Product Growth Tips

Why Read: Valuable insights and lessons on product strategy, user acquisition, and handling growth directly from an experienced founder of multiple consumer apps.

Featuring: Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan), Author at Lenny’s Newsletter and Lenny’s Podcast interviews Nikita Bier (@nikitabier), CEO & Co-founder at Gas 

Link to Article: “How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor)”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Customer segments to target for consumer apps:

  • "As we get older, we get fixed into our habits of using certain communication products and we don't really adopt new things. Then the other thing that we discovered was that adults don't really invite people to new apps. We found that as a user got older from age 13 to 18, the number of people that they invite to an app just declines almost exponentially. Finally, and the most important thing is they see each other every day, and that is so critical. Consumer app developers sometimes say smokers are great for targeting an audience because they actually hang out serendipitously a lot outside of buildings."

  Develop a reproducible testing process:

  • "The most important thing that I often instruct teams to do is to develop a reproducible testing process, and that will actually influence the probability of your success more than anything. It's so unpredictable whether a consumer product idea will work. If you actually focus more on your process for taking many shots at bat, that's what actually reduces the risk more than anything."

  Look for latent demand when searching for product ideas:

  • "The way you should be searching for product ideas is this concept of latent demand where people are trying to obtain a particular value and going through a very distortive process to obtain that value. And if you can actually crystallize what their motivation is and build a product around and clear up what they're trying to actually do, you can have this kind of intense adoption."

  Prioritize getting users to the "aha moment" quickly:

  • "You have to understand that in 2024, people's attention spans are like three seconds. It's really sad, but we are spread thin through so many notifications, products, everything that if you can't demonstrate value in the first three seconds, it's over."

  Be creative with using available tools and APIs:

  • "I think extraordinary product people are deeply aware of every possible API and how it can be used in non-traditional ways. Like this URL trick was something that I think was non-traditional that people adopted very quickly."

  Align marketing and product growth:

  • "A lot of founders separate marketing and product growth, like top of funnel growth from the actual products growth mechanisms, but they're both the same. They both should be treated as the same. If you're targeting a community and you want them to all adopt and get saturation, you need to build marketing that shows imagery of that community or whatever. And then when you get in the app, you have to be able to join that community."

  Implement live chat customer support:

  • "I recommend all companies do this, is put live chat customer support in your app 24 hours a day. It sounds insane. It's like the whole point of tech is you don't need to do that. That's the whole point of a software. But then users get this white glove experience, and that eliminates another confounding variable, like did they think their problems were solved or they were treated well?"

Avoid Bro Culture

Why Read: Essential strategies to dismantle bro culture, fostering a more inclusive, innovative, and sustainable company environment that attracts diverse talent and drives success.

Featuring: Doug Levin (@dalev), Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School

Link:“Bro Culture” in Startups”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Understanding Bro Culture in Startups:

  • Point: Recognize the characteristics and prevalence of bro culture in certain industries.

  • "Bro culture has emerged as a business issue due to shifts in demographics, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and evolving awareness. Many tech startups now recognize "bro behaviors" as a problematic dynamic, often involving young, aggressive, hyper-competitive males who influence workplace culture and decision-making processes."

• Identifying the Negative Impacts of Bro Culture:

  • Point: Understand how bro culture can create toxic work environments and hinder diversity.

  • "Bro culture in startups is often characterized by aggressive, competitive behavior – especially on go-to-market (GTM) teams, a lack of diversity and inclusion, casual sexism and gender bias, an emphasis on partying and excessive risk-taking, and a focus on rapid growth at the expense of sustainable practices."

• Recognizing the Business Risks of Bro Culture:

  • Point: Be aware of the potential legal and reputational risks associated with bro culture.

  • "Companies with toxic bro cultures are at heightened risk of lawsuits, negative Glassdoor reviews, unfavorable media coverage, and reputation damage."

• Acknowledging the Benefits of Diversity:

  • Point: Understand the positive impact of diversity on company performance and decision-making.

  • "Research shows that bro culture can undermine success, as gender-diverse companies are 25% more likely to be profitable, inclusive teams make better decisions 87% of the time, and one-third of job seekers avoid companies lacking diversity."

• Implementing Strategies to Combat Bro Culture:

  • Point: Take concrete steps to reduce bro culture and promote diversity from the company's inception.

  • "To combat bro culture, startups can take the following steps: Embed diversity as a core value from the inception, reflected in the founders' values statement and prominently featured on the website. Engage an HR contractor in the early stages and establish robust HR practices from the outset. Ensure the founders and executive leadership team (ELT) communicates and enforces clear codes of conduct. Promote mentorship and support for underrepresented groups. Cultivate an inclusive decision-making process."

• Embracing Diversity for Startup Success:

  • Point: Actively work towards creating an inclusive environment to attract and retain diverse talent.

  • "By actively embracing diversity and reducing bro culture, startups can build more inclusive, innovative, and successful companies that attract and retain top talent from diverse backgrounds."