Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision | Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify)

Archie Abrams is the VP of Product and Head of Growth at Shopify, where he leads a 600+ person growth org across product, design, engineering, data, ops, and growth marketing. Shopify powers over 10% of e-commerce in the United States, with $235 billion in GMV in 2023 (roughly the size of Finland’s economy). He previously led Consumer product and growth at Lyft and was at Udemy for 8 years as SVP of Product having joined the company when it was 10 people. In our conversation, we discuss:• Why Shopify optimizes for churn• Why the core product team doesn’t use metrics-based goals• Why they keep multi-year experiment holdouts• How they structure their growth team• The benefits of not having a CMO• Lessons learned about integrating sales into a product-led growth model• The power of discounting as a growth lever• Much more—Brought to you by:• Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product• Dovetail—The customer insights hub for product teams—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shopifys-growth-archie-abrams—Where to find Archie Abrams:• X: https://x.com/archieabrams• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archie-abrams-b6aa8b6/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Archie’s background (02:30) Shopify’s impressive growth(06:17) Shopify’s unique approach to churn and retention(08:43) Monetization model and success metrics(11:08) Long-term experimentation and metrics(23:00) Examples of big wins that Archie’s team has shipped(26:42) Monetary friction(27:14) Metrics(29:47) Shopify’s growth team structure(33:03) Goal setting and forecasting(37:10) Examples of long-term results within Shopify(41:36) Shipping neutral experiments(42:05) Building a hundred-year company(48:04) Why Shopify doesn’t use KPIs(51:30) Shopify’s “Get s**t done” framework(54:30) Cross-team collaboration (58:48) The importance of an opinionated founder (01:01:12) Growth and sales integration(01:06:42) Shopify’s marketing structure(01:08:49) Insights on discounting from Udemy(01:11:09) Lightning round—Referenced:• Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/• Tobias Lütke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaslutke• Gross Merchandise Value: Calculation and Best Practices: https://www.shopify.com/retail/gross-merchandise-value• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach• Glen Coates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glcoates• Harley Finkelstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harleyf• Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/• Scientific Advertising: https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Advertising-Original-Claude-Hopkins/dp/1640954252• Four-Minute Mile: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Minute-Mile-Roger-Bannister/dp/1493038753/• The Sopranos on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-sopranos• Suno: https://suno.com/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe