☀️ Your Summer Growthmates Recap — So You Don’t Miss a Thing
Everything we created, shared, and celebrated this summer ☀️ — so you don’t miss a thing.
Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 7,000+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.
Time really flies. I was planning to send you a July recap — but these past weeks were so full of calls, workshops, and projects that the month just slipped away 😅. So instead of skipping it, I decided to combine both July and August into one recap.
Think of this as a double-dose edition — packed with everything you might have missed 👇
🚀 Growthmates Recap: Top of July & August
If you’re reading this newsletter, thank you — it really means a lot. I know how noisy and fast-moving things can feel in our industry, and the last thing I want is to add to the overwhelm. My hope is that this space feels like a pause, a small dose of inspiration you actually look forward to.
July and August were truly packed ⚡️ We welcomed three new sponsors to Growthmates, kicked off Cohort 3 of the User-centric Growth Course (which is running right now), and I’ve been working on a ton of product breakdowns.
On a personal note, I turned 29 while traveling across Iceland 🇮🇸, and spent time rethinking my future path — especially after the launch of GPT-5. Honestly, there’s way more than one paragraph can capture, but here are the highlights for you.
Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Bundle 🚀
I created the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤
Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇
Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).
Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.
Beacon AI — the smartest AI agent for product and design teams to identify and fix UX issues that block activation, retention, and conversion.
Now, let’s dive into today’s recap 👇
📬 Featured Articles & Resources:
The Anatomy of Upgrade & Trial Triggers — 30+ examples from top SaaS brands 🚀 — A personal deep dive into my new free collection — examples from Slack, Notion, Lovable, Intercom, and more.
3 Boards and New Ways to Spark Your Next Growth Move — 3 boards, 500+ screenshots, and my favorite tools to supercharge design & growth flows in the AI era;
How Rows.com Increased Activation by 30% with AI-powered Freemium — From loginless onboarding to AI-powered freemium, a growth story in partnership with
.
🖤 Personal stories on Creator & Founder Path:
10 Decisions That Changed My Life as a Founder — What I’ve learned since leaving full-time work to build on my own;
I Turned 29, Traveled Across Iceland, and Started Unfolding a New Purpose — A “defining decade” retrospective and new ways of doing meaningful work (like 1:1 Coaching);
How I Became a Creator (and Almost Gave Up) — A new personal growth story in “The Creator Path” series.
📣 Would you like to share your product story or co-create valuable content together? I’m opening a calendar and planning sponsored engagements – Grab a slot here 👉
🎤 Talks & events:
Speaking at TGS Con in Amsterdam this September — I’ll be sharing why this is such an exciting moment to build experiences that really stick with my 6-step Onboarding framework;
Growth Team of One: Combine PM + Design to Drive Real PLG Impact — A free lightning lesson where I unpacked practical strategies for solo growth leaders.
🚀 Featured LinkedIn posts & Industry buzz:
99% of landing pages overcomplicate — how Miro created an amazing feature launch page with Framer;
Big Moves in the Product World — Superhuman + Coda joining Grammarly, June.so’s team joining Amplitude, and MagicBrief joining Canva — a wave of acquisitions reshaping the AI productivity stack;
Steal This UX Growth Move from Airbnb — A simple, well-timed sharing flow that’s a masterclass in designing for motivation;
I Turned 18 (Thousand followers 🔥) — Reflections on reaching 18k followers on LinkedIn and breaking down the 5 types of posts that worked best.
📣 Growthmates reading radar — check this out:
I want to eliminate my own job —
sharp breakdown on what’s going on with growth roles with AI impact;Onboarding For AI Products — my interview with
about how AI onboarding journeys are evolving;- (Lovable);
Next BIG Trends from
(New Economies).
🗓️ What’s coming next:
Wrapping up Cohort 3 of the User-centric Growth Course on Maven — October cohort is already open for enrollment 🎉 As always, you can apply promo “growthmates” to join with 100$ off →
Visiting the Hatch Conference in Berlin, having a nice dinner with
, and (BIG surprise 🔥), recording some in-person episodes for Growthmates podcast (stay tuned).+ A few behind-the-scenes updates on where Growthmates is headed next 🚀.
This is all for today, dear readers. If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend or another creative builder 💜 It would give huge support for me to continue creating this!
What topics or stories would you want to explore next? Share your thoughts and requests in the comments!
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Enjoy the last week of this summer ☀️
Kate Syuma