Reddit · Go-to-market · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

Grow Reddit sign-ups without hurting culture

Reddit is a network of user-run communities where people read, post, and discuss topics in threaded conversations. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

problem framing
growth strategy
funnel analysis
prioritization
metrics design

The situation

You are a PM on Reddit's new user growth team. A large share of Reddit's traffic comes from people who land on individual discussion pages, often from search, read a thread, and leave without creating an account. Leadership wants a plan for sustainable growth in new user acquisition and sign-ups, but they are worried that aggressive tactics could weaken Reddit's core value: thoughtful, niche, community-driven discussion. Your manager asks you to prepare a recommendation for the next planning review. Recent work has improved homepage recommendations for new users, but the team still believes the biggest opportunity may be earlier in the journey, before sign-up or in the first session after sign-up. The problem is not just getting more accounts created. The goal is to bring in users who will find the right communities, come back, and contribute without pushing Reddit toward a low-effort entertainment experience. You need to decide where in the guest-to-member journey to focus, what product changes to test first, and how to measure growth while protecting community quality.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product growth strategy memo.

Your answer must

Define the primary target user for this effort and explain why you chose that segment over other possible new user segments.
Map the guest-to-member funnel and identify the 3 most important drop-off points or hypotheses to investigate.
Recommend up to 3 initiatives, prioritized by expected impact, effort, and fit with Reddit's discussion-oriented culture.
Specify a measurement plan with 1 north star metric, 2 to 4 leading metrics, and at least 2 guardrail metrics tied to community quality.
Outline an initial rollout plan, including one experiment you would run first and the main risk you would monitor.

Constraints

Focus on English-speaking countries.
Prioritize sustainable growth, not short-term traffic spikes or clickbait tactics.
Stay true to Reddit's identity as a discussion and community product. Do not assume a pivot to short-form video or entertainment-first feeds.
Center your plan on acquisition and activation for visitors who browse Reddit without an account.

Format

Use clear section headers: target user, funnel diagnosis, recommendations, prioritization, metrics, and rollout.

How Reddit actually played it

A growth case on bringing in new Reddit users without diluting its high-effort discussion culture. The answer works through the user journey and the guardrails.

Growth needs guardrails that protect community quality
Look at the first-session experience for new users
Test acquisition changes against content quality metrics

Built from Product Growth Problem: Reddit new user acquisition by Sreerag Panat.