Steal these brilliant growth tactics (part 2)

Breaking down my new favorite examples from Lovable, Clay, Typeform, Decagon and more

Apr 16, 2025

👋 Hi, it’s Kyle and I’m back with a new Growth Unhinged, my newsletter that explores the unexpected behind the fastest-growing startups. Subscribe to join 69,913 readers who get Growth Unhinged delivered to their inbox every Wednesday morning.

I love to get inspired by what others are doing. It sets aside existing constraints and gets the creative juices flowing, inspiring dreams of what if…

Last year I shared my favorite growth tactics based on my experience signing up for 100+ self-serve products ranging from Asana to Zapier. In the 12 months since then, I’ve tried out a whole lot more (with an emphasis on AI-native apps) and have learned from some of the smartest operators on the planet through this newsletter.

I wanted to devote today’s Growth Unhinged to highlighting the best of the best: my favorite retention move (ChartMogul), unconventional growth tactic (Clay), growth job description (FirmPilot), in-app upgrade prompt (Typeform)… even my favorite application of vibecoding for growth (Lovable).

I hope these examples inspire your next growth experiment. After you’re done reading, join the conversation on LinkedIn and share your own go-to faves.

Favorite retention move: ChartMogul

I used to think you'd want to give customers some time to experience the product, then push for an annual upgrade in months 6-12.

Turns out the opposite is true. Customers are 3-4x more likely to upgrade in month 2 than they are in month 9.

And the upgrade is valuable. Median net revenue retention on monthly plans ranges from 43% (<$25 products) to 76% ($250-$500 products). It's about 10-20 percentage points higher for annual plans.

The data comes from my friends at ChartMogul who looked at the billing practices of 2,500+ SaaS companies. (Yes, I'm jealous of their dataset!)

What to do with this data:

Make sure customers are able to not only activate in the first 30 days, but they're able to build a habit around your product. If they're not seeing value, a nudge to upgrade from monthly to annual will fall flat.
Ask for the annual upgrade much earlier than you think. You can (and apparently should!) start campaigns toward the end of the first month.
Push for annual not just as a discount but as making an investment in the product. Of course, the discount is a motivation, but people already knew you offered an annual discount when they signed up. Shifting the mindset towards making a smart investment puts the customer in a different frame of mind.
Keep offering a monthly plan, especially in the early days. Turns out that companies with a meaningful share of their customers on monthly plans (50%+) are growing faster than others, especially during the journey from $0 to $10M ARR.

Favorite in-app upgrade: Typeform

I went to buy a new Typeform subscription last week (👀). After choosing a plan and checking out, I already agreed to a future upgrade. And, no, it wasn't because they made me jump through hoops.

Typeform — like more and more companies — has a hybrid pricing strategy. They charge a subscription fee, but the subscription price goes up the more you use it. In Typeform's case, the price is tied to the number of monthly survey responses you collect.

It sounds complicated, but Typeform makes it easy. Typeform drops in this screen after checkout: "Never miss a response with auto-upgrade."

No alternative text description for this image

What I love about their approach:

It felt like they were doing me a favor. The prompt came across as helpful, not sales-y. Of course, I'd want my surveys to stay open so I don't miss a response. Language like "get an automatic upgrade" sounds far better than "pay more or you lose your data". And I just needed to set the toggle to "on".
They created loss aversion. Anyone who's sent out a survey knows that getting responses takes a ton of work. I'd hate to feel like that hard work was wasted if I'm getting more responses than I thought. Paying an extra $7.50 for 250 more responses ($0.03 each) came across as a bargain to have the peace of mind.
It was transparent. In a small amount of copy, Typeform told me exactly how much more I'd pay, when I'd pay it, when it would be billed, and how I could downgrade. (Once an upgrade happens, it stays on unless you proactively turn it off.)

PS: The survey in question? My inaugural State of Monetization survey. Whether you’re a SaaS or AI company, I want to hear from you! The survey will take about 5-10 minutes and provide an important pulse on evolving pricing models.

Favorite unconventional growth tactic: Clay

Clay — the breakthrough AI GTM startup — saw signups surge from 10-15 per day to >1,000 per day (!) in only a year.

But a more mind-blowing stat: 47% of Clay’s signups turned out to be fake accounts:

20% were repeat signups
19% were fakes
8% were bots

Fake accounts make conversion data nearly impossible to discern. It leads to sales and marketing resources wasted on folks who won’t buy. And it could cause a startup to either abandon or water down a PLG strategy.

And fake accounts can cost real money in the form of contact data, compute, email deliverability infrastructure and even stolen IP.

Clay was able to implement an off-the-shelf vendor (Verisoul) without adding friction for users. These tools run a real-time decision on whether an account is real, suspicious or fake — and then routes fake accounts to paywalls or block lists accordingly. It’s not a glamorous growth tactic, but it is an effective one.

Favorite vibecoding example for growth: Lovable

Vibecoding seems to be social media’s favorite hobby. Well, I’ve finally found a great example of vibecoding for growth. It’s by the crew at Lovable (previously featured in this newsletter) and it’s brilliant.

They built a Product Hunt clone called Launched where builders submit their apps and then the community upvotes what they love. The top five projects each week get 100 free Lovable credits, encouraging creators to keep building.

Why I’m digging it:

Cold start problem: Everybody seems to be talking about vibecoding, but most folks don’t know what to build. This is a fantastic way to educate users with real-life examples.
Built-in growth loop: Each of the apps has an “Edit with Lovable” button, bringing users back into the product & allowing them to see value quickly. It’s like a Template Gallery on steroids.
Community-first: It’s built with and for the community. Launched helps Lovable app builders get users. It’s gamified to drive engagement. And it’s continuously updated — 316 projects were submitted just last week.
Showcases the product itself: Launched was made with Lovable itself. I don’t think it gets much more meta than that.

Favorite growth job description: FirmPilot

The hottest GTM role that folks in my network are looking for is, well, hard to pin down. It’s a growth hire, but focused on a primarily sales-led or sales-assisted funnel rather than a product-led one.

Someone who can take advantage of the next-gen GTM tech while having the judgment to apply it to drive real results. And someone who can both identify friction points across the buying journey (ICP targeting, ICP pipeline, conversion, CAC, etc.) and then quickly run experiments to eliminate them.

Part of why these roles are so squishy is because nobody seems to know what to call them. I’ve seen Growth Strategist, GTM Ops Lead, Growth Lead, GTM Engineer, GTM Ops Engineer, RevOps Engineer, Outbound Architect, or a million-and-one other things.

I finally found a great job description and it came from the team at FirmPilot (I’m not affiliated, just a fan of the role).

What the role entails:

Work across the buyer journey: They design and orchestrate the end-to-end buyer journey starting with identifying the right ICP through to revenue conversion.
Experimentation-minded: They run experiments to find the best possible way to turn ICP accounts into revenue.
Automation savvy: They're well versed in the latest GTM technology and automation tools.
Business acumen: They're data-driven with an ability to spot problems and identify cost-effective solutions.
Great communicator: They're able to influence other leaders across functions.

Favorite AI agent pricing: Decagon

Disruptive pricing models are on the rise, especially for AI agents. But this next approach was new to me.

It comes from Decagon, which makes AI agents for customer service. They claim standout customers like Notion, Duolingo, Webflow and Substack.

What’s so interesting about Decagon’s AI pricing is that they let the customer choose their preferred pricing model:

Pricing A: Per-conversation pricing. Fixed rate pricing that's predictable and transparent (although it's still usage-based).
Pricing B: Per-resolution pricing. A higher fixed rate when the AI agent is successful — but no charge when it isn't.

Here's why I like it: Decagon gets to communicate success-based pricing, but then they get to sell (mostly) work-based pricing instead.

As a customer, I wish I only had to pay for software when it delivered results. But the reality is that true success-based billing won’t work for most of today’s products.

The main issue is attribution. You want the customer to get a fantastic outcome — and you want them to recognize that your product powered that outcome. As soon as you start charging for success, the customer begins to rethink the results. Or, as Decagon puts it, "you never want to be in a situation where you're arguing over what a 'resolution' is."

There are downsides, don’t get me wrong. Supporting multiple billing models. Training sales on how to pitch both models. Communicating to customers without creating analysis-paralysis. Forecasting the business.

But if it's better for the customer, it's (usually) better for the business.

What else you should know

📚 To help. I recently launched the inaugural State of Monetization survey to get a read on what’s actually happening in monetization — not just what’s making headlines. Please consider participating in this 5-10 minute survey.
📺 To watch. A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read. This trial took over the city of Boston — and is still a subject of fascination.
🧑‍🍳 To cook. Porcini ragu (via the NY Times). It’s so good I made it twice in the past month. My favorite substitutions: adding anchovy paste (umami), balsamic (acid) and pancetta (fat).