Growth Tactics Cards

#The problem this canvas solves

Reaching initial liquidity requires specific launch tactics. The deck captures the 10 key growth tactics - Building Trust, Marquee Strategy, Single-User Value (SaaS), Leverage Virality, Nest Inside an Existing Platform, Hyper-targeted Marketing/SEO, Leverage Remnant Inventory, Scraping and Automation, Subsidize Supply, and Community and E-mail Lists Through Content - each with its description, when to use it, examples, and its relationship with the network properties.

#When to use it

Use the cards together with the Growth Tactics Cheat Sheet: match the tactics to the network properties of the relationship (from the Network Properties & NFX Canvas) and pick the ones that fit the canonical unit you are trying to make liquid.

#The cards

The cards in the updated Boundaryless brand (click to zoom). A print-ready PDF is also available on request.

#Canvas structure

#The 10 tactic cards

One card per tactic to reach initial liquidity: Building Trust, Marquee Strategy, Single-User Value (SaaS), Leverage Virality, Nest Inside an Existing Platform, Hyper-targeted Marketing/SEO, Leverage Remnant Inventory, Scraping and Automation, Subsidize Supply, Community and E-mail Lists Through Content.

#Card anatomy

Each card gives the tactic's description, when to use it, real examples (Airbnb's host guarantee, Masterclass's VIP onboarding, Airbnb-on-Craigslist, Indeed's scraping), and its notable relationships with the network properties.

#The Growth Tactics Cheat Sheet (companion)

A matrix linking tactics to property polarities - the tactics with the most '+' fit a given polarity; page 2 details the reasoning behind the priorities.

#How to use it

Ten cards covering the most used and recurring tactics to launch and solve the chicken-and-egg problem, in a way that accounts for the underlying network properties - with a companion Cheat Sheet linking each tactic to specific property polarities.

#Steps

1. Prerequisite — Assess your network properties first on the Network Properties & NFX Canvas - tactics only make sense in relation to the relationship's properties.
2. Cheat Sheet — Match tactics via the Cheat Sheet: read the polarities that describe your network and shortlist the tactics with the most '+' for them; consult page 2 for the reasoning.
3. Cards — Review each shortlisted card - description, use-when, examples, property relationships - to check fit with your context.
4. To the canvas — Print and cut the cards, and stick the chosen ones in the dedicated zone of the Network Properties & NFX Canvas.

#Tips

• The Cheat Sheet sparks ideas - driving early growth is highly contextual and needs the specificities of your network.
• Some tactics are near-universal (Nesting, Remnant Inventory); others are narrow (Scraping is early-stage only with reputational risk; Virality is rarely useful for marketplaces).
• Community and e-mail lists through content is one of the best and least explored tactics - and with low transaction values it may be the only sustainable one.
• What you end up with: a prioritized list of tactics matched to your network properties, represented visually on the NFX canvas for your quest to liquidity.

#Connections with other canvases

#Feeds into

• Flywheel Sketching Canvas — Tactics become flywheel components
• Liquidity Canvas — Tactics support liquidity strategy

#Complements

• Flywheel Cards — Tactics and flywheel patterns together

#Used in techniques

• Selecting Growth Tactics

#Used in pipelines

• Bringing the Platform to Market

#Related reading

• Defining the Go-To-Market and Liquidity Approach — Explains how Growth Tactics feed into liquidity strategy

#Resources

• Guide reference: PDT Growth & Product Guide - Growth Tactics chapter
• License: Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0 International
• Version: 2.2

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Card deck · Part of Platform Design Toolkit · v2.2