Finding your product's aha moment, and checking it's real
Members of the Growth work group on watching users, testing candidate events against retention, and picking which one to work on first.
Updated
Watch new users do the job they came for, turn what they valued into a few measurable candidates, and check each against later retention for the users you built the product for.
- Start by watching new users. Lauryn Motamedi would watch people try the job they signed up for, then ask what they wanted. At Airtable, building a base with real entries and bringing in a collaborator marked users much more likely to still be there six months later.
- Work back from the behavior that shows value. Casey Winters describes Pinterest moving from monthly visits, which notifications could drive, to weekly repinning, and Grubhub using a second order within 30 days. Both set the window by how often the need recurs. Brian Balfour makes the same point with meditation, a new routine, against sleep, which already happens every day.
- Check that the event survives an onboarding change. Hila Qu cites a Jira team that pre-created three tickets for new users and got more completions with no extra retention. She would report three numbers per segment: who completes the action, who returns after a week, and who is still active later.
- Check what users do next. Albert Cheng would look at the behavior after the candidate moment: at Chess.com, a second game a player chose to start, or a return to practice after a first lesson. Lauryn would keep the definition broad enough to cover several paths, and revisit it as the user mix changes.
- Work first where the most target users fail. Brian would pick the candidate with the biggest drop-off among users the product was built for, since a strong predictor that almost everyone already reaches leaves little room to improve. He would test one path at a time and read the action and the later return separately.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do you choose a startup's first growth channel?
Pick a channel the product can feed, test it with one narrow segment on a set budget and date, and judge it by how many users reach value and come back.
What should a founder check first when growth stalls?
That the data is right, then cohort retention split by segment and channel. If curves trend toward zero in every slice, fix the product before spending more on acquisition.
How do you tell a growth problem from a product problem?
Bring in a small batch of users from one clean channel and read their cohorts. If they activate and return but there aren't many, it's distribution. If they leave within the first week, product owns the fix.
What moves activation in a new user's first few days?
Find where users drop, then match the lever: pre-answer setup for users who stall, make the first action an earned win for users who feel nothing, and bring back users who got value.
Who should own acquisition and retention, growth or marketing?
Most members would split near signup, with marketing on channels and the promise and growth on the path to first value. The line still has to follow the growth model, and both teams judge channels by the cohorts that stay.
Should a growth team report to product or marketing?
Wherever the biggest lever is. For most product-led companies that is product, next to core rather than inside it, and once paid spend matters too, one growth leader owns acquisition and activation.
Which lifecycle emails should a team build first?
The ones aimed at the steepest drop on the retention curve, usually the activation email. Depth and renewal emails come next, and win-back to fully churned users comes last.
How do you bring back signups who went quiet?
Watch a few try the next step and fix where they stall, then test the message with and without the fix against a holdout, and count retained use rather than opens.
When should a product-led company add sales?
A founder can start working accounts where usage is spreading and retaining. A sales team follows once deals need security reviews and procurement that self-serve can't handle.
Which self-serve accounts should a sales rep call?
Ones big enough to pay for a rep's time, with use spreading inside the company and a need self-serve can't meet. Hold some flagged accounts back to check that sales added value.
Which early action should count as activation?
Use two measures: an early action onboarding can move as the team's operating metric, and a later repeat action to check that those users came back. Randomize the onboarding change so motivated users don't skew the read.
What makes a good north star metric for an early product?
A retention measure built from how often the problem occurs, the action that solves it and the user it describes, with activation as an input. Drop it if the team can raise it without users getting more value.
Should a new marketplace build supply or demand first?
Whichever side gets a buyer to a completed transaction while giving the supplier a reason to stay. Start in one narrow market and track matches, supplier earnings and repeat buyers.
When can a marketplace copy its first city?
When service holds after subsidies come down, a new manager can run the launch playbook without the founders, and the team knows whether the channel behind market one's demand starts warm or cold in the next market.
How should you test a landing page?
Show visitors what they searched for before the ask, start with the page's first clear funnel drop, and count activated users per visitor alongside signups.
Should a startup with a few dozen users stop acquisition?
Stop broad acquisition but keep a small hand-picked flow from one segment, onboard those users live, and count only return visits nobody prompted.
How does a B2B startup find its first paying customers?
Have founders sell by hand to one narrow buyer, starting with warm intros and asking for payment early. Then check who actually paid, and at what price, before choosing a channel to scale.
