Adam Fishman
Adam Fishman has decades of experience building and scaling some incredible businesses, like Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods. He is currently an Executive in Residence at Reforge and an advisor to numerous companies on growth, product, strategy, and company building.
Career Skills
Evaluate potential employers with the same rigor as an investor, focusing on the quality of the people, the impact of the mission, and the company's fiscal discipline.
"PMF stands for people, mission and financials. And these are my three criteria... you should have a set of criteria that you are unapologetically rigorous around and you should learn how to evaluate c..."
Communication Skills
Growth leaders must bridge the gap between rapid experimentation and product craftsmanship to gain organizational buy-in.
"How do you manage stakeholders? And this is hard in growth because often growth can be viewed as at odds with really thoughtful and quality craftsmanship and product building, but it's not. Those thin..."
Growth Skills
Effective growth strategy requires a deep understanding of the specific loops that drive acquisition, retention, and monetization.
"Growth loop modeling. So really understanding how you grow and where you should be spending your time. What acquires users? What retains them? What monetizes them?"
Hiring & Teams Skills
Hire for team balance and complementary skills rather than searching for a single candidate who excels in every competency.
"The goal of the competency model is not to find a unicorn human being that is an 11 out of 10 on every one of these things, because frankly, that person doesn't exist... The goal is to create a well-r..."
Internal hires are often lower risk and faster to produce results because they already possess deep institutional and customer knowledge.
"I tend to skew more towards internal hire to be perfectly honest, because I believe in creating opportunity inside a company... I also believe that helping people transition into new roles is a way to..."
Product Management Skills
Growth roadmaps must be sequenced based on the underlying growth model and available resources rather than just a list of features.
"Prioritization and road mapping. So you have to be able to sequence the work much like in building a product, right? Building your growth strategy, you have to sequence it. That sequence has to make s..."