Measurement before scale
Growth is alchemy.
Turning experience into understanding, until what has always been there quietly reveals itself.
A personal studio for ideas in progress, exploring growth systems, AI, love, healing, and the art of becoming.
The Alchemy of Growth
Growth is not just optimization. It is transformation.
Signal
Insight
Test
System
Leverage
Daylightbecoming
Work
Measurement-first growth strategist with systems thinking
Cher Yuan is a measurement-first growth strategist with 7+ years of experience building and scaling acquisition systems across high-growth consumer businesses. Her work spans SEM, attribution, experimentation, bidding automation, conversion signal architecture, and cross-functional growth operations.
Bidding Automation
- Problem
- Manual bidding decisions created waste and inconsistency.
- System built
- Algorithmic bidding platform with controls and feedback loops.
- Impact
- $6M annual savings.
- Taught me
- Automation works best when judgment is designed into the system.
Incrementality Testing
- Problem
- Platform reporting could not answer true marginal impact.
- System built
- Geo-based testing framework for lift and allocation reads.
- Impact
- Clearer budget decisions across markets and channels.
- Taught me
- Measurement is a decision architecture, not a dashboard.
New Channel Expansion
- Problem
- New channels needed structure before scale.
- System built
- Vendor sourcing, pilot launch, and evaluation playbook.
- Impact
- Faster learning with clearer go / no-go criteria.
- Taught me
- A channel is not real until the operating loop is repeatable.
Creative Testing
- Problem
- Noisy platform signals made creative decisions unclear.
- System built
- Hypothesis-led interpretation across message, audience, and need.
- Impact
- Better alignment between creative learning and business goals.
- Taught me
- Creative is a belief system that can be tested.
Growth Alchemy
From signal to daylight
Understand motivation, pain, trust, and timing.
Motivation / pain / trust / timingMatch intent, context, and acquisition economics.
Intent / context / economicsTest value propositions, not just assets.
Value prop / message / audienceAlign the promise with the conversion path.
Promise / path / conversionMeasure signal quality and limitations.
Signal quality / limits / truthDesign for learning, not just winning.
Learning / rigor / decisionScale where incrementality and economics support it.
Incrementality / payback / LTVEfficient acquisition, durable learning, long-term value.
Efficiency / learning / durabilityAI
Growth work is changing.
As automation takes over repetitive operational work, the highest-value growth work moves toward strategy, experimentation design, systems thinking, creative interpretation, and cross-functional decision-making.
- Manual reporting
- Repetitive campaign maintenance
- Platform-by-platform execution
- Last-click thinking
- AI-enabled workflow design
- Experimentation systems
- Signal architecture
- Creative learning loops
- Cross-channel strategy
- Human judgment at the system level
Writing
Notes on growth, love, healing, and becoming.
A soft archive for field notes from a life in transformation. Some rooms are still private. Some will open slowly.
Marketing, experimentation, decision-making, and systems thinking in the age of AI.
Knowledge work, AI collaboration, and the forms of judgment that remain human.
Relationships, marriage, creativity, and the ways love transforms us.
Therapy, travel, transition, and making peace with different versions of the self.
About Cher
Love Alchemist is an inner world, not a job title.
I call myself a love alchemist because I believe transformation is the deepest form of work: in relationships, in healing, in creativity, and in growth.
My professional work began in performance marketing, but over time it became a study of systems: how signals become decisions, how experiments become strategy, and how structure can create freedom.
About cheryuan.com
A personal archive for transformation.
cheryuan.com began as a portfolio.
Like many people working in tech, I originally wanted a place to showcase projects, organize my work, and make it easier to explain what I do.
Over time, it became something very different.
In 2026, after leaving my role at Instacart, I found myself with something I hadn't had in years: space.
Space to think. Space to heal. Space to write.
As I slowed down, I noticed that many of the ideas I'd accumulated over the years finally had room to connect. They weren't just ideas about marketing or AI. They were questions that kept appearing across different parts of my life.
Questions about judgment, creativity, love and work. About what can be learned, and what can only be understood through experience.
That's when this website stopped being a portfolio and became a long-term writing project.
Today, cheryuan.com is organized around four themes:
Growth & Systems explores marketing, experimentation, decision-making, and systems thinking in the age of AI.
AI & Work reflects on how AI is reshaping knowledge work, and what remains uniquely human as machines become increasingly capable.
Love & Alchemy is about relationships, marriage, creativity, and the quiet ways we are transformed by love.
Healing & Integration documents the slower work of becoming through therapy, travel, career transitions, and learning to make peace with different versions of myself.
Although these topics may seem unrelated, they all revolve around the same question: What can be learned, and what has to be lived?
A playbook can teach a framework. It cannot teach judgment.
A book can describe healing. It cannot heal for you.
A city can inspire possibility. It cannot become home until you arrive there as yourself.
The more I write, the more I realize that knowledge is only the beginning.
Understanding emerges through experience.
This website is my attempt to document that process, not because I've arrived at the answers, but because I find meaning in asking better questions.
If there's a single idea that ties everything together, it's this: Experience transforms knowledge into understanding.
And perhaps that's what alchemy has always meant.
cheryuan.com 最初只是一个作品集网站。
和很多科技行业从业者一样，我想要一个地方整理项目、记录工作，也方便未来介绍自己。
后来，它慢慢变成了另一种东西。
2026 年离开 Instacart 后，我第一次拥有了很多年都没有过的留白。留白让我开始思考, 开始疗愈, 也开始决定在公共领域写作表达。
渐渐地，我发现这些年积累的想法开始彼此连接。它们看似来自完全不同的领域， 营销、AI、关系、创伤、旅行、成长，却一直围绕着同一个问题：什么东西可以学习， 什么东西必须亲身经历？
于是，这个网站不再只是展示经历，而开始记录理解如何产生。
如今，cheryuan.com 主要围绕四条主线展开。
Growth & Systems 记录我对于营销、增长、实验、自动化，以及 AI 时代决策系统的思考。
AI & Work 探索 AI 如何改变知识工作，以及在人与 AI 共创的时代，什么能力会变得更加重要。
Love & Alchemy 写关于爱、婚姻、创造，以及人与人之间如何彼此改变。
Healing & Integration 记录疗愈、旅行、职业转型，以及一个人如何慢慢与不同阶段的自己重新相遇。
这些栏目看起来彼此独立，但它们其实都在回答同一个问题。
一本 Playbook 可以教会我们流程，却无法教会判断。一本书可以告诉我们疗愈是什么， 却不能替我们完成疗愈。别人可以描述一座城市，却无法替我们走完那条没有选择的路。
越来越多的时候，我觉得知识只是开始。真正重要的，是知识如何在经历中慢慢变成理解。
因此，这个网站并不是一本答案集。它更像是一份持续更新的思考记录。 记录一个人如何在工作、关系、成长与疗愈之间，不断修正自己看世界的方式。
如果要用一句话概括 cheryuan.com，我想大概会是：每一篇文章，都在探索那些可以学习的事， 以及那些只能通过亲身经历才能真正理解的事。
而这，也是我理解的炼金术。不是把铅变成黄金，而是把经历，慢慢炼成理解。
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