Part II: How to Get the Most out of Reforge

As I’ve posted here before I highly recommend Reforge (https://www.reforge.com/) for professional development for tech product leaders and managers at high-growth companies.?

After I posted about it I got tons of requests to share modules, questions about the program, and requests for advice on getting the most out of the program. So with the Fall 2021 cohort starting soon I took some time to write up some tips.

This is Part 2. In this article I'll outline all about how to get the most of your membership. I wrote this in 2 parts so people could choose which fit their questions. Part 1 is about joining and choosing your first program so go there if you are still figuring that out.

Note: I do not work for Reforge, I am just a member and a fan of the program. My views and advice here are my own. Reforge has its own tips for getting the most out the program (things like time blocking, commitment, and attitude) that help too.

Here's a step by step writeup for how to get the most out of Reforge:

• Step 1: Start the content early: When I joined my first cohort (Growth Series), I knew it was going to be a big time commitment but even with 10+ hrs a week it was hard to keep up with all the content, application exercises, and most importantly synthesize it all in time to get the most value out of the live sessions. I still got a ton of value from it but I spent some time catching up after the session. For this reason I recommend doing as much of the program on your own self-paced before the session starts. There's plenty of time before the Fall cohort starts so I recommend starting now!
• Step 2: Absorb the content: The way I went through the content was 1) Watch the video on 1.7x speed then 2) Scan the sidebar in the text portion and click on all the comments in the text based portion to see the discussion. There are often rich discussions there about common questions on the frameworks that the Reforge team or entrepreneurs-in-residence will answer. Everyone has their own learning style, but I'll say that while previously I was more of a written vs. video learner because video felt slow, 1.7x was a game changer for me. Try it out and see what you think!

• Step 3: Use Reforge forums: The best thing about the Reforge content compared to reading a blogpost or book is that there are advisors who normal charge hundreds of dollars an hour that are there to help you apply the frameworks to your context. I kept a running doc of questions and application ideas I had. Then I searched for the questions I had related to application to my situation by topic in the Reforge forums. I found a lot of discussion threads (e.g. seasonality issues with retention). Even if there aren't "answers" it's nice to hear someone who's done it before say "yeah it's hard to deal with that issue but here are some ways we've tried." You can post your own question and you often will get a quick response and lots of great insights.

• Step 4: Apply what you learned: I did some the application exercises either linked in the program module itself or related ones under Projects. Some of these are spreadsheet based worksheets or filling out a visual template for Growth Model. Others are ideas of analyses you can run (e.g. L28 retention histogram, growth assumption modeling). Again these could take hours if you try to do every one so you have to pick what's most applicable to your problems. One reason I say get a peer to do it with you is a lot of the value I got was from applying Reforge to my company's problems and my peer, Lily Wilson, our SVP of Growth. We had lots of long discussions about things like our use case frequency or growth model inputs that no one else would have wanted to do to the same degree. I know some people have had success with joining a study group within the Reforge cohort. I found it can be hard with scheduling and commitment, but if you can find the right group it could be great because you meet new people who you can learn from. Here's one of the projects that helped me and Lily align on our growth model and how various initiatives did (or didn't) fit in.

• Step 5: Get the most out live cohort: The whole point of having a cohort based, live program is you get to connect with peers and experts so make sure to take advantage of this. I got a lot out of participating in different ways - asking questions or leaving in-line comments on the content, engaging in Q&A and discussion in Slack chat / Zoom in live sessions and participating in Reforge Slack channels. It may change but in my last cohort you could actually go to both the morning and evening Zoom sessions if you wanted to. They had different experts sometimes so if you have the time I recommend doing it if you have time or watch the other one on recording. In one case for example for our Growth Series module on Acquisition, the morning expert was Johanna Lord, former Classpass CMO, and in the evening the expert was Alessandra Sales, leader at Brazilian makeup subscription box Ipsy. I went to both, and it was fun to see both perspectives. My main advice is just speak up - the sessions are way better when there is a diversity of voices.

In addition to the live cohort you can do as many other programs self-paced as you want, attend Reforge events that give opportunities to apply the content or connect with others, and engage in channels on Reforge Slack! I connected with several new people through Reforge mostly as follow ups to Slack or forum discussions (e.g. Mohammad Ridwan (Square) about 0 to 1 products, Tanvi Shah (Zillow) about strategy / prioritization and Rebecca Sanchez (NoRedInk) about retention data). There are amazing people to learn from and connect with in the community.

Hope this was helpful to new and returning Reforge members! If you have questions I'm happy to answer what I can, and the Reforge team is very responsive and helpful both on LinkedIn and via email.