I'm excited to share a new growth framework that @danhockenmaier and I have been developing (with help from the amazing @reforge crew)
I've been finding myself coming back to this framework often when talking to founders about growth.
Thread
2. 💥 Turbo boosts: One-off events that accelerate growth temporarily but don’t last (e.g. PR, events, Super Bowl ads)
4. ⛽ Fuel: The input that your engine requires to run (e.g. capital, content, users).
Companies grow primarily through four possible Growth Engines:
• Performance marketing: FB, AdWords, TV, etc.
• Virality: Word-of-mouth, referrals, inviting friends, etc.
• Content: SEO, shareable videos, or newsletters, etc.
• Sales: Salespeople
• Uber/Lyft: Virality + Performance marketing
• Snapchat: Virality
• Zoom: Virality + Sales
• Slack: Virality + Sales
• Salesforce: Sales
https://t.co/djWwLzhqOk
Next, we have Turbo Boosts. Similar to a turbocharger in a car, these are tactics that can accelerate growth for a period of time but don’t deliver ongoing acceleration. They include things like:
• PR
• Events
• Brand marketing campaigns
Third, we have lubricants. Lubricants don’t drive growth directly, but instead optimize the efficiency of your engine. Also, without enough lubrication, your engine will stop. There are 3 broad categories of lubricants:
• Conversion
• Activation
• Retention
https://t.co/MlrmElVjF0
Finally, we have Fuel. Without it, even the most optimized engine won’t run. The type of fuel required is specific to the type of growth engine you’re running:
• Paid marketing and sales engines primarily need capital, which can be invested in ads or salespeople
• Content engines unsurprisingly need more content, which can be used to attract users.
• Viral engines require only more users, who in turn refer additional users.
Huge shout-out to @bbalfour and @onecaseman for their help with this post, and to my brother-from-another-mother @danhockenmaier
https://t.co/ZGW1qWT5zC
More from Lenny Rachitsky
Matt Mochary has been CEO coach to @naval, the founders of OpenAI, Notion, Rippling, Robinhood, Coinbase, Reddit, Plaid, Flexport, Opendoor, partners at Sequoia, YC, Benchmark, and many others.
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
The most sophisticated growth team no one talks about: @WishShopping
1. The #1 shopping app in 40+ countries
2. Rumored to often be the #1 spender on FB and Google
3. 2 million items sold daily
I sat down with @cplimon to learn about the notoriously secretive company. Read on 👇
1/ Your brand constraint is Wish's opportunity
Wish's superpower is leaving no room for taste or opinion. It's what happens when a machine builds a company based on data. The founder didn't plan to sell cheap goods to low-socioeconomic customers, but where the data took him.
"Until you work at a place like Wish, you don't know what data-driven is. Everyone else is data-driven when it's convenient, when it agrees with your opinions. Wish is great at ignoring their own emotions. It's data-driven with as much intellectual honesty as possible."
For example
2/ Differentiate by serving the under-served
Most of Wish’s initial sales came from places like Florida, greater LA county, and middle-America. Specifically, zip codes with 95% Spanish speakers. Later, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe (avg household income $18,000/year)
1. The #1 shopping app in 40+ countries
2. Rumored to often be the #1 spender on FB and Google
3. 2 million items sold daily
I sat down with @cplimon to learn about the notoriously secretive company. Read on 👇
1/ Your brand constraint is Wish's opportunity
Wish's superpower is leaving no room for taste or opinion. It's what happens when a machine builds a company based on data. The founder didn't plan to sell cheap goods to low-socioeconomic customers, but where the data took him.
"Until you work at a place like Wish, you don't know what data-driven is. Everyone else is data-driven when it's convenient, when it agrees with your opinions. Wish is great at ignoring their own emotions. It's data-driven with as much intellectual honesty as possible."
For example
cursed wish ads pic.twitter.com/eMlx4LqgKA
— big meaty claws (@leisurepIex) June 4, 2019
2/ Differentiate by serving the under-served
Most of Wish’s initial sales came from places like Florida, greater LA county, and middle-America. Specifically, zip codes with 95% Spanish speakers. Later, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe (avg household income $18,000/year)
Earlier today, I gave a talk at the @SubstackInc's writer conference about building a writing habit. Below are the ten concrete strategies I shared that have helped me publish a post every week for 1.5 years 👇
0/ First of all, just sharing advice about this topic gives me serious impostor syndrome because writing is still pretty new to me, and I have much to learn. But these are things that have helped me, and I hope they'll help you.
1/ Strategy 1: Commit publicly
This was maybe 50% of my initial motivation. Having told people I was going to write weekly made me feel bad when even thinking about skipping a week. It gave me just enough nudge to keep
1b/ You don't need to make this super public. Just sending an email to a few friends regularly with your concrete goals about writing (and anything else) works wonders.
1c/ If you *really* want to be motivated, ask people for money. Nothing motivates you more than people paying you for regular
0/ First of all, just sharing advice about this topic gives me serious impostor syndrome because writing is still pretty new to me, and I have much to learn. But these are things that have helped me, and I hope they'll help you.
1/ Strategy 1: Commit publicly
This was maybe 50% of my initial motivation. Having told people I was going to write weekly made me feel bad when even thinking about skipping a week. It gave me just enough nudge to keep
I'm kicking off an experiment. Inspired by the great @joulee, and building off of the great inbound questions I continue to get from ya'll -- I\u2019m going to start using my newsletter to answer your questions. \U0001f44b
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) September 12, 2019
Sign up belowhttps://t.co/z1F1efMcue
1b/ You don't need to make this super public. Just sending an email to a few friends regularly with your concrete goals about writing (and anything else) works wonders.
1c/ If you *really* want to be motivated, ask people for money. Nothing motivates you more than people paying you for regular
Life alert: I\u2019m adding a paid plan to my newsletter \U0001f91e
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) April 7, 2020
After much prodding from readers and friends, I\u2019m going to take the leap and give this life-path a shot.
Consider subscribing and joining me on this journey \U0001f64fhttps://t.co/gtFm4POGSQ
More from Tech
1/ 👋 Excited to share what we’ve been building at https://t.co/GOQJ7LjQ2t + we are going to tweetstorm our progress every week!
Week 1 highlights: getting shortlisted for YC W2019🤞, acquiring a premium domain💰, meeting Substack's @hamishmckenzie and Stripe CEO @patrickc 🤩
2/ So what is Brew?
brew / bru : / to make (beer, coffee etc.) / verb: begin to develop 🌱
A place for you to enjoy premium content while supporting your favorite creators. Sort of like a ‘Consumer-facing Patreon’ cc @jackconte
(we’re still working on the pitch)
3/ So, why be so transparent? Two words: launch strategy.
jk 😅 a) I loooove doing something consistently for a long period of time b) limited downside and infinite upside (feedback, accountability, reach).
cc @altimor, @pmarca
4/ https://t.co/GOQJ7LjQ2t domain 🍻
It started with a cold email. Guess what? He was using BuyMeACoffee on his blog, and was excited to hear about what we're building next. Within 2w, we signed the deal at @Escrowcom's SF office. You’re a pleasure to work with @MichaelCyger!
5/ @ycombinator's invite for the in-person interview arrived that evening. Quite a day!
Thanks @patio11 for the thoughtful feedback on our YC application, and @gabhubert for your directions on positioning the product — set the tone for our pitch!
Week 1 highlights: getting shortlisted for YC W2019🤞, acquiring a premium domain💰, meeting Substack's @hamishmckenzie and Stripe CEO @patrickc 🤩
2/ So what is Brew?
brew / bru : / to make (beer, coffee etc.) / verb: begin to develop 🌱
A place for you to enjoy premium content while supporting your favorite creators. Sort of like a ‘Consumer-facing Patreon’ cc @jackconte
(we’re still working on the pitch)
3/ So, why be so transparent? Two words: launch strategy.
jk 😅 a) I loooove doing something consistently for a long period of time b) limited downside and infinite upside (feedback, accountability, reach).
cc @altimor, @pmarca
4/ https://t.co/GOQJ7LjQ2t domain 🍻
It started with a cold email. Guess what? He was using BuyMeACoffee on his blog, and was excited to hear about what we're building next. Within 2w, we signed the deal at @Escrowcom's SF office. You’re a pleasure to work with @MichaelCyger!
5/ @ycombinator's invite for the in-person interview arrived that evening. Quite a day!
Thanks @patio11 for the thoughtful feedback on our YC application, and @gabhubert for your directions on positioning the product — set the tone for our pitch!
1. One of the best changes in recent years is the GOP abandoning libertarianism. Here's GOP Rep. Greg Steube: “I do think there is an appetite amongst Republicans, if the Dems wanted to try to break up Big Tech, I think there is support for that."
2. And @RepKenBuck, who offered a thoughtful Third Way report on antitrust law in 2020, weighed in quite reasonably on Biden antitrust frameworks.
3. I believe this change is sincere because it's so pervasive and beginning to result in real policy changes. Example: The North Dakota GOP is taking on Apple's app store.
4. And yet there's a problem. The GOP establishment is still pro-big tech. Trump, despite some of his instincts, appointed pro-monopoly antitrust enforcers. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim helped big tech, and the antitrust case happened bc he was recused.
5. At the other sleepy antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Trump appointed commissioners
@FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC are both pro-monopoly. Both voted *against* the antitrust case on FB. That case was 3-2, with a GOP Chair and 2 Dems teaming up against 2 Rs.
2. And @RepKenBuck, who offered a thoughtful Third Way report on antitrust law in 2020, weighed in quite reasonably on Biden antitrust frameworks.
3. I believe this change is sincere because it's so pervasive and beginning to result in real policy changes. Example: The North Dakota GOP is taking on Apple's app store.
Republican North Dakota legislators have introduced #SB2333, a bill that prohibits large tech companies from locking their users into a single app store or payment processor.https://t.co/PgyhgOhFAl
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 11, 2021
1/ pic.twitter.com/KZ8BMFQoPO
4. And yet there's a problem. The GOP establishment is still pro-big tech. Trump, despite some of his instincts, appointed pro-monopoly antitrust enforcers. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim helped big tech, and the antitrust case happened bc he was recused.
5. At the other sleepy antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Trump appointed commissioners
@FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC are both pro-monopoly. Both voted *against* the antitrust case on FB. That case was 3-2, with a GOP Chair and 2 Dems teaming up against 2 Rs.
