How to Put Together Your Growth Team

How to Put Together Your Growth Team

Building a growth team is one of the most impactful investments a company can make. But getting the composition right requires thoughtful planning. The goal is to assemble a group that has the skills, autonomy, and chemistry to drive rapid, data-driven experimentation. This article provides a practical guide for building your growth team, from defining its focus to hiring the right people and setting the team up for success.

Start with the Problem, Not the Roles

Before defining roles, clarify what your growth team will focus on. Are you trying to improve user acquisition? Reduce churn? Increase monetization? Expand into new markets? The team's focus determines the skills you need. A team focused on acquisition needs strong marketing and analytics capabilities, while a retention-focused team needs more product and engineering depth.

Starting with the problem also helps you set clear objectives for the team from day one. Instead of a vague mandate to "drive growth," you can give the team specific targets: "improve trial-to-paid conversion from 5% to 8% within 90 days" or "reduce monthly churn by 20% this quarter." This clarity makes hiring, prioritization, and performance evaluation much more straightforward.

Essential Capabilities

Regardless of the team's specific focus, ensure these capabilities are covered:

• Data analysis: The ability to design experiments with proper controls, measure outcomes with statistical rigor, and identify patterns in the data that reveal opportunities.
• Technical implementation: The ability to build and deploy experiments quickly, including landing pages, A/B tests, tracking implementations, and automation workflows.
• Strategic thinking: The ability to prioritize the highest-impact opportunities, connect experiments to business objectives, and see the big picture beyond individual tests.
• Creative problem-solving: The ability to generate non-obvious experiment ideas that go beyond best-practice copying to find unique growth opportunities.
• Channel expertise: Deep knowledge of the specific acquisition or retention channels you rely on, whether that is paid search, content marketing, product-led growth, or something else.

Team Size and Structure

Start small. A team of two to four people can run a meaningful growth program. The minimum viable growth team typically includes a growth lead (who also handles strategy and prioritization), a data analyst (who can also do basic technical implementation), and access to engineering support (either a dedicated growth engineer or part-time support from the engineering team).

As you demonstrate results and earn organizational support, expand the team to include dedicated engineering, design, and specialized marketing roles. Most effective growth teams plateau at five to eight members for a single team. If you need more capacity, consider creating multiple growth squads focused on different parts of the funnel rather than building one very large team.

Hiring Tips

Look for people who are curious, comfortable with ambiguity, and energized by data. Prior experience with experimentation frameworks is valuable but not essential. What matters more is the mindset: a willingness to test assumptions, learn from failure, and iterate quickly. The best growth hires are people who ask "what would happen if we tried X?" rather than "what does the best practice say we should do?"

During interviews, present candidates with a real growth challenge and ask how they would approach it. Look for structured thinking, creative ideas, and an emphasis on measurement. Avoid candidates who immediately jump to solutions without first asking clarifying questions about the data, the customer, and the business context.

Setting the Team Up for Success

Once your team is assembled, invest in the infrastructure they need: analytics tools, experimentation platforms, a shared workspace for documentation, and clear communication channels. Define the team's operating cadence (weekly sprints, bi-weekly reviews) following the organizational design principles that enable fast iteration and ensure they have the autonomy to make decisions and run experiments without excessive approval processes. The growth management series provides a comprehensive framework for establishing this cadence. Start with what you have, prove the value of the approach, and build from there.