How to Get Users and Grow - Alex Schultz, VP of Growth at Facebook - Stanford CS183F: Startup School

Alex Schultz, VP of Growth at Facebook, shares with us how to get users, how to grow, and how to measure growth.

[@aemericenglish2417]

1. Growth key is retention 2. Network effect - people use what others use 3. Build more category

[@airsaken]

1. Growth key is retention 2. Network effect - people use what others use (also being available on more platforms such as Android) 3. Build more categories (think Amazon) Growth Accounting New Users Churning Users Resurrecting Users ------------------------------------------- = Net Growth Retention #1 Thing to focus on in Growth is retention Magic Moment: Talk to Users and understand what makes them stay and use your product Operating for Growth Have a clear goal The whole team should have the same goal (either monthly active users or another metric, but everyone has to be on the same page) Using Data to Make Decisions Gain Empathy (when looking at what users are doing on your platform) Predict the future Future is here not evenly distributed Retention curves AB tests (they tell you what’s gonna happen when you ship the product out there, in other words when you go live) - use them! Make decisions faster Data wins arguments Getting Tactical First 100 Users It isn’t scalable but: Friends, and make them pay Research and reach out to those who you would want to be your customer Social Media and PR Buy Ads “You need to have a product market fit to drive growth and you need retention to drive growth, these are the most important things to keep in mind for growth” Channel SEO Keyword research Linking Do the basics SEM Incremental ROI Keyword research Marginal not absolute ROI Keyword clustering Email/SMS/Push/Notifications & even postal mail Deliverability -> Open rate -> Click rate -> Conversion rate Measure it with holdouts - get incrementality Marginal User not Power User Subject Line Onsite Merchandizing Trigger (customers who bought this also bought this) - for Bondumi, we can offer customers to purchase other services Everything is an add Creative (personalization) Paid and Organic Social Interesting squared Lookalike and custom audiences Targeting Behavioral targeting is the most important Trigger based is most important within that Demographic is typical but much less important Keyword ID and UID can be dealt with the same way Creative Important but nowhere near as important as the two above unless you have 10x creative Put it in context Personalize it Have a call to action Conversion Customize the landing page to the channel, targeting, creative & behaviors of users (ie it’s really onsite merchandising) Think about the goal (CRU vs ACRU at eBay) Put it inline if at all possible (eg moving reg to home page inline) MOVE FAST

[@justcx2024]

1.Retention is very important 2.Understand what's going on，identify the opportunities in that data you've understood,and then execute against it. 3.Best of talks about making decisions with 70% of the data not 90% of the data. 4.Move fast, focus on retention and have one key metric that you care about for your company growth.

[@Eren-zl2uw]

It fascinates me how knowledge like this is free on the internet, learning from entrepreneurs like Alex is so extremely valuable and people rather be watching Netflix all the time to entertain themselves

[@GraehamF]

One of my favs from this year's series.

[@Zeangjpn]

Great presentation. Very thought provoking statement @ 24:53 "The purpose of a Startup is to grow."

[@jdavidson124]

Very insightful - should be mandatory to go through this series before starting a startup

[@lenso010]

%1000

[@littlebrit]

There were sending out a lot of spam emails. I remember I got 5-6 everyday asking to sign up. That time public email service users were asked to share they contacts list with the app, so that is how they got hold of my emails addresses.

[@lenso010]

I watch people on youtube for long years. This is in my Top10 list. This guy has a unique shaped brain with filled so much useful information. Loved.

[@richaprasad6737]

This was great! Please do more slides/presentation type talks like this instead of panels. Panels seem to have orders of magnitude fewer deep introspective takeaways to communicate.

[@letsgosean]

Brilliant! Thanks so much.

[@RoscaLion420]

I did the math at 11:14. It was 800,000. 1 (New User) - 1.3 (Churn) + 1.1 (Resurrecting Users) = 0.8 - Add the units and its 800,000.

[@soumow]

My favorite lecture so far

[@selassie.k.amenorhu4769]

Hi

[@DB-mp8xi]

Great lecture!

[@Textras]

Great talk.

[@DrDizzave]

Amazing Alex! =D

[@freezepro]

Wow, that's a level!

[@tjc7524]

Tons of take home messages. Worth taking some time to digest.

[@empoweryouthsportsplay2367]

Awesome sauce.

[@mironic8134]

Great but anyone could help to clarify what he talks about at 15:29 and further. Is it about the curve that will become flat at some point so you may assume that it will be at the same level +100 days from that point OR it is that you may take curve representing the retention and use it to predict other metrics?

[@sangramgaikwad6330]

Pure gold

[@Steve_Schafer]

Smart guy

[@andreybakalenko2378]

Do you know what Publication of Steven Tadelis he is citing at 37:04?

[@ihsanmardini436]

Great !🔥

[@glenngramling7799]

Alex, great preso. I am curious about the predictive curve you presented at 18:14. Is the denominator the total users in the cohort at any point in time or is the cohort time bound (30 days periods)?

[@goryglory729]

Curious about the same thing. I don't quite understand why the curve gets noisy at the end.

[@WashingMykale]

Average daily spend / user maybe? So as number of users decrease, more volatility?

[@mashah8104]

This is my analytical observation, not a criticism. I don't agree that "Email is dead for people under 25 in my opinion. Young people don’t use email." Youth use emails (but don't like it) as a communication channel at schools with teachers and at colleges with professors & lecturers and to send all homework and projects via email (it's still a good tool for teachers to distribute information to the mass), as well as with all official communications with school/colleges administrations. So, knowing this fact, it's still a good metric to have these users in mind, and it's a really good number of Facebook users.

[@Math_kru_earng]

thanks a lot

[@Osher2160]

can someone clarify how pink point in 18:53 calculated? is it total revenue from users signed up x days ago / number of user signed up x days ago OR total revenue of all users specifically on their x day of using / number of users signed up x days ago OR its something else and i dont get it..

[@Lucas94clay]

Awesome lecture. Would anybody know if Facebook would consider an advertiser who logs on, publishes a campaign to auto-renew, and doesn't return for a couple months, an active user for the months their campaign is spending but they are not logging on?

[@mayssammichelleelkaii5072]

Interesting thought! I would assume so and would consider this as another metric on its own: understand from within the "pool" of active users how many tend to automate what and when.

[@sekretdude1029]

@42:50 money line right there.

[@victortokaito125]

new users - churn + resurrected users = new user growth

[@dmytrofilatov42]

Slides?

[@Mr.Misconduct]

Is the host Sam Altman from open a.i??

[@brandonreed09]

Yes

[@medspacollective]

It blew my mind too

[@manonamission2000]

he was a partner at YCombinator since early 2010

[@ralphbautista17]

What lecture by Adam is Alex referring to? Can someone link me please?

[@anbarnawar1666]

Hi! Probably this one- kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKSlm3Srmt2Dp5Y I had to dig a little to find it ^_^

[@NaftaliBudamba]

Network Effect- User Values Platforms/market- OS Product Features- Categories

[@YannickSemail]

Who can build a better skinner box?

[@assakurayoh]

By the way, best slide decks.

[@Azural]

take away from the atom bomb calc, "if you can't do or is impressed by simple math like that, that's your cue to hire someone who can"

[@gabrielfurlong4042]

Empathy is given through data? you enlighten us. Los café internet era un market placer que subestimé cuando me invitaron a invertir. Entender el usuario ahí mismo pudo ser tan enriquecedor para hablar con ellos y oír sus intereses para mejorar el producto.

[@macbroadcast]

13:16 3-2-1 meins !

[@umangshucool]

These growth metrics have been for a consumer facing internet company. A company doing B2B needs to track % growth of sales per week I guess. Happy to be wrong.

[@AlexSchultzPaperAirplanes]

if you notice a bunch of the examples was around facebook selling ads to advertisers which is B2B. I was also involved in both sellers and buyers at eBay and so there was B2B there. This stuff generally applies well to both. The only stuff it really struggles with is enterprise sales, v. low frequency actions (buying a car) and recurring payment models. Even there though a lot of these techniques do work.

[@garrettwhite3677]

why is Fantano puting on that accent?

[@KD0MOO]

😂

[@lenso010]

This guy is Niagara falls of knowladge.

[@abdullahmre]

At the time now one new what sam is up to 😅

[@thomas-sinkala]

Don't hire a growth team. The whole company's goal should be growth.

[@yoni-3240]

Is it just me or he comes off as quite arrogant?