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

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

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

Great talk from a company that shut down one year later

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?"

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

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."

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.

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.

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!

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

So glad I signed up for this class

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Homejoy shut down in 2015 due to poor customer retention rates, high customer acquisition costs" Irony 😂

This is the lean startup framework. It's incredible

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

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

Great lecture, wish she used less "you know"

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

too many "you know.." :(

nearly falling asleep. emotionless speach. however good material.

Content was good.. Very poor delivery.. Other lectures so far have had way more inspiring speakers!

Mistakes are fundamental and it is the heart and core of startups.

So far the best speak.

44:10 - Czechoslovakia is not a country anymore.

noob approach 1. build product in secret 2. exclusive press launch 3. wait for users 4. buy users 5. give up

The section with LTV and CAC is so valuable

she did a great job!!!!!...i loved this

There are many positive feedback here. One of the lesson from it is: **Users give different feedback depending upon whether the product/service is paid or free** (@21:10). Note that this video is delivered for free. Is there a possibility that they leave those positive feedback because it's free?

Why their company failed then?

Great stuff I'm learning a lot

Tooo uch information in one lecture. So many questions and so many points,terms that i couldn't understand.

Czech Republic. Slovakia is now independent.

So ship the product free for friends and family get the feedback and ship to random people while selling them.

this one is really useful, not blablabla startup blablabla growth

so objective, practical and clear

Takeaways... Anything is possible

The HomeJoy were shut down

learned a lot.

"what happens when you clean their house and they refuse to pay?" "you shit on their floor and leave"

I was doubtful regarding her principles from the start of the lecture, I was wondering how she created such a successful start-up. Then I looked about it on Wikipedia and was ooh.

Lean Startup + Customer Development + Woman without big vision

Pretty simple stuff, but well presented.

This is great. I'm surprised at the thumbs up ratio.

Good points at 45:30, 49:47, & 52:00

This was very useful. Thank you.

Yeah, and her business failed in 2015, after 1 year from the speech

so unclear....WHAT DID U DO AT THE FAIR? did u pitch them at the fair? did u put a label on the bottle , did u force them to sign up before u gave them the water?

at 1:13 it already looks intriguing :) THANK YOU!

Good points + nice presentation

nice content but i found that there is a lot of abbreviation needs to be explained, Thanks!

Didn't Homejoy die recently?

“You should, you should. You know, you know “ is half of what she’s saying.. very hard to listen and follow.

The amount of money PPl return back to u is that more than your cac ? (Customer acquisition cost ) CLV - CAC = 0 then it's okay / if more than 0 ur gaining profit

It is a wonderful session

1 year later, and they're out of business. probably should not take too much away from this webinar. they grew too fast.

GOLD

I felt like I was left Fielder, center Fielder, right Fielder and short stop trying to catch her fragmentation. Wow. That is not easy for my ADD.

Just awesome

Great. Thank you.

great talk.

Great :) Thnx!

Finished, thanks

Her hair is so shiny!

Abiut which Project/Startup is she speaking around 04:00 ??

Damn! Homejoy shutdown

Ppt text font and size manipulation is not good Sam's ppt were more eye catching

I'll skip this because Adora doesn't have any successful experience. I prefer listening to real business owners than failed startupers (indistinguishable from con artists). Show me you can actually build a profitable business before lecturing. Otherwise the playlist is awesome.

what is clv(ijk)

Andddd her company failed

> So a lot of it comes from failure Yeah

4th Video of the Day.

nice insights

Good content but so painful to listen to

then why homejoy is failed at 2022

Way too many "youknows" but quite helpful lecture.

44:20 -Czechoslovakia doesn't a exist since like 25 years!

very helpfull

Eyebrows have left the chat

35:44 good ol' 2014, she would get cancelled for saying that today!

Who the heck doesn't know how to clean??

There is lots of break in your talk with distract me from concentrating from what do you want to convey. I have learn a lots of thing from this video but still this can be make more valuable if you say smoothly all what you want to convey. Thank You hoping to get more values in future.

21:17 #honestycurve

btw it's the Czech Republic and Slovakia since 1993..

...you know...

Great lecture! Well done!

there is no more Czechoslovakia... Its Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. 44:00 You Big Bang Theory Watching Americans oh my xd

Such a disappointing lecture. Low information/word ratio. Considering how much emphasis YC puts on building product and talking to users, you'd think they would have let a better entrepreneur and speaker give this lecture. And maybe do more than just 1/20 lectures on the things you should be doing most of the time.

51:00

21:10

essentially incoherent

30

the only boring lecture of this series till now.

You know

homejoy went bust