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

So you have an idea. How do you go from zero users to many users?Adora Cheung, Founder of Homejoy, covers Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing, in Lecture 4 of How to Start a Startup.

[Alexxxandra]

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

[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?"

[Nesamag]

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

[johnnysun]

Great talk from a company that shut down one year later

[michaell]

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

[tassv]

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

[wiseheroes]

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."

[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.

[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.

[MrRsheeler]

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

[paulholsters]

So amazing these lectures. All these insights for free. It's insane.

[crumbledcookie]

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

[lunaticzr]

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!

[josephc.]

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

[vojtechbasta]

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

[Fedoranimus]

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

[bmejia]

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

[rammilanyadav]

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

[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

[DaRealMidnight]

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