Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:40:43 · Sean Ellis
[00:40:43] S1: Yeah. So one of the things that's kind of cool about, almost like open sourcing this survey approach is, is, again, watching, like, how how Nubank has, has evolved their usage. But, one of the other companies that I think used it in an interesting way is Superhuman. I would say that they basically ended up probably putting a lot more momentum behind the question than it had even before. They posted something about how they did it on First Round Capital's blog. And what I have always said, and again, it's me coming at it from probably initially a marketing background, which is I'm kind of taking the product as a fixed thing. And how do I actually figure out how to market and grow this product? Product changes are going to take a long time. So what are the variables that I can control with a marketing background? But so one of the things I've always said is just ignore the people who say they'd be somewhat disappointed. They're telling you it's nice to have. They're as good as gone. So just ignore those guys. And then, but what Superhuman did was and the reason that yeah, I'll put one piece in the middle there before I say what Superhuman did. The reason that I say ignore those guys is that if you start paying attention to what your somewhat disappointed users are telling you, and then you start tweaking onboarding and product based on their feedback, maybe you're going to dilute it for your must have users. And that ultimately it becomes kind of good for everyone, but not great for anyone. And so that was my fear of trying to read too much into the users who say they'd be somewhat disappointed. But the Superhuman guys actually found, I think, a good way around that where they said, okay, what is the benefit that my must have users are focused on? And then of the users who say they'd be somewhat disappointed, so the nice to have users, Of those users who are also focused on that benefit, what do they need in the product for it then to become a must have for them? And so they're staying true to that kind of core benefit, but they're trying to essentially take those on the fence users and moving them up. And so I think their way of approaching that addressed what my concern was, which is are we gonna are we gonna kinda break it for the must have users?
00:43:04 · Lenny Rachitsky, Sean Ellis
[00:43:04] S0: That's an awesome insight. By the way, did Rahul and the team there just do this on their own or were you involved in any way in this? [00:43:10] S1: No. Mean, that's the same thing. Like I said, I I wasn't initially involved with Nubank. I wasn't involved with them. And that's the benefit of... You know, we wrote about it in our book in 2017. And so I think that I got it out there. I actually teamed up with the KISSmetrics team in 2012 and essentially published this survey on survey. Where we just made it freely available for people and a really easy template to prepare and send out and the how to guide on it. And it was all just free. I think Kissmetrics kind of using it as maybe lead gen. For me, I just wanted a way to kind of put something out for the community. And so it's been out there for a long time, so it's not surprising that different companies have found different unique ways to use it. [00:44:01] S0: That's awesome. I think that post is one of most popular in the first round. Really had an impact on a lot of people. [00:44:05] S1: Yeah. [00:44:06] S0: So just to repeat the approach you recommend for when you're digging into, I wrote this down when you were talking, for how to dig into what benefit people are finding. Your advice is, it's basically a follow-up survey to the extremely disappointed people asking them what is the primary benefit you get. It's a open text initially. Then once you get a collection, you do... It sounds like another survey as multiple choice. Here's, like, [00:44:31] S1: five benefits. Group of people, to be clear.
00:44:31 · Sean Ellis, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:44:31] S1: five benefits. Group of people, to be clear. [00:44:33] S0: Group. Got it. Awesome. And then it's like, which of these four or five benefits is is what you're getting out of this product? And then the question is, why is this benefit important to you? [00:44:41] S1: Yeah. And then you'll see, we have, like, eventually the the survey.io got closed down, but essentially the template that I typically used was then moved to pmfsurvey.com. And so you'll see some other questions that I have on there as well. Like what would you use instead if this product were no longer available? And that's one of the interesting things as you start to see people who say they'd be somewhat disappointed. Usually, they're focused on a commodity use case, and they know an easy alternative to switch to. So to be a must have, it needs to be both valuable and unique. [00:45:18] S0: Okay. Anything else on this topic of the Sean Ellis test, Product Market Fit test before we move on to growth strategy advice? [00:45:24] S1: No. I think that's good.
00:45:24 · Sean Ellis, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:45:24] S1: No. I think that's good. [00:45:25] S0: Yeah. That's good. Think we did almost an hour on that one topic, which I love because I feel like this is such a powerful tool that I think people sort of know and have used, but I think there's a lot of opportunity to use it more effectively. And and all the stuff you pointed out about, like, it's not just get this... You have the threshold. Cool. Let's move. Let's grow. It's like, this is just... This is how you figure out how to make it better and better and grow faster and faster. And it's actually a good segue talking about growth. So even though you coined the term growth hacking, you spend most of your time on the opposite essentially, which is helping companies figure out sustainable growth strategies, not just a bunch of hacks to grow for a little bit and then disappear. And from what I've seen, it's all rooted in this idea of product market fit and what helps you find product market fit and I imagine many of the stuff we've talked about. [00:46:10] S1: Yeah. Just one one one quick, interjection there is that when I coined growth hacking, I did not think of it as a bunch of one off hacks that when I thought of it was much more about what is the way to ultimately drive sustainable growth, but it's over time, maybe more interpreted the way you described it, but just to jump in and say that. [00:46:30] S0: That's a really good clarification. So how did you actually initially frame it?
00:46:30 · Lenny Rachitsky, Sean Ellis
[00:46:30] S0: That's a really good clarification. So how did you actually initially frame it? [00:46:34] S1: Yeah, just said it's about looking at every single thing that you're doing and scrutinizing its impact on growth in the business. And particularly, I think most marketers, when I first moved to Silicon Valley, most CEOs who were asking me to help their companies, they were saying, we need help with awareness building and I'm getting introductions from top VCs. So, so much of, I think, the way people were approaching growth was sort of like textbook marketing, marketing textbook, to approach it. Startups just don't have the luxury to do all of those things. So you got to be really focused on how do I acquire customers to an experience that's going to make them want to keep using this product. And so maybe I picked the wrong term in calling it growth hacking, but I think it at least opened the conversation to getting more people thinking about maybe we should be thinking about growth in a different way than as it's traditionally taught in marketing courses in school. [00:47:33] S0: Is there another term you think you should have used? Do you always think back, I should have called it this. Is there anything that you've had in your mind?
00:47:33 · Lenny Rachitsky, Sean Ellis
[00:47:33] S0: Is there another term you think you should have used? Do you always think back, I should have called it this. Is there anything that you've had in your mind? [00:47:38] S1: I don't. Think sometimes having something that's a little divisive is almost better because it's too easy to just go completely unnoticed. But I was trying to put a name on not just how I was approaching growth, but seeing Facebook obviously had a very different approach to growth than most companies. LinkedIn, Twitter, there a handful of companies that were approaching it in the same way I had previously been approaching it. And I just thought we need... This thing needs a name. And so sat down with a couple of friends, came up with a name, and it stuck. And, but but, yeah, obviously, from from day one, it was pretty, pretty divisive with different groups. [00:48:22] S0: That's a fun story. Thanks for sharing that. Okay. So talking about growth and helping companies figure out how to grow. So say you go to a company, they're getting 40, say, 2%. 42% on the Sean Ellis test, and they're like, okay. Cool. Let's start thinking about growth. What's your first piece of advice to them to start when they're thinking about growth? And then just broadly, how do you approach helping them figure out how to grow?