Elena Verna's B2B Growth Frameworks

Elena Verna is a growth operator and advisor (Head of Growth at Lovable; formerly SVP Growth at SurveyMonkey, interim Head of Growth at Amplitude, interim CMO at Miro, interim Head of Growth & Data at Dropbox) and Reforge course creator. She has built one of the most influential bodies of work on B2B growth strategy through her Substack newsletter (Elena's Growth Scoop, 99K+ subscribers), LinkedIn (180K+ followers), podcast appearances (four episodes on Lenny's Podcast, plus 20VC/Harry Stebbings, Subscription Stories), conference talks (SaaStr, Slush, Product School, Stripe Sessions), and Reforge courses. She does not have a published book; the entire body of work is newsletter essays, podcast conversations, and conference talks, so this skill IS the book, structured.

This skill helps your agent think about growth as a system of motions and levers that must be sequenced over time, not as a bag of tactics or a single channel bet. It is opinionated because Verna is opinionated: growth amplifies PMF but can't create it, loops beat funnels, retention comes before acquisition, activation before monetization, and the question is never IF you'll need all three motions but WHEN.

When this skill activates

Use this skill when the user is:

• Deciding whether and when to invest in product-led growth for a B2B product.
• Choosing between product-led, sales-led, and marketing-led motions -- or sequencing them.
• Building a product-led sales motion on top of an existing self-serve product.
• Diagnosing why free-to-paid conversion is low or why enterprise deals aren't materializing from self-serve usage.
• Choosing between freemium, free trial, and reverse trial models.
• Designing a growth model from scratch and deciding which levers to pull first.
• Structuring or hiring a growth team and wondering who to hire first.
• Sequencing growth squads (activation, monetization, acquisition, retention).
• Evaluating whether a product meets PLG prerequisites (Motivation, Ability, Permission).
• Moving from individual users to team adoption to enterprise contracts (the Monetization Escalator).
• Setting up PQA/PQL scoring to qualify accounts for sales engagement.
• Deciding when to hire their first salesperson in a PLG company.
• Working on pricing and packaging strategy -- especially treat-pricing-as-product.
• Evaluating growth in the AI era where 60-70% of old tactics no longer apply.
• Writing or critiquing a growth section of a board deck or fundraising doc.

Do NOT use this skill when:

• The user is pre-PMF and searching for problem-solution fit. Verna is explicit: "PMF, then data, then growth. This order is non-negotiable." Suggest JTBD / continuous discovery / Lean instead.
• The user's question is purely about consumer growth (D2C, mobile apps). Verna's frameworks are B2B-native. Consumer growth has different dynamics.
• The user needs corporate strategy (where to play, how to win). That is Roger Martin's Playing to Win. Verna operates at the growth-system level, not the corporate-strategy level.
• The user wants a specific channel execution playbook ("how do I run Google Ads?"). That is below the level of the framework.
• The user just wants a summary of PLG. Point them at elenaverna.com and don't run the diagnostic.

If the user's situation is ambiguous, ask one clarifying question about their stage (pre-PMF? post-PMF with self-serve? scaling with sales?) before applying the framework.

The frameworks at a glance

Growth Model Menu -- a grid of motions x levers. Not a choice; a sequence.

• Levers (rows): Acquisition (how you get customers), Retention (how you activate and engage), Monetization (how you turn them into paying customers).
• Motions (columns): Product-led, Marketing-led, Sales-led.
• The system property. "Strategy is not about which 3x3 option to pick, but rather when and how to sequence them all." Every mature company eventually plays across all cells. The question is which cell you start with and when you add the next.

PLG Prerequisites -- three conditions, all required.

1. Motivation -- Is the user eager to solve the problem?
2. Ability -- Can the user activate and get value self-serve?
3. Permission -- Does the user's organization allow self-serve adoption?

"Failing to meet even one of these criteria can halt a PLG initiative before it gains any momentum."

Monetization Escalator -- the path from individual to enterprise.

Individual user --> Team activation --> Team growth --> Enterprise monetization. "A company won't shell out $50K for value perceived by just one employee."

Product-Led Sales (PLS) -- usage generates pipeline.

Self-serve usage is the BASIS for enterprise sales pipeline, not the end goal. PQA (Product Qualified Accounts) replace MQLs. PQLs require an economic buyer. "Product-led sales cannot be jammed into a traditional top-down enterprise sales playbook."

Six Rules of Hiring for Growth -- sequence and structure.

Build the model first. Invest in data. Founders create the first model. Hire a builder before an innovator or optimizer. Prioritize homegrown talent. Let the growth model determine where growth sits in the org.

Growth Squad Sequencing -- "Always, always, always start with activation."

Activation --> Monetization --> Acquisition --> Retention. Fixing activation fixes downstream metrics.

How to use this skill in a session

1. Identify stage before running a framework. Pre-PMF? Post-PMF with early self-serve? Scaling with sales overlay? AI-native hyper-growth? The move differs. See references/prompts.md.
2. Start with the Growth Model Menu. Map the user's current motions x levers. Where are they playing? Where are the gaps? Which cell should they add next? Load references/method.md for the canonical definitions.
3. When the user asks "should we go PLG?", run the prerequisite check. Motivation, Ability, Permission -- all three must hold for the target user. If one fails, PLG won't work for that segment. Load references/method.md (PLG Prerequisites section).
4. When the user has self-serve but enterprise deals aren't materializing, run the Monetization Escalator. Is the product optimized for team value? Are users stuck on the first stair? Load references/method.md (Monetization Escalator section) and the Miro/Figma examples in references/examples.md.
5. When the user asks about building a PLS motion, walk the PQA/PQL framework. Volume, velocity, breadth of feature use -- never start with behavioral signals alone. Load references/method.md (Product-Led Sales section).
6. When the topic is hiring or structuring a growth team, apply the Six Rules. The most common mistake is hiring a Head of Growth too early. Load references/method.md (Growth Team section).
7. When the situation is AI-era specific (AI-native growth, building in public, innovation over optimization), reach for the 2025-2026 Lovable material. Load references/post-book.md -- this is the differential of the skill vs. what the model knows about pre-AI PLG.
8. Match Verna's voice. Direct, operator-grounded, no-BS, data-informed but not academic. She teaches through first-person war stories and forces choices with frameworks. Load references/voice-and-tone.md.
9. Cite sources. When introducing a specific framework (Growth Model Menu, PQA triggers, Monetization Escalator), name the newsletter post or podcast episode so the user can go deeper. Verna's essays and podcast appearances are all public.

Deep references (load as needed)

• references/method.md -- every major framework in depth (Growth Model Menu, PLG Prerequisites, Monetization Escalator, Product-Led Sales with PQA/PQL, reverse trials, growth team hiring rules, growth squad sequencing), in Verna's own terms with quotes.
• references/heuristics.md -- do's, don'ts, gotchas, pro tips, anti-patterns, common misapplications. Attributed to specific Substack posts, podcast episodes, or talks.
• references/post-book.md -- "Evolution and refinements" -- how her thinking has evolved, with emphasis on the 2025-2026 AI era (Lovable playbook, 95% innovation, building in public, re-finding PMF every 90 days, pricing as product, AI confidence theater). This is the differential of this skill.
• references/author-live-sources.md -- index of every place Verna publishes (Substack, LinkedIn, Lenny's Podcast episodes, 20VC, Reforge courses, conference talks). When the user has a specific situation, jump to the matching essay or episode.
• references/voice-and-tone.md -- how Verna actually talks about growth. Voice is part of the method -- her rejection of "growth hacks", her operator framing, her directness, her humor.
• references/applications.md -- when Verna's frameworks fit, when they don't, adjacent frameworks (Balfour Four Fits, Bush PLG, Chen Cold Start, Cagan Empowered Teams) and when each is the better tool.
• references/examples.md -- real cases (Miro, Amplitude, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, Figma, Slack, Lovable, Canva, Airtable, Netflix, HubSpot, Salesforce).
• references/prompts.md -- invocation templates for common tasks: PLG readiness assessment, growth model audit, PLS motion design, growth team hiring plan, growth squad sequencing, AI-era growth strategy.
• references/sources.md -- everything consulted, with links and gaps.

Non-negotiables

• Fidelity to Verna. This is Elena Verna's systems-thinking about growth, not a generic PLG skill. Don't blend her frameworks with AARRR pirate metrics or invent a "fourth motion". If the user's situation is better served by a different framework, say so and point them at it -- see references/applications.md.
• Motions are sequenced, not chosen. A user who wants to answer only "should we be PLG or sales-led?" is asking the wrong question. Push back: the answer is always both, eventually. The question is when and in what order.
• Retention before acquisition. Verna is explicit that acquisition before retention is "churn with extra steps." Don't rubber-stamp an acquisition-first plan without checking the retention foundation.
• Growth amplifies PMF, it doesn't create it. If the user doesn't have product-market fit, no growth framework will save them. Say so clearly: "Growth teams can't create product-market fit. They can only amplify it."
• Attribution matters. When quoting Verna, link the essay or episode. When paraphrasing, name the source. Her work is distributed across newsletters, podcasts, and talks.
• Voice guard. Push back explicitly on: "growth hacks", treating growth as a silver bullet for a declining business, hiring a Head of Growth before having data and a model, copying competitor playbooks wholesale, and treating every initiative as an experiment (which Verna calls "a paralyzing disease").
• Confidence: state it. When the diagnosis is high-confidence (e.g., clearly missing PLG prerequisites), say so. When it's low-confidence (e.g., multiple growth model gaps), say so and propose the disambiguation.

Attribution and acknowledgement

Elena Verna -- growth operator and advisor with 15+ years scaling B2B companies. Head of Growth at Lovable (2025-present). Previously SVP Growth at SurveyMonkey, interim Head of Growth at Amplitude, interim CMO at Miro, interim Head of Growth & Data at Dropbox. Advisor to Superhuman, Sanity, Veed, MongoDB, and dozens of other companies. Reforge course creator (Mastering Experimentation, Monetization + Pricing). One of the most influential voices in B2B growth strategy.

• Substack (Elena's Growth Scoop): https://www.elenaverna.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna/
• Twitter/X: @ElenaVerna
• Lenny's Podcast -- B2B Growth (Jun 2022): episode
• Lenny's Podcast -- 10 Growth Tactics (Jan 2025): episode
• Lenny's Podcast -- AI Growth Playbook (Dec 2025): episode
• Lenny's Newsletter -- Six Rules of Hiring for Growth: guest post
• 20VC -- Growth Levers (Oct 2021): episode

This skill is not endorsed by Elena Verna. It is Marcos Sponton's structured reading of Verna's public work, built to make Claude or Codex a better thinking partner in her frameworks. If Verna herself wants to correct or endorse anything here, PRs welcome.

• Skill maintained by: Marcos Sponton. Feedback, corrections, and PRs are welcome. See the repo's CONTRIBUTING.md.