OpenCMO — a growth knowledge base built from named experts
First-hand experience from people who ran growth at real companies. Not framework templates: specific people, direct quotes, sources linked, disagreements preserved.
Operator index (by product type)
AI-native products
| Expert | Company | Product type | Core thesis | File |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jared Liu (宗源) | YouMind | AI consumer tools | Aggregation-site flywheel + newsjacking + agent automation | → |
| Frank | AI product, 5M users | AI consumer/prosumer | Four-pillar system (SEM→SEO→GEO→social); paid conversion first | → |
| Austin Lau | Anthropic | AI platform | Cut ad production from 30 minutes to 30 seconds with self-built tools | → |
| Matt Swulinski | Wispr Flow → Viktor | AI consumer/prosumer | Ran the whole paid program solo; start ads immediately; creative is the targeting; creative-bundle diversity | → |
| Grant Lee | Gamma | AI presentations | Won Product Hunt and still called it no-PMF; rebuilt onboarding around the first 30 seconds; >50% paid acquisition = broken growth engine | → |
| Chris Pedregal | Granola | AI meeting notes | A year in closed beta with ~150 hand-onboarded users; zero built-in growth loops, spread through VC circles anyway | → |
Productivity / dev tools (PLG)
| Expert | Company | Product type | Core thesis | File |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ben Lang | Notion / Cursor | Productivity, PLG | Full creator videos + genuine usage; evergreen signup flywheel | → |
| Lena Waters | Notion | PLG→Enterprise | Show don't tell; PLG and enterprise are one loop; agentic GTM | → |
| Karri Saarinen | Linear | B2B dev tools, zero paid marketing | $35K total marketing → $1.25B; the methodology is the marketing | → |
| Morgane Palomares | ex-Vercel (→ Braintrust) | Dev tools, PLG→Enterprise | Product Advocates instead of SDRs; dual self-serve + enterprise goals | → |
Paid media & growth advisors
| Expert | Company | Focus | Core thesis | File |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rex Gelb | Cursor | LinkedIn/Google/Meta | Don't buy ads before PMF; staged SEM; in 2026 AI runs bidding — creative/tracking/landing pages are the levers left | → |
| Elena Verna | Lovable (ex-Miro/Dropbox) | AI prosumer / advisor | "60–70% of traditional growth tactics don't apply anymore"; PMF treadmill; the aha moment collapsed into the first interaction | → |
| Holly Chen | ExponentialX (ex-Slack/Google/Loom/Miro) | PLG→SLG advisor | Channel choice follows ARR stage; PLG/SLG converge past $20M; B2B influencer marketing | → |
| Phil Carter | Elemental Growth (ex-Quizlet) | Consumer subscription advisor | Growth split into Creation/Delivery/Capture; 80% of trials start day zero; value-to-noise ratio; viral artifacts + AEO | → |
| Meltem Kuran Berkowitz | Deel | B2B SaaS, CGO | 0→$300M in 3 years, profitably; foundations-first sequencing; SEO traffic-light framework; never automate community replies | → |
| Yuriy Timen | Grammarly (advisor to Canva/Airtable) | Consumer/prosumer subscription | Oil-wells channel theory; "best content doesn't always win" but brands can't chase shortcuts; expected-value channel expansion | → |
Company case teardowns (no named practitioner)
| Case | Type | Core finding | File |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSEO canonical patterns | Zapier / Canva / G2 / Wise / Nomad List / Tripadvisor / Glassdoor | The three-part anatomy: pattern + data + template; "your product is the data" | → |
| Canva (deep-dive) | Design tool, PSEO benchmark | Pages cut by jobs-to-be-done, not features; "you can't SEO a terrible experience"; internationalization as second curve; the AI citation paradox | → |
| OpenRouter | AI model router | 70%+ of traffic from PSEO; the moat is proprietary data that is NOT your monetization asset | → |
| Jasper | AI writing tool | ⚠️ The "Google penalized their AI content" story fails on evidence; the real lesson is that content moats need proprietary data, not volume | → |
Channel quick reference
| Channel | Best fit | Cost reference | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B2B, enterprise, ABM | CPC $5.50–$8.50 | CTR 0.44–0.65%, ROAS 4.1–8.3x (2026 benchmarks) | Rex Gelb | |
| Google Search | High-intent, active search | Varies by vertical | Start with brand terms | Rex Gelb |
| Meta (FB+IG) | Visual products, scale | T0-country CPMs high | Creative supply is the gate | Rex Gelb |
| OOH (out-of-home) | Mature B2B, geo-concentrated buyers, high ACV | ~$100K minimum per major market | Self-reported attribution mostly | Stytch / Notion / Clay / Unify |
→ Details in channels/
Guides
| Guide | Contents |
|---|---|
| New to growth? Start here | guides/growth-101-four-pillars.md |
| Taking a PLG product into enterprise | guides/plg-to-enterprise.md |
| Eleven meta-patterns + decision tables (by category, by stage) | guides/deep-insights.md |
| Why the experts disagree — every fight analyzed by company context | guides/why-experts-disagree.md |
Scenario navigation
| Your question | Read this |
|---|---|
| Strategy calls | |
| The experts disagree — is there a meta-pattern? | guides/deep-insights.md |
| Why do they disagree? Which side fits my company? | guides/why-experts-disagree.md |
| What works for my company type at my stage? | guides/deep-insights.md (decision tables) |
| Should we start running ads now? (four positions compared) | topics/pmf-timing.md |
| Which channel first for a cold start — Google or Meta? | topics/channel-selection-strategy.md |
| Which channels fit which ARR stage? | experts/holly-chen-exponentialx.md |
| What's different about AI product growth? PMF treadmill? | experts/elena-verna-lovable.md |
| How should we price an AI product? Trials? Top-ups? | topics/pricing-monetization.md |
| Budget & channel operations | |
| How do we split budget across stages? | topics/budget-allocation.md |
| Where do we start with Google Ads? Search vs PMax vs GDN? | channels/google-ads.md |
| How do we run Meta? What's the cold-start bar? | channels/meta-ads.md |
| How do we run LinkedIn? | channels/linkedin-ads.md |
| Are billboards worth it? Budget? Attribution? | channels/out-of-home.md |
| How do we set up tracking and attribution? CAPI? | topics/tracking-attribution.md |
| How many creatives do we need? Can AI make them? | topics/ad-creative-strategy.md |
| Organic & launches | |
| SEO strategy, domain rating, backlinks? | topics/seo-strategy.md |
| Programmatic SEO — patterns and the self-audit checklist? | cases/pseo-canonical-patterns.md |
| Why do some PSEO plays defend and others decay? | cases/openrouter-pseo.md |
| How did Canva's template pages work? AI-era page design? | cases/canva-pseo.md |
| Is SEO still worth it in the AI-search era? | topics/seo-strategy.md (three-way comparison) |
| How do we launch? Product Hunt? Cold start a repo/community? | topics/launch-playbook.md |
| Aggregation sites, newsjacking, viral loops? | topics/organic-viral-growth.md |
| YouTube/KOL strategy? | experts/ben-lang-notion-cursor.md |
| How is GTM changing in the agent era? | experts/lena-waters-notion.md |
| Full expert views | |
| One person running an entire paid program with agents? | experts/matt-swulinski-wispr-flow.md |
| $300M ARR without burning cash — how? | experts/meltem-berkowitz-deel.md |
| When to find new channels, and how to evaluate one? | experts/yuriy-timen-grammarly.md |
| $1B+ valuation with ~zero marketing spend? | experts/karri-saarinen-linear.md |
| Dev-tool PLG→Enterprise, Product Advocates? | experts/morgane-palomares-vercel.md |
| First-session design, value-to-noise, viral artifacts? | experts/phil-carter-elemental-growth.md |
Adding new content
Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Short version:
- Primary sources only; grab the original with a scraper, not a summary of a summary
- New expert →
references/experts/name-company.md(structure per rex-gelb-cursor.md); company analysis without a named person →references/cases/ - Update the relevant
channels/andtopics/files - Update this file's index tables +
experts_count - Conflicts are preserved, never overwritten — build comparison tables (canonical example: the four positions in topics/pmf-timing.md)