Experimental Mind #254
Your weekly overview of interesting reads, events and jobs for the experimental mind.
Hi folks! With so much going on in the world I get tempted to just stop following the news and just focus on reading books. Someone suggested to pick up a copy of Delayed Gratification. With only four editions per year this is truely slow journalism. What is your coping mechanism?
In today’s edition: quasi experiments in ads, book tip for newly parents, organising teams and a podcast tip, 5 jobs and new events to attend. And a small request at the end.
Thanks to Convert and Sitespect for their support.
🔎 Interesting things you might have missed
Quasi-experiments in ads measurement
This is a follow-up of the Mastering incrementality in ads: an introductory guide post from late last year. In the second post the team behind marketing experimentation at Bolt go deeper into the specific preparations required for counterfactual experiments. Link
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Book: Experimenting With Babies
This little book with 50 science projects someone can perform on their kid has become my favourite gift for newly mums and dads. Find it on Amazon or Bol
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Use Decision Theory to choose significance levels for experiments
Zach Flynn suggests to use decision theory, specifically Expected Utility Maximisation, to set significance levels based on how much risk we're willing to tolerate when deciding whether to act on experimental results. Link
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How to organise your teams
Simon Wardley, famous for his Wardley mapping approach, says you need three types of people and teams: explorers, villagers and town planners. Explorers come up with wild, new ideas and push boundaries (even if their stuff doesn’t always work), villagers take those rough ideas and turn them into useful, trustworthy products, and town planners scale things up, making them reliable, efficient, and available to everyone. Link
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Last week’s most clicked item:
What is Experimentation-led Growth (ELG)?
Most businesses misunderstand experimentation, reducing it to A/B testing and website tweaks, when it should be about critical thinking, evidence-based decision-making, and innovation. Experimentation-Led Growth (ELG) shifts the focus from isolated tests to a broader strategic mindset, using experimentation as a tool for smarter business decisions, systemic thinking, and long-term growth. Link
🎧 Podcast of the week
Interview with Shopify’s CEO on being data informed, decision making and many other interesting topics on how to run a company from first principles.
If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast. Or discover other podcasts via the Experimental Mind curated podcast feed.
🚀 Job opportunities
Find 100+ open roles on ExperimentationJobs.com. This week’s featured roles:
Senior Technical Consultant (Experimentation) at Creative CX (United Kingdom)
Senior CRO (Experimentation) Consultant at Conversion.com (Farringdon, UK)
Data Scientist – Marketing Insights at Catawiki (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Webflow Specialist & CRO Manager at mute-labs (Berlin, Germany)
CRO Manager at White Light Digital Marketing (Remote)
📅 Upcoming events
A running list of upcoming events.
🆕12 Feb: Experimentation North (Manchester, UK)
13 Feb: Berlin Experimentation Meetup #7 (Berlin, Germany)
🎁26-28 Feb: Experimentation Island (USA) Get $500 discount on your ticket!
🆕13 Mar: DiDo #47: Collaboration in product teams (Utrecht, Netherlands)
🎁Also, don't miss GMS 2025 on June 18, 2025, in Frankfurt! As Europe's #1 growth conference, it's the perfect platform to learn, network, and grow. Use my promo code KEVIN100 to get €100 off your ticket and be part of this event! For more details, visit the official website: www.growthmindedsuperheroes.com
😃 Something that made me smile
Someone’s new Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:
📣 Still here?
Can you do me a favor: simply hit reply and let me know you’ve read this. I’d love to know if you have made it ‘till here.
Have a great week — and keep experimenting.
Thanks, Kevin