---
description: Design sustainable growth mechanisms — growth loops and GTM motions for product-led and sales-led strategies
argument-hint: "<product or growth challenge>"
---

# /growth-strategy -- Growth Loops & GTM Motions

Identify and design the growth mechanisms that will drive sustainable traction. Evaluates five growth loop types and seven GTM motions to build a balanced acquisition and expansion strategy.

## Invocation

```
/growth-strategy B2B collaboration tool — growth has stalled at 5K users
/growth-strategy Consumer fitness app looking for viral growth
/growth-strategy [upload product metrics or growth data]
```

## Workflow

### Step 1: Understand Growth Context

Ask:
- What is the product? Who uses it?
- Current growth metrics: user count, growth rate, acquisition channels
- What's working? What's not?
- Business model: how does revenue relate to user growth?
- Team and budget: what resources can you put toward growth?

### Step 2: Evaluate Growth Loops

Apply the **growth-loops** skill:

Analyze five growth loop types for your product:

1. **Viral Loop**: Users invite others as part of natural product use
2. **Usage Loop**: More usage creates more value, bringing users back
3. **Collaboration Loop**: Product becomes more valuable when used with others
4. **User-Generated Content Loop**: Users create content that attracts new users
5. **Referral Loop**: Satisfied users actively recommend to others

For each applicable loop: mechanism, requirements, expected impact, implementation effort.

### Step 3: Evaluate GTM Motions

Apply the **gtm-motions** skill:

Assess seven GTM approaches:

1. **Inbound**: Content, SEO, thought leadership
2. **Outbound**: Sales, cold outreach, account-based
3. **Paid Digital**: SEM, social ads, display, retargeting
4. **Community**: Forums, events, user groups, developer relations
5. **Partners**: Integrations, resellers, co-marketing
6. **ABM (Account-Based Marketing)**: Targeted enterprise acquisition
7. **PLG (Product-Led Growth)**: Free tier, self-serve, product virality

For each: fit for your product, expected CAC, timeline to results, tools needed.

### Step 4: Design Growth Strategy

```
## Growth Strategy: [Product]

**Date**: [today]
**Current state**: [user count, growth rate, key channels]
**Growth goal**: [target]

### Recommended Growth Loops
| Loop Type | Mechanism | Fit | Impact | Effort | Priority |
|----------|-----------|-----|--------|--------|----------|

### Primary Growth Loop: [Type]
**How it works**: [step-by-step mechanism]
**Requirements**: [what needs to be true/built]
**Key metrics**: [how to measure loop health]
**Implementation plan**: [concrete next steps]

### Secondary Growth Loop: [Type]
[same format]

### GTM Motion Mix
| Motion | Investment | Expected ROI | Timeline | Tools |
|--------|-----------|-------------|----------|-------|

### Growth Experiments
| # | Experiment | Tests What | Effort | Expected Learning |
|---|-----------|-----------|--------|------------------|

### Growth Metrics Framework
- **North Star**: [growth metric]
- **Loop health**: [metrics per loop]
- **CAC by channel**: [tracking approach]
- **Payback period**: [target]

### 90-Day Growth Plan
**Month 1**: [focus areas and experiments]
**Month 2**: [scale what works, cut what doesn't]
**Month 3**: [optimize and systematize]
```

Save as markdown.

### Step 5: Offer Next Steps

- "Want me to **plan a specific launch campaign**?"
- "Should I **create marketing content** for the inbound motion?"
- "Want me to **set up metrics** to track growth loop health?"
- "Should I **design a referral program** based on the referral loop?"

## Notes

- Growth loops compound; growth tactics don't — prioritize loops over one-off campaigns
- The best growth loop uses the product itself as the channel (PLG, viral, collaboration)
- Not every loop works for every product — a B2B analytics tool won't go viral on TikTok
- Budget should follow learning: invest small in experiments, then scale what proves out
- CAC should be < 1/3 of LTV for sustainable growth — flag if projected CAC is too high