My way of starting 2025: Reflect, Acknowledge, and Plan consciously
Best of 2024 and what to expect next 🚀
Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates — the newsletter and podcast where we explore inspiring and practical growth stories from products we love. Join the company of 5,000+ Product, Design, and Growth people.
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Last year was probably the most uncertain, volatile, and creative — the first year of this newsletter and my role as a founder of Growthmates. Usually, I do these reflections at the end of the year, but this year, I wanted to be more kind to myself and took 2 weeks off to rest, reflect, and recharge. Now, as I’m returning to reality and my favorite type of work of publishing this newsletter, I’m ready to share my honest reflections and plans for 2025.
For those who feel anxious and worried at the start of the new year — you’re not alone. There are different studies that show statistical trends of increased “blue Mondays” in January, and that’s okay if you feel a bit weird. I experienced that feeling very often in the past year, and there were several things that helped me (and I hope can help you) overcome that state 🙏
1. Comparing yourself with yourself.
It’s hard to be nonjudgmental at the beginning of a new year. But before immediately planning new goals, we can try to acknowledge what we already have.
This year is the first time I have concluded the results of my first year of building an independent business after more than six years of full-time work at Miro.
Instead of comparing myself to others, I compared myself to a version of myself one year ago.
When I looked back 12 months ago to synchronize expectations with reality, I finally recognized the growth that happened to me.
✅ 3 → 12 companies as clients (x4).
I’m incredibly grateful to clients who chose to collaborate with me for trust and added very diverse clients to my portfolio like Grammarly, Zeffy, ShapesXR, SessionLab, Tactiq, and more. Through that work, I had a chance to deepen my knowledge of topics like Activation, User Onboarding, Engagement strategies, uncovering the right limitations for the Free plan, and more.
My intention was to diversify my experience by helping companies in different sectors, and last year gave me opportunities for that, which is incredibly rewarding.
✅ 0 → 3 sponsorship partnerships (x3).
Since this was my first year of creating Growthmates podcast and newsletter more committedly, the companies that supported me played a very significant role in increasing the quality of my work. Huge thanks go to the supporters and sponsors of Growthmates for making this possible: Appcues, CommandAI, Phase, and more to come this year.
Finally, I organized my approach to partnerships 👉 Check it out if you’d like to explore a content collaboration with me.
✅ 3 → 8 clients in Coaching / Mentorship (x2.5).
Coaching & Mentorship was something that just happened intuitively during the year. People reached out to me, and I was open to help. Eventually, I had a privilege to support people from companies like Intercom, Atlassian, Mentimeter, Beautiful.ai, and I’m planning to keep myself open for individual contributors and leaders who’re working hard on product growth.
✅ 0 → 1800+ subscribers of Growthmates.club.
Over the 1st year, Growthmates captured as guests leaders from 20+ forward-thinking companies: Dropbox, Loom, Canva, Adobe, Intercom, and more. As a gratitude for this milestone and as a gift to everyone, we have created “The Holistic Growth Playbook” – a reflection of industry trends, conversations with guests, and special perspectives from respected industry experts.
Over time, more than 2000 people subscribed to this resource, and I’ll definitely continue doing more research studies and playbooks like that in 2025.
✅ 0 → 35+ Course alumni.
Last year, together with
we launched the Self-Serve User Onboarding course to help everyone design high-impact onboarding experiences. Now we’re planning the 3rd cohort, and we’re grateful to our previous 35+ students from Intercom, Mentimeter, Wistia, and more.Launching the first course became an eye-opening experience for me. It actually showed me how rewarding it is to share knowledge and see how others apply it in action. This inspired me to think about launching a new “signature” Growthamtes course 🚀 More on that later in this post.
✅ 440 → 4800+ Newsletter subscribers (x11) .
What started as a secondary platform gradually grew into something bigger. With every new post, the content became more substantial, and the audience started growing faster.
I didn’t intend to monetize it during the first year, but I had a “moonshot” goal of reaching 4,000 subscribers in one year by sharing valuable content for free. Not only was this goal achieved, but it was also surpassed.
UPD: while writing this post, newsletter reached 5000 mark. Thanks you all for support 💜
With every new subscriber, the responsibility to create a quality product (not just content for the sake of numbers) grew exponentially. This challenge, in turn, brought incredible motivation and inspiration to keep going.
But there’s more than just these numbers as results. What's more important is the quality of new meaningful connections. These things become more visible when I reflect and refresh my principles each year.
2. Refreshed personal principles.
After looking back at my old principles, I was surprised that there’s not much I’d like to change about them. This year, I noticed a pattern—the theme of getting closer to my “self.”
Optimizing for new learnings 💫 — remains my guiding principle in decision-making while I’m searching for new meanings and discoveries.
Decline from the "norm" to get closer to your inner self 🙏 — when it feels you’re going in a direction that is opposite from others, it might be the right signal to go toward yourself.
Deliver with a sense of purpose what you care about the most 🎯 — a sense of purpose is not something we can find out of the blue. It’s something that lives within us already and guides us in darkness. The key is to actually see that.
Give place to my “self” in what I'm doing for others 🤝 — my work is primarily serving others’ needs through courses, advising, and even this newsletter. In order not to loose myself in all this stuff, I’m trying to keep things that are important to me. Like this section with personal principles 😉
Flexibility and ease allow for creativity ✨ — in the past, I used to work in the high-performing, over-delivering type of mode. Now, I’d like to experiment with more intuitive and easy-going attitude that I’m trying to re-connect with.
If you still would like to reflect on your past year as things settle down in January — here’s a free Notion Template that captures the framework I use each year.
As you reflect on your past year, don’t forget to capture your learnings and set clear goals for the year ahead. Growth doesn’t just come from achievements but also from the lessons learned along the way.
3. Best of 2024: Quality > Quantity.
For all of the time I remember myself, “Quality > Quantity” was my motto. It meant that sometimes I did things slower, posted not so often, or created some periods of 1-2 weeks of silence for myself to think about the next steps.
Let’s look back at some of the most memorable posts from this year:
Most loved original articles 💜
5-step Flow Review to Uncover Growth Opportunities — winner in a category most loved and most referenced framework that I used in all conferences, courses, and my advisory work.
High-quality principles to support your Product-Led-Growth — the go-to framework, celebrated for its relevance and impact, has become a staple in my sessions with clients.
10 Behavioural Principles and Dark Patterns in User Onboarding you need to know — premier guide to the essential behavioral principles and dark patterns in user onboarding, a cornerstone in my workshops, training sessions, and consulting engagements.
The Holistic Growth Playbook: Chapter I — Building high-performing Growth Team — the definitive blueprint for building high-performing Growth Teams that I gathered from my deep work and conversations with Growthmates podcast guests from Loom, Canva, Coda, and more fantastic products.
My Pathless Path: From Traditional to Independent Journey — I read the book by
last year, and it gave me the confidence I needed to shape my transition to an independent journey.
TOP podcast episodes 🎙️
Notion method: How to Do More with Less — with Randy Hunt from Notion, most loved on YouTube (1.3k+ views!).
Revealing 3 myths about User Research and start easy — with Jason Giles from UserTesting, recorded in the Hatch conference.
Find your Position-Market Fit: The Role of Brand and Memorable Experiences — with Enzo Avigo from June.
From Designer to CEO: Building Design-led and Journey-centric Business — with Jochem van der Veer from TheyDo.
How to Get Your Dream Job and Stand Out in the Crowd — with
(ex-Miro).Making Decisions with User Research from Startup to Scale-up — with
(ex-Slack, Reforge).Unpacking a New Growth Playbook with Andrew Capland — with
.
⭐️ My recommendation: collaborating with others and building meaningful connections became my motto. This is how I uncovered the podcast “Delivering Value” by
, where I also participated as a guest. What I liked the most was that Andrew didn't talk to guests about SaaS growth tactics and strategies. Instead, they have candid convos about the toughest moments that almost derailed their careers - and instead became part of their success story. I definitely recommend checking his work here 👇
TOP collaborative content 🤝
The Ultimate Guide to Growth Product Design with
, thanks for making this collaboration happen.7 Psychological Drivers of Referral Behavior to Accelerate B2B Growth with
from Cello.From Old to New Ways: 6 Methods to Drive Activation and Adoption with James Evans from CommandBar.
Why you should start from UX before PLG: 5 Learnings from Folk with
from Folk.Product x Design collaboration in high performing growth teams with
.
4. What to expect in 2025.
1. Self-service Onboarding Course — starts on 27 January 🚀
The Self-Serve User Onboarding course starts on January 27 and teaches how to make your onboarding experience trully impactful and delightful. It includes dozens of proven frameworks and actionable strategies, as well as direct interaction with us on live sessions.
2. “Growthmates: In the Company of Women”— starts in February.
In the new season of Growthmates, I'm celebrating inspiring women who are driving change in their fields.
"In the Company of Women" will feature stories of female founders, leaders, and creatives balancing work, family, and personal growth. I already had the privilege to record an episode with a legendary
discussing how to shirt gears in careers and business (can’t wait to share) 💜.
And more fantastic guests in the line up, such as:
Marie Martens — Co-founder of Tally;
Jennifer Phan — Founder of Passionfroot;
Mallory Contois — Head of Community at Mercury;
and more to come!
P.S. If you'd like to support Growthmates new season as a partner, here you can learn more about its mission, previous partners, the audience, and examples of collaboration options 👇
3. New Course on Maven: “The Holistic Growth”— starts in March.
In 2025, I'm launching a new Holistic Growth Course in partnership with Maven! This course focuses deeply on my mission: helping Product and Growth teams create the best experience that drives Activation, Habit-forming, and Upgrades in a healthy, user-friendly way. It is drawn from my 6+ years of experience at Miro and 30+ product examples I gathered from the industry while building Growthmats.
📌 What to expect on this course:
Organize your "Growth as a holistic system";
Take an end-to-end look at your key Growth flows;
Uncover product changes to impact Activation and Habit-forming;
Improve your triggers to Upgrade through a user-centric approach;
Behavioural psychology principles and frameworks for ethical Product Growth.
To make this course valuable, I want to design it right from YOU. For your help, I'll give a special early-bird discount of 180$ 🎁 for any member of your team who'd like to join the first cohort that starts in March 2025.
4. Growthmates Newsletter — more topics with a Paid subscription 💫
All the content I shared last year was absolutely free. My main motivation is to keep sharing best practices and frameworks while re-investing in high-quality content. Some articles I’ve prepared took me 40+ hours of research and preparation, like the 5-step Growth Framework or Holistic Playbook, which took 2 months of deep research and analysis.
To keep sharing in-depth things like that for the community, I feel that it’s the right time to introduce a paid subscription. I’d like to deliver more valuable content regularly for people who would like to support my effort, get special in-depth editions, and interact more with me 🚀
Some topics I had in my backlog and can’t wait to unpack:
How to Grow Adoption of Your AI Features (coming soon);
The Psychology of Growth: what we should know about users to drive healthy product growth;
Community-led growth: how to drive growth consciously through your power users;
The User Research Playbook: the methods and questions to uncover behavioral problems and solutions to them;
…and more!
Do you have a preference or request on the topic? Or maybe you’d like to help me with editing and creating content for this newsletter?
Just reply to this email with your idea 🙌
Thanks to all the people who helped me, partnered as guests on podcasts and newsletter, and kept following the things I’m creating.
Looking ahead (like in this fresh photo) — let 2025 be awesome for all of us ✨
This is all for today, dear readers. If you found this helpful — please share your reaction and leave some comments 💜 It would give a huge support for me to continue creating this!
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. There are some discounts available, and maybe you can expense this :)
Connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about my work on Growthmates.club.
With best regards,
Kate Syuma
Thanks for the collab! And great post as always.
Impressive year. Sounds like self employ,ent is working well for you