AI Companies Should Recruit AI-Native New Grads

At Lovable, Elena Verna has discovered that traditional growth playbooks are largely obsolete in the AI era, requiring a fundamental shift in approach and mindset. She's found that only 30-40% of her previous growth expertise transfers to this new landscape.

In AI companies, innovation trumps optimization. While Elena previously spent about 5% of her time innovating on growth and 95% optimizing existing channels, those proportions have completely flipped at Lovable. The rapid pace of AI development means companies must constantly reinvent their solutions rather than merely optimize existing ones to stay competitive.

This shift has profound implications for how growth teams operate. Rather than focusing on traditional activation metrics and funnel optimization, growth teams at AI companies like Lovable are deeply involved in core product development - building new features, creating new growth loops, and even working on agent instructions. The work has become more integrated with product development rather than remaining a separate optimization layer.

Elena identifies several key growth levers that work in this new paradigm:

Building something truly "lovable" - not just viable - that blows users' socks off. This requires prioritizing emotional connection and user delight over mere utility.
Maintaining constant "noise" in the market through rapid shipping and building in public. Lovable ships features constantly, with both founders and employees sharing updates on social media.
Giving the product away generously. Rather than immediately monetizing AI capabilities, Lovable treats giveaways as marketing costs, sponsoring hackathons and removing barriers to entry.
Fostering community to amplify word-of-mouth and strengthen retention.

Perhaps most striking is Elena's observation about product-market fit. While traditionally companies could achieve product-market fit and then scale for years, AI companies must recapture product-market fit every three months as both technology capabilities and market expectations evolve at unprecedented speeds.

For those considering joining AI companies, Elena advises honest self-assessment. These environments reward those comfortable with chaos, capable of creating clarity, and willing to embrace rapid change. While the pace is intense, she maintains that work-life balance is possible with clear boundaries and prioritization.

The growth mindset for AI companies requires embracing constant reinvention, focusing on building lovable products rather than merely viable ones, and recognizing that in this new landscape, the traditional rules of growth no longer fully apply.