Lessons from building a 70-person growth team — Podcast with Strava’s Jason van der Merwe

In an episode of the Sub Club podcast, Strava's Director of Growth Engineering, Jason van der Merwe, discusses the importance of growth engineering in connecting users with a product's value and expanding that value continuously. He emphasizes the need for growth engineers to adopt a product manager mindset, which involves focusing on user and business impact rather than just executing tasks. Central to Strava's growth strategy is extensive testing, which Jason argues is crucial for achieving significant growth wins, as demonstrated by Strava's early success in increasing user retention through reduced friction. As Strava's growth team expanded, the focus shifted from large-scale experiments to solving specific problems, yet it remains essential to retain insights and maintain a broader perspective. Jason highlights the importance of feature education using multiple communication channels and the need for teams to view themselves as platforms to optimize user experience despite inherent challenges within app companies.