27. Use two-week sprints to test growth ideas
This week I traveled to Austin, Texas and had a few planning and strategy meetings with my colleagues. One of the big takeaways: Adam should be doing shorter, higher-variance experiments. We’re pivoting to a system where I’ll pitch an idea on Monday and execute it for two weeks, reporting back two Friday’s after that.
I’m excited about this because it matches what the company needs. In prior months, there had been stretches where I would do the same activities day in, day out. This isn’t inherently bad, but it’s only a good strategy when you have something that’s working. When you’re earlier in the lifecycle of a company — some ideas are working, most ideas aren’t — you need to be doing more experimentation. The default is that you won’t get the results you want. You need to try new things.
This isn’t rocket science. It’s just startup growth 101. Try some stuff — most of the time it’s going to fail, but every once in a while, there will be a tactic that will succeed. You can ride that one tactic until the next phase where you find a new channel / message / audience.
I’m also excited because this style works with my personality better. Last year when I was doing freelance work, I operated with this same two-week sprint method. I sent an email to 10-15 people who I trusted and asked them to hold me accountable. It was the right amount of time to get a chunk of work done and see some early results from it.
And don’t get confused — this isn’t just a way to try wildly different activities without any connection between them. Selecting the two-week sprints takes into account past information. Building off of previous sprints is often the best path forward.
But it shortens the feedback cycle and, at least for me, provides a bit more excitement to my job.