Growthmates updates, self-reflections, and what's coming next

Unpacking vulnerability and reflecting on why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Hello, dear readers 👋 This issue is not about some frameworks and best practices — it’s one of my regular self-reflection and status updates along the solopreneurship journey that I’m open to sharing with all of you.

Here I’ll summarise some insights from the last month and share what’s planned next. The intentions are quite simple:

• create a little bit of structure that helps me “dance with uncertainty”

• share some of my fresh learnings and newly uncovered aspirations

• announce upcoming launches, events, and updates I’ve been working on hard in the last few months 🙌

What’s inside:

1. Unpacking vulnerability on a solo path;

2. Growthmates website launch and Playbook with insights from 100+ companies;

3. Hosting Amplitude Onboarding series with leaders from Superhuman, Reforge, and Loom 🚀

Join me in walking through this recent self-reflection 👇

1. Unpacking Vulnerability.

There’s one theme I kept exploring over the years, and now it’s opening up from another angle. It probably kept me close to the “user” and inspired me to combine this with the attractions of various business subjects. 

That theme is emotions.

What emotion does this art provoke? Exhibition Matthew Wong

First, I’ve been researching it primarily to better understand user behavior. However, while I’ve been transitioning from IC to a leadership role, I dove deeper into human psychology and started working with a psychoanalyst to unpack better myself, and keep doing that for the last 4 years every week. 

One of my first self-discoveries was that I couldn’t let myself express authentic emotions. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t be truly empathetic towards myself, hence, towards others.

One of the emotions that interest me these days is vulnerability. My favourite author Berne Brown defines it like this:

“Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

Brene Brown, “Atlas of the Heart”

Hah, this well describes my life these days as a solopreneur 🙃

Last week I encountered a chapter in Brene Brown's book that moved me:

“— We're drawn to authentic, imperfect people, but we're scared to let people see who we really are.

— I want to experience your vulnerability, but I don't want to be vulnerable.

— Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me.

— I'm drawn to your vulnerability but repelled by mine.”

Brene Brown, “Atlas of the Heart”

Over years of learning how to feel, I can express it better. Now I can say that at times, I feel very tired, uncertain, and anxious about my path.

Even last week I felt that. I’ve been concluding the research results from 100+ companies and preparing the PLG playbook for the 1st Growthmates anniversary. I spent all my focus time on it in the last few weeks, eventually writing 100 pages of content that will be turned into a beautiful interactive format.

I can’t count how many times I felt unconfident, re-writing every sentence, and questioning my effort. 

Creative work is hard work, as it requires authenticity and vulnerability. Helping others in coaching and advising is hard work as well. And helping yourself on a solo path at times is harder than all these things together.  

What helps? At least for me:

• reading and researching the themes that hold me back from moving forward; 

• self-reflecting; 

• writing and expressing emotions at least in words;

• talking to others and discussing true feelings (thanks

  Andrew Capland
  for the reminder about this on a podcast recording);

• and most importantly, keep doing creative work and receiving inspiration from sources that give energy.

Every person has a unique set of sources that give them energy — for me, these are art, music, and nature.

This month I've been lucky to meet my previous mentor who came to Amsterdam for a couple of days. We’ve been walking in a beautiful park, discussing life challenges and learnings, and she shared with me the news about the Matthew Wang exhibition.

Matthew Wang — End of the Day

Last Friday I explored his art in the Van Gogh Museum and it completely carried me away. He has a tragic story as an artist, and in his work explores a theme of “the smallness of self in a vastness of the word”.

It provoked in me the themes of searching for my place in this vastness, connecting the dots between what I truly enjoy and what resonates with the business world.

I don’t have all the answers yet and am not even sure that crystal clarity will come, but enjoying the process of looking for them.

2. Growthmates updates and “keeping doing creative work”.

Growthmates has recently approached its 1st anniversary and I was reflecting on its history and origin:

• it started as an internal “Growth community of practice” at Miro when I was inviting industry leaders to share their insights and have discussions between teams;

• then I turned it into the podcast, realizing that these insights can be shared with a broader community;

• in the last year, it allowed me to meet with leaders from Dropbox, Adobe, Atlassian, Amplitude, Coda, SurveyMonkey, Loom (coming next week ✨), and dozens of other companies.

• these conversations inspired in-depth case studies and industry reports that I’ve been sharing as a part of this newsletter for the last 6 months

As gratitude for this, we’ve been working on creating “The Holistic Playbook for Growth Teams” — a comprehensive reflection of industry trends, insightful conversations with guests, and unique perspectives from respected industry experts.

Here’s a glimpse of what we’re creating and going to launch in June 🎉 This is an act of connecting knowledge with creativity, the form and the content in a new shape that will also become a new home for various Growthmates activities.

Growthmates new website and Playbook — coming soon 🚀

More updates will come soon — stay tuned here and subscribe to receive the first copy and all new Growthmates activities 📩

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Looking ahead, I was deeply reflecting on Growthmates mission and future. During my six years at Miro, I continuously sought to connect with industry leaders to gain fresh perspectives and insights. This personal aspiration became the foundation for it.

What’s next for Growthmates? Beyond the original podcast format, it’s becoming the platform for learning from industry leaders and an advising practice that guides companies in growing meaningful products by leveraging Product-led Growth and enhancing UX quality, together.

In my philosophy, the high-quality experience and Product Growth strategies are inseparable, and I’m eager to continue supporting the industry with that in several new formats for both businesses and individuals.

Can’t wait to share all these updates on the new Growthmates website in June! 💜

3. Amplitude Onboarding series with leaders from Superhuman, Reforge, and Loom.

User Onboarding became one of the most interesting themes for me in the last year. It led to creating value assets like:

• Onboarding report as a result of gathering insights from 80+ companies like Notion, Dropbox, Hubspot and more;

• 5-step Onboarding Framework that is currently published on Appcues and recently explored with

  Ramli John
  in a webinar format;

• The Evolution of Miro Onboarding with

  Kyle Poyar
  — I’m very surprised that this case study is still getting so much traction 🚀

Together with

Phil Vander Broek

, we're going to host 3 discussions with leaders from Loom, Reforge, and Superhuman and get their "behind-the-scenes" strategies that drove some of the most effective onboarding flows in the industry.

I already had the pleasure of hosting some of these leaders on Growthmates, and now we're extending these discussions into a new, more interactive, and insightful format.

Join and save the dates:
🗓️ May 29, 9:00 AM PT — Superhuman with Gaurav Vohra
🗓️ Jun 5, 9:00 AM PT — Reforge with Gianna Sen-Gupta
🗓️ Jun 12, 9:00 AM PT — Loom with Janie Lee

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This is all for today, dear readers. Thanks for keeping an eye on my path and I hope you found these stories valuable!

With best regards,

Kate Syuma

Connect with me on LinkedIn and follow Growthmates on Apple, YouTube, or Spotify.

P.S. If you found this helpful, I’d appreciate your comments and reactions to this post 💜 If you could share this with your like-minded colleagues and friends — it would give a huge support for me to continue creating this.

Thanks!