Readers,
As you can tell, I’ve been a bit more active writing in the last few months. I wanted to do a quick roundup of my essays over the last year, in case you’ve missed any of them. I’ve published a number of guest essays and original writing on topics like growth metrics, consumer psych, the startup ecosystem in the Bay Area, push notifications, and much more.
If you want future updates, you can always subscribe to get the newsletter.
For your convenience, I’ve written a couple blurbs underneath each essay so you can get a sense for each article.
Finally, I wanted to note – can you believe I’ve been writing for almost 11 years now? Who knew I’d be able to keep it up for so long?! Appreciate all the folks who’ve been with me for years. Thank you for reading!
Regards,
Andrew Chen
San Francisco, California
Original essays
10 years in the Bay Area – what I’ve learned
I’ve lived here for the last decade, and have learned a ton of about this region’s entrepreneurial drive, the unique culture, and wonderful folks. I wanted to share a couple lessons learned here.
The Bad Product Fallacy: Don’t confuse “I don’t like it” with “That’s a bad product and it’ll fail”
Your personal use cases and opinion are a shitty predictor of a product’s future success.
Growth is getting hard from intensive competition, consolidation, and saturation
It’s the end of a cycle, and we’re seeing headwinds on paid channels, banner blindless, competitive dynamics, and more. And it’s much harder to compete with boredom than with Facebook/Google/etc.
What 671 million push notifications say about how people spend their day
Here’s a study, based on Leanplum’s data, on how people spend their days – on sports, leisure, phone calls, and otherwise – in addition to what tech platforms they’re using.
Startups and big cos should approach growth differently (Video)
Here’s a video interview breaking down how startups evolve and change their strategies as they gain initial traction, hit product market fit, and eventually start to scale.
What’s next in growth? (Presentation at Australia’s StartCon)
Last year I presented this talk on how marketing has evolved over the last century, and how many of the ideas we think of as “growth” today are actually based on concepts from decades ago. I use this to talk about future platforms and where this might all go.
Uber’s virtuous cycle. Geographic density, hyperlocal marketplaces, and why drivers are key
In my last two years at Uber, I’ve learned a ton about the flywheel that makes Uber’s core business hum and grow incredibly fast. In this essay I draw from Bill Gurley’s essays on network effects, the labor market for part-time workers (aka drivers, “the supply side”), and how surge works within the company. A lot has evolved/changed since I’ve written this, but it’s a good overview from my first year of learnings.
Guest essays
How To (Actually) Calculate CAC
Brian Balfour, ex-vp growth at Hubspot, talks about how to calculate cost of acquisition and all the practical difficulties involved.
A Practitioner’s Guide to Net Promoter Score
Sachin Rekhi, ex-director product at Linkedin, breaks down how to measure and utilize Net Promoter Score and its relation to viral growth.
Growth Interview Questions from Atlassian, SurveyMonkey, Gusto and Hubspot
Lots of amazing interview questions from the growth leads at some of the best SaaS companies on the market.
Psych’d: A new user psychology framework for increasing funnel conversion
Darius Contractor at Dropbox describes a framework on pushing users through conversion funnels by getting them psych’d (via value prop, clear CTAs, etc). Nice framework that speaks to reducing friction and increasing value.
Top essays from 2015
This roundup, but from two years ago :) Includes writing about Uber, online dating, push notifications, Apple Watch, and more.
