Posting Hack — Airbnb.10xlisting growth (2009-2011)Airbnb№ 02LinkedIn's Profile-as-SEO-Page Strategy — LinkedIn.900M+membersLinkedIn№ 03Zillow's Zestimate as SEO Moat — Zillow.220M+monthly unique usersZillow№ 04Twitter's 'Follow 30' Onboarding Optimization — Twitter.2xretention improvementTwitter№ 05LinkedIn's Engagement Loop Retention Engine — LinkedIn.1B+membersLinkedIn№ 06Zoom's 40-Minute Limit as Conversion Engine — Zoom.$4.4Brevenue (FY 2023)Zoom№ 07Dropbox's Double-Sided Referral Program — Dropbox.3900%user growth in 15 monthsDropbox№ 08PayPal's Paid Referral Blitz — PayPal.5Musers in early growthPayPal№ 09Uber's Ride Credit Referral Engine — Uber.100M+riders (by 2018)Uber№ 10Airbnb's Travel Credit Referral 2.0 — Airbnb.300%increase in referral bookingsAirbnb№ 11Beehiiv's Built-In Referral System for Newsletters — Beehiiv.750K+newsletters on platformBeehiiv№ 12Threads' Instagram Cross-Promotion Launch — Threads.100Msignups in 5 daysThreads№ 13Chess.com's Counterintuitive Fix: Show Losers Their Brilliance — Chess.com.+25% game reviews, +20% subscriptionsImpact of reframing post-loss feedbackChess.com№ 14The Push Notification That Made Slack Real-Time: How One Experiment Stuck for Years — Slack.Massively successful; experiment still live in product todaySustained impact of mobile push notification experimentSlack№ 15How a One-Line Code Change Was Worth $100M — and Why Bing Ran 20,000 Experiments a Year to Find It — Microsoft (Bing).$100M revenue impact from a single experimentAnnual revenue uplift from the Bing ad-title experiment (Ronny Kohavi, Lenny's Podcast)Microsoft (Bing)№ 16How Gojek Built a Two-Sided Marketplace Outraised 100-to-1 — and Still Won — Gojek.>100% MoM growth for 16–18 months after app launchMonth-over-month order growth (2015–2016)Gojek
Writing
Writing in this pillar. 7 indexed.
2025 · 11 · 035 A/B Testing Mistakes That Cost You RevenueExperimentation3 min2025 · 09 · 20How to Build a Growth Model from ScratchGrowth Modeling3 min2026 · 02 · 05Choosing Your North Star MetricMetrics3 min2026 · 01 · 28How to Structure a Growth TeamTeam Structure4 min2025 · 12 · 20Running 100 Experiments a Quarter — A FrameworkExperimentation4 min2025 · 10 · 28Building a Growth CultureCulture4 min2025 · 10 · 20Competitive Analysis for Growth TeamsStrategy4 min