Product Teams Own Activation at Lovable

At Lovable, activation is deeply embedded in the product team's DNA rather than being solely a growth team responsibility. This represents a fundamental shift in how AI-native companies approach user experience.

Elena discovered that in AI companies, the core product team is obsessed with activation and first-time user experience in ways traditional companies aren't. As she explains, "Our agent team spends night and day thinking about it... I've never been at a company where the core team thinks so much about activation, thinks so much about that first generation." This integration happens naturally because in AI products, the quality of the first interaction is the product.

The beauty of this approach is its efficiency - improvements to the AI agent benefit all interactions, not just first-time users: "It doesn't matter if it's actually first generation or if it's your nth generation, it just needs to be a better generation. Agents need to understand your intent better." This creates a virtuous cycle where core product improvements simultaneously enhance activation.

For product leaders, this means rethinking traditional team boundaries. Rather than having growth teams focus on optimizing activation funnels while product teams build deeper features, both should collaborate on making the core interaction exceptional. The growth team can then focus on innovation, new features, and creating new growth loops rather than micro-optimizing existing ones.

For ICs, this suggests that improving core product experiences is increasingly everyone's responsibility. The traditional handoff between product development and growth optimization is blurring, requiring more cross-functional thinking about how users first experience value, regardless of your role.