How to build a high-performing growth team | Adam Fishman (Patreon, Lyft, Imperfect Foods)

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 13, 2022

Duration

1h 5m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Adam Fishman has decades of experience building and scaling some incredible businesses, like Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods. He is currently an Executive in Residence at Reforge and an advisor to numerous companies on growth, product, strategy, and company building. In today’s episode, Adam shares his growth PM competency model to help founders identify specific skills when hiring growth leaders, how to structure feedback, and how to identify gaps in your growth team. He also discusses the role of onboarding in retention and how to evaluate a company as a prospective employee. Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-build-a-high-performing-growth — Where to find Adam Fishman:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/fishmanaf
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/
• Website: https://www.adamfishman.com/
• Adam’s newsletter: https://www.fishmanafnewsletter.com/

— Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

— Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Linear: https://linear.app/lenny
• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny
• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/

— Referenced:

• Stream Super Pumped on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/super-pumped
• Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Pumped-Battle-Mike-Isaac/dp/0393652246
• HitRecord: https://hitrecord.org/
• Adam’s growth competency model: https://www.reforge.com/blog/the-growth-competency-model
• Adam’s LinkedIn series: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamjfishman_ive-now-published-my-complete-series-on-activity-6979198793992802305-VtCu/

— In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Adam’s background (06:16) Lyft’s launch press release (09:56) Adam’s newsletter and growth competency framework (10:34) Myths and mistakes founders make (15:12) The growth competency model (18:47) Customer knowledge and user psychology (21:23) Why strategy and communication are more advanced competencies (25:45) Why to hire a junior-level growth executive and how to support them (31:20) Why Adam skews toward internal hiring (33:25) Generalists vs. specialists (35:59) The importance of onboarding (41:49) Opinionated defaults (45:03) Balancing conversion and retention with successful onboarding (48:46) Guidelines for redesigning onboarding (52:22) The PMF criteria for candidates (57:57) What Adam would have done differently at Imperfect Foods — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Adam Fishman

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Adam Fishman and Lenny Rachitsky, How to build a high-performing growth team | Adam Fishman (Patreon, Lyft, Imperfect Foods) explores building High-Impact Growth Teams, Onboarding Engines, and Careers with PMF Adam Fishman, former growth/product leader at Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods, shares a structured growth competency model to help companies hire and develop growth talent and help candidates position themselves. He breaks growth skills into four core buckets—growth execution, customer knowledge, growth strategy, and communication/influence—and explains how to use them for hiring, feedback, and career planning.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

How to build a company that withstands any era | Eric Ries, Lean Startup author

Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny

Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead)

Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash)

What most people miss about marketing | Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, author)

5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy | Roger Martin (author, advisor, speaker)