Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kari Ostevik, where we discuss product ideation techniques and more.
Product ideation can be a messy process. Between the loudest voices dominating discussions, groupthink stifling creativity, and the eternal struggle to balance vision with validation, it’s no wonder many product teams end up building the wrong things. But what if …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kari Ostevik, where we discuss how to effectively lead without authority and build high-performing product teams.
Every product team faces the eternal question: what should we build next? With limited resources and endless possibilities, prioritization becomes the key differentiator between successful products and those that flounder in the …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kari Ostevik, where we discuss how teaching English in France shaped her leadership style and more.
Leading without authority - it’s the peculiar paradox at the heart of product management. You’re responsible for the product’s success, but unlike traditional managers, you often don’t have direct reports. Instead, you …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kari Ostevik, where we discuss how product managers can influence decisions without authority and more.
Managing up is one of those skills that nobody teaches you in school, but it can make or break your career as a product manager. After interviewing Kari Ostevik, who has led product teams at startups that have raised a combined $500 …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kari Ostevik, where we discuss how she went from teaching English in France to leading product at startups that have raised over $500M, and more.
Leading without formal authority is perhaps the defining challenge of product management. It’s a role where success depends entirely on your ability to influence, guide, and align teams - …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Adam Miller, where we discuss his journey from healthcare marketing to becoming a marketplace expert and more.
The traditional career advice for marketers has long centered around becoming “T-shaped” - developing deep expertise in one area while maintaining broad knowledge across many others. But according to Adam Miller, former …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Adam Miller, where we discuss marketplace growth metrics, supply-side economics, and the future of AI in marketplaces.
The world of marketplace metrics can feel like drinking from a firehose. Trust me, I’ve been there. After interviewing Adam Miller (who’s helped scale giants like Uber, Postmates, and Turo), I wanted to break …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Sundar Swaminathan, where we discuss how Uber built a data-obsessed culture and the secrets behind their marketing experimentation success.
We all know experimentation is important, but here’s a shocking stat: 90% of marketing experiments fail. Not just fall short of expectations - completely fail. That’s enough to make anyone …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Adam Miller, where we discuss how AI is reshaping marketplace advantages and more.
Building successful marketplaces is both art and science - but mostly science. After spending time with Adam Miller, who’s helped scale giants like Uber, Postmates, and Turo, I’m convinced that marketplace success comes down to systematically …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Kevin Xu, where we discuss building an 8-figure portfolio through Reddit and growing his new stock trading app.
The Challenge of Building Community in 2024 Building community isn’t what it used to be. Ten years ago, you weren’t competing with endless TikTok cat videos, AI-generated content, and the perpetual war for attention. …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Sundar Swaminathan, where we discuss how seven slides saved Uber $30M in marketing spend and more.
Ever notice how every company claims to be “data-driven” these days? It’s become one of those buzzwords that’s lost almost all meaning right up there with “synergy” and “paradigm shift.” (I can …
In my recent Horizons interview with Sundar Swamanathan, former head of US/Canada performance marketing analytics at Uber, he revealed a practical framework for turning data into business impact. Here’s the complete breakdown of how successful analysts navigate from insight through to action.
Imagine spending weeks on a detailed analysis, creating the perfect deck, and proudly presenting …
Want the full story? Listen to my complete interview with Sundar Swamanathan, where he shares his journey from managing $19 trillion at the US Treasury to leading Uber’s brand data science team.
Here’s a shocking truth about data-driven companies: 90% of their experiments fail.
That’s not a typo. In my recent conversation with Sundar Swamanathan, former head of US/Canada …
This is a living document summarizing some of the practices I’ve personally found to enable (1) peaceful / calm work practices that are (2) effective at accomplishing difficult projects which (3) have measurable, positive impact on myself, my team, and my customers. Your mileage may vary, so take with a large grain of salt. :)
Preface 1: Why? To be and to last? Like many fields, parkour attracts …
June 2020: Two years ago on a long plane ride, I wrote these notes for myself and my friends. Sharing here with some light updating for anyone else who finds it useful.
This is a living document summarizing some of the practices I’ve personally found to enable (1) peaceful / calm work practices that are (2) effective at accomplishing difficult projects which (3) have measurable, positive impact …
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.”
That’s probably what Fidelity and Vanguard are trying to tell their customers right now after nearly every other brokerage cut trading commissions to zero in an attempt to choke out Robinhood.
But this is also a popular refrain for those disparaging advertising-based business models in favor of the ever-popular …
Gary Vaynerchuk gets 2k to 60k views when he publishes an article on LinkedIn. But what about the rest of us? Is LinkedIn content marketing an option for those of us who aren’t already social media celebrities? Enter Louis Profeta. This ER doctor isn’t a household name. He’s got less than 200 followers on Twitter, and in 2010 he published a book that currently ranks #210,312 on Amazon. And yet, …
Just over three years old, Clash of Clans rakes in more than $5M 1 2 3 each day and consistently charts in the top three grossing apps4. It’s the app that new game developers look to for inspiration.
However, the future didn’t always look so bright for the game’s creator, Supercell. In mid-2011 the year-old company realized their web- and Facebook-first strategy would never …
Marketing’s not a technical field, right?
Think again. As growth hacking has proven repeatedly over the last few years, a data-driven approach to marketing achieves stronger, more reliable results than traditional marketing.
The mad men of the future will combine creativity with rigorous analysis. (tweet this)
Despite a plethora of outstanding tools that handle much of the analysis, the best …
Product Hunt is where people go to talk about the best new products. Each day, members uncover dozens of new product launches and discuss their merits. In just three short years since launching in November 2013, Product Hunt has sent over one hundred million product clicks and views to the thousands of products on the site1. And just recently, Product Hunt was actually acquired by AngelList for a …
Your company doesn’t need a blog. In fact, starting a blog (aka, “content marketing”) is probably a bad idea. But, you say, isn’t content marketing one of the most powerful free growth techniques? Yes and no - writing can be a powerful top-of-funnel strategy, and a fair number of startups have turned it into a strong acquisition channel. But more often than not, blogs never …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks”). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope. Airbnb’s founding team became growth hacking royalty when they managed to sell enough politically themed cereal to keep the …
In 2014, Tim Ferriss logged into Aweber and discovered a 300k email list he never knew existed - thanks to a landing page he’d built years ago. Since then, he’s poured incredible energy and fantastic content into his email newsletter to the point that this is now his primary way of communicating with readers. But let’s go back to the beginning. In 2006, Tim Ferriss built a …
Despite an highly developed existing landing page, Highrise HQ managed to drive a 102.5% improvement with an A/B tested redesign. Far too often people use percent improvements to make minor shifts in small numbers look important. “We had a 200% increase in sales” = last month we sold 1 book, this month we sold 3. But not so in this case - Highrise HQ was already a successful product …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks”). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope. Casey Neistat - two years ago he was a decently well known innovative filmmaker. Today, he’s one of the best known YouTube …
Sequels are always worse than the original, and they always make more money. Captain America: Civil War brought in the most box office cash worldwide of any movie in 2016. It’s the third Captain America movie in 6 years, and it brought in 58% more than the second sequel.[2. 2016 WORLDWIDE GROSSES] Doing something new is always a risk while repeating something that already worked comes with a …
After being disappointed in their personal search for affordable luxury watches, two brothers decided to start the Warby Parker of watches1. With backgrounds in fashion and operations management, they began exploring the world of Italian watch manufacturing, and launched their first line of watches on Kickstarter2. Achieving fairly strong success, this first Kickstarter closed at just under $1M …
I’m addicted to spreadsheets. My friends know that I build spreadsheets for everything: I’ve got one for my to-do projects (Getting Things Done style). One to manage my stock investing. And of course I’ve got one for this blog. In the world of data-driven marketing, spreadsheets let us do so much before we have to break out SQL and databases. The beauty of spreadsheets of course …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks”). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope. A small furniture chain in southern California noticed that 75% of their potential customers started online rather than in-store. …
We all want a silver bullet. “If you just follow this marketing strategy, you’ll get a million users in 30 days.” “If you just use these words in your headline, you’ll get a 100% CTR on your ads.” “If you just sign up for this work from home program, you’ll make $20,000 per month.” But the reality is there are no silver bullets. A free trial …
Marketers are supposed to drive leads for sales to close. Or bring in orders for shipping to fulfill. Or bring in SaaS users for product folks to service. Once the customer is signed up, they’re moved down the customer lifecycle and handed off to a different department. But that’s forgetting arguably the single most powerful marketing channel: word of mouth.
Let’s look at CD Baby …
Dropbox is one of the celebrities of the growth world. Like Airbnb and Hotmail, it merits a mention in nearly every “growth 101” book or article ever written. And well it should - Sean Ellis identified many of the most foundational growth principles during his tenure as head of growth at Dropbox1.
But as much as we’ve heard about their viral video, their epic referral program, …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks”). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope. Sometimes seemingly small choices can have outsized effects. Where I live in London, the food delivery industry is quite …
Stop trying to drive “traffic” to your website. You don’t need more “traffic”, you need more customers. In the growth community, we talk a lot about optimization. Optimize your ads, your landing page, your checkout page, and so on. But here’s the tricky thing. Optimization only matters if you’re working toward the right metric. If you optimize your ads for …
Lean out. Lean in. Roll out and arch. Freefall 13,000 feet above the ground. A mosaic of British farmland stretches beneath me and the North Sea sparkles on the horizon, but I notice nothing. Despite 6+ hours of ground training, my mind empties as my body accelerates to 120 mph in just over 15 seconds. But not for long. Between nudges and hand signals, the two instructors holding me tightly on …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks”). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope. As the famous AirBnB/Craigslist case study demonstrated in 2012, integrating a new product with a larger, established community can …
[This is the first in a series of articles exploring the driving factors of high-growth companies. Palantir in particular is interesting because of their B2B business model and their lack of traditional marketing or sales teams1.]
They helped convict Bernie Madoff 2, analyzed roadside bomb patterns in Afganistan, and are rumored to have helped locate Osama bin Laden3. They’ve worked with the …
In late 2014, WeWork raised $335 million[1. Q4 2014 Startup Investment Dollars at Highest Point In 10 Years, Driven By Mega-Rounds and Private Equity] at a $5 billion valuation[2. From Kibbutz To Empire: WeWork Building $5 Billion Global Startup Community]. Then s months later, the company raised $400 million more at a $10 billion valuation[3. WeWork’s Valuation Soars to $10 Billion], making it …
Ever heard of Game Neverending? How about the very similar Glitch? No? How about Flickr or Slack? Over a decade ago, Steward Butterfield started working on a game concept he called Game Neverending. It didn’t take off, but people loved the photo features in the game. He pivoted to that one feature and built Flickr. After selling Flickr to Yahoo back in 2004 for north of $22 million, Stewart …
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Mark Twain
Earlier this week, I was listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcast during my evening commute home. As he chatted with his guests, Tim mentioned that one of his life rules, if he has them, would be to question the things everyone else assumes. We …
We’re used to Nike sponsoring athletes. From their first deal with a tennis player to the ongoing partnership with Michael Jordan to last year’s World Cup ad, Nike has excelled at inspiring us through star endorsements. But the traditional celebrities no longer monopolize our attention. Self-made celebrities today command flocks of Twitter followers and small armies of Facebook …
You know that trope about being alone in a city full of people? In a place as busy as San Francisco, it can be hard to find new friends. Julie Krafchick knew this and started 500 Brunches to help like-minded people connect over meals.
Like any business, Julie wants 500 Brunches to grow, but she’s more concerned about making the experience great than she is about scaling it as fast as …
Good marketing boils down to two primary areas: perfecting standard processes (like AARRR metrics) and uncovering new innovations (popularly termed “growth hacks“). Hopefully this series on clever growth hacks will inspire new ideas that push the envelope.
For every ten customers who make it to checkout, the average ecommerce site loses just under seven1. That’s massive!
So if that many customers …
Spotify integrated with Facebook, Uber works closely with local partners, Moz built a massive community, Dollar Shave Club launched a viral video. The history of growth marketing is riddled with brilliant growth hacks. Yet so many of these growth hacks have a short shelf life. Facebook has changed it’s algorithm, local partnerships rarely scale easily, new communities don’t start …
What is a “growth hack”? So what exactly is a growth hack and how is it different from a normal marketing campaign? Is a billboard campaign a growth hack? What about an online Adwords campaign? To uncover the answer, I scoured GrowthHackers.com to understand how people generally differentiated growth hacks. Here are some common recognized attributes of growth hacks:
scalable …
I’m frequently approached by people who want to know more about data-driven marketing.
They’ve seen the power of growth marketing in companies like Facebook or apps like Flappy Bird, but they don’t know where to start learning.
The internet has lots of great resources (GrowthHackers.com and GrowthHacker.tv are two of my personal favorites), but it’s hard to learn growth …
Did you know the behavioral psychology of dance can make you a better marketer? I recently enjoyed a day of learning at the 2014 Design for Dance conference. Hosted by Stanford’s BJ Fogg, we explored the beautiful world of behavioral design with an impressive array of speakers. I’m still digesting everything I learned, but here are some of the key takeaways I plan to apply in my professional life. …
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso
Picasso uncovered one of the great elements of product design: mental models. We all approach life with millions of expectations. Developed over a lifetime, each of these small expectations builds into a mental model that our brain automatically applies to make life easier. Rarely seen, these expectations permeate every detail of our life. …
You write a stunning blog post and craft a captivating headline. But is your article really ready to publish? Not quite yet. Just as the quality of your headline affects the number of readers clicking through to read, one other element also affects click-throughs and reading – your primary image. This often overlooked element will show on Facebook, Twitter, possibly within your blog archives, and …
In 2006, Twitter was just a small micro-blogging startup. In 1976, Apple was just a few friends building computers. In 2005, Box was just a fledgling file storage company. What happened? They built amazing products and acquired millions of users.
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson (paraphrased)
As much as we’d like to …
Successful growth can only be sustained by happy customers. Tactics and techniques are useful, but only when they lead to the solving of real problems and the creation of happy customers. Elliot Shmukler, formerly at LinkedIn and now VP of Product at Wealthfront, has found that startups can grow in one of three ways: increase exposure, decrease friction, or increase incentive. To decrease …
We’ve all heard that this “content marketing” thing can do big things for our businesses. It can drive new users, lower marketing costs, and keep current users interested. All of this sounds great, but what does it actually mean? How can I use content marketing for my business? In 2008, Marcus Sheridan ran a pool company, River Pools, and he felt the recession heavily. To shore …
Adam Fishman recently visited us at Tradecraft to talk about his learnings as Director of Growth at Lyft (that’s their iconic pink mustache above). Over the last couple of years, Adam and the rest of the amazing team at Lyft have sustained tremendous growth and now offer on-demand ridesharing in 20 cities across the US. Here are the growth lessons I learned from talking with Adam.
#1 Focus …
A couple days ago, I attended the first ever GrowthHackers.com meetup, and we had a great time of getting to know each other plus learning from a Q&A with Sean Ellis. We covered a wide range of growth topics, and I came away with five main learnings to apply to my work.
#1 Perseverance is Key When I look at the results people like Sean have achieved, I often try to convince myself that they …
For the last year now, I have been running the test prep company SpeedyPrep. When I took over, we had just seen a significant dip in traffic and revenue due primarily to SEO issues. Over the last year, we have seen significant growth, but in the last few weeks that growth has stagnated and even dipped slightly.
Gut Reaction: Do Everything Whenever I see something like this happening, I want to do …
This is a short explanation of growth hacking that I assembled for my UX and Sales colleagues at Tradecraft. This guide is by no means definitive, but I hope it provides a good introduction to some of the basic growth concepts and frameworks.
Update: The embedded slide show no longer displays, but [you can still find it here] …
Over the last week, I’ve been studying various ways to improve my social media strategies, and I came across a number of statistics that take much of the guesswork out of Facebook and Twitter in particular. Each brand and audience is different, but these statistics provide some generally accurate guidelines. By applying these best practices and then testing to understand your exact …
I’m by no means an expert in growth hacking (I’m a growth rookie), but I have learned at least an bachelor degree’s worth in the last three months, and I’d like to help you do the same. After spending an estimated 300 hours studying the topic, here are the five shortcuts to growth hacking expertise that I have found thus far.
#1 Learn The Framework Before I could really …