Lecture 4 - Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (Adora Cheung)

[@michaell4235]

Good material. Be sure to read about how Homejoy failed about 9 months after this was recorded.

[@randyjhones976]

Lol

[@ArielCamino]

www.wired.com/2015/10/why-homejoy-failed/

[@gl683]

one of the best ways to learn is reading about other failures lol

[@adamlee9347]

lol that was direct

[@jakobvaldma7475]

thanks! that seems to be the problem in the siliconvalley startup world - growthgrowthgrowth - with any means necessary just to get the higher valuation for the next round. Basic profitability gets overlooked. I'd rather grow slowly but self-sustainingly

[@Alexxxandra05]

watching this lecture with increased speed really helps to focus on the important parts and notice less of the ' you know's '

[@paulalbertlanglois]

true

[@johnnysun6495]

Great talk from a company that shut down one year later

[@hoodasaurabh]

This is really important lesson from this class: *Users give different feedback depending upon whether the product/service is paid or free.* see @21:10.

[@Nesamag]

My thoughts exactly!

[@ooker777]

this video is delivered for free. Is there a possibility that you would leave a different feedback if it's behind a paid wall?

[@TheForthemankind]

Brilliant

[@terencestrong]

Very good lecture! You are an amazing entrepreneur and an inspiration to all. It's rare to see someone willing to sell to strangers, clean houses and learn to code all an effort to ensure their own success.

[@lunaticz0r]

I am doing a 10 week course within my study about lean startups. I am going to try and make a summary for this video to increase my understanding, thanks for making these videos!

[@rutvikpaikine8222]

do you still have the summary

[@MrRsheeler]

Some of the best, most useable points in this video. Awesome stuff.

[@josephc.3747]

Informative and practical advice. Delivery was dry but the content was very engaging.

[@crumbledcookie3624]

This is such a great series. This is my fave so far! Nice job Adora!

[@sahhill1910]

+Heather Burns You favorite lecture is the one that's most boring? Interesting. Did you even watch Paul Graham knock it out of the park?

[@vojtechbasta9280]

44:10 "some one in national tennessee is going to be much larger than [...] lifetime value of someone in Czechoslovakia "... yeah since there is no Czechoslovakia since 1993 :D

[@JCGlancy]

I was laughing at this thinking the same thing

[@IvanTurkovic]

That is really bad since I doubt she ever learned about it in school so it is weird how come it can be in her mind.

[@stefanvrskovy]

At that point I closed the video. I don't know if it because of the school system in US. But when you don't know about something than DON'T TALK ABOUT IT. that easy

[@VitSouralMusic]

I just wanted to post the same comment now... :D Díky Vojto! :D

[@ahorizontallychallengedora5262]

Was going to make that comment and earn likes of it ):

[@bmejia220]

Good lecture, worth listening back multiple times. also worth adding that this is eight years old not all the information is still relevant

[@simtu251]

Which part do you think is not relevant anymore?

[@AlexandriaRohn]

00:05 Talk topic: Going from zero users to many users. You've got an idea and now you're thinking about the next step. 1:20 Prerequisites for starting a startup. 3:30 Describe the problem your idea is solving. Verify others have it. 5:22 Q: Now, where do you start? What is your solution? 8:40 A1: Become an expert in your space. 9:54 A2: Identify your customer segment and focus on them. 10:31 A3: Before you even create the product you should storyboard the solution out. 11:46 You've done these. What next? Start building your product. Your MVP. 14:00 How do you get your first few users to start trying it? 17:34 You've got some users. Now what? Customer feedback. 28:00 You have a product ready to ship. Now what? Just launch already. 29:45 How to handle getting lots of users. Learn & iterate on channels. 33:00 The 3 types of growth: sticky=existing users, viral=talked about, paid 50:05 Q&A: "How do you get your users to switch from another product?"

[@andrewvu712]

Thanks

[@andrewvu712]

I mean a lot

[@markaaronbarrett]

Andrew = good samaritan. Thank you.

[@Buderus69]

Verynice job... You know?

[@RajeshYadav-i9p]

thanks man

[@Fedoranimus]

Private Assisted Suicide - a possible successful business with "really bad" retention curve.

[@DaRealMidnight]

if you like this video I can really recommend reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

[@vithalgoel3937]

read the book in may. Absolute gold. Its shocking how so many startups fail just because they dont validate their theories and products.

[@StanGanweizhong]

Mistakes are fundamental and it is the heart and core of startups.

[@odiseezall]

44:10 - Czechoslovakia is not a country anymore.

[@jayschmitt3627]

Which is why a customer there has a low CLV

[@vseprozvire2]

The section with LTV and CAC is so valuable

[@withassuan]

nearly falling asleep. emotionless speach. however good material.

[@DLSMauu]

same, way too thirsty for money with almost 0 passion stereotype

[@WallaceBMcClure]

Yeah. She talks like an engineer and someone that is highly technical. Same problem I have.

[@kalilinux8682]

"Homejoy shut down in 2015 due to poor customer retention rates, high customer acquisition costs" Irony 😂

[@sahilramteke2132]

they prefer growth over revenue.. that's why! Nothing like irony... they are best people to learn from!

[@HungrysitesRu]

@@sahilramteke2132 she failed. End of story. She cannot teach us how to do business.

[@TheSkyaakash]

Content was good.. Very poor delivery.. Other lectures so far have had way more inspiring speakers!

[@ooker777]

There are many positive feedback here. One of the lesson from it is: **Users give different feedback depending upon whether the product/service is paid or free** (@21:10). Note that this video is delivered for free. Is there a possibility that they leave those positive feedback because it's free?

[@ShyanTheLegend]

The speaker, Adora Cheung, is giving a talk on how to go from zero users to many users when starting a startup. She emphasizes the importance of having a lot of time to concentrate on the startup, becoming an expert in the industry, identifying customer segments, and storyboarding the user experience before building the product. She also discusses the concept of a minimum viable product (MVP) and the importance of getting user feedback. She suggests that the first users of the product should be people the founders are connected with, such as friends and family. She also mentions the importance of tracking customer retention and using reviews and ratings to gauge the success of the product. She also talks about the different types of growth: sticky growth, viral growth, and paid growth. Sticky growth is about getting existing users to come back and pay more or use the product more. Viral growth is when people talk about the product and refer it to others. Paid growth is when a company uses money to buy growth, for example through advertising. She emphasizes the importance of sustainability in growth, meaning that the money and time put into the product should have a good return on investment. She also mentions the importance of pivoting when an idea is not working, and the importance of having a growth plan and being able to recognize when it's time to move on to a new idea. She suggests that if a company is not growing after three or four weeks of executing on a product, it may be time to consider a pivot.

[@withsoleil]

Tooo uch information in one lecture. So many questions and so many points,terms that i couldn't understand.

[@aemericenglish2417]

noob approach 1. build product in secret 2. exclusive press launch 3. wait for users 4. buy users 5. give up

[@erikdsi7807]

so objective, practical and clear

[@dannymanny8907]

Takeaways... Anything is possible

[@shubhtrader03]

Great stuff I'm learning a lot

[@Husain_bohra]

I was doubtful regarding her principles from the start of the lecture, I was wondering how she created such a successful start-up. Then I looked about it on Wikipedia and was ooh.

[@stefanserban6696]

Yeah, and her business failed in 2015, after 1 year from the speech

[@charlessmyth]

Czech Republic. Slovakia is now independent.

[@MemeArchivarius]

"what happens when you clean their house and they refuse to pay?" "you shit on their floor and leave"

[@denisblack9897]

this one is really useful, not blablabla startup blablabla growth

[@wenhuali8178]

learned a lot.

[@dianalastovska8386]

Why their company failed then?

[@KE010101]

Good points at 45:30, 49:47, & 52:00

[@p0werl0ve]

at 1:13 it already looks intriguing :) THANK YOU!

[@Potenti4lz]

Pretty simple stuff, but well presented.

[@cxn-ts6zt]

nice content but i found that there is a lot of abbreviation needs to be explained, Thanks!

[@Darkkkkkkkk]

The amount of money PPl return back to u is that more than your cac ? (Customer acquisition cost ) CLV - CAC = 0 then it's okay / if more than 0 ur gaining profit

[@blacksuccess81]

This was very useful. Thank you.

[@mossaic]

great talk.

[@luftschloessl]

Her hair is so shiny!

[@omkarrao8661]

GOLD

[@bhavinchauhan796]

Kunal Shah

[@sheikhmuhammedtadeeb5677]

Just awesome

[@miazeff]

“You should, you should. You know, you know “ is half of what she’s saying.. very hard to listen and follow.

[@jonathanhuang2955]

I’d rather have a few extremely happy and satisfied customers.

[@elkyelkyelky]

Finished, thanks

[@spencerdepas4235]

Great. Thank you.

[@gueneykerim]

Didn't Homejoy die recently?

[@cc758b]

+gueneykerim The lecture is from 2014. They were cool then :)

[@HanisaMohamed]

They died due to poor customer acquisition

[@Telugu__Contnent]

Looks like she is thinking about her startup through out the video which is going to shutdown. I am watching this video in 2024 Jan 27

[@rpodcoworkingspace]

Great :) Thnx!

[@kristopherryanwatson]

1 year later, and they're out of business. probably should not take too much away from this webinar. they grew too fast.

[@hemantagarwal2272]

Ppt text font and size manipulation is not good Sam's ppt were more eye catching

[@FFWDEntertainment]

so unclear....WHAT DID U DO AT THE FAIR? did u pitch them at the fair? did u put a label on the bottle , did u force them to sign up before u gave them the water?

[@lvpdesign]

I would assume schedule a cleaning and get a free frozen water.

[@Viriyascybin]

> So a lot of it comes from failure Yeah

[@emmanuelpaleyan3405]

4th Video of the Day.

[@emmanuelpaleyan3405]

and It is informative, but hard to understand.

[@bresalbert]

44:20 -Czechoslovakia doesn't a exist since like 25 years!

[@Steve48989]

Andddd her company failed

[@HungrysitesRu]

I'll skip this because Adora doesn't have any successful experience. I prefer listening to real business owners than failed startupers (indistinguishable from con artists). Show me you can actually build a profitable business before lecturing. Otherwise the playlist is awesome.

[@zubairmushtaq1634]

very helpfull

[@tyrisnolam]

Way too many "youknows" but quite helpful lecture.

[@sdtyhjklmnbgfdsfghj]

Good content but so painful to listen to

[@soutolopes]

Great lecture! Well done!

[@alanreggae]

Nice

[@elkyelkyelky]

51:00

[@calin6327]

there is no more Czechoslovakia... Its Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. 44:00 You Big Bang Theory Watching Americans oh my xd

[@livehero2185]

btw it's the Czech Republic and Slovakia since 1993..

[@Comedy_Clips927]

then why homejoy is failed at 2022

[@FarhanAbroad]

Covid I guess?

[@BeckBonnie-e6g]

Robinson Timothy Wilson Ruth Perez Sharon

[@AkashkumarBammrotwar]

There is lots of break in your talk with distract me from concentrating from what do you want to convey. I have learn a lots of thing from this video but still this can be make more valuable if you say smoothly all what you want to convey. Thank You hoping to get more values in future.

[@TheForthemankind]

21:10

[@WilliamBrownGuitar]

essentially incoherent

[@공정환-n1q]

Wilson Charles Lewis William Miller David

[@BrodieTheAthlete]

30

[@FaisalAhommed-j1z]

Jones Sandra Lopez Thomas Jackson Shirley

[@ruzinsaleem7258]

homejoy went bust

[@SwaggahDontStop]

Ruzin Saleem Yea. Still good points in the video though. She'll probably try the startup game again.

[@todzaikaguvichabudapasi260]

Ruzin Saleem doesn't take away the insights

[@FFWDEntertainment]

not that great

[@Urrzah]

Such a disappointing lecture. Low information/word ratio. Considering how much emphasis YC puts on building product and talking to users, you'd think they would have let a better entrepreneur and speaker give this lecture. And maybe do more than just 1/20 lectures on the things you should be doing most of the time.

[@irlalanbarrett3239]

Here is free cancer water. 😂

[@pipothetubetraveller]

czsk country fans: 43:37 ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ can confirm ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

[@Viriyascybin]

> lecture: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing > forbes: What Really Killed Homejoy? It Couldn't Hold On To Its Customers hmm

[@rupkumarsarkar94]

Great lecture . But sorry to say that she is not a good oriator.

[@mikelCold]

Her lip smacking bugs me so much.

[@edgarkamdem4620]

Extremely boring ! "you know...you know...". I understand now why Homejoy died !

[@HanisaMohamed]

Edgar KAMDEM that's harsh

[@DionisisKoles]

With her no wonder the company failed. Surprised she even found investors. She bored me to dea...

[@rmrbush]

She's either smart and a bad speaker or lucky and a bad speaker. My money is on smart and a bad speaker. Luckily for her, public speaking can be fixed. The people who spoke before her are all far more seasoned at speaking.

[@SiRkoTTG]

awful speaker, can concentrate at all YOU KNOW

[@personsrm]

Useless, don't watch it

[@johndeep2654]

Qualitative: ask why why why? Women always mess it up lol

[@HanisaMohamed]

John Deep get the fuck out

[@astolfo9377]

FUCK W O M E N

[@ajnikhil]

Only a girl could have started a cleaning business. Talk about personal motivation.

[@ilyakarpov1543]

44:12 Chechoslovakia do not exist since 1992))))

[@monotheist..]

self immersion atleast two days in a row what problem storyboard ideal user experience whats problem you passionate about obsessed with problem raed everysingle article about potentioal competitorr if they are public know every single golden nuget you can get you meed to become expert im the indistry well you can choose your passion identify customer segment identify customer segment what eveybody in the wrold using fulfill the need of users if they really love it alot and then expand visualize what best user experience looks like every single detail and create that core customer base you know everything about the industry what problem solution taht user need and fulfill taht immediately solve their immediate need explain yorerlf in clear way amd tehyll get it release mvp very first vew users go to people really show up and make them your customer let them try your product steal them out of line make them try your product comvert them ask for a feedback from your customer go out for a perisn taht is using your product or send out a survey go out drink coffe wtih them make them gave honest riview look at customer retention if its repot to do monthly cistomer retentiom then make star review and then make net promoter score Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty and satisfaction measurement taken from asking customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service to others on a scale of 0-10-but there's a lot more to the story than that and making mew featres you could see after that the review and retention going up random peole who paid for your product gonna be hinest with you, in revire when you see from hinesty curve when you have hudred user no point to build like you have million users but you want to optimize to get to the next stage of growth and just stick with that at early stage you can do it manually instead by robot so could understand deeply about this suff also could know about your customer in early stage temprary borkeneess is better than permanetboaralysis beware of freknsteim first mover advanatge just launvh it already therr is no point to waiting around tonlaunch your product amd be oaranoid at leadt you arr firdt mover if therr are stealer focus on one channel and if its caps out iterate bacuse the outside environment always changes so we need to meneyesuaikam so cahnnel is likestartegy homjoy want to buy google ads to compete but then fail becuase competotor too grate sobthey want to anothr rchannle but after sucres they revisit those starefy to buy google ads key on this be creative Channels and Customer Relationships. Channels are a critical element of the business model. They are how a company communicates with and reaches its customer segments. Channels are typically direct or indirect and has five phases: awareness, evaluation, purchase, delivery, and after sales. sticky growth make you iser retentiom really great paid growth used money to buy growth have sustainable growth which not leaky and have good return-on investment 12 motnh clv custome lieftime how much net revenue customer bring in the last 12 month cohort is graph in month when it is have good retention or not make graph go up viral growth good referal program Here are examples of some of the best referral programs: Koodo Mobile Refer a Friend - C$25 off the first/next bill. Tesla Referral Program - up to US$1,000 discount. Airbnb Refer-a-Friend Program - US$18 credit per qualifying stay. As consumers move through the phases that lead them to choose your brand and become a loyal customer, they do so because each touchpoint along the way compels them to do so. This journey has five stages: awareness, consideration, decision, action, and loyalty (retention and advocacy) cutomer touch when customer lewrn to refer to your product semd them link to semd out to othr peopel when yehy are satudfies and higky emgage by your product leave them link so tehy can refer to they friend how they learn to refer to other people aboit your product program mechanic 10 dillars for ten dollars good refrall coversuin flow be craetive upsell it make it graet and awesome paid growth make sure people comeback more tahn your cac cistomer acquisition coost dont mix cohort togetehr

[@tassv5909]

great talk and helpful. Just cos Homejoy failed does not mean you cannot learn from Ms. Cheung here.

[@lp4969]

@Crebs Park definitely not koreanese hahahah

[@nuwandakoh]

it is korean not koreanese

[@HungrysitesRu]

It kinda does

[@servantofthelord8147]

True

[@Nesamag]

The degrees of honesty graph is probably one of the biggest "golden nuggets" from this lecture!👌

[@telecomania1903]

too many "you know.." :(

[@rammilanyadav5409]

EN Lecture 4 - Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing: Mistakes, Immersion, MVPs, User Feedback, and Sustainable Growth Strategies (Adora Cheung) 📝 The speaker discusses the mistakes made in starting a startup and emphasizes the importance of validating the problem and being passionate about it before building a product. 00:23 The speaker shares their experience of going through YC and making mistakes in previous startups. 00:23 The novice approach of not seeking feedback and launching without user validation leads to failure. 02:27 The importance of understanding the problem the idea is solving and verifying if others have the same problem. 03:32 The mistake of building a product for a problem the founders were not passionate about. 04:06 The speaker advises to think about the problem and validate it before investing time in building a product. 05:14 🔑 To start solving a problem in an industry, immerse yourself in that industry, learn the details, and exploit inefficiencies. 05:40 Immerse yourself in the industry to understand the little bits and pieces and identify inefficiencies. 05:40 Become a cog in the industry to gain insights and exploit inefficiencies. 05:55 Learn from professionals and get hands-on experience in the industry. 06:21 Be obsessively knowledgeable about the industry and its competitors. 08:55 Establish yourself as an expert in the industry to gain trust. 09:48 Identify and focus on specific customer segments to optimize for their needs. 10:00 Storyboard the ideal user experience before creating the product. 10:27 💡 The process of building a minimum viable product (MVP) and acquiring initial users 12:01 Building an MVP involves identifying the smallest feature set to solve the problem at hand and talking to potential users for feedback 12:01 Having a clear and concise product positioning is important to attract users 12:47 Initial users can be friends, family, and local communities, as well as online platforms like Hacker News 14:26 Homejoy used street fairs to approach potential users and convince them to book a cleaning service 15:40 💡 The founder discusses the early stages of Homejoy, including how they attracted users and gathered feedback. 16:11 They guilt-tripped people into booking cleanings by handing out free bottles of cold water. 16:11 They found that most people who booked cleanings did not cancel afterwards. 16:35 To gather feedback, they provided a way for users to contact them and went out to meet users in person. 17:46 They emphasized the importance of making users feel comfortable and having a conversation rather than interrogating them. 19:16 Tracking customer retention and collecting reviews and ratings were key metrics they used to assess their progress. 20:03 They cautioned about the honesty curve and the need to account for people who may lie in feedback. 21:23 📝 The importance of user feedback and optimizing for growth stages. 21:37 User feedback is valuable, with honest feedback coming from friends and paying users. 21:37 Paid users provide the best feedback as they have invested money in the product. 22:30 Optimize features for the current stage of growth, not future stages. 24:07 Manual processes and data collection are important before automating. 24:59 Temporary brokenness is better than permanent paralysis, focus on the core user. 26:30 Avoid the Frankenstein approach and build for future edge cases. 27:01 🚀 When building a product, it is important to listen to user feedback, but also understand the underlying problem they are trying to solve before implementing features. Launching a product early is crucial to gather user feedback and iterate on growth strategies. 27:09 Understand the reason behind user feature requests before building them. 27:09 Launching a product early allows for gathering user feedback and iterating on growth strategies. 28:40 Focus on one growth channel at a time and iterate on it. 30:02 Continuously optimize and iterate on successful growth channels. 30:52 Revisit failed channels in the future as circumstances may change. 31:24 Creativity is key in finding unique and effective growth strategies. 32:28 📈 There are three types of growth: sticky, viral, and paid. Sticky growth focuses on getting existing users to use the product more, viral growth relies on users spreading the word about the product, and paid growth involves using money to buy growth. 33:05 Sticky growth aims to increase usage and revenue from existing users by delivering a good and addictive user experience. 33:05 Viral growth depends on users sharing and recommending the product to others, so delivering a remarkable experience is crucial. 33:22 Paid growth involves using financial resources to acquire new users and drive growth. 33:35 Sustainable growth means ensuring that the money and time invested in the product yield a good return on investment. 33:41 Cohort analysis and customer lifetime value (CLV) are used to measure sticky growth and retention over time. 34:21 To achieve viral growth, a good experience must be combined with a well-designed referral program. 38:46 💰 The importance of customer touch points, program mechanics, and paid growth in referral programs. Understanding CLV and CAC for sustainable growth. 39:36 Customer touch points include after sign up and after product usage. 39:36 Different program mechanics can be tested, such as $10 for $10 or 25 for 25. 40:44 Optimizing the conversion flow when friends click on referral links. 41:47 Paid growth involves spending money to acquire users, with the goal of CLV exceeding CAC. 41:54 Consider CLV and CAC for different customer segments to determine ad effectiveness. 44:01 Sustainability is important to avoid spending beyond means and potential unsustainable growth. 44:32 📊 Pivoting is important when growth is stagnant or the business economics don't make sense. 45:38 Payback time is important, with 3 months being safe and beyond 12 months being unsafe. 45:38 The art of pivoting involves looking at criteria such as growth, user retention, and business economics. 46:35 To pivot, have a growth plan and consider a pivot if there is no growth for three consecutive weeks. 47:31 To get users to switch to a new product, find moments where your product is better or differentiated from existing solutions. 50:08 📝 It is difficult to convince users to switch to a new product with many benefits, so it is better to have one or two clear differentiating features. 51:32 Many people find it hard to switch to a new product with multiple benefits. 51:32 Even if the benefits outweigh the switch-over costs, it is still difficult to convince users. 51:49 Aggregating all the benefits over many little things is challenging. 51:58 It is better to have one or two clear differentiating features

[@Broduct111]

Great lecture, wish she used less "you know"

[@JuanDavidPastasRivera]

yep, too much... but great advice anyway

[@JostenDooley]

So glad I signed up for this class

[@wiseheroes9003]

At 28:00 min. mark - I like Adora's take on competition. As an old boss I had used to say "Paranoia is merely a heightened sense of reality."

[@simtu251]

Okay, stealing your quote.

[@UnequivicaLEO]

What I would ask her today is, what would you have done differently to keep your startup from running out of money and shutting doors for good? And then go on to ask her what the aftermath was like dealing with all the implications that came with all the stake holders

[@mebharambe]

the only boring lecture of this series till now.

[@SketchupGuru]

Damn! Homejoy shutdown