How do the greatest companies win?
Here's how I can help you learn from (and apply) their playbooks
👋 Hey, Jaryd here.
Welcome to How They Grow! If you made it here, you’re probably:
A builder and operator in tech (most likely a founder, PM, or growth marketer)
In the business of helping your product grow, so you can grow your own career
Interested in learning new strategy, growth, and product playbooks to get there
Curious to hear the founding stories behind some of the greatest businesses, and what they’re doing to win
If just one of those is true, you’re in the right place!
Why? Because taking an idea from 0 to 1 (or 1 to 2), building products, getting early customers, and finding both short-term boosts and sustainable engines for growth is flipping hard.
When I started my first company in 2016—which I was lucky enough to sell a few years later—I made many costly mistakes, often focusing on the wrong things. I also missed out on many opportunities. Reflecting back, one big thing that could have helped so much was if I spent more time learning from the successes and failures of companies, vs just doing it all myself. As Warren Buffet so perfectly puts it:
When people tell me they’ve learned from experience, I tell them the trick is to learn from other people’s experience.
And when I transitioned into product management, I decided to take that advice very seriously.
So, I started studying what led world-class companies towards incredible success—from the small ideas that had outsized returns, to the larger strategic moves that made them category queens. But, lessons on what not to do are just as important, so I also set out to understand the themes, and the less common specifics, that sent once high-flying companies to the startup graveyard.
But, here’s the problem
There’s a lot of bad, thinly researched, and SEO-thirsty content out there on this stuff.
Most write-ups on companies that present themselves as case studies are just shallow articles often regurgitating the same info. Actually learning how a company is winning (or dropped the ball) in the 500-1000 words designed for SEO is impossible.
Many articles that do have a bit more depth focus on just one element of growth. This fails to look at the full picture, and a holistic understanding of how the drivers work together is key.
Some of the longer-form pieces (which are excellent write-ups) are from an investor’s perspective and lack actionable takeaways for builders. The operator's voice is, by and large, missing.
Bottom line? Finding high-quality, deeply researched, and unique analyses from an operator’s POV with clear actionable takeaways is very difficult.
That’s exactly what I’m here to solve
I’m Jaryd, by day, I'm a Director of Product, by the early hours of the morning and on weekends, I’m crouched over my desk (usually with my cat Leo parked in front of me) writing How They Grow!
This newsletter is full of actionable deep dives on the growth of world-class companies, unpacking their early strategies, current playbooks, and the product-building lessons we can learn from them.
I also go deep on startup failures, curate a weekly digest of product, growth, and strategy advice from some of the best operators, and write personal essays about stuff on my mind.
All of the above is always free, always tactical.
💯 My mission here? To cut through the noise for you, and help you get better at building great products. To figure out smart go-to-market strategies that lean on some sneaky distribution advantage. To help develop your category creation sense, and hone your chops when it comes to efficient and clever growth. Growth hacks are old and burnt out. It’s all about sustainable growth engines, and in this newsletter, my goal is to help you learn how the best are pulling them off.
Here’s my promise to you: Each post should develop your product, growth, and strategic skills. If you’re not learning (and being somewhat entertained while doing so), hit that unsubscribe button.
How They Grow is me learning in public, with all the hours of research I do (about 80 hours a month) written down and shared, saving you hours of bushwhacking on the internet. Ready to start? 🌱
Not sure where to start? Here’s a list of popular deep dives. I suggest starting by picking one company, then bookmarking this list for later.
How Arc Grows: Building The New Window Into The Internet (Read↗ )
How Roblox Grows: From Virtual Playground to Global Empire (Read↗ )
How Duolingo Grows: If Angry Birds Taught You French (Read↗ )
How Zapier Grows: Automating Growth (Read↗ )
How Miro Grows: Tactical Lessons From The $17.5B Whiteboard(Read↗ )
How Headspace Grows: The Monk Who Built a $3B Meditation App (Read↗ )
How Cash App Grows: Becoming King For Block’s $24B Commerce Stack (Read↗ )
How Nvidia Grows: The Engine for AI and The Catalyst Of The Future (Read↗ )
How beehiiv Grows: Becoming The Sweetest Newsletter Platform (Read↗ )
How Klarna Grows: Building The Shopping Destination of the Future (Read↗ )
How Roku Grows: The Platform For Streaming Platforms (Read↗ )
How TikTok Grows: Origins, Growth, and The Future of The Internet (Read↗ )
How Jasper Grows: When AI-enabled Hammers Hit The Right Nail (Read↗ )
How Zillow Grows: Building The ‘Housing Super App’ (Read↗ )
How Canva Grows: (Read↗ )
How OpenAI Grows: (Read↗ )
How Notion Grows: (Read↗ )
How Superhuman Grows: (Read↗ )
How Stripe Grows: (Read↗ )
How LEGO Grows: (Read↗ )
How Atlassian Grows: (Read↗ )
How Intercom Grows: (Read↗ )
How Bumble Grows: (Read↗ )
How Etsy Grows: (Read↗ )
How Shopify Grows: (Read↗ )
How Epic Games Grows: (Read↗ )
A few words from readers ❤️
I’m incredibly grateful to such an awesome bunch of folks who read my work. Here are some of the things they’ve shared with me:
“How They Grow is the internet's best and deepest dive into how technology products develop. Jaryd does a great job sharing the ins and outs of how major products built to become behemothic successes and/or failures. As someone who has helped scale multiple businesses I consider How They Grow to be my go to space to reflect and understand how I might do it better next time. Oh yeah, and the whole read is also radically fun. If you have any interest in modern business and product development you should be subscribed already. Do it.”
“I recently subscribed to your HTG newsletter and I must say I LOVE it!!!! OMG!!! I read a lot of newsletters, and yours is definitely among one of the very best! 👏”
“In a sea of content available to entrepreneurs, How They Grow stands out because of its deep, thoughtful analysis based on extensive research. It's one of the best sources of real insights into why the biggest companies around...are the biggest companies around. It doesn't hurt that the writing is accessible and -dare I say it- fun to read.”
"No one uncovers the growth story behind game-changing companies quite like How They Grow. I always come away with pages of notes and actionable ideas and experiments to try.”
"How They Grow became my top 3 learning newsletters immediately after I read the first one. I can't recommend enough how high quality it is to help me learn to think wider and deeper about product management, growth, strategy, and life.”
"Dude - you deliver RIDICULOUS VALUE. When I read your OpenAI email that was the first time in a while I scrolled up to read "who the F wrote this?" and I Googled you. Standing ovation.”“Jaryd writes growth content with a depth and clarity that's hard to find elsewhere. Learned a ton from Duolingo in particular.”
"Honestly the most consistently insightful thread I've seen on the internet. I'm not usually one to commit to sitting down and digesting longer form posts, I mainly enjoy my quick bits of information that allows me to get on with my day. However, I've found myself constantly setting aside time to sit and focus on Jaryd's articles”“I absolutely love the content and the depth of your newsletter. My favorite part - the “What you can do with this” section. It gives clear actionable insight”
“I look forward to How They Grow every morning!!! What a great way to start the day - with great storytelling, insights, and what feels like conversation with a friend..”
“I feel a lot smarter everytime I read your newsletter”
"Jaryd, wanted to let you know that your How they Grow series is badass, and I'm lovin' it so far! Just found it recently and couldn't be happier I stumbled across it.”
What next? 🌱
Join 20,000+ readers from companies like Netflix, Google, Meta, Notion, Ramp, and more, and start learning to build and grow like the best with real-world case studies.
That’s it from me. I’ll see you in your inbox.
p.s Please share with friends and co-workers. ❤️ Building great products and companies is much easier and more fun when others are on the same page.
Loving your work, mate. Keep it up.
Jaryd, congrats on this project. I love read all the content and I'm always encouraging my team to read, summarise and present one of the cases to the team.
I would love to make you a suggestion, but I couldn't find a better way, so I will leave it here: clickfunnels. I would love to read your analysis about How they grow.