3. Identifying Your Growth Levers Flashcards
What is the prerequisite for fast and sustainable growth?
Making a product compelling enough to pass the must-have test
Why do truly great products sometimes fail?
Lack of a well-focused effort to vigorously drive growth
What was Everpix designed for?
Users tired of managing large collections of photos
What was the conversion rate of Everpix’s freemium model?
12.4 percent
What fatal mistake did the founders of Everpix make?
Failed to leverage early adopters to drive faster growth
What was Everpix’s operating expense after a year and a half?
$480,674
What did Everpix founders think about requiring photo recipients to sign up?
They feared it would annoy people
What is growth hacking about?
Continuous experimentation to achieve desired results
What is the main goal of growth hacking?
Applying rapid experimentation to find and optimize promising areas
What should startups focus on in the early phase of growth?
High-impact experiments that achieve growth in the least time
What is the fundamental growth equation?
A formula representing key factors driving growth
What is a crucial factor for Uber’s growth?
Number of drivers
What are key metrics for Facebook’s growth?
- Amount of items shared by users
- Time spent on News Feed
What can confuse businesses when using analytics programs?
The sheer volume of data available
What is a common mistake regarding important metrics?
Focusing on metrics that don’t impact sustained growth
Why is daily active users a nonsensical metric for Airbnb?
Users book stays only a few times a year
What represents strong regular use for a review site like Yelp?
Searching the site once or twice a week
What does the sheer simplicity of the growth equation allow?
Focus on the right signals in a vast sea of data noise
What does strong, regular use mean for a business?
It varies by product and context.
For example, twice a week might indicate strong usage for some services.
Why are daily active users important for Facebook?
They indicate user engagement and support the advertising revenue model.
High user engagement leads to more advertising opportunities.
What was a crucial metric for LinkedIn in its early days?
Total sign-ups.
Even inactive sign-ups contribute to the site’s value.
What is the most important metric for eBay’s growth?
Number of items listed for sale.
More listings increase potential buyer experiences.
What is the North Star metric?
A key metric of ultimate success that guides growth activities.
It helps keep teams focused and avoid wasting resources.
What does the North Star represent?
The core value created for customers.
It reflects the delivery of the essential experience of the product.
What was WhatsApp’s North Star metric?
Number of messages sent.
This reflects user engagement better than daily active users.
What is Airbnb’s North Star metric?
Nights booked.
It directly correlates with user satisfaction for both guests and property listers.
How can the North Star metric change over time?
It may evolve as the company grows and initial goals are achieved.
Facebook transitioned from monthly to daily active users as engagement strategies shifted.
What did Airbnb’s founders discover about New York City bookings?
Poor photo quality was limiting bookings.
They improved listings by taking professional photos, leading to significant increases in bookings.
What is ‘instrumentation’ in the context of growth?
Setting up data tracking to monitor customer behavior and product performance.
It’s essential for informed decision-making in growth strategies.
Why is combining data important for growth teams?
It allows for detailed tracking of customer experiences and better experiment design.
Unified data helps identify key growth levers.
What was a significant step taken by Facebook’s growth team in 2009?
They paused all growth experiments to improve data tracking and collection.
This led to a clearer understanding of user behavior and better-targeted experiments.
What does a good plan executed now signify according to General George Patton?
It is better than a perfect plan executed later.
This quote emphasizes the importance of timely action in growth experiments.
What was the outcome of Airbnb’s photography program?
It led to a two-and-a-half-times better booking rate globally.
The program allowed hosts to schedule professional photographers for listings.
What is the main challenge of combining user data in large companies?
The effort to combine all data is quite a chore
This is contrasted with smaller companies where tools and services make data collection easier.
What does user data primarily tell you?
User data tells you definitively what users are doing, not why they behave that way.
What is a usability problem?
A glitch in how a feature works that causes users to leave a website.
Why is it important to conduct user surveys or interviews?
To understand the underlying reasons behind user behavior.
What should complement quantitative analysis?
Qualitative probing, such as user surveys or interviews.
What is the critical importance of reporting data discovery results?
Reporting results in the simplest and most accessible way possible.
What are dashboards used for in data reporting?
Dashboards help focus attention on key trends or metrics and encourage participation in growth efforts.
What impact does constant visibility of numbers have on team performance?
It significantly increases their ability to positively impact the metrics they’re responsible for.
What is ‘data puking’?
Disseminating metrics helter-skelter, creating confusion.
What should dashboards report on?
The most important metrics that map to your growth levers.
What is cohort analysis?
Dividing customers or users into distinctive groups by a common trait.
What retention rate was found for users who visited Twitter at least seven times in one month?
Retention rate was between 90 and 100 percent.
What are the three cohorts identified by Twitter’s growth team?
- Core users
- Casual users
- Cold users
What is the significance of following at least 30 other users on Twitter?
It was identified as a ‘tipping point’ number that hooked users to come back.
What did Twitter’s team discover about the ratio of followers and followees?
Users who were followed by about a third of those they followed became loyal users.
What unique product value did Twitter users realize?
Twitter is a tool for finding out what’s happening in their world.
What behavior did the growth team study in users who had gone ‘comatose’?
They learned about the value of Twitter as a tool for connecting and learning.
What is the first step for successful growth hacking?
Identifying your growth equation and key metrics to improve.
What should be done after establishing growth metrics?
Introduce a step-by-step process for testing ideas efficiently.
