Growth Roadmap Audit Filter

---
name: growth-roadmap-audit-filter
description: A framework for auditing growth roadmaps to eliminate low-ROI activities and traps. Use this when planning a new growth cycle, evaluating a head of growth hire, or vetting major UI/UX changes intended to drive conversion.
---

# Growth Roadmap Audit Filter

Use this audit to identify and remove high-effort, low-impact "growth hacks" from your roadmap. Growth is driven by amplifying product-market fit (PMF) through sustainable loops, not through aesthetic changes or one-off tactics.

## 1. Growth Readiness Assessment
Before adding growth initiatives to the roadmap, verify the foundation:
*   **Product-Market Fit (PMF):** Ensure you have solid retention and a high "disappointment score" (users would be very disappointed without the product).
*   **Data Volume:** Only hire a growth team or run high-velocity A/B tests if you have enough user volume to reach statistical significance within 30 days.
*   **Strategic Owner:** For early-stage companies (under $1M–$5M ARR), growth must be founder-led. Do not outsource the discovery of distribution to a new hire.

## 2. The "Stop Doing" Filter
Remove or deprioritize the following items if they appear on your roadmap:
*   **Rebrands/Home Page Redesigns for Growth:** Redesigns almost always cause an immediate performance hit. If you must redesign for brand positioning, model a 3–6 month recovery and optimization period.
*   **Blatant Competitor Copying:** Copying a competitor's onboarding or pricing page fails because you lack their context, data, and user segments. Use competition for inspiration, but never skip your own user research.
*   **Third-Party Auth for Acquisition:** Adding Google, Microsoft, or Slack login options is a UX convenience, not a growth lever. It rarely drives incremental signups.
*   **Color Optimizations:** Do not test button colors or shades of blue. Choose an accessible brand color and move on.
*   **One-Email Wonders:** Stop spending hours on a single one-off email. Growth requires a communication series and lifecycle strategy.
*   **"Simplifying" for the sake of it:** Only remove steps if they cause documented cognitive friction. Removing necessary education or setup steps often hurts downstream activation.

## 3. Channel Diversification Strategy
Shift resources from "Rented" channels to "Earned" channels:
*   **Earned Channels (Priority):** Invest in virality, word-of-mouth, and User-Generated Content (UGC). These are proprietary loops that competitors cannot buy their way into.
*   **Rented Channels (Secondary):** Use SEO and SEM for supplemental traffic, but recognize they are subject to "The Law of Shitty Click-Throughs" and algorithm shifts.
*   **The 18-Month Rule:** Introduce a new growth loop or channel every 18 months. It takes 6–18 months for a new loop (like a community or template library) to produce visible revenue.

## 4. Operational Velocity Standards
*   **Balance Experimentation:** If every initiative requires a scientific A/B test, your team is paralyzed. 
*   **Trust Intuition on Low Volume:** If you cannot reach a sample size in 30 days, use "Pre vs. Post" analysis instead of a controlled experiment.
*   **External Pattern Matching:** Hire advisors who have solved your specific problem before. Do not reinvent frameworks for standard problems like sharing models or invite loops.

## Examples

**Example 1: High-Growth Startup Audit**
*   **Scenario:** A B2B SaaS company at $2M ARR wants to hire a Head of Growth and redesign the marketing site to "fix" a conversion plateau.
*   **Audit Result:** 
    1.  **Stop the Redesign:** Keep the current site; focus on optimizing the existing conversion path instead.
    2.  **Delay the Hire:** The founder should lead the next growth lever discovery (e.g., SEO or Referral loop) before hiring a PM to optimize it.
    3.  **Action:** Launch a user-generated template library (Earned Channel) to drive organic awareness.

**Example 2: Experimentation Paralyzed Team**
*   **Scenario:** A growth team is spending 3 weeks setting up an A/B test for a "Share" button icon on a low-traffic page.
*   **Audit Result:** 
    1.  **Kill the Test:** Icon changes are low-impact.
    2.  **Action:** Apply a "Pre vs. Post" change. Switch to a standard "Share" pattern used by industry leaders (e.g., Figma or Notion) and monitor the 7-day conversion rate. Reallocate the saved engineering time to building a bulk-invite feature.

## Common Pitfalls
*   **Hiring for Declining Growth:** A growth team cannot fix a product that is losing PMF or being eaten by a competitor. Fix the core product value first.
*   **Unique Problem Fallacy:** Believing your growth bottleneck is unique. Most activation and monetization drops are standard patterns solvable via established frameworks (e.g., Adjacent User Theory or Growth Loops).
*   **Precision Over Speed:** Demanding 95% statistical significance for every minor UI change. This kills the velocity needed for growth.
*   **Neglecting the "Sender" Experience:** In viral loops, teams often focus only on the "Recipient" page. You must optimize the motivation of the "Sender" to trigger the loop.