Aatif Awan, Head of Growth & International products at LinkedIn, shares LinkedIn's growth story, why principles matter more than tactics and other lessons learned from growing to 400M members.

1. Lessons learned from growing
LinkedIn to 400M members
Aatif Awan
Head of Growth & International Products at LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/aatifawan
aatif_awan

2. A Brief History of Growth @ LinkedIn

3. Growth @ LinkedIn: 2003-2007
0.1M 2M 4M 8M
17M
2003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015
LinkedIn Member Growth
Product market fit. Growth built into
product from the start.
Reid and early employees invited well-
connected people in the industry.
Public profiles launch in 2006, became a
second major growth channel due to SEO.

4. Growth @ LinkedIn: 2008-2011
0.1M 2M 4M 8M
17M
33M
55M
89M
145M
2003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015
LinkedIn Member Growth
Dedicated cross-functional growth team
(~15 people) focused on acquisition.
Identified drivers for key channels and
optimized.
International expansion. Saw 100%+ lifts
in growth for most markets where we
translated into local language.
I joined at the 100M milestone

5. Growth @ LinkedIn: 2012- today
0.1M 2M 4M 8M
17M
33M
55M
89M
145M
202M
277M
347M
414M
2003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015
LinkedIn Member Growth Expanded to cover acquisition, activation,
connections, retention and resurrection,
notifications.
Growth team’s growth: cross-functional
team of 120+ people.
Invested heavily in mobile and
partnerships.
Continue international expansion with
focus on China and India.

6. Growth Team Organization
SEO &
Public Pages
Network
Growth

Onboarding L2M Comms
SEO, SEM,
Conversion optimization,
Public pages
Viral growth,
PYMK,
Connections
Onboarding,
Activation,
Intent discovery
Engagement through
Email/Push notifications,
Resurrection
International
Localization,
Standardization,
Focus on key markets

7. Principles vs. Tactics

8. Too much hype about Growth Hacks and Tactics

9. Focus on principles, not tactics
• Principles >> Strategy >> Tactics
• Tactics have a short shelf life.
• If all you know are tactics, you will likely apply them
incorrectly.
• Once you understand the principles, you can find the
right tactics and even come up with your own.

10. What we’ve learned

11. Growth is about accelerating the realization of your vision,
not moving metrics up-and-to-the-right.
• At LinkedIn, our vision is to create
economic opportunity for every member
of the global workforce.
• Growth team accelerates this through
creation of the economic graph that
connects people, companies, jobs and
schools.
• Taking this view led us to focus on
quality signups

12. Pick one North Star metric, measure everything
• Define one north star metric that:
• Is aligned with the success of your business
• Measures value for users
• Is summable
• Sometimes, one is not possible. Go for as few as you can.
• Measure everything and tie it back to the north star metric.

13. Good product comes first, growth second
• Investing in growth before you
have a good product is a waste of
resources.
• Measure product goodness with
long-term retention (curve should
flatten over time) and through
customer feedback
• If your retention isn’t good,
nothing else matters. Improve it
by delivering core product value
early and often.
Good retention
Bad retention
%age of users engaging by weeks since signup

14. But that wouldn’t have worked for LinkedIn.
• For products with network effects or marketplace dynamics
(LinkedIn has both), you need to achieve a good product and
growth simultaneously.
• Products get better with more users and can be useless without a critical mass.
• We solved for this by building two powerful growth engines from
the start.

15. Investing in multiple scalable growth channels multiplies
your odds of success
• Being dependent on a single growth
channel is a strategic liability.
• Have one core channel, invest in
strategic channels like new platforms and
have some venture bets.
• We developed two core channels: Viral
growth through members building their
networks by importing contacts and SEO
of people profiles.
• Over time we have created more
channels with mobile and partnerships.

16. User Behavior
Identifying Growth Channels
• Do existing users share your product via word
of mouth?
• Are people using search to find a solution?
• Do users have a high LTV?
Channels to explore
Virality, referrals
SEO, SEM
Paid acquisition
• Does having more users improve the experience?
Virality
• Are your target users already on another
platform? Partnership, Integration

17. Prioritize
channels and
levers
Brainstorm
hypotheses
and ideas
Assess
impact on
north star
metric
Prioritize
based on
impact,
probability of
success and
effort
Build, A/B
test and
measure
Growth Requires Continuous Prioritization and Feedback

18. A/B Testing => Always Be Testing
• The more you experiment, the faster you learn and innovate.
• It can resolve long-disputed strategy questions and break down
long-held myths.
• You can A/B test most things
• We’ve done statistically significant tests to measure impact on customer complaints
on an issue with a volume of a few hundred/week
• SEO A/B testing can be very effective
• As your user demographics change over time, repeating old
tests can lead to new insights.

19. Not all beautiful Growth charts go up-and-to-the-right
Weekly
Emails sent
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
projected
-40%
• We heard loud and clear that our members were getting too much email.
• We built a central system for all emails called Air Traffic Controller (ATC).
• This cut emails we send by 40% and complaints by 53% with no negative
impact on growth or engagement 

20. Hiring the right people is more important than strategy
• Analytical
• Gets shit done
• Curious – asks why?
• Finds new ways to do things – asks why not?
• Prior growth experience is optional

21. Culture
• Data trumps opinions
• Set ambitious goals
• Move fast
• Learn continuously
• Celebrate wins

22. Thank you!
Aatif Awan
Head of Growth & International Products at LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/aatifawan
aatif_awan