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Before You Grow

blog.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 175 posts

Re: Before You Grow

#31

  >> Airbnb slogged for 1000 days before discovering how to make their product loved.
Airbnb had a network effect product (marketplace of buyers and sellers). Growth accelerated once they had enough of both.

  >> It’s unclear exactly when Airbnb implemented what’s become their most famous growth hack, ... 
    Craigslist had one thing that Airbnb did not - a massive user base.
    https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb

Re: Before You Grow

#32

I recently came across an app lets you measure NPS directly on your website - https://www.metriculator.com Seems really nice. I figured it might be useful for folks trying to run an NPS survey after reading Sam's recommendation.

I hate sites that have these.

Re: Before You Grow

#35

I have an even harsher take. In the old days if you didn't have a product that "sold itself" (i.e. loved) then you'd just make it cheaper than the competition. These days software products are by and large free (your users pay in time), so there is no obvious competitive strategy on similar products. If you don't have evangelical user base that loves your product and spreads it or at least a well defined niche use ca…

An increasingly popular strategy is "X but paid". People want to pay for software/products that is a real business, won't get acquihired, and will stay around for as long as they're users.

It's a competitive advantage to charge users. Because when user == customer, your incentives are aligned. People know that.

Re: Before You Grow

#36
post #33

Who finds actual value from Net Promoter Score? It's a vanity metric, just like asking "would you pay $10 for this?" instead of getting someone to actually pay $10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter#Criticism_of_NPS

It's really useful to know if your customers enjoy the product with a 1 question survey. We turned a 0/10 customer into 10/10 by giving them extra love.

It's useful for us.

Re: Before You Grow

#37

Comment withdrawn. I've withdrawn this comment, but per site policy / encouragement I'm leaving my original comment below the lines. Pre-edit: --- I liked your comment but you won't believe how I felt about one part: >Iphone app companies do this one neat trick for this. I'm sorry, I just found it very distracting... like you use clickbait title interspersed in your writing. I tried to replicate the effect for you at…

They're obviously parodying the "one neat trick" trope.

Re: Before You Grow

#38
post #2

"And if you’re just starting out, take the time to build a product your users love, no matter how long it takes. " There's this weird balance between the lean "get it out as soon as you can, fail fast" and "make sure it's a good product before you ship".

No, the rule still applies. Get it out fast so you can find out if your users love it. Just don't push it to a broader audience. Iphone app companies do this one neat trick for this. They release in foreign markets (Canada, Australia, etc) and make sure their users love their apps before releasing in the US.

Time to release utes in the US!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_(vehicle)

Re: Before You Grow

#39
post #2

"And if you’re just starting out, take the time to build a product your users love, no matter how long it takes. " There's this weird balance between the lean "get it out as soon as you can, fail fast" and "make sure it's a good product before you ship".

Build, Deploy, Feedback, Iterate , Hockey Stick, Investors, Monetize, IPO

Re: Before You Grow

#40
post #2

"And if you’re just starting out, take the time to build a product your users love, no matter how long it takes. " There's this weird balance between the lean "get it out as soon as you can, fail fast" and "make sure it's a good product before you ship".

No, the rule still applies. Get it out fast so you can find out if your users love it. Just don't push it to a broader audience. Iphone app companies do this one neat trick for this. They release in foreign markets (Canada, Australia, etc) and make sure their users love their apps before releasing in the US.

This is also one of the reasons New Zealand often gets products first - it's far away, super small, highly developed amd English speaking: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21651858-small-techno...
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