Top 4 Growth Team Structures
Dear Readers,
I’m Brit—a growth designer at Zapier by day, and your community manager by night (sometimes I even wear a cape and mask).
How are growth teams organized and what are the common structures of those teams?
In this newsletter, I will answer this popular question in the community—easily in the top three of all time—and tell you a bit about my own team structure at Zapier.
Stay super,
Growth Designer & GrowthDesigners.co Community Manager
The Four Most Common Team Structures
Growth designers work on teams that come in different shapes and sizes, but these are the top emerging structures:
1. Product-Led Growth Teams:
These teams focus on self-serve motions, growth loops, product innovation and user experience enhancements to drive growth. They usually report up to a dedicated growth leader who reports to the CEO.
2. Revenue Teams:
These teams sit in the same business unit as marketing and sales. They focus on website optimization, customer acquisition strategies, product-qualified lead generation, and ultimately, revenue generation. Generally, they report up to a Chief Revenue Officer.
3. Metric-Tied Teams:
Aligned with specific metrics like acquisition, activation, conversion, retention, or referral, these teams aim to optimize key performance indicators (KPIs).
4. Functional Teams:
Centered around specific product surface areas or customer lifecyle stages, such as onboarding or checkout experiences, these teams focus on delivering impactful outcomes in targeted areas.
It’s common for companies to restructure from one of these forms to another over time as they scale and executive ownership shifts. You might start on an all-purpose, product-led growth team and then up on an onboarding subteam within a year.
My experience at Zapier
At Zapier, I sit on a metric-tied team focused on Monetization. I mainly focus on expansion and upsells, helping users discover the value of our more powerful automation features at the right moments. I report up to the design leader within our Growth zone.
I see a trend towards smaller, metric-tied growth squads like my own Monetization Team at Zapier. The ascendancy of this team structure reflects a shift towards agility and ownership in growth teams.
With many smaller metric teams, challenges emerge such as fragmented user experiences and resource constraints. The GrowthDesigners.co community is here to help each other problem-solve on these tricky team tradeoffs and much more. See you in the Slack? Or apply to join.
About the Author
Brit has been designing in some form or another for over 15 years. As a product designer, she works in growth, focusing on delivering user value and business impact. Off-screen, you’ll find her experimenting with textiles and embroidery, exploring the far corners of the world, or reading fantasy novels.
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