PREPARING YOUR STARTUP FOR HIGH GROWTH

PREPARED FOR: IGNITE MANCHESTER COHORT 1BY: ANDREW ALLSOP

I’ve worked with...

Find me...allsop.andrew@gmail.com @andrewallsop imaa.io (under construction!)

https://medium.com/@AndrewAllsop

http://meetup.com/Manchester-Startup-Growth/

WHAT THIS IS

Scaleable

Repeatable

Basis in marketing

Driven by product

Inspired by data

WHAT THIS IS

A practical process to...

LearnPrioritise

& Execute

...ways to help MORE PEOPLE experience MORE VALUE from your product.

WHAT THIS IS

Identify the core value you offer more than anyone else - your A-ha!/WOW moment

(ask your users, market | predictive metrics)

Test, measure and experiment with ways to make more people experience it

Examples

Bspottedgot more than 3 replies in their first 7 days

LumiciHad more than 20% of their courses completed

Theluxecome back and repurchase after 30 days

ArtWishListSold more than 3 pieces of art

WeGymGet replies to 4 of their messages after 30 days

Global DormInvited their membership lists

RecrvtSuccessfully placed a candidate in their first month

MuaMuaReceived 3 or more bookings a month

Flyr% of searches that resulted in bookings

SocialyBought/sold 3 pieces of content

The number of users who...

WHY GROWTH

The expectations for a high growth software company have changed

Bootstrap AngelSeed

Series

Series/IPO/Acquisition

TIME

USE

RS/

REV

ENU

E

WHY GROWTH

Popular channels get crowded very fast

Ad Spend by Consumer

WHY GROWTH

Different set of skills than traditional marketing

PRODUCT

TECHANALYTICS

SKILLS

ACQUISITION

ACTIVATION

RETENTION

REVENUE

REFERRAL

WHY GROWTH

Ultimately...

97% of startups fail because they don’t have a market, not because of

poor engineering

Origins

Buy some AdWordsBig TechCrunch launch

Hire a PR firm and a VP of Marketing

Result~100,000 users

Cost Per Acquisition: £300Customer Lifetime Value: < £100

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/gueste94e4c/dropbox-startup-lessons-learned-3836587/32-Results_ulliSeptember_2008_100000_registered

2-sided Incentive

Results

15 months later: 4,000,000 usersover 55% from referral, viral and sharing features

These aren’t anomalies

But don’t get caught up trying to get that one special tactic. Focus on

execution and learning. It will come.

THREE MISTAKES THAT WILL DAMPEN YOUR POTENTIAL TO GROW

1LACK OF FOCUS

Hiring a growth hacker

Lack Of Focus

“The only way to tackle growth is to get the whole

team focussed on it”Sean Ellis

Lack of Focus

LAW OF CONTRACTION

YOU CAN BE ANYTHING TO ANYONE BUT YOU CAN’T BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE

-juststartupthings-

Lack Of Focus

Lack Of Focus

Not choosing/discovering a market

2Trying To Scale

Prematurely

Traction Transition Growth

Goal Product-Market Fit Discovering Growth Levers

Turning Up Growth Levers

Metric Retention Growth RateCPA = LTV, Payback < 3 months

Growth RateCPA < LTV, Payback > 3 months

Volume Find a steady stream Increase the flow Release the Kraken

Channels Experiment with ⅔ in order to find one that

works1 > 1

Optimization Macro Macro + Micro Micro

Organization

Scaling Prematurely

Scaling Prematurely

WHY GROWTH

Ultimately...

97% of startups fail because they don’t have a market, not because of

poor engineering

3Putting Excitement

Before Effectiveness

Startup≠Normal Business

≠

Excitement Before Effectiveness

THE PROCESS

THE PROCESS

MODEL

BENCHMARK

FOCUS

BRAINSTORM & BACKLOG

PRIORITISE

TEST

ANALYSE

SYSTEMISE

MODELA quantified model of your company

Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics*

The Lean Marketing Funnel

Signups, Data In, Subscribed, Churned

Spreadsheets, Mixpanel or Amplitude

Fill up the backlog in your growth Trello Board

PRIORITISEICE score

IMPACT - WHAT WILL THE IMPACT BE IF THIS WORKS?

CONFIDENCE - HOW CONFIDENT AM I THIS WILL WORK?

EFFORT - HOW MUCH RESOURCES ARE REQUIRED?

Use your growth documents to write upyour hypothesis

HYPOTHESIS

BECAUSE WE SAW (DATA/FEEDBACK), WE EXPECT THAT (CHANGE) WILL CAUSE

(IMPACT). WE WILL MEASURE THIS USING (METRIC)

TESTWhat is the least resource intensive way to gather data about the hypothesis?

Use your growth documents to write up

your design so anyone can understand

the context and improve learnings

ANALYSIS

Was this experiment a success/failure?

What was the impact?

WHY did I see the results I did?

update me

SYSTEMIZE

Take feedback

Create new experiments

Productise/Systemise/Playbook-ise

WITHOUT A PROCESS

SUCCESS = LUCK

WITH A PROCESS

CREATIVITY + RESOURCES

TIMECHANCE ofSUCCESS =

ToolsAcquisition

Advertising / Retargeting: Adroll, Dataxu, Facebook, Twitter, Google Adwords, BuySellAds, PerfectAudienceAttribution: Appsflyer, Attribution, Convertro, Mobile App Tracking, AdjustConversion optimization: Optimizely, Leanplum, Taplytics, VWO, Formisimo

Activation

Marketing automation: Autopilot, Iterable, Marketo, Customer.io, VeroFunnel analysis: Mixpanel, Amplitude, Indicative, KISSmetricsHeatmapping: CrazyEgg, Inspectlet, LuckyOrange, MouseFlow, MouseStats, Navilytics, FullStory

Retention

Marketing automation: Autopilot, Iterable, Marketo, Customer.io, VeroPush notifications: Outbound.io, Kahuna, LeanplumCustomer communication: Intercom, AppboyNPS, surveys: Delighted, QualarooCustomer success: Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gainsight, Totango, UservoiceChurn Insight: Framed.io

Revenue

CRM: Salesforce, Pipedrive, HubspotEcommerce analytics: Baremetrics

Referral

Referral Management: SaaSquatch, Talkable, Extole

Feedback, Comms & Analytics Tools - Qualitative

The tools in this category include:

● Surveys/NPS: AskNicely, Promoter, Uservoice, Satismeter, Wootric, Qualaroo, WebEngage, Delighted

● LiveChat: LiveChat, Olark, SnapEngage, Userlike, Intercom● Heat Mapping: CrazyEgg, Inspectlet, LuckyOrange, MouseFlow, MouseStats, Navilytics,

FullStory

Feedback, Comms & Analytics Tools - Quantitative

Web Analytics: Google Analytics

● Behavioral Analytics: Mixpanel, Amplitude, Indicative, Keen.IO, Heap● A/B Testing: Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer● Real-time Analytics: GoSquared, Chartbeat

RECOMMENDED STARTER STACKGoogle Tag Manager

Google Analytics

Segment.com**

Mixpanel/Amplitude

Optimizely

HotJar

AdWords/Facebook/Twitter

TO DO by Next MonthInstall the starter stack or equivalent

Build a quantified model of your company

Choose one area of the AARRR funnel that you think is causing the biggest bottleneck for your users

Brainstorm 20 ideas that could help improve it and include them in your experiments backlog in Trello or Projects.GrowthHackers.com

Further ResourcesEvent Tracking Spec template

Growth Project Management Trello Board

Example Growth Documents

Quant. SaaS Framework spreadsheet

Quant. Marketplace Framework spreadsheet