open-cmo
Real-world growth & GTM know-how from 16 tech-company experts. Covers: paid ads (Google/Meta/LinkedIn), out-of-home & ABM, channel selection, PLG→Enterprise, SEO/GEO, programmatic SEO, launches & Product Hunt, pricing & monetization for AI products, ad creative strategy, organic and viral growth, and growth engineering with agents. Distilled from primary sources: interviews, transcripts, bylined articles. Contributors include Rex Gelb (Cursor), Jared Liu (YouMind), Ben Lang (Notion/Cursor), Lena Waters (Notion), Karri Saarinen (Linear), Morgane Palomares (ex-Vercel), Elena Verna (Lovable), Holly Chen (ExponentialX), Phil Carter (Elemental Growth), Austin Lau (Anthropic), Matt Swulinski (Wispr Flow), Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Deel), Yuriy Timen (Grammarly), Grant Lee (Gamma), Chris Pedregal (Granola), and Frank (AI product, 5M users). Plus company teardowns: PSEO canonical patterns (Zapier, Canva, G2, Wise, Nomad List, Tripadvisor, Glassdoor), a Canva deep-dive (JTBD page design and the AI citation paradox), OpenRouter's data-flywheel PSEO, and a debunk of the widely-miscited Jasper traffic story.
Resources
5Install
npx skillscat add about-intelligence/opencmo Install via the SkillsCat registry.
SKILL.md
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)
Install
npx skillscat add about-intelligence/opencmo Install via the SkillsCat registry.