Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:57:05 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[00:57:05] S0: So on this moat idea, so say you're a founder and you're putting a pitch together, trying to pitch you or other VCs, what's the best way to talk about a moat? Can you just say, "We're going to discover it. We're not sure. Nobody really knows yet"? [00:57:19] S1: Yeah. I think that we would happily take a bet on a product that doesn't have a "moat" or durability story if it has a lot of momentum, a lot of craft, a lot of growing engagement. It's actually a thing I've learned over the years, I used to be very worried about people stealing my idea, but I've learned that the big ideas are always supported by a dozen small ideas that are invisible. And even if somebody replicates your big idea, they never see the small ideas that make the big idea work. So, I actually think that there's just something special in the water with certain products that make them incredibly successful despite extraordinary competition. I mean, look at Granola. Two years ago it was really criticized, and I don't know that they have a super strong durability story today, and yet it is beloved and dominant. I listen to what the customers are saying more than what the business books say. [00:58:11] S0: You get a free year of Granola if you become a subscriber to Lenny's newsletter. I should do this more often when it's part of this product pass, lennysproductpass.com. Get a free year of all these amazing products, including Granola. I just saw Ramp put out a report of the fastest growing companies according to their data, and Granola is number two or three.
00:58:11 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[00:58:11] S0: You get a free year of Granola if you become a subscriber to Lenny's newsletter. I should do this more often when it's part of this product pass, lennysproductpass.com. Get a free year of all these amazing products, including Granola. I just saw Ramp put out a report of the fastest growing companies according to their data, and Granola is number two or three. [00:58:28] S1: It's a tremendous product. The craft is really high. [00:58:31] S0: Yeah. I think about that a lot these days because there's so much, there's Cowork, there's ChatGPT Work, there's Cursor, there's Grok Bot, and it's crazy how quickly one can switch from one to the other. And the underlying model is not that different. All it really is, most of it is the harness/UX of the product. And so to me, that tells you there's so much opportunity in the actual user experience being a moat, or at least giving you a lot of time to find something that is durable. [00:59:01] S1: 100%. And I think for the people that are at the edge, they pay for all of them because they all have the respective areas of specialization. [00:59:08] S0: Yeah. I have many $200 a month plans right now. [00:59:10] S1: I know, I know. Right. So it's a little painful, but yes, me too. [00:59:14] S0: And I think Cursor has a $300 a month plan now. [00:59:17] S1: So does Grok. Oh yeah, you're right. Yeah, that was the Grok plan. [00:59:20] S0: Yeah, Grok slash- [00:59:21] S1: Yeah, it was Grok Heavy.
00:59:21 · Anish Acharya, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:59:21] S1: Yeah, it was Grok Heavy. [00:59:22] S0: Yeah. RIP Cursor, I think they've transitioned away from that brand. Something I've been talking a lot about is the distribution. I call it distribution is new moat, but it's always been a moat. But it feels like more and more that is actually a massive advantage because everybody is ... There's 1,000 launch videos a day. Everyone's launching, launch, launch, launch. And really the ability to get your stuff into people's feed, get them continue to be reminded of your products feels like increasingly is powerful and important. Thoughts on the rising value of existing distribution being a big lever for growth and success.
01:00:03 · Anish Acharya, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:00:03] S1: This is so important. And I asked Chris Dixon about this because he sort of authored the famous come for the tool, stay for the network. I think the issue is that our entire generation of founders and CEOs were trained on the theory of networks and network building. And as a result, every network that exists today is hyper-trained to ensure no one else builds a network on their network. So, I actually think that the sort of network effect has gone back to this grassroots true word of mouth. When somebody is getting a ton of mentions on X, and on YouTube, and on Instagram and all of these places organically, that is probably the best form of the sort of third party network effect that you can hope for today. And actually just like the web 2.0 era, unlike the mobile era where you had the app store and you had growth hacking, and you had all of these sort of little cottage industries, we have to build our own channels off of that word of mouth growth. So, in a sense it's a purer growth problem, but a harder one than we've had in a couple of product cycles. [01:01:03] S0: And to get word of mouth you need to build something. I always think about Seth Godin's line, build something remarkable, something that is worth remarking about, which is basically build an amazing product that people want to talk about, which is very hard to do. And it makes sense that because there's so much happening, people are just going to pay attention to what are my friends using and saying is worth paying attention to.
01:01:03 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[01:01:03] S0: And to get word of mouth you need to build something. I always think about Seth Godin's line, build something remarkable, something that is worth remarking about, which is basically build an amazing product that people want to talk about, which is very hard to do. And it makes sense that because there's so much happening, people are just going to pay attention to what are my friends using and saying is worth paying attention to. [01:01:24] S1: Well, here's the one thing I would say that here's the hopeful point, which is I always say that nobody has a growth problem these days, they have a product problem. And the reason for that is you can build such a wildly ambitious product in any direction, functional or emotional, you can charge a lot of money for it. So my challenge is like, hey, is it that you have a growth problem or is it a failure of our collective imagination? If we imagined our product cost $1,000 a month, $10,000 a month, what if our product was a software Birkin bag? What would it have to do to justify that? Okay, let's figure out how we build that. [01:01:59] S0: And it comes back to the ambition question. [01:02:01] S1: Yes.
01:02:01 · Anish Acharya, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:02:01] S1: Yes. [01:02:02] S0: And still though, you still need some advantage to get in front of people to get it out there, at least initially, because there's like 1,000 things launching every day. Imagine that's still a big opportunity and I don't know, advantage, which to me makes me feel like incumbents have a huge advantage. They have the products, they can tell you, "Hey, go use Gemini and every time you go search Google." I guess, do you feel like it's harder for startups now because of this distribution challenge? [01:02:28] S1: I don't know. I think it's easier, because Gemini, despite all the kind of heavy cross-selling Google has done, nobody would say they're winning. [01:02:35] S0: That's right. [01:02:37] S1: Startups can build in directions that incumbents are uncomfortable building in, like everything we talked around companion, but there's many others. [01:02:44] S0: That's true. [01:02:45] S1: Prices can be pretty high. People are open to paying 200 a month or in the enterprise they're open to signing million dollar ACV contracts without really knowing what they're getting. So, I think the floodgates are open. It feels like Christmas 2009 where everybody got their iPhone and wanted to download new apps, that'll change at some point. People will feel like they're done and they're tired and they don't want to try any more apps, but the windows are open for now. I think it's easier for startups.