10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)

Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey) names 10 growth tactics that consistently fail and explains why hiring a head of growth to fix a declining business never works.

• Growth teams cannot establish PMF or reverse business decline; hiring one to fix a slowdown is a guaranteed waste of money.
• Many companies with strong sales motions don’t need a growth team until overlaying product-led growth on top of existing sales motion.
• Rebrands and homepage redesigns never drive acquisition at launch; best case is net-neutral with 3-6 months of recovery work needed.
• Copying competitor flows fails 95% of the time because you can’t know their actual tested experience or customer context.
• Over-experimenting paralyzes growth teams; Verna’s rule: if sample size takes over a month to collect, skip the A/B test and use pre/post measurement.
• One-off emails never move metrics; average open rate is 25%, and email only works as a coordinated series tied to product communication.
• Adding third-party OAuth (Google, Facebook) for non-developer products causes mix-shift, not incremental acquisition growth.
• Verna’s three favorite frameworks: Growth Loops (Reforge), Racecar (Lenny/Dan), and Adjacent User Theory (Bangaly Kaba).

2025-01-19 · Watch on YouTube