What separates products that grow from products that simply look good?

Growth design has quietly become one of the most influential disciplines in modern product development. Companies like Meta, Reddit, Canva, Duolingo, and Notion don’t just rely on great engineering—they rely on designers who understand metrics, experimentation, and business outcomes.

In the latest episode of The Growth Roundup, I sat down with Peter Burjanek, Growth Design Leader at Reddit and former Growth Product Design Manager at Meta, to unpack how the world’s fastest-growing consumer products think about acquisition, retention, monetization, experimentation, and AI.

Below are the biggest lessons from our conversation.

---

Growth Design Isn’t a Different Discipline. It’s a Different Mindset.

One of Peter’s biggest insights was surprisingly simple.

Any product designer can become a growth designer.

The difference isn’t aesthetics.

It isn’t Figma skills.

It isn’t typography.

It’s how you think.

Growth designers begin every project with business outcomes.

Instead of asking:

“What should this screen look like?”

They ask:

“Which company metric are we trying to move?”

Daily Active Users?

Retention?

Activation?

Conversion?

Revenue?

Everything starts there.

Only then do they generate multiple approaches—what Peter calls optionality—to maximize the chance of improving that metric. 

---

The Best Growth Designers Generate Options, Not Pixels

Traditional designers often search for the perfect solution.

Growth designers search for dozens.

Peter repeatedly emphasized optionality throughout the conversation.

Instead of shipping one onboarding flow…

They ship four.

Instead of debating internally…

They experiment.

Instead of defending opinions…

They validate hypotheses.

Growth teams aren’t rewarded for being right.

They’re rewarded for learning faster than everyone else.

---

Speed Is a Competitive Advantage

One theme came up repeatedly:

Move faster.

Not recklessly.

Not carelessly.

Just faster.

Peter explained that the strongest growth organizations operate on rapid experimentation cycles.

Rather than spending months polishing features, teams build, test, learn and iterate continuously.

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is increasing the number of high-quality experiments you can run each quarter. 

---

Great Design Systems Create Faster Growth

Most people think design systems exist for consistency.

Peter sees something much bigger.

A mature design system becomes an experimentation engine.

When reusable components already exist, designers can:

• Launch experiments quicker
• Build with confidence
• Reuse proven UI patterns
• Scale successful experiments across multiple teams

At Reddit, Peter described creating reusable systems specifically so future teams could move dramatically faster. 

---

Stop Talking About Process

One of Peter’s strongest hiring observations surprised me.

Many designers spend interviews explaining:

• Research
• Sticky notes
• Journey maps
• Wireframes
• Workshops

Peter doesn’t care.

He cares about impact.

His question is simple:

What changed because of your work?

Did activation improve?

Did retention increase?

Did revenue grow?

Did churn decrease?

Growth organizations increasingly hire people based on measurable business outcomes—not beautiful case studies. 

---

Every Product Needs Re-Engagement Loops

Growth doesn’t end after onboarding.

In many ways, that’s where it starts.

Peter highlighted one of the strongest patterns across successful consumer products:

Build reasons for users to come back.

Examples include:

• Personalized push notifications
• Relevant email digests
• Friend activity
• Community updates
• Trending discussions
• Personalized recommendations

The key isn’t simply sending notifications.

It’s reminding users of the value waiting inside the product.

Importantly, don’t reveal everything in the notification itself.

Give users enough information to create curiosity—but leave the deeper experience inside the app. 

---

Organic Growth Always Wins

Paid acquisition can buy traffic.

Organic growth builds companies.

Peter noted that many startups overspend on paid ads without first identifying their natural growth loop.

The strongest products create flywheels:

Acquire → Deliver Value → Share → Acquire More Users

Whether it’s:

• Reddit shares
• Instagram posts
• Dropbox referrals
• Canva designs
• Figma collaboration

The product itself becomes the acquisition channel. 

---

Great Onboarding Feels Invisible

Nobody enjoys onboarding.

Companies need onboarding.

Users want to skip it.

That creates tension.

Peter believes modern onboarding should:

• Collect only the highest-value signals
• Always provide an escape hatch
• Ask for permissions only when tied to clear value
• Continue collecting signals after onboarding
• Adapt dynamically based on user behavior

Instead of asking for location immediately…

Ask later when location unlocks something valuable.

Instead of demanding address book access…

Explain how it helps reconnect with friends.

Every permission request needs a compelling value exchange. 

---

Experimentation Beats Opinions

One line from Peter perfectly summarized modern product development.

There are vibes… and there are metrics.

Many companies still prioritize intuition.

The best companies validate intuition with experiments.

At scale:

• A/B testing
• Multivariate testing
• Feature flags

At smaller startups:

• User interviews
• Customer research
• Qualitative observation

Different stages require different tools.

But every stage requires learning.

The goal isn’t proving yourself right.

The goal is discovering what users actually want. 

---

AI Is Accelerating Design—Not Replacing It

Perhaps the biggest surprise from our conversation was Peter’s perspective on AI.

AI isn’t replacing designers.

It’s replacing waiting.

Instead of static prototypes inside Figma, designers now build:

• Interactive prototypes
• Live code
• Backend-connected demos
• User-testable experiences

Using tools like Cursor and modern LLMs, designers can now prototype production-like experiences in hours instead of weeks.

That dramatically speeds up:

• User research
• Executive reviews
• Engineering collaboration
• Product iteration

The biggest win isn’t better visuals.

It’s dramatically faster learning. 

---

The Biggest Startup Design Mistake

Peter had a surprisingly blunt observation.

Too many startups now look identical.

AI-generated landing pages.

Generic gradients.

Identical layouts.

The result?

No brand memory.

No trust.

No differentiation.

Customers notice.

Design is still one of the fastest ways to communicate quality.

If your homepage looks generated in five minutes, users may assume your product was too. 

---

The Future Belongs to Designers Who Understand Business

Perhaps the biggest takeaway wasn’t about design.

It was about ownership.

The role of product designers is expanding rapidly.

The designers who will thrive over the next decade won’t just understand:

• Layout
• Typography
• Motion
• Accessibility

They’ll also understand:

• Unit economics
• Experimentation
• Growth loops
• Pricing
• Retention
• AI
• Business strategy

The future growth designer isn’t simply crafting interfaces.

They’re helping shape the direction of the company.

---

Final Thoughts

Growth design sits at the intersection of psychology, product thinking, experimentation, and business strategy.

The best practitioners don’t chase perfect pixels—they chase learning.

They measure outcomes.

They ship quickly.

They experiment relentlessly.

And they build products that users genuinely want to return to.

As AI continues lowering the cost of execution, the companies that win won’t necessarily be those that design faster.

They’ll be the ones that learn faster.

That’s ultimately what growth is all about.