pitch unfairly

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Mean Girls, 2004. Pitched unfairly, 2026.

Three launches, one evangelist, zero repeats. Same story, same numbers. Rebuilt the way we'd pitch it today.

Template: Growth post-mortem

  • 3 launches
  • 0 repeats
  • 1 veto
Play the 2026 deck Read the real story Steal the structure
2004 Growth post-mortem

Mean Girls

Three launches, one evangelist, zero repeats.

Legend
Original craft
Unfair

The story→11 slides

It's a live deck. Press start, then scroll or use the arrow keys, or play it full screen.

Play the 2026 deck

Mean Girls' growth post-mortem, slide by slide

Every slide opens the live deck right where it is.

  1. Mean Girls deck, slide 1: Fetch didn't happen. Here's exactly why. 01Fetch didn't happen. Here's exactly why.
  2. Mean Girls deck, slide 2: Fetch launched three times, and nobody else said it. 02Fetch launched three times, and nobody else said it.
  3. Mean Girls deck, slide 3: The bet: fetch becomes the word for cool by winter. 03The bet: fetch becomes the word for cool by winter.
  4. Mean Girls deck, slide 4: Push harder, and the only line that matters stays flat. 04Push harder, and the only line that matters stays flat.
  5. Mean Girls deck, slide 5: Three launches in one semester, and the third one ended it. 05Three launches in one semester, and the third one ended it.
  6. Mean Girls deck, slide 6: It wasn't effort. It was one table and a veto. 06It wasn't effort. It was one table and a veto.
  7. Mean Girls deck, slide 7: Fetch never left our table. Grams reached every table. 07Fetch never left our table. Grams reached every table.
  8. Mean Girls deck, slide 8: The word itself was fine. It's five keys on T9. 08The word itself was fine. It's five keys on T9.
  9. Mean Girls deck, slide 9: Next time we win the gatekeeper first and launch second. 09Next time we win the gatekeeper first and launch second.
  10. Mean Girls deck, slide 10: We stop fetch today, keep pink Wednesdays, and start with the gatekeeper. 10We stop fetch today, keep pink Wednesdays, and start with the gatekeeper.
  11. Mean Girls deck, slide 11: The next word ships when someone else says it first. 11The next word ships when someone else says it first.

Then · 2004

How it really went

Read the real storythe film (2004, written by Tina Fey), via Wikipedia
  1. Cady Heron, new at North Shore High, is invited to lunch with the Plastics
  2. Regina admires Cady's bracelet; Gretchen calls it "fetch"
  3. Regina asks what fetch is; Gretchen says it's slang from England
  4. At Regina's house, Gretchen tries it again; nobody picks it up
  5. Cady says "grool" by accident and Aaron says it right back
  6. Candy-cane grams go out; Glen Coco gets four, Gretchen none
  7. Backstage at the winter talent show, Gretchen tries a third time
  8. Regina vetoes it in front of everyone; fetch never comes back

Now · 2026 · 11 slides

What we changed

  • Push harder, stay flatDrag the "Push harder" slider and Gretchen's mentions climb toward a thousand while the line for everyone else never leaves zero.
  • Five whys, rung by rungA ladder that walks from "nobody else said it" down to the root cause: a word with no pull, pushed through one person with a veto.
  • The cafeteria, as a networkJanis's lunch-table map becomes a spread chart: fetch lights one table, candy-cane grams light all of them.
  • Stop, keep, start, with ownersStop fetch, keep pink Wednesdays, start pre-briefing the gatekeeper. Every decision has a name and a date.

Steal the structure

Build your growth post-mortem like Mean Girls did.

  1. 01 Title Name the bet that failed, plainly, and promise the reason.
  2. 02 Summary and impact The result first: one number that says how far off it was, with the supporting counts.
  3. 03 What we tried The bet, the hypothesis, and the success criteria as written before launch.
  4. 04 The metric One chart of the metric that mattered against the one you were tempted to watch.
  5. 05 Timeline Every attempt in order, with what happened after each, and any outside benchmark.
  6. 06 Root cause Five whys from the symptom to a cause about systems and decisions, never a person.
  7. 07 Where it spread Map where adoption happened and where it didn't, next to a channel that already reaches everyone.
  8. 08 What we got right Name what worked so it survives into the next attempt.
  9. 09 What we'd change This time versus next time, one line each.
  10. 10 Decisions Stop, keep, start, each with one owner and one date.
  11. 11 Watching next The leading indicators, with thresholds, that would justify trying again.

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