Gustaf Alstromer - How to Get Users and Grow

YC Partner Gustaf Alströmer, who was most recently a growth expert at Airbnb describes strategies for scaling your user base. Startup School is YC's free online program for founders. Sign up to access the full curriculum and over $100k in deals! www.startupschool.org/
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
0:00 Introduction
2:56 Growth - Startup School 2018
4:02 Why is growth important?
4:49 Startups = Growth
12:47 You can impact your growth rate.
15:38 Now, measure your retention
19:18 Raise your hand if you are measuring your retention rate
20:10 Growth or Marketing?
20:56 Growth channels & tactics
34:44 Paid Growth
37:17 Search Engine Optimization
44:03 Making Decisions
44:43 Decisions have consequences
45:00 Use experimentation to validate your decisions
46:32 Experiment Review
50:25 Product decisions are hard

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro: Company Updates and Graduation Requirements 02:56 - Growth - Startup School 2018 04:02 - Why is growth important? 04:49 - Startups = Growth 05:24 - Who is this talk really for? 06:19 - Disclaimer: Product Market Fit 08:16 - Facebook Growth Story 11:54 - What can we learn from the continuous growth of Facebook? 12:37 - Natural Adoption will Always Slow Down over time but 13:11 - Product Market Fit 13:43 - Measuring Product Market Fit 15:38 - Now, measure your retention 17:16 - Shopify 18:05 - Blue Apron 18:40 - Netflix 20:10 - Growth or Marketing? 20:56 - Growth channels & tactics: Three ways to grow at scale 21:02 - 1. Product Growth / Growth Engineering 21:38 - 2. Performance Marketing 22:08 - 3. Brand Marketing 22:55 - Product Growth: Conversion Rate Optimization 24:11 - Conversion Rate Optimization: 1. Translation 24:30 - 2. Authentication 25:17 - 3. Onboarding 25:35 - 4. Purchase Conversion 25:48 - Growth Channels to Explore 26:46 - 1. Google 27:56 - 2. Referrals 28:26 - 3. Virality 28:56 - 4. Sales 29:42 - 5. Paid Acquisition 30:02 - Referrals & Virality 30:38 - Financial Incentives 31:05 - Referrals Funnel 31:34 - How many users saw the referral program? 32:21 - Separate the funnel 32:42 - Referrals Invite Email 34:44 - Paid Growth 37:18 - Search Engine Optimization 37:41 - What You See 38:15 - What Google See 38:57 - SEO - Two Main Levers 39:27 - On-page Optimization 39:45 - Keyword Analysis / Research 40:40 - Off-page Optimization: Domain Authority 41:50 - Growth Teams: 1. Who works on a growth team? 42:15 - 2. How do you organize yourself? 43:32 - 3. How do you decide what to work on? 44:01 - Making Decisions 44:45 - Decisions have Consequences 45:00 - Use experimentation to validate your decisions 46:32 - Experiment Review 46:46 - Experiment Review 47:03 - iOS Sharing Sheet 48:15 - Airbnb Trip Invitation Email 49:23 - Sharing Icons 50:25 - Product decisions are hard 50:38 - Summary 51:25 - Q&A 51:41 - How to do experimentation in SEO? 53:22 - A/B Testing: When It's Right For Me? 54:56 - Applying Growth to High Barrier Entry Market 57:20 - Non-Sustainable Tactics in New Market 01:00:00 - Using Growth for Free and Paid Users 01:01:31 - Experimentation Frequency 01:03:50 - Outro

[@fotoflo]

Great Content, thank you! 4:01 - Why is growth important 5:28 - Who is this talk for? 6:20 - (start here...) - When to start working on growth 12:54 - Metrics to figure out if you have Product Market Fit 15:17 - PMF metrics Key slide 22:54 - Lets talk about product growth 25:49 - great channels to explore 30:15 - Referrals (email break down) 37:00 - SEO 41:53 - Organizing a growth team 45:00 - Experiments 50:38 - Summary

[@rohanaw2039]

Awesome key markers for early stage Founders Alex!

[@craigdixon6733]

So helpful!

[@gibsosmart]

This should be pinned

[@iExiledSon]

Never skip the “Why?”.

[@Alice8000]

Don't copy me

[@ianborukho]

Real nice of you guys to make all these talks available. They are clear and focused. Much appreciated!

[@ruimarques1408]

Anyone else also taking notes?

[@henry-ng]

Arguments: - The most important aspect of growth is product/market fit, and it needs to be validated before focusing on growth. [08:00] - One of the most important things is understanding user behavior and user research, and using that to improve the product. [10:40] - Early on in a company's growth, it's important to focus on a small target market and create a compelling value proposition for that market. [14:30] - Word of mouth is a powerful growth channel and can be amplified with referral programs. [26:30] - Companies should have a strong understanding of their unit economics and customer acquisition costs in order to make informed decisions about growth. [34:00] - Growth is a team sport and requires cross-functional collaboration between product, engineering, marketing, and data teams. [39:00] - Experimentation is essential to growth and should be a core part of a company's culture. [47:00]

[@candynangong7226]

Very clear to explain ‘how’, thank you for sharing!

[@hussamalshamaily5441]

What a rich hour of real info. Thank you again.

[@daniel.adeyemi]

Super helpful 🏅 I'd watch this over and over again.

[@walterwhite5249]

YC JUST ROCKS WITH THIS LONG HOUR CONTENTS I DONT KNOW HOW MANY HOURS I SPENT WATCHING REALLY VALUABLE SESSIONS

[@aytunch]

This is the best presentation I have watched on Growth and Product Market Fit. Gustaf explained this challenging subject for startups in a very energetic and fun way. Thank you to all who made this valuable video possible.

[@nuddle2360]

Thank you for this talk, it's really simple and understandable

[@harishmanmohan9858]

can see how passionate you are in wat you are doing. followed u on linkedIN

[@EnglishTeacher300]

. Great Talk Thank you Gustaf and YC

[@naysay02]

excellent talk, especially the SEO part. thank you

[@Everything-O]

One of the best videos this channel has 🙏🙏🙏

[@saeidj2470]

mind blowing. Thank you YC, the video is clear and actionable.

[@MikeWilliamsYoroomie]

Can't get enough of this vid and shared it with the FB marketplaces group!

[@pamelabelen3803]

thanks for the frameworks and tactics shared!

[@theelusiveMrD]

Super advice ! Every thing is actionable. Thanks Gustaf and YC.

[@SereneNatureMelody]

Really appreciated for this insightful experiences. Now got some energies to progress some work.

[@jzk2020]

I like the finding market fit tip. 13:00 Find the metric that represents the value your users gets from using your product. Then measure the repeat usage of that metric.

[@brianoji4006]

Actionable advice! Love it. Thank you for sharing.

[@HarshJain-it2bg]

Why

[@goodbyetube9545]

Great talk.

[@lorenzomarfil1022]

Hi YC. In the talk, he mentions that he does not go really in depth in a lot of these topics since it will take forever. Would like to know his resource recommendations if someone wanted to go deeper. Thanks!

[@boot-strapper]

Best talk yet

[@Bolerophon]

Pretty amazing presentation! 🔥🔥🔥

[@HusravMahmudov]

Thanks, helped me a lot

[@abhishekkejariwal]

Superb video. In face one of the best "What is Growth" videos!

[@lahiruparanavithana35]

This is great, thanks! 🤩

[@WillyMakend]

Great and Thank you very much!!

[@realcrazythomas]

This is great, thanks!

[@zafaramin]

Thank you!

[@evyatarmor2]

Great video, thanks

[@michaelmontero2902]

Amazing talk

[@davidtamuhla1891]

Absolutey brilliant presentation and lifesaver for us startup! Thank u so much for walking with our struggle as founders on a lonely road to being business persons, come cold, hurricane, rain and dusty winds u against founders but u give a dose and adrenaline to walk us side by side...long journey!

[@HarshJain-it2bg]

There's definitely a hard work for startups in the beginning, but later its a smooth sailing..... At least, that's what is expected. I lost mine to pandemic and to make ends meet looking for a job. But, still not getting a good one. All the while being respected for my qualifications and experiences. ?

[@Alice8000]

Great content! 🫶🏼 4:01 - Why is growth important 5:28 - Who is this talk for? 6:20 - (start here...) - When to start working on growth 12:54 - Metrics to figure out if you have Product Market Fit 15:17 - PMF metrics Key slide 22:54 - Lets talk about product growth 25:49 - great channels to explore 30:15 - Referrals (email break down) 37:00 - SEO 41:53 - Organizing a growth team 45:00 - Experiments 50:38 - Summary

[@sephoradolls7055]

Thank you

[@michaelhirstny]

24:33 is so true. You won't get it until you have to do it yourself. Sounds easy. SOOOO hard to get right.

[@SenayTV]

best talk so far

[@pieterjordaan9253]

Hallo thank you for the video!

[@jninlove]

Great video!

[@ntalam]

I am taking notes like a kid in school

[@aemericenglish2417]

1. Dont growth company if u dont find market fit 2. Facebook have suddenly growth when have 'translation'. 3. How to define Product Market Fit. a. Identify metrics b. measure the repeat usage of that metrics (frequency like annually or monthly) 4. 10 users usually hard to measure retention rate 5. Organization for growth a. Growth engineeering b. Performance marketers c. Brand marketing (later) 6. Growth Channel to growth a. is this people search google to find solution? - google Seo b. Do user share mouth to mouth? c. Dies having more users improve the experience? d. Do i know already who each of my future users e. do my users have high LTV (lifetime value) 7. Paid growth a. Dont scale paid marketing if no revenue b. Cac? c. LTv? 8. Making decision. a. Always experimenting b. Decide base on data

[@nguye1971]

I m confused - this is to find the product market fit and that is usually done during idea validation, but the curve shows how users use the product which is already implemented. Could you please clarify. Thanks

[@imranahmed-gt8ct]

Super useful

[@profkg6613]

Is the content KZbin channel available on any of the podcasts? I am subscribed to Y combinator and Y start radio but this looks like a different stream.

[@TheRedBallz]

This is Startup School material. I would doubt it is on their podcasts.

[@profkg6613]

I said this because it says y combinator on the youtube channel..

[@ycombinator]

We're releasing it as a separate podcast. You can find the iTunes and RSS links here: blog.ycombinator.com/startup-school-lectures-are-now-available-as-a-podcast/

[@marcosford5959]

Good video, thanks for sharing! I think the "Accept Joe's invitation" experiment is a little confusing because they changed a lot of things. Which one was the responsable of the improvement? The text in the button, the copy or the design? OK, the B version was better than A but you don't know why.

[@toddhodgson]

I agree -- he implied that the button was the only thing that changed, but a lot changed. I also would've like to have heard about the penalty metrics associated with the tests -- the screen-engulfing share beat the native-device share, but what other metrics did worse? There's almost always a + and a - to new features/functionalities.

[@martelmatisse5609]

Good observation👍

[@ssssssstssssssss]

Yeah. I think that's fine for product, but it would be a bad scientific experiment. I do think the term "Accept" puts pressure on the user, though, whereas the term "join" is more volitional. But "join" also sounds like you'll be a part of something and most people want to be a part of something.

[@2009worstyearever]

Its interesting that under his metric of product market fit AirBnb did not find product market fit when it launched.

[@11219tt]

34:50 what about buying ads to get the first set of test users and demographic data points to then send newsletters and questionnaires to?

[@valentinsaik6754]

Ye, this is confusing, how to get first customers without paid ads? I mean ye, I literally could place ads by myself and spam people but wouldn't it be counterproductive? :)

[@FreshCodeSoftware]

Gustaf starts talking at 03:00

[@darkpotato]

thanks

[@kaykwanu]

thanks

[@BladeofLight1996]

Should one A/B test for different demographics? The product will probably not end up uniform from one demographic to another - is that a bad thing?

[@UsSpiritual]

I have a Question - Do you want to optimise for conversion or Do you want to optimise for consumer pleasantness?

[@jonsayn2882]

B T I don’t know what he would say but def. conversion! You need a customer first to please him later ;)

[@kamaljoshi9687]

Sir please make more stuffs please sir please

Excellent scientific information. Delivery could have should have been WAY better. Public speaking isn't easy and doesn't come naturally to most. Good news is we can all get better with time and experience. Good luck. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much.

[@gustaf]

I will try to get better! :)

[@diamondgeezertunes]

Starts at 03:53

[@wilfred5656]

I'm struggling with starting a SaaS company. I hope to have many products offerings. I'm an engineer capable of hacking codes in any programming language or framework.

[@shashwatvaria3349]

For Netflix, it says that ' 70% after 12 Months & 30% after 7 years' -- How can that mean 70% of people who pay first year keep paying 7 year down the line ? It should mean that after 7 years only 30% are actually paying. Right ?

[@kevinngaleu1545]

You are right, if we assume that we are talking to the same cohort.

[@observer372]

Great

[@ivopaolantonio]

Can someone explain to me the definition of LTV in this case? Minute 29:52 Thanks

[@VishalRaoOnYouTube]

LifeTime Value...in other words...the discounted value of the future cash flows from a single customer for the entire time that customer is paying you.

[@Tkcrypto1]

He forgot the part about huge bags of money from investors. But the information is sound.

[@OGDezii]

Great to see Pewdiepie partner up with YC

[@pramodmahato]

😂😂😂

[@D2.D2]

🎯

[@nikoli6612]

#base

[@ahsanmohammed1]

good info, thanks. however, difficult to understand him, eats up words and syllables as he rapid fires his word bursts, had to replay many bits many times a piece, was a bit tiring and painful, sorry

[@gustaf]

Sorry @Ahsan. Working on it!

[@ilya5734]

23:00

[@AlinNemet]

most of the times I feel like AB testing is just time/energy consuming bs, while the codebase becomes much more complex to manage

[@stephen-he4iw]

3:00

[@Alice8000]

Ya great stuff. I'm smart too btw.

[@sanityd1]

Clear headline, clear value but you did not send them $40, they get a $40 off for being referred, so you lie. Edit: the overuse of A B testing is an anti user dark pattern.

[@the3rdworlder293]

1:00

[@programmer1840]

How can you have 10% of users retained after 1 month, but then 12% retained after 12 months? Is he saying people left the service and then came back to it? 17:27

[@VishalRaoOnYouTube]

Yeah, this is the Shopify example. So in a given cohort (for example, users that signup on March 1st) only 10% are still paying you on April 1st of the same year, but of that same cohort (in this example, users that signup on March 1st) 12% are now paying you on March 1st of the next year. There can be many valid explanations for this, but here's one: 90% leave to go to Etsy or WooCommerce, but 2% are back to Shopify because they like it better.

[@programmer1840]

@@VishalRaoOnKZbin Depends on what your definition of retention is. I find it unlikely that more people would come back to a service over that time period than the number of people that have left it. I.e. the number of retained users from a cohort should be a curve trending downwards over time.

[@ErikUnger]

What value does frequently asking the audience what they think the answer is add to the content? Is this "keeping the classroom awake" strategy used by so many teachers the best form of delivery for this audience?

[@CrispyBK]

The kindhearted report apically watch because legal distinctly whistle astride a terrible giraffe. humdrum, puny forgery

[@yeeitmete]

18:00