Lecture 6 - Growth (Alex Schultz)

Lecture Transcript: tech.genius.com/Alex-schultz-l...
Alex Schultz gives an overview of Growth for startups, speaking from a position of authority as the VP of Growth at Facebook.
View the readings Alex refers to, his slide deck, at startupclass.samaltman.com/cou...
Discuss this lecture: startupclass.co/courses/how-t...
This video is under Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

[@flipl-online-arbitrage]

Most of these fundamentals are still valuable in December 2023. Thank you for sharing!

[@DanT-iu6oc]

First guy whose net worth is less than 100 million yet he easily has the best lecture, best content, and is clearly extremely smart and intelligent. LOVE THIS!

[@montez.youtube]

You can only grow something once it exists

[@Tangyang6688]

hh ,funny

[@tanbir2358]

Wrong, it's $313-$383 million

[@DanT-iu6oc]

@@tanbir2358 I'm not. name your source

[@yifan9122]

47 minutes feel like 4 minutes. When you forget time while watching something, it means this thing is good.

[@jacobhallman]

By far, the best lecture of the first six because Schultz (1) is a good public speaker so the ideas are clearly presented, (2) he is smart as hell, and (3) he is extremely passionate about what he does. Thank you!

[@sanchy1826]

Agree

[@nagnetto14]

also agree...

[@annynantasiri]

totally agree with this. his lectures are solid, strait to the point and constructive. very good public speaking skills.

[@mmafan400]

What he said about Facebook and changing notifications depending on the activity of the user is something I would have never thought about doing, great idea.

[@aliaga1304]

This was a really good lecture on growth. Probably the best I've seen on the topic.

[@AnyFactor]

This was an excellent lecture. Through and through enjoyed it.

[@Mothep00]

Impressed by his lecture !

[@YanivYaakubovich]

This lecture is so valuable for anyone working at a start-up or even larger companies.

[@F3RACTION]

This is a great lecture most focused of all the lectures love it

[@FizerKhan]

Awesome. Best talk in this series.

[@alfaromeo272]

Awesome lecture. Probably the most exciting I've ever seen.

[@sebastienP880]

Excellent lecture ! Alex Schultz is a very good speaker ! Wow !

[@bmejia220]

An incredible wealth of information. All the kudos to Alex for delivering. Thank you so much. I will be watching this video on repeat for the next three years at least. All the best!

[@localancers]

We've just applied some of the tips from this video to our directory. This is my fav channel now :)

[@tarunommadan]

Thank you Alex, Y combinator and Stanford for this phenomenal video. 👍

[@tejaskumthekar4155]

So much of knowledge and inspiration packed into a single video, by far the best of the series! Thanks Alex and the entire team!

[@ericniehaus3387]

"Growth is optional." what an awesome summation

[@frankymiawmiaw]

Great lecture that talks about marketing strategy and lots of useful tactics. How to make the startup grow and grow? I think this one just point it out perfectly!

[@Nicereplyteam]

Thank you for these lessons, we really like them in Nicereply! :)

[@av.muratcelik77]

Thank you,Alex.

[@Brian-ms2uv]

Excellent lecture!

[@SCHAUDENLUCAS]

Best lesson so far!

[@NaimZard]

Excellent lecture about Growth. Clear and concise with great practical examples.

[@NaimZard]

6:10 "if you don't have a great product there's no point executing well on growing it because it won't grow" Focus on Product/Market fit before growing = Best startup advice ever.

[@napoleonb55]

EXCELLENT INSIGHT!

[@LisaSteingold]

Really great lecture! Probably the best one I've heard. He's engaging, authentic and passionate!

[@amodraj726]

00:00 Retention is the single most important thing for growth. 04:50 Understanding retention rates is crucial for product growth. 09:21 Retention is key for successful businesses 14:02 Focus on gross merchandise volume and the magic moment to drive growth. 18:34 Focus on the magic moment and the marginal user for growth 22:49 Internationalization and focusing on the right languages drove Facebook's growth 27:18 Understanding virality is key to product growth 32:01 Virality is driven by high conversion rates and word of mouth. 00:02 Focus on retention, not just virality 40:49 Deliverability is key for email, SMS, and push notifications. 44:57 Focus on notifications and triggered marketing campaigns for better engagement.

[@niklavr]

Thanks! That is actual content even now in 2023

[@mossaic]

Great talk.

[@montydariani9551]

i like him. good lecture.

[@Textras]

Great video.

[@bluecuracao6478]

Thank you, that is valuable even today

[@JonathanRintala]

Awesome talk 🚀

[@StanGanweizhong]

It is F^*&*ly Cool this presentation. Love it.

[@_fortune_man]

"Growth is optional" It's amazing

[@calumchisholm716]

Very insightful

[@mariamsargsyan2981]

You should drive Magical Moments that get people hooked. For instance, after signing up, new users need to “hit” a magical moment that get them hooked on your service. At Facebook, the magical moment is seeing your friends. Schultz advises that you think about where that magical moment happens for users, and get them connected to that as quickly as possible after sign up. “People who are already using your product all the time are not the ones you have to worry about.” Pointed out Mr. Schultz.

[@dianas7635]

Love it!

[@elkyelkyelky]

finihsed this lecture, thx so much for sharing

[@Anthonyngoploti]

There’s one thing I wanted to finish with, which is my favorite quote by General Patton. It’s so cliche; it’s crazy, but it’s awesome. “A good plan, violently executed today, is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” And one other thing that Chamath instills in us and Mark still instills across the whole of Facebook is move fast and don’t be afraid to break stuff. If you can run more experiments than the next guy, if you can be hungry for growth, if you can fight and die for every extra user and you stay up late at night to get those extra users, to run those experiments, to get the data, and do it over and over and over again, you will grow faster. Mark has said he thinks we won because we wanted it more, and I really believe that. We just worked really hard. It’s not like we’re crazy smart, or we’ve all done these crazy things before. We just worked really really hard, and we executed fast. I strongly encourage you to do that. Growth is optional.

[@jeffbrownstain]

You look like a delusional fucking joke. Get therapy buddy.

[@MaytaneVideos]

A north star-love the concept

[@thanhpd56]

Great talk. Thanks.

[@harryy000]

invaluable!!!.

[@81english]

cest treis bein! M.Alex. Merci beaucoup.

[@reemishirsath9705]

Awesome !!

[@wilmerproductivity9652]

This was a completely great lecture. I was thinking why don't we create a group of people to talk about marketing growing more often? Who joins us? :D

[@christophert8419]

I would benefit tremendously if a group like that existed

[@bhoomikaramu9630]

Does it exist?

[@sivko23]

the only person who said something worthwhile in this whole course. I guess the others are afraid to share their secrets. :)

[@uho8786]

Accurate logic for marginal users, excellent insight! Alex!

[@sheikhmuhammedtadeeb5677]

Impressed

[@tasksource]

pure gold…

[@sitientibus]

freaking awesome!!!!!😍

[@farplanet]

Thanks!

[@seannn90]

great lecture his constant upward inflection got very annoying after a while though

[@jiunli6684]

I love this lecture so much! too bad i cant gind alex linkedin

[@foxwalks588]

Amazing lecture!

[@Raphi]

5:59 that "growth hacker" eyeroll

[@MsJavaWolf]

So I have heard in a few lectures in this course, that marketing does not matter a lot. Now I hear, that marketing is very important.

[@camerondavisslag]

As he points out, marketing becomes relevant in different ways at different points in the business. Initially, marketing shouldn't be a focus due to the need to build and iterate upon a product. Once you have a tested product, marketing plays a strong role in further understanding your market, and then successfully expanding into it.

[@tyrozo1587]

Market is strategy. You need market for product market fit.

[@tyrozo1587]

Marketing itself is different

[@mugnoom]

how do we find Brian Chesky's talk on User's Journey, please help!

[@praveenprasad9477]

at 46:34 what does he say "Move fast and don’t be afraid to break stuff ethos" --> what's the word after "stuff" is it "ethos"?

[@SRVblueshero1]

Yeah, it sounds like he says "ethos" to me

[@thatsjusthim]

Yes

[@tanaymehta7603]

1. Can I say that a high retention rate is the North Star metric for my company. 2. is high retention rate a result of me achieving my North Star metric?

[@somedude7963]

Can anyone please elaborate on the retention graph at 4:48

[@gordontang8187]

I confuse I am the stupid one, I probably need to watch a few times to fully understand the context.

[@basiCKschool]

What is the priority? Profitability or growth?

[@ooker777]

what are the CIU and ACIU he is referring at 15:48?

[@jvasquez3100]

What is ACIU and CIUs?

[@_dhanwin10_]

17:54

[@ThePsychology2010]

Can someone explain to me what he means by think about the marginal users, and not yourself? I wasn't sure he explained it. Thanks in advance!

[@tomeralpert3006]

Hey! I didn't understand this either. Until a few days later I met with a customer struggling to write in our handwritten cards app (Felt Cards). Then that night our dog Jake woke me up at 1:30am (I promise this is for real), and I was wide awake thinking of the marginal user. It dawned on me. Our marginal users are people who don't use our app much. And our number one reason for not using Felt has been that handwriting on digital devices is hard. Our power users are people who have learned how to write on screens and do so, or they type their message. But they use Felt a lot. And our marginal users don't. For us, this was a moment of clarity. We had fought against changing the writing experience for two years. Thinking that it should remain "pure" and simple. But after accepting that most people are marginal users and we wanted them to use Felt we decided to take on the problem. We're about to release a sweet new way of writing on digital screens. We've shown it to about 10 customers and they all love it. A few even called it a game changer. So we're pumped. And that's what Marginal User means to us, right now. We're going to continue and define them as we continue and evolve.

[@mohdjawad5098]

Are these lectures still relevent in 2024, or does anybody here has a better updated recomendation

[@nayankadam9866]

Where can I get the written script of this course?

[@alishakhan10tha18]

its in the description

[@AkashSingh-df1sz]

7:00

[@BalvinderNagi]

Which books he recommended?

[@whynesspower]

what is "product market fit" ?

[@jvasquez3100]

Product market fit is when you're so busy delivering value to multiple clients that you don't know if you're going to be able to serve all of them and the line is getting longer. If you have product market fit, you'll know it. If you have to ask, you don't have it.

[@smurfwatcher9591]

Where is the daniel ferrante link

[@ramenx2]

Can anyone tell me what ACRU, ACIU, CIU, CRU stands for?

[@Moleshrivastava]

I am 3 years late but typing this so that it helps other viewers CRU - Confirmed Registered Users ACRU - Activated Confirmed Registered Users There’s nothing such as ACIU and CIU. That’s just the translate not picking up the terms ACRU and CRU and calling them ACIU and CIU instead. Hope this helps.

[@AcharyaChanakya108]

@@Moleshrivastava And 2 years later your comment is still helping. Thanks!

[@moutottahazunai]

Great lecture, but I'm wondering what happened to all these sentiments with Facebook over the years.. none of my friends actually use the site any more, they just go on there to post angry political shit because Alex and his buddies hyper-optimized for toxic engagement. The man's still there, I wonder what he'd have to say about how Facebook works today..

[@shailenutube3762]

Test

[@PayzdeMontEtteineneyeUtlingele]

whai yo lagou bhlak en whaiit

[@remaks69]

This guy looks like the bald version of Gabe from Silicon Valley

[@dev_alade]

growth is optional indeed

[@sohailrao007]

Who is he referring to? - "Uber has the best viral guy in the world".

[@vascopatriciocoach]

I would guess Andrew Chen, who is a very talented growth executive at Uber, but not sure.

[@gautam2roy]

Ed Baker

[@PayzdeMontEtteineneyeUtlingele]

ghroth is ghareellya.

[@JesseGod1]

Carnegie should have a warning ⚠️ tattooed on his forehead

[@JesseGod1]

Oh dick 😂

[@AntonKozikowski]

paper paper paper airplanes

[@thenovu_ai]

Who else is watching this is 2024?

[@rob-liu]

This is more of a talk about how to be a vp growth at a established company. not a talk on how to start a startup. There are no actionable tactics here, it's all high level stuff. =(

[@PayzdeMontEtteineneyeUtlingele]

yall schkhinnee , yo beat the president of u.s.a. of 2023 tpgether .

[@SerpkoBakotiinii]

Lecture is good, but it's all about "facebook business". So many details, and so few general ideas. Don't like it.

[@Heavy_Distortion]

the tight shirt looks hideous on him

[@monotheist..]

good product is very important good retention domt hire growth hacer but focud on product makret fit retention cirve need to flatten out no going down idea product team exeution if yiu dont haev graet prodict no poin to do grow hacing becaus eits wont grow product market fit is really important compare your atuff to real world sucess in those same verticals single most important thing for growth is customer retention And retention comes from having a great idea, and a great product to back up that idea and great product market fit. the whole company should be the growth team leader point out to north star eveeycompany have different vertical kr bariable to be seem or the choice to seen as something crotical air bnb mafic momment was cool house to be display facebokk first maguc moment is who you want to connect like friend face or gf face So think about what the magic moment is for your product, and get people connected to it as fast as possible. think about those margin users who dont have friend and make them connect to someone dont care about thise many notifications by the way like building an awesome product is all about thinking about the power user, right? And we looked at new users, resurrected users, was getting them to those ten friends, getting them to Stanford the whatever number of triends they needed. So think about the user on the margin. knowimg the north satr of your company the aim and make everyone focud on taht and improvetaht but still lot if thing end up being corelated choose one you can getvstick the most and Have a north star and know the magic moment that when a user experiences that, they will deliver on that metric for you on the north star, and then think about the marginal user, don't think about yourself. intrnationalization dont let copies outside mation while you focud inside ciuntry knocking down baruer from colege to another college and thne iurside andnthen country to enother country help people who dontget friend on facebook tahts teh problem marketers amd maeketing is important gettingusers to magic mommet is very important and focus on problem like friend taht linely and need firmed in facenook dont stuck in analysis paralysis facebook try to translate everything into largest languve amd keep it update woth theit technology More tactics • Virality • SEO • ESPN • SEM • Affiliates/referral programs Payload. So how many people can you hit with any given viral blast? frequency How many times can you hit them per blast is frequency. convertion rate And what are they gonna convert at? paypal give 10 dollars for new singup tahts creat high comvertiom rate but not payload and not frequancy payload os how many people yoi hit at once frequancy os how you get email ads over m kver again comvertion is when tehy convert ir just give them 10 dollars like oaypal still retention over virality contact import then send import then how many click or opm or whatwver then how many sign up thje how many import again sign up , imort comtavt then send invite to all contact then to all comtact tehn percentage of clicik then prcentage of sign ip make the k factor over one seo figure it out So, research consists of what do people search for that's related to your sites, how many people search for it, how many other people are ranking for it, and how valuable is it for you. Supply, demands and value. Honestly the best is quite often the Google AdWords, for new facebook users list of liked post notifications is the magic mommemt but not for fhe old iser creat great trigger marketing campaigne make your email delivered , focus in notifications and. triggerbased email A good plan, violently executed today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow and

[@vishalpundir2340]

Thankyou it was helpful Love from india

[@ThuUyenPhamThi-iy2cz]

14:14