How to Share Progress Updates in Growth Teams

I am an over-communicator. I send weekly marketing updates to my exec team, marketing team, and sales team to let them know how we're trending. I send monthly newsletters to the entire company so they know what the team has been working hard on and can use the latest and greatest messaging, resources, and more. This may be annoying to some, but in my experience, it's better to over-communicate than to have people wonder what your team is working on (and thus, what the value they are providing to your company might be). Here's my formula: 𝑾𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒍𝒚 𝑼𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 The purpose of this update is share marketing info my cross-functional stakeholders and my CEO need to know to make business decisions. Here's what I include: • TL;DR — if they read nothing else, what do they need to know? • Pipeline progress: How are we tracking for the quarter. Anything to note? • Channels: Where is qualified pipeline coming from? What's working? • Funnel conversion: How are leads progressing through the funnel? Are they above target or under? What channels are converting best? Worst? Why do you think that is? • Priorities for the week: Where will your team be focused? What can your stakeholders expect? I like to link to reports for each of these points, and to my team's sprint for the last. That way, people can always double-click one layer down if they want to. 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝑼𝒑𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 For the monthly update, my audience is my entire company. The purpose of this update is alignment and awareness on our messaging, new resources, and marketing strategy. Here's what I include: • TL;DR — yep, this again. You really can't expect everyone to read everything you send so I always include a summary for the skimmers. • A list of our marketing OKRs with sub-bullets that include how we're executing on each OKR. • Links to any newly published resources so people don't have to hunt. Last, I always ask for feedback and questions. Updates can be a 2-way conversation. If someone wants to know why we are doing one thing vs. another, I always welcome those questions.

If you're embarking on a big initiative in 2025, be it professional or personal, I strongly recommend sending a monthly update (even if you're literally just emailing yourself). Here's the exact structure I've used for a few years: Context I send a monthly update to Ethena's investors. While I'm contractually obligated to do this, it's a phenomenal exercise because I'm forced to zoom out and assess progress. The monthly cadence is perfect because it's enough time for there to be something significant to say, but not so frequent that it becomes a burden. Structure 1. The TLDR/summary. No more than 3 bullet points summarizing what I think the biggest developments are. This is fuzzy and based totally on my intuition. 2. The metrics. These *have* to be the same metrics every month. I report on 8 key metrics and if I ever change a metric, I force myself to explain why I'm changing, say, how we calculate gross dollar retention. This builds accountability. 3. Team updates. It always sounds corny, but people will make or break your goal. While this is obviously true in business, I'd argue it's true even in personal goal setting. Want to get fit? You'll need to find the right coach. So I write what's going well (and not), and what open roles we have. 4. Biggest challenge. 2-3 sentences on whatever is hardest. 5. Asks. I ask my investors for help every single month. 6. Thanks. I thank everyone who did something in the past month. This is really important! It builds gratitude and people like being seen for their contributions. One last thing I do before I send an update is I read my previous month's. It helps me to see the through line and also, it's nice to see progress so concretely. I hope you read all the things/lift all the weights/accomplish whatever it is you're excited to tackle in 2025! And LMK if you think my update is missing something.

Want to thrive as head of growth? It's not just about being technical and analytical. You need to be exceptional communicators too. Because a lot of the most important growth work is invisible. It's your responsibility to keep everyone informed, aligned, and excited. Over-communicating sounds easy - but is hard in practice. Here are 5 things you could share today to immediately start driving more alignment. Interesting learnings/insights: - What you're learning about your customers - and how can other teams can leverage that - Interesting user research findings - Results of your recent user interviews - Screen recordings of successful users - Recordings of users who got stuck along the way - and your ideas why Recent results - Experiment wins - and how other teams can capitalize - Experiment losses - so everyone can avoid the same mistakes - Recent quick-wins - and why you prioritized them New focus areas - What you're focused on right now - and why - Work that you've deprioritized - and your reasoning Opportunities - High-leverage segments you've identified - Interesting cohorts of data - Big hypothesis you want to test - and your next steps Operating system: - Where to draw the lines between growth and other depts - How you think about success - What KPIs you're focused on right now - and why - How you get the work done? A head of growth needs to think of their role as a chief enablement officer. Sharing is part of your weekly operating system.

Here’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way…and something I find myself repeating regularly to my team: If you’re not actively communicating progress, people assume there isn’t any. Even if you’re deep in the work. Even if things are actually moving forward. Even if you’re heads-down solving real problems. Silence creates a vacuum—and in that vacuum, people rarely assume the best. They assume you’re stuck. Or stalled. Or overwhelmed. Or….worst of all, not doing anything. They start asking: “What’s going on with that?” And you’re suddenly on the back foot, defending instead of leading. I’ve had moments where I thought, “Why are they micromanaging me and checking in so much? Don’t they trust me?” But looking back, I wasn’t giving them anything to reassure them or provide confidence that “I’ve got this”. So now, I default to visibility: • A quick update in a Teams chat • A weekly email with what’s changed, what’s blocked, what’s next • One slide that tells the story clearly and simply It’s not performative and it doesn’t take long. It’s strategic. Because communicating progress—especially when you’re doing the leg work behind the scenes, a tricky phase, or a quiet stretch—builds confidence, keeps those relying on you aligned, and clears the path for you to move faster. I learnt that, if you want to be seen as a strategic operator, don’t just do the work. Create a drum beat.