Product Management line, station 7 of 11
Growth & Adoption
Grow a product the right way round: prove product-market fit first, get new users to value fast, build habits without dark patterns, and grow through loops and local launches that pay for themselves.
- 4lessons
- 2.5 hto read and do
- Intermediatelevel
- 4podcast episodes
Tools you'll use in this course
The lessons open these with a template ready. They work for your own job too, no course needed.
About this course
Growth spending multiplies whatever a product already does. If people love it, you meet more people who will love it; if they leave after one try, you pay to meet more people who leave. This course teaches the order strong product managers work in: check fit segment by segment, fix the path to the first moment of value, build engagement people would thank you for, and only then invest in loops and launches that compound.
You will run the "very disappointed" survey and read retention curves that flatten, judge fit for internal tools whose users cannot leave, find an activation metric and cut time to value, design onboarding for a business with several people and offline steps, set a notification budget with a holdout, and test every engagement idea against named dark patterns and the regulatory cases that followed them. The last lesson maps growth loops, costs a referral programme per retained customer, and plans district-by-district launches with field agents, partner shops, cash-in points and cash on delivery, drawing on what worked for products in fast-growing markets.
Every lesson is set at Mangrove Market, a fictional grocery chain with a customer app, about 1,800 partner shops on its Partner app, and staff tools in 320 stores. Each lesson has a podcast episode, practice tasks with model answers and flashcards, and the course ends with a capstone on a city launch that is not going as planned.
What you will be able to do
- Judge whether a product has product-market fit, segment by segment, using the "very disappointed" survey, retention curves that flatten, unpaid pull and whether the core promise holds at peak
- Read fit signals for internal tools and B2B apps, where use is mandatory or split across channels, from workarounds, voluntary use and the outage test
- Design onboarding that shortens time to value, with an activation metric checked against retention, for single users and for businesses with several people and offline steps
- Design engagement loops and a notification budget that build habits at the product's natural frequency, and spot and reject dark patterns with clear tests
- Map a product's growth loops, cost a referral programme per incremental retained customer, and plan a local launch whose gates tie spending to fit
Syllabus
4 stops, about 2.5 h in total. Each stop fills in when you complete the lesson.
Product-market fit before growth
Growth spending multiplies whatever your product already does. If people love it, you pay to meet more people who will love it. If they leave after one try, you pay to meet more people who will leave. This lesson shows how to tell which case you are in, for a consumer app, a B2B app and an internal tool, and when it is time to scale.
Product-market fitRetention analysisCustomer surveysInternal tool adoption
Onboarding and the first-time experience
Most new users decide in their first session, or their first order, whether a product is worth their time. Onboarding is the path from "I installed it" to "I got what I came for". This lesson shows how to find that moment, measure how long it takes to reach, remove what stands in the way, and onboard a business, with several people and offline steps, as well as a single person.
Onboarding designActivation metricsTime to valueB2B onboarding
Engagement loops, habits and notifications without dark patterns
Products people use often are built on loops: a prompt, an action, a reward, and something that makes the next round easier. The same tools that help people keep a habit they want can trap them in one they would not choose. This lesson teaches the mechanics, how to run a notification budget, and where the line sits between engagement that helps and dark patterns, with real cases and the penalties that followed.
Engagement designHabit loopsNotification strategyEthical design
Growth loops and local go-to-market
A funnel describes how one person goes from stranger to customer. A loop describes how today's customers bring in tomorrow's, so growth compounds instead of being bought one customer at a time. This lesson shows how to map a product's loops, work out what a referral programme really costs, and launch in a new city or district the way products in fast-growing markets did: one dense area at a time, with field agents, offline channels and places to turn cash into digital money.
Growth loopsReferral economicsGo-to-marketCity launches
Capstone: City six: fix it before you fund it
A realistic project with a rubric and a model answer.
Final exam and certificate
10 questions drawn at random, 70% to pass.
Capstone project
City six: fix it before you fund it
A month ago the Mangrove app launched in its sixth city. Launch posters and a first-order coupon brought 40,000 sign-ups, but only about 14,000 placed a first order and about 3,100 placed a second within 14 days, roughly half the rate of the established cities. About 1 in 5 first orders arrived late or with an item cut; the median "Now" delivery at the evening peak is 38 minutes citywide, but 29 minutes in the two districts closest to the city's stores. Customers get about 7 marketing pushes a week and are asked for notification permission on the first screen. A survey of 260 customers with two or more orders gives 33% "very disappointed" overall. Marketing holds a $400,000 launch budget and wants to spend it next month. Decide what should happen, and show your working.
You will hand in
- A one-page fit scorecard for the city, split by district and by coupon and non-coupon customers, using the survey and the weekly retention curve, with thresholds set before you read the results
- An onboarding map from install to the first "30 minutes, really?" moment, with drop-offs, an activation metric checked against retention, and ranked fixes that include the first delivery
- A notification plan with message types, a weekly budget per customer, quiet hours, the permission moment and a holdout
- One growth loop, either referrals or shareable carts, mapped step by step and costed per incremental customer still ordering at week 8
- A one-page go/no-go on the $400,000: what to spend now, what to hold, and the gates that release the rest
Check what you know
Already know some of this? Answer 4 quick questions, one from each lesson, and we will mark the lessons you can skim. It takes about 2 minutes and nothing is graded.
Questions
Do I need the analytics course first?
It helps. Metrics & Product Analytics teaches funnels, cohort tables and experiments, which this course uses to judge fit, onboarding and notifications. Each lesson links to the relevant analytics lesson, so you can also take them side by side.
Is this a marketing course?
No. It covers the product work behind growth: whether the product deserves more users, how new users reach value, how engagement is designed, and how loops and local launches are built and costed. Marketing channels appear where they become part of a loop or a launch plan.
Does any of this apply to internal tools?
Yes. The fit lesson has a full section on signals for tools people must use, the onboarding lesson covers new staff on store handhelds, and the engagement lesson includes an alert budget for store managers. The next course, Internal Tools, Operations & Platforms, goes deeper.
Is the dark-patterns material legal advice?
No. It names common patterns and real enforcement cases, such as the US Federal Trade Commission's actions against Epic Games and Amazon and the EU's Digital Services Act, so you can recognise risk early. Your legal team should review anything close to the line in your own markets.
Will the go-to-market patterns work where I live?
The lesson draws on products that grew in Kenya, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and elsewhere: agents, neighbourhood shops, messaging groups and cash on delivery. The method is to find the channels people in your area already trust, start dense, and tie spending to gates, which works in any market.
Is it really free?
Yes. Every lesson, podcast episode, exercise, quiz, final exam and certificate is free. The labs and their templates for real work are free too. Plus and Premium add every lab challenge, weekly extras and a mentor on top, and they never lock the tools or the courses.
How long does it take?
Each lesson shows an honest time for reading and doing. Most people finish a course in two to four weeks at three or four hours a week.