how growth happens in early stage startups
TRANSCRIPT
HOW GROWTH HAPPENS IN EARLY STAGE STARTUPS
vincentchan - TGN Bootcamp 2016
2005 2007 2009 2013
analyst cofounder design
2014
growth
2015
product
Vincent ChanHead of Product at OneSky
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF GROWTH
Chamath Palihapitiya ex-VP of Growth at Facebook Founder of Social Capital
10 Friends in 15 Days
Getting Users to the Magic (Aha) Moment
Source: How to Start a Startup
Source: Andrew Chen
Andrew ChenSupply Growth at Uber
Sean Ellis CEO at GrowthHackers
BEFORE GROWTH
BEFORE GROWTH “A startup that prematurely targets a growth goal often ends up making a nebulous product that some users sort of like and papering over this with ‘growth hacking’. That sort of works…but eventually the music stops.”
Sam AltmanPresident of Y Combinator
Source: Sam Altman
RIGHT INITIAL METRIC
“Do any users love our product so much they spontaneously tell other people to use it?”
Sam AltmanPresident of Y Combinator
Source: Sam Altman
Build a great product
Talk to Users
Do things that don’t scale
Source: Sam Altman, Paul Graham
DO THINGS THAT DON’T SCALE
Which startups did this?
Source: Brian Chesky
Which startups did this?
Source: Kevin Hale
This is a huge advantage over larger competitors
Source: Walker Williams
Do whatever it takes to bring in your first customers
Source: Walker Williams
All About Hustle low-risk and high-percentage wins
Source: Walker Williams
PRODUCT/ MARKET FIT
“40% of users consider the product a “must-have”…40% of surveyed users would be “very disappointed” if they could no longer use your product.”
Sean EllisCEO of GrowthHackers.com
Source: Sean Ellis
traction, traction, traction, traction, traction, traction, …but how to get it?
Source: Andrew Chen
Source: Eric Ries
Customer development
Accelerate feedback loop
Validated learnings
WHEN TO GROWTH
Retention is the single most important thing
for growth.
Source: Alex Schultz
DEFAULT DEAD? “If the company is default alive, we can talk about ambitious new things they could do. If it's default dead, we probably need to talk about how to save it.”
Paul Graham Founder of Y Combinator
Source: Paul Graham
BUILD SOMETHING PEOPLE LOVE
“Even the best marketing will fall down if they are not supported by the experience people have when they hit our site…and when they start using it day in, day out.”
Stewart ButterfieldFounder of Slack
Source: Stewart Butterfield
WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING?
GROWTH
PRODUCT
MARKETING ENGINEERING
“What we did right: Measured, tried and tested many things. It's not that complicated. Without ego to keep doing the above over and over again to understand what's really happening in the product. The learnings tell you whether you should keep doing what you are doing or stop doing what you are doing… It’s all about a simple understanding of product value & consumer behaviour.”
Chamath Palihapitiyaex-VP Growth of Facebook
Source: Chamath Palihapitiya
Source: Andy Johns
NO SILVER BULLET
Growth owns (measure, understand and improve)
the flow of customers in and out of a product
Source: Andy Johns
“Select channels with high volume, high conversion and low cost. Measure all the way down the funnel to revenue to find the highest converting channels.”
Dave McClureFounder of 500 Sartups
Source: 500 Startups
“Things picked up dramatically at Facebook when we started to focus not just on in-product friction but the friction in people's lives outside the product that influenced their actions.”
Meenal Balarex-Intl. Growth of Facebook
Source: Meenal Balar
GROWTH IS ALL ABOUT PROCESS
Which tactics would you use to grow my company?
Source: Brian Balfour
“You need a growth machine that is predictable, scalable and repeatable.”
Brian BalfourVP Growth of HubSpot
Source: Brian Balfour
Source: Sean Ellis
HOW TO GROWTH
BUILDING YOUR OWN GROWTH MODELS
DEVELOPING EXPERIMENTATION MODELS
BUILDING CUSTOMER ACQUISITION CHANNELS
Source: Andy Johns
BUILDING OWN GROWTH MODELS
1
Source: Andy Johns
Source: Andy Johns
DEVELOPING EXPERIMENTS
2
Source: Andy Johns
Source: Andy Johns
Source: Andy Johns
Source: Andy Johns
Source: Andy Johns
BUILDING CUSTOMER ACQUISITION CHANNELS
3
Source: Traction
Viral marketing
Public relations
Unconventional PR
SEM
Social and display ads
Offline ads
SEO
Content marketing
Email marketing
Community building
Engineering as marketing
Targeting blogs
Business development
Sales
Affiliate programs
Existing platforms
Trade shows
Offline events
Speaking engagements
CREATE YOUR OWN PROPRIETARY
DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS
Source: Tomasz Tunguz
CONTENT MARKETING
Keyword Research SEO
Blogging Repurpose Content
Guest Blogging White paper Cheat sheet
Source: Moz
Email Social Media
Content Syndication Press SEM
Influencers Email Newsletter
Source: Moz
ENGINEERING AS MARKETING
TRADE SHOW
LEVERAGE EXISTING PLATFORMS
Build your product to be independent. Only use the platform for acceleration.
Source: Josh Elman
HOW TO BUILD TEAM
Product Engineering
Sales Marketing
Growth
PRODUCT GROWTH
Most important is mass adoption by the user base.
Creates an engagement loop that allows you to email or notify users on a regular basis. (e.g. tagging)
A step-change improvement in the core value of the product for a majority of the user base. (e.g. newsfeed)
Source: Pinterest
GROWTH TOOLS
HOW
GROWTH HAPPENS AT ONESKY
Product Engineering
Inbound Outbound
GROWTH PROCESS TIMELINE
WHAT A TYPICAL WEEK LOOKS LIKE
Credit: Leslie Lai, Vincent So @OneSky
ONE MORE
THING…
RULES? “You can’t play by the exact same rules as everybody else and expect exponential growth…look for competitive advantages and innovation for distribution.”
Mark SusterVC at Upfront Ventures
Source: Mark Suster
UNFAIR? “If you hire a marketer and tell them to execute “by the book” you will get average results. For startups, average is usually failure.”
Danielle MorrillCEO at Mattermark
Source: Danielle Morrill
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Traction Book
GrowthHackers.com
Brian Balfour, VP Growth at HubSpot
Andrew Chen, Supply Growth at Uber
Weapons Of Mass Distribution - 500 Startups
List of World-Class Growth Hackers
