Real Growth Matters

The Compendium

The Curated Compendium of Growth Marketing

We've spent years reading every essay, taking every course, listening to every podcast, and running every framework with operators. This compendium is what we wish existed when we started — one place that brings the best thinking together with our own operator-side depth on top. Sources cited transparently. Frameworks attributed properly. Nothing made up.

How this compendium works. RGM has read, tested, and operated against the best growth marketing thinking from across the industry. The compendium is our attempt to put it all in one place. Every framework we discuss names its originator (Brian Balfour at Reforge, April Dunford on positioning, Sean Ellis on growth hacking, Crystal Widjaja on data scaling, Andy Johns and Andrew Chen on growth, Andrew Capland and Lenny Rachitsky on PLG, Kevan Lee on brand, and many others). Sources are linked. Where we add operator-side depth, we say so. Where we disagree with conventional wisdom, we explain why.

Why we built this

Growth marketing is one of the youngest, fastest-moving disciplines in business. The best thinking is scattered across blogs, podcasts, conference talks, Slack groups, and paid courses. Nobody has put it all in one place — and even when individual essays exist, they rarely cross-reference each other or address how a beginner should sequence their learning.

We've done that work. The compendium is structured so anyone — from a marketing manager getting their first growth role to a CMO building a function from scratch — can find the right material, in the right order, with proper attribution to the people who originally thought it through.

Browse the compendium

Strategy & foundations

FrameworkGrowth loops

Self-reinforcing systems that compound. After Brian Balfour.

 FrameworkThe four alignments

Why PMF alone won't get you to $100M. After Balfour's Four Fits.

 FrameworkOKRs done right

The six-step Reforge approach plus operator failure modes.

 HubPersonas & ICP

Step-by-step guides, templates, worked examples.

 FrameworkThe path to $100M

Stage-specific frameworks for each revenue tier.

 AI strategyWhen PMF collapses

AI is causing sudden PMF loss in stable categories.

Channels & execution

BenchmarksPlatform benchmarks

CPM/CTR/CVR/ROAS for 20+ platforms × 20+ industries.

 Library26,000+ learn articles

Deep technical content across every channel.

 Toolkit108 calculators

Unit economics, paid media, lifecycle, SEO, CRO math.

Specialized topics & gap-fill

MobileASO & mobile app marketing

App Store Optimization, MMPs, SKAdNetwork, iOS attribution.

 ChannelCommunity-led growth

Building communities that compound into revenue.

 B2BDeveloper relations as marketing

How DevRel becomes the growth engine for technical products.

 StrategyOpen source as growth strategy

Why open core works and how to operate it.

 AIMarketing in the era of AI agents

What changes when AI agents browse and buy on behalf of users.

 MeasurementZero-click search & dark social

The growing share of traffic and conversions you can't track.

 EmergingVoice search & conversational marketing

Where voice fits in 2026.

 EmergingWeb3 & token-gated marketing

What's real, what's not, and where the audience actually is.

 EmergingSpatial, AR/VR marketing

Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest, and what's actually working.

Regulated & vertical-specific

ComplianceMarketing in regulated verticals

HIPAA, COPPA, TCPA, FTC overview.

 VerticalCannabis & pharma marketing

Regulated category playbooks.

 VerticalHigher education marketing

Enrollment marketing in 2026.

Our editorial principles

  1. Credit the originator. Every framework names who developed it. Where multiple people contributed, we acknowledge all of them.
  2. Link to original sources. The original essay, paper, or book is always linked. We strongly encourage reading the originals alongside our reviews.
  3. Add operator depth. Where we have real-world data from client engagements, we add it — clearly marked as RGM operator notes.
  4. Name our disagreements. Where we disagree with conventional wisdom, we say so and explain why.
  5. Update when reality changes. The 2022 best practice is sometimes the 2026 anti-pattern. We refresh content as the landscape moves.
  6. Accuracy over throughput. If we don't know something cold, we say so. Nothing is made up.

The compendium promise

If you read every article on the RGM compendium and run the frameworks at your company, you will know more about growth marketing than 95% of practitioners — and you will know who originally thought through each idea, where to read more, and how to apply each framework to your specific situation. That is the value we are building.

Who this is for

If you're new to growth, start with the training platform. Take the introductory series. Then come back to the compendium with the foundations in place.

If you're an operator with experience, browse by topic. Jump straight to the framework or channel you're working on. Cross-reference with the calculators and benchmarks where useful.

If you're a leader or founder, read the strategy and foundations section first. Then the section that matches your current stage and bottleneck.

If you're an educator, this is reference material. Cite it. Link to it. Bring it into your curriculum. Tell us when you do — we like knowing.