Growth Series Flashcards
Retention + Engagement
- Retention separates top 1%
- Retention + Engagement drive Acquisition and Monetization
Retention: breadth, were they active or not?
Engagement: depth, how active were they?
Retention + Engagement - silent killer
- Retention gets de-prioritized due to a long time horizon
- Poor retention is easy to cover up and miss
- Breadth but no depth
Retention definition
How many users or customers remained active within a defined time period after signing up?
Retention is the output
Retention = Activation, Engagement and Resurrection
Activation: Establishing the habit
Engagement: Habit is established
Resurrection: Returning dormant user to an engaged state
How to improve retention as the output?
Center our approach
1. Use cases (qualitative view)
2. Measuring + analyzing (quant view)
3. Engagement strategies, explore engagement strategies to build the habit
4. Activation strategies, how to build the habit with first-time users
5. Resurrection strategies, how to regain those that once had the habit
Retention + Engagement - define use case
- Problem, what is the definition of the problem in your users’ words
- Persona, who has the problem?
- Why, what is the core reason the user chooses your product to solve the problem?
- Alternative, what is their alternative to solving the problem?
- Frequency, how often do they encounter the problem?
NOTE: Most products evolve to serve multiple use cases
Retention + Engagement - Frequency Spectrum
Habit zone: Daily, weekly and monthly
Forgettable zone: Yearly and years+
Common mistakes for defining incorrect retention metric
- Not aligning with natural frequency
- Combining actions, teams would always choose the easier action to move.
- Optimizing just for revenue, revenue is an output of usage, and usage is the input.
Define retention metric
Frequency + core behavior + who
Retention curve pattern
- Trend to 0 (bad)
- Flattish (ok)
- Flat (good)
- Smile (great)
Basics of building habit
Cue -> Routine -> Reward
2 reinforce organic habit loop strategies
Manufactured: Loops with triggers that are created and manufactured by your product or marketing
Environment: Loops with triggers that we insert into places and products our users touch when the problem occurs
Activation’s three moments
- Signed up, The user has joined the product
- Setup moment, set of actions that set the user up to go through the activation experience
- Aha moment, the moment the user experiences the value proposition for the first time
- Habit moment, the moment after which the user has established a habit around the value prop
5.established a habit and continued use within a defined time period
Definition of activation
Taking a user from signup to establishing a habit around your core value prop
Four strategies to accelerate habit creation
- Manufactured loops
- Environment loops
- Use case transition
- Grand exit
Optimization for aha moment
- Core action
- Warm start
- Supporting actions
- Empty states
3 common mis interception about the resurrection
- Huge pool of users
- A way to contact
- Nothing to lose
Resurrection probability time decay
The probability of being able to resurrect a user decays extremely quickly once they go dormant.
Two types of dormant users
- Involuntary users, disengaged due to some reasons that are not conscious choice
- Voluntary users, who made a conscious choice to not engage
Involuntary users resurrection
Involuntary users tend to be easier to resurrect
Three categories of reasons why somebody might become an involuntary dormant user
1. Product issue
2. Leaving
3. Payment
NOTE, when think about involuntary strategies, it is critical we try to be proactive. Before during and after.
Voluntary users resurrection
- The why, need to understand the reason why the person has gone dormant
- The message, then figure out and align the message to fit with the that why
- The timing, then figure out the right timing for the message
- The channel, then decide the right channel to deliver that message
- The reactivation experience. decide the reactivation experience that users will land on once they respond to our message
Acquisition - Three Guiding principles
- Channel Dynamics, Law of Habit Transfer: Every product is built off the back of another channel by transitioning habit. We do not control the rules of that channel
- Product Channel Fit, Products are built for channels, channels do not mold to products.
- Channel Model Fit, Models enable or disable channels and can not be thought about separately
Acquisition - Lifecycle of a Tactic
- Tactic discovered, effectiveness 7
- Tactic optimized, effectiveness 9
- Tactic adopted by the mass, effectiveness 6
- Tactic fatigues, effectiveness 2
Acquisition is loops not funnels
Key question: How does one cohort of users lead to another cohort of users?
Acquisition - funnels drawbacks
- Funnels create strategic silos, think acquisition, product and monetization as silos.
- Funnel create functional metric silos, end up optimizing at the expense of each other
- Funnels push us to invest in linear activities.
Acquisition - why loops are vital
- If you are not compounding, you are dying. If your competitors are getting better faster, you are dying.
- Loops are more defensible. Loops combine how your product, channel and model work together.
- Loops create a more efficient cost of distribution over time. Linear strategies on the surface are easily copied, increasing cost over time.
Acquisition - categories of loops
- Viral loops, Word of mouth, organic, casual contact and incentivized
- Content loops, UGC - SEO, UGC - Social, CGC - SEO and CGC -Social.
- Paid loops, varies by platforms, google, facebook etc
- Sales loops, Inbound sales (a sales loop combined with a content lead loop), outbound sales (a sales loop combined with another human powered lead loop) and channel partnership.
Many fastest growing companies ayer on multiple loops over time
But more loops does not equal a better strategy.
Every loop has a cost and a return.
1-2 high return loops is better than a lot of low return loops.
Acquisition - How to measure loops
Growth Multiplier
If I put one user into the loop how many more does it produce over time through all of the different cycles of the loops?
1 / (1 - V) where V is the ratio of new signups between two cycles
it shows how small improvements to your loop can lead to big results
Acquisition - When is it a loop and when is it linear?
- Direct reinvestment of the output
- Time based growth multiplier, high average revenue per user (ARPU) only needs low growth multiplier. Vice versus
- High ceiling, every loop has a saturation point, we need to make sure it is not saturated already.
Acquisition - Linear channels usages
- Feed loops
- Activation energy. Some loops require a certain amount of activation energy to hit a sustainable point.
Acquisition - Viral loops
- There are 4 types, Word of mouth, organic, casual contact and incentivized
- The loops are not mutually exclusive
- The primary constraint is interaction between branching and response
- We measure the K factor to understand the shape and velocity. K factor means every 1 new signup will produce K new users. 100 users eventually got 15 new users from their invite, then K is 0.15
Acquisition - Viral loops - Organic loop
Three keys
1. Natural trigger
2. Trigger frequency
3. Response rate
Acquisition - Viral loops - Casual contact loop
Three keys
1. Branching, need high branching number
2. Time, require time to reach escape velocity (It’s a point when the business grows exponentially, at a rate that is considerably greater than it was progressing previously) because of the low intent
3, Ripple effect, often don’t show up as a direct source. But via other channels.
Acquisition - Viral loops - Incentive loop
Three types
1. Money, coupon
2. Content, Games gem
3. Features, more storage
Three keys to incentivized loop
1. Meaningful
2. Alignment
3. Positioning, is it positioned in a compelling way? kind of cheesy though
Acquisition - Content loops
- 4 types of content loops, UGCD - SEO, UGUD - Social, CGCD - SEO and CGUD -Social.
- They are not mutually exclusive, typically combined
- The primary constraints of content loops are cost/volume of content be generated and return per piece of content.
Acquisition - UG Content loops
- Why. What is the core motivation for a user to generate content?
- Volume. What is the volume of the content created with this specific content loop?
- Return. What is the return over time for a specific piece of content?
The return from search engine is slowly increasing then reach a cap point, while the return from social is increase fast in the beginning but drop really quickly
Acquisition - CG Content loops
Due to the costs of company generated content, main constraint is about return.
Normally pair company distributed and user distributed to maximize return.
Acquisition - Paid loops
- Input costs. How much does it take to get started?
- Targeting. How efficiently can you target your target audience?
- Format/Steps. What is the format and the steps that the suer needs to go through?
- Scale. How much of your target audience is within that channel?
The primary constraint on paid loops is the capital to reinvest in the loop.
Acquisition - How to measure paid loops
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
The key idea of ROAS, it shows the time when we get the capital back.
Acquisition - Paid loops Pros vs Cons
Pros:
1. Quick results
2. Control
3. Targeting
Cons:
Least sustainable. So another loop should always be the core of your model. Paid loop should always accelerate other loops.
Acquisition - Sales loops
Company distributes value prop via humans in a way that attracts more customers that can be reinvested into more humans.
Sales loops are always paired with another loop that generates leads
Acquisition - Sales loops constraints
- Rep productivity
- Time to productivity
- Capital
Acquisition - Sales loops types
The follow list has efficiency going low to high and touch point from humans to product
- outbound sales (a sales loop combined with another human powered lead loop)
- Value added reseller (VAR)
- Inbound sales (a sales loop combined with a content
- Product, product usage to sales leads
Acquisition - Sales loops - VAR
- Timing. Understand hw to sell to customer yourself before you can train others to sell to customers.
- Market size. There needs to be enough VARs in the market that the loop is repeatable
- Value proposition. What is your value prop beyond just financial incentives?
Value prop = Motivation + Constraint
Acquisition - Sales loops - Inbound loops
- Alignment. Alignment between the value prop of the content presence and the value prop of the product.
- Signals. Finding the right signals of content engagement to engage at the right time.
- Amplification. To justify the return, the content needs to have a strong enough amplification/influence.
Acquisition - Sales loops - Product
- Signals. What are the right signals that indicate priority and readiness of a lead to interact with sales
- Cannibalization. How do you ensure the sales team doesn’t cannibalize revenue that would have happened anyway?
- Complexity. The product needs to follow the guidance of product channel fit/product model fit.
Acquisition Strategy - 3 Strategic levers
- Optimize our loops
- Add loops
- Increase linear channels.
Acquisition Strategy - 3 Strategic levers - Add new loops
- Adding new loops increases ceiling and makes others more efficient
- Order of operations matters. One loop may enable another loop, but not in the reverse order
- Adding new loops is extremely difficult. Normally requires new products/features.
Acquisition Strategy - 3 force we need to fight
- Ceiling and saturation
- Audience shift
- Product channel fit breaking.
Acquisition Strategy - Channel Maturity S curve
- Traction
a. ROI: High
b. Ceiling: Low
c. Risk: Low
d. Strategy: best for traction. If larger company, won’t make a dent.
e. Example: Niche blogs - Golden age
a. ROI: High
b. Ceiling: Low to high
c. Risk: High
d. Strategy: Move fast, double down, don’t just bolt on.
e. Example: Slack, messaging apps - Saturation
a. ROI: Medium
b. Ceiling: High
c. Risk: Low
d. Strategy: Focus on retention, LTV, payback periods.
e. Example: Mobile, content marketing - Decline
a. ROI: Low
b. Ceiling: High but declining
c. Risk: High
d. Strategy: Stay away if a startup
e. Example: Print Ads, Facebook pages
Monetization - 4 components
- How, how you charge (ads, transaction, subscription)
- When, when you charge (upfront, free trial, freemium)
- What, what you charge for (contacts, API calls, features)
- Amount, the amount you charge (price)
Monetization - Friction
Known New
$10 ARPU $100 ARPU $1000 ARPU $10000 ARPU $100,000 ARPU
Freemium Free trial Upfront
Ads Transaction Subscription
Low Friction High Friction
Monetization - Balancing
Balancing with Acquisition: Cost & Influence (Model Channel Fit)
Balancing with Core Value Prop: Friction & Frequency (Model Product Fit)
Balancing with Segment: Size & Willing to pay (Model Market Fit)
Monetization - Model Channel Fit
Low Model Friction Viral B2C SEO Paid B2B Content/Inside Sales Enterprise Sales Hight Model Friction
Low CAC High CAC
Monetization - Model Channel Fit Danger zone
The area between Paid and B2B Content/Inside Sales
Monetization - Model Product Fit
Core Value Prop Fiction: If high friction, then free, freemium, free trial etc are difficult because it is hard for the customer to experience value in a free period. If low friction, those types of models become interesting
Frequency: How often does the user experience the core value prop within a certain time period? High frequency lend itself well to free, freemium or subscription type models. Low frequency means you need to capture as much value at time of use.
Best fits
Low Model Friction & Low Core Value Prop Friction
High Model Friction & High Core Value Prop Friction
High Model Friction & Low Nature Frequency
Low Model Friction & High Nature Frequency
Monetization - Model Market Fit
Build $100M revenue/year company
$1 100,000,000 Consumer Everyone
$10 10,000,000 Mass Market Consumer
$100 1,000,000 Niche Consumers Prosumers
$1,000 100,000 Prosumers SMB
$10,000 10,000 Mild Market
$100,000 1000 Enterprise
$100,000,000 100 Fortune 500, Governments