Growth Dives March recap

Lessons from stepping back on LinkedIn, leaning into user feedback and building better habits.

Hello to all 1,279 of you wonderful subscribers.

What a month it’s been.

Last time I checked, it was February. And now somehow it’s April. What happened?

Over the last 30 days, I reached 10K followers on LinkedIn, posted three articles, celebrated my birthday 🎈, did some Growth Dive user interviews and went on the most incredible hike.

Importantly, I learned a few interesting things this month:

1. What happens to newsletter growth when I stop posting on LinkedIn
2. How having external accountability can help me meet my own deadlines
3. What my value proposition is (I think)

But before we dive into the learnings, here’s a look at March’s articles:

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In case you missed it– March’s articles

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28 Mar — Designing on thin ice: the BAA Avalanche App

🔍 Results: 59.1% open rate, 2.5% click rate, 5 unsubscribes

💭 Key takeaway: Design choices — from colour to onboarding — shape behaviour in high-stakes environments. Digital tools should support, not replace, good judgement.

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21 Mar — Duolingo’s 6-step reactivation experience​

🔍 61.9% open rate, 2.6% click rate, 5 unsubscribes

💭 Key takeaway: Duolingo doesn’t just think about getting users back — it designs the post-return experience to retain them. A great example of using CRM, UX and personalisation to build momentum.

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14 Mar — Should you copy a competitor?​

🔍 63.2% open rate, 5.2% click rate, 2 unsubscribes

💭 Key takeaway: Competitor analysis is useful, but not a strategy. Copying should be a data point — not your whole decision-making framework.

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My favourite diagram of the month:

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Three big learnings from this month

1) I can grow without LinkedIn (yipee)

I stopped posting mid-March for a bit of a breather. What was meant to be one week turned into three — and then I thought: what an interesting negative test.

Also known as a ‘removal test,’ this is when you take something away and see if there’s any change. You’re testing whether that thing matters. For instance, you take a screen out of onboarding to see if conversion rate drops. Or you take a feature out to see if it was having an impact.

Impressions clearly flattened on LinkedIn during the break. I felt anxious at first — and guilty. Like stepping away, even briefly, might mean falling behind or undoing the momentum I’d worked hard to build.

But interestingly, I don’t see the same drop in email subscribers in the chart below. Perhaps marginally less but not dramatically.

Looking back over the last 90+ days, I’ve realised LinkedIn only really drives growth when something goes semi-viral (I mean tens of thousands of impressions).

Outside of that, Medium and referrals are my only two other channels, and they produce a good amount of subscribers.

In any case, I’m back on LinkedIn now and will continue there for the odd viral thing that helps this grow. But it's nice to know nothing breaks when I stop posting.

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2) I need accountability to function

​February was hard — I rushed writing, left no space for play or creativity and was stuck in efficiency mode.

This month has been so much better. I’ve genuinely loved each article, leaning into my nerdiness, and feeling energised by your feedback.

To stop myself from leaving things till the last minute, I’ve enlisted the help of Fleurine — an incredible writer, journalist and editor — for some external accountability.

Now, I’m aiming to have a start-of-week deadline to give myself more rumination space to sleep on ideas, let them simmer, and ultimately get deeper on topics before the final draft.

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3) The results of a mini user research project with y’all

You may remember I opened up some slots for feedback calls. Huge thanks to everyone who booked — it was brilliant to hear how you’re using Growth Dives in both life and work.

What I learned is that the core goal is this:

*Better meaning more accessible, more delightful and faster-growing

More specifically, my job is to:

• Bring you examples from real products
• In the form of specific, annotated, actionable breakdowns
• That you don’t always have time to do yourself
• So that you can get inspired — and inspire your team too

Let me know if this resonates with you (or if it doesn’t — I’d love to hear either way).

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To conclude, a great month. Onwards and up!

In short: Growth Dives is here to help you think smarter, build better and maybe even get that “oh that’s cool/interesting/weird” moment to share in stand-up.

Thanks again for reading — and if you ever want to share how you’re using these dives, do hit reply. I love hearing from you 🫶

See you for next week's deep dive!

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Warmly,

🪩 Rosie 🪩

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