This Week #2: Tackling the chicken-and-egg problem, building a growth team from scratch, and addressing overlap with PM peers 🤔
Sep 2019
Early percentage improvements in conversion have poor ROI. Once retention is healthy, the biggest growth wins come from top-of-funnel activities like referrals, performance marketing, and SEO—not from squeezing another 2% out of your funnel.
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This Week #2: Tackling the chicken-and-egg problem, building a growth team from scratch, and addressing overlap with PM peers 🤔
Sep 2019In early-stage growth, focus on opportunities that can deliver exponential returns rather than incremental gains. Unless your product has viral mechanics built in, chasing small conversion improvements won't move the needle.
Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more
Jun 2022If 90% of your customers come from paid acquisition, the music will eventually stop. A healthy product should have 40-50% organic growth and 50% paid. If your product isn't remarkable enough for people to talk about, you're building on a fragile foundation.
Where Great Product Roadmap Ideas Come From
Jun 2019Users who leave reveal what your product is missing more clearly than users who stay. Analyzing why customers churn deserves equal weight to customer interviews and data analysis—it's the market's most honest feedback about your roadmap priorities.
What Seven Years at Airbnb Taught Me About Building a Business
Jun 2019Some of the biggest conversion gains came from simple tweaks that gave users fewer things to think about—opening listings in new tabs, removing links in payment flows, defaulting settings. Don't underestimate the power of focus as a design and organizational principle.
28 Ways to Grow Supply in a Marketplace 📈
Jun 2019Users who have had a great experience on your platform are your most empathetic potential suppliers. They remember the friction they faced and can address it. This tactic is especially powerful early-stage because these converted users become your highest-quality supply and strongest advocates.
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