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Before You Grow

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Before You Grow

#41

Post by logicallee »

morgante wrote: post #37
logicallee wrote: post #25

Comment withdrawn. I've withdrawn this comment, but per site policy / encouragement I'm leaving my original comment below the lines.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.

I don't think so because they're not talking about a marketing gimmick, but rather talking about an actual business strategy - I just found it distracting. They could have at least put it in quotation marks if they really meant to include it in their writing for some reason. I've withdrawn the criticism.

Re: Before You Grow

#42

Post by danaseverson »

web007 wrote: 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

You're correct, the number by itself, doesn't provide a ton of value beyond a measurable KPI. For some companies however, that KPI is one of their core metrics. Some companies even base compensation around the score.

That said, the NPS methodology is much more than the overall score. The real value is in the individual scores, verbatim feedback and its proven ability to tie those results into both growth and churn. All combined (and when done correctly)it can help drive funding, determine PMF, guide your product roadmap, forecast revenue and drive measurable growth (just to name a few benefits).

Breaking it down to just a score is looking at NPS far to simplistically.

Re: Before You Grow

#43

Post by rfrey »

logicallee wrote: post #25

Comment withdrawn. I've withdrawn this comment, but per site policy / encouragement I'm leaving my original comment below the lines.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…

I don't know what "normal writing" is, but I hope it's not a virtue to be boring.

Re: Before You Grow

#44

Post by eloff »

user5994461 wrote: post #15
tsunamifury wrote: post #9

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…

There's plenty of room for other Facebooks. In fact, there are major competitors to the likes of Facebook & Linkedin & Google. They just happen to be national companies (russia, china, some european). If anything. The thought that they have no competitors/alternatives is just a display that SV totally ignore the local non-english competitors (no matter how engrained they are in their market) and generally disregards…

Actually I think these mostly succeed against Facebook where governments create an artificial environment by blocking Facebook.

Perhaps the most successful of the social networks that competed against Facebook on even terms was Orkut, and it's gone now.

Markets with strong network effects, like social networks, tend to be winner takes all. You'll never upset the market leader by making a marginally better product. If it's not 10 times better AND can't be copied by the leader you've got no chance really.

If Facebook is replaced it will be by people shifting to a different paradigm, not to an incrementally modified version of the same thing.

Re: Before You Grow

#45

Post by silvaben »

elwell wrote: post #32
silvaben wrote: post #22

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.

I guess it depends, but I find this less intrusive than an email.

Re: Before You Grow

#46

Post by danieltillett »

bbcbasic wrote: post #38
blazespin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Pity there is no company left making these in Australia.

Re: Before You Grow

#47

Post by danieltillett »

web007 wrote: 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

Yep NPS is cargo-cult marketing at its worst. About the only thing going for it is so simple that even management can understand it.

Re: Before You Grow

#48

Post by trg2 »

jot wrote: post #11

I recommend using https://www.promoter.io/ to measure NPS. It's a brilliant starting point for getting useful feedback too. I've ended up using it for the conference and coworking community that I run as well as for a software product.

I would love to see a comprehensive list of all of these tools to measure NPS. Does one exist?

Re: Before You Grow

#49

Post by debt »

i don't mean to be a dick but citing airbnb and facebook seems like bad taste. those companies are massive outliers with billion+ dollar valuations. nowhere near your average ycom startup.

i think i'd be smarter to cite maybe smaller companies that exited in the million/100,000 dollar range. seems more accurate.

i understand that ycom wants the people they're funding to focus on ideas that generate billions as that's ultimately advantageous for ycom, but, realistically, most of these companies will putter out or exit in the low millions, which is still cool as hell too!

doesn't seem to make much sense for anyone to constantly cite huge outliers like googs or fb or salesforce etc. when there's plenty of dope ass smaller ycom companies that probably did exactly what sam is talking about: build high quality, fun, exciting, engaging products.

Re: Before You Grow

#50

Post by trg2 »

silvaben wrote: post #22

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.

Does a comprehensive list of all of these types of NPS-measuring tools exist?
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