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Growing Pears: Lessons Learned
Dan SweeneyCo-Founder, Designer
Riley Anthony Michal Dan
Part 1: Foundation for Growthor: If you’re gonna fail, do it quickly and with minimal casualties.
The Product
The Market
Education
K-12 Education
K-12 Schools that use
Google Apps for Education
The Product!
The First Sale
*not our actual rolodex
Get Buy-In Early*
PRO TIP
*no seriously, like, really early
Pear Deck’s Pre-Product Beta Districts
Did he just say 3 months?
The Product
Embrace Your Constraints
PRO TIP
http://www.shopteacher.org/mcs/tutorials/ms_office/ppt/ppt07.htm
Users will forgive the “nice-to-haves” if
you’ve hooked them with your real value
KINDA OBVIOUS PRO TIP
The Brand
Your brand is your first-impression
SUPER OBVIOUS PRO TIP
Stand out from the crowd
BRANDING-RELATED PRO TIP #1
Focus on great design
BRANDING-RELATED PRO TIP #2
Tell your story and be genuine
BRANDING-RELATED PRO TIP #3
Be emotionally engaging
BRANDING-RELATED PRO TIP #4
The Market
The First Sale
The Product
The Brand
Part 2: Building Buzzwithout being too sleazy about it
Early Beta Signup Growth
Pace access to your crappy beta
product while you make it less crappy
DEFINITELY OBVIOUS PRO TIP
Summer 2014
School’s Out,
Fool.
Obey your industries buying cycle
PRO TIP WE FORGOT ABOUT
New Request Growth
Don’t be too afraid to cut influential
users a good deal early on
PRO TIP
30% month-over-month growth
Part 3: Our Tools for GrowthHonestly, its just what has worked for us. You may have better ideas.
Social Media
#edchat
#gafe
#sschat#edtech
#mathchat
#formativeassessment
#onlineedchat
#edtechchat
Sometimes you gotta spend
money to make money
SUPER ORIGINAL PRO TIP
Accept you have limited bandwidth
and move on
RATIONALIZATION / PRO TIP
Adapt to how your customers are
using less-zeitgeist-y social networks
SELF-DISCOVERY / PRO TIP
Engage with niche online communities
SEMI-PRO TIP
Early on, your low-traffic website may
not be the best place to host content
QUESTIONABLE PRO TIP
Email Strategy 1: Newsletter
Leverage existing content to fill
multiple channels
PRETTY BASIC PRO TIP
Email Strategy 2: Automation
1 2 3
Invest time up from to build automation
into your onboarding process
AUTOMATED PRO TIP
Email Strategy 3: The Ego-Booster
Find easy ways to make sure your users
know they’re awesome for being a user
EGOTISTIC PRO TIP
Adwords
Adwords requires serious analytics
insight and more than a little capital
LESSON LEARNED
Conferences
Never be afraid to ask for a deal
OLD SCHOOL PRO TIP
Get your money’s worth
SECOND OLD SCHOOL PRO TIP
Get your users working for you
PENULTIMATE PRO TIP
“Attend” the big shows on the cheap
A FINAL PRO TIP
