Five Lessons Learned Growing Three Products(why product/market fit and growth are critical to long-term success)
Hiten [email protected]
Three Products
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
Five Growth Lessons
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
The Five Lessons
Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail
No market need
Ran out of cash
Not the right team
Got outcompeted
Pricing/cost issues
Poor product
Need/lack business model
Poor marketing
Ignore customers
Product mis-timed
Lost focus
Disharmony on team/investors
Pivot gone bad
Lack passion
Bad location
No financing/investor interest
Legal challenges
Didn’t use network/advisors
Burn out
Failure to pivot
42%
29%
23%
19%
18%
17%
17%
14%
14%
13%
13%
13%
10%
9%
9%
8%
8%
8%
8%
7%
“No market need” is the #1 reason
Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.Marc Andreessen, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Product/Market Fit
You need product/market fit before you can grow your
business.
• Product/Market Fit Survey• Net Promoter Score (NPS)• Retention (Cohort Analysis)• Engagement• Churn
How to Analyze Product/Market Fit
You know it when people constantly tell other people about
your product.
Before Product/Market Fit
It’s easier than ever to get customers.
It’s harder than ever to keep them.
Customers
HTTP://WWW.USERONBOARD.COM/FEATURES-VS-BENEFITS/
People don't buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.
TODO:
Take the time to do thorough research up front
It’s faster to research than to write code. Upfront depth prevents you from building the wrong things.
HTTP://KISS.LY/WORKBACK
We try to work backwards from the customer, rather than starting with an idea for a product and trying to bolt customers onto it.Ian McAllister, Amazon
Working Backwards
TODO:
Create tweets and a blog post before you write
code.
Working Backwards With Tweets, Blog Posts and Press Releases
Find the critical problems your target audience has
and solve them better than anyone else.
This is your job.
http://kiss.ly/peoplewant
You Are Not Your Custome
r
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
The Five Lessons
Our hypothesis is that product managers have a problem doing effective customer research.
http://kissinsights.com
Product managers hang out on other people’s websites.
Where do your customers hang out?
How we tracked it
http://www.kissinsights.com/?utm_source=suview&utm_medium=dark&utm_campaign=google.com
How we tracked it
Using a “powered-by” strategy KISSinsights became profitable and was acquired because it got over 25,000 signups with $0 spent on advertising.
http://qualaroo.com
How can you make your product grow by itself?
• Powered By• Integrations• Work Emails• Embeds• Invites / Referrals
Five ways that products can grow themselves
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
The Five Lessons
Growth is about taking your product (the original principal value) and optimizing it to produce compound interest. Much of growth is dedicated to finding the levers you can pull for incrementing compound interest over time.Andy Johns http://qr.ae/rbj63
Growth is about producing compound interest
KISSmetrics signups over time
• How do I increase the rate of acquisition i.e. get more signups?
• What can I do to activate as many users as quickly as possible in their first 'N' days?
• What are the levers for engagement and retention and how can I pull them?
• How do I bring churned users back into the system to "resurrect" them from the dead?
Fundamental growth questions to ask
http://qr.ae/rbjP4
Growth accounting for B2C and B2B companies
http://qs.tc/growthaccounting
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
The Five Lessons
• How do I increase the rate of acquisition i.e. get more signups?
• What can I do to activate as many users as quickly as possible in their first 'N' days?
• What are the levers for engagement and retention and how can I pull them?
• How do I bring churned users back into the system to "resurrect" them from the dead?
Fundamental growth questions to ask
http://qr.ae/rbjP4
• Reduce as much friction as possible from people signing up.
• Get people who are barely ready to buy your product to start using your free product.
• Show free users how they could solve their problems using your paid product.
• If you can keep free users active, they'll stick around longer.
• Your leads don't just reset at the end of every free trial period.
Why freemium rocks!
I’m not going to write off freemium completely. I believe there are definitely situations where it can work.
Josh Pigford, Baremetrics
• What features should the free plan have?• How will the free plan cause people to pay?• How will free users help get us more free users?• How will we engage and retain these users over time?• How can we support our free plan users at a low
enough cost that the percentage who end up paying provide a positive ROI for us?
Questions to ask when thinking about freemium
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
The Five Lessons
Go Where Customers Are!Long, slow, SaaS ramp of death…
Go Where Customers Are!Long, slow, SaaS ramp of death…
Go Where Customers Are!Growth can be sped up!
Only 1 out of 5 tests win.
4 out of 5 tests cost you money.
$
KISSmetrics signups over time
KISSmetrics homepage conversion improvements
KISSmetrics conversion rate over time
Checklists, guidelines, screencasts, specifications and requirements are a few ways to create repeatable and scalable growth.
Make sure you have a growth workbook
If you’re not testing, you’re not
learning.
☀
Always have tests running,
no matter how small.
⌾
If you don't have a process, you won't continuously
improve.
∞
1. Can’t grow without product/market fit2. Products should grow themselves3. Measure growth the right way4. Free is a growth strategy5. Growth takes time
Five Growth Lessons
Thank Y0u =)How can I help you?
Hiten [email protected]