Thank you Thursday! - (April 09, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Thank you Thursday! - (April 09, 2020)
- I found 18 growth hacking examples to inspire you for your next campaign. (Not only popular ones like Airbnb and Dropbox, even one from Tiger King).
- What industries do you guys think could utilize Pay Per View Live-streaming right now?
- Corona: What are you worrying about? What changes are you making to your business? (Or thinking about making?)
- Looking for free to use images, videos, icons, templates and more? Here is a curated library for them
- I am in need of partner
- Life savings advice?
- What’s next?
- US business bank account for foreign corporation
- What is a "sensible" business to start for a small time entrepreneur?
- Any self-made developers here?
- What is the best way to get an initial user
- Stimulous check ideas
- Are you working on a project that merges entrepreneurship and gaming? Maybe I could do an interview with you about it!
- To send or not to send your pitch deck?
- How to cheaply validate a product or business idea
- I own a sports website with 500K pegeviews per month. Need ideas on how to monetize
- Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
- How the “Slack vs Microsoft Teams” race evolves as the world switches to remote work
- Feedback on a vr service
- Believing in your new idea vs Entering a crowded market
- Performance Bonuses
- Bailing Out Small Businesses: Implementing The 2020 Cares Act
- KN95 Masks
- iIf a recession were to hit...
| Thank you Thursday! - (April 09, 2020) Posted: 09 Apr 2020 06:10 AM PDT Your opportunity to thank the /r/Entrepreneur community by offering free stuff, contests, discounts, electronic courses, ebooks and the best deals you know of. Please consolidate such offers here! Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:34 AM PDT Hey guys, I was looking for an inspiration for myself and compiled this list. I was coming across to popular examples like Uber and Airbnb, so I dived deeper into the growth hacking ocean to put something different on the table. I included both popular and unpopular hacks to the list to inspire you, so here I go. 1. Puma Puma asked Pele to tie his shoes before the kickoff and Pele did it. As expected, the cameras focused on Pele and his Puma's and made people realize the world's best footballer wore a Puma. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pele+tie+shoes According to the book "Three Stripes Versus Puma", Pele was paid $120,000 to crouch and lace his shoes. This might be the best case of influencer marketing until this day. Takeaway: Ask yourself who, when, where. Who can introduce your product to your target audience best? When is the right time and which online or offline platform can you use to get maximum exposure? 2. Unsplash Unsplash has a corner named "Collections". They ask influencers (mostly micro-influencers) and invite them to pick their favorite photos and create a collection. Then Unsplash promotes the collection on the website, newsletter and social media platforms. Flattering right? Yes, at least that's what the influencers think. The chosen influencers will often share their collections with their followers. And Unsplash gets free exposure + tons of user-generated content. Takeaway: People like to be praised and be the center of attention. You can benefit from other people's audiences. 3. Vitaly Uncensored This is quite unconventional and it's dangerous. Vitaly Uncensored is a strange adult jokes platform. And people barely knew they existed until the Champions League final in 2019. Until Kinsey Wolanski (co-founder and girlfriend of Vitaly) caused an international stir after running on to the pitch with a swimsuit written "Vitaly Uncensored" all over. Naturally, people searched for the term and social media platforms like twitter flooded with reactions. Vitaly Uncensored now has more than 32 million registered users and has raked in up to £3m in advertising as a result. And she was fined just £13,000. Takeaway: A Growth hacker doesn't always follow the rules. You can sometimes break them as long as it is bringing you growth. 4. Ahrefs Ahrefs can win the gold medal in the growth hacking Olympics. They're the most popular SEO tool and don't use Google Analytics. Neither do they use the Facebook Pixel. Instead, they hacked the most prominent SEO conference (Brighton SEO) with a 10 cent coffee cup. Imagine how much attraction they had at the conference. Everybody was instantly aware of the existence of Ahrefs; those cups worked as an ice-breaker to open new conversations and possibilities. Takeaway: Make a list of conferences and offline events that you can join. And think of how you can direct the conversation to your brand. 5. Gmail If you were an early adopter of Gmail, you'd remember this one. You could only create a Gmail account if a friend invited you. And every referrer had a limited amount of invites, which made it more exclusive and triggered the fear of missing out (FOMO) marketing technique. It was simultaneously so exclusive and so viral, some people auctioned Gmail invites on eBay. It worked well because Gmail was offering better features and quality of service compared to the alternatives in the market. Takeaway: Knowing behavioral psychology is a great asset for a growth hacker. Even a little psychological trick can be the foundation of a new growth hacking strategy. 6. Please don't tell Gmail used exclusivity and FOMO triggers in their digital marketing strategy. What if you want to do it offline? Crif Dogs is a hip place known for its innovative hot dogs. There is a strange vintage phone booth corner in the restaurant. One day, a person walked in and used the rotary dial phone and CLICK, a secret passage door opened to a cozy bar. And the bartender treated him with a tasty cocktail and gave a card to this lucky person on the card written: "Please Don't Tell". As you may relate, that person has felt like he discovered the most astounding secret in the world. He then talked about this experience to all of his friends and it caused a social chain reaction. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy transformed this place into the busiest bar in New York City. So busy it's almost impossible to make a reservation. Takeaway: If you can make someone feel special with a big secret, you can create a community of privileged brand advocates. 7. Zynga You must remember the era of FarmVille, MafiaWars or Zynga poker. These were the Facebook games that made addicts out of our friends, parents and loved ones. How? You know the classic pricing decoy: Small $3, medium $ 6.50 and large $7. Zynga re-engineered this by offering three choices to the user: grind, spam or pay. Well, since people didn't want to pay to continue playing games, they started to terrorize their friends by spamming them with invitations. This had a huge viral effect but after a while, Facebook put an end to this spamstorm. Takeaway: Try to approach popular marketing tactics from a different angle to create your own growth strategies. 8. CD Baby "Your order is on the way" you probably have received an email similar to this one. But I don't think you ever received something like what Derek Sivers wrote: Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! Thank you once again, Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby He spent 20 minutes writing this masterpiece and it exploded on the internet. This content got forwarded thousands of times, CD Baby got gazillions backlinks and new customers. Takeaway: Differentiate your e-mail marketing strategy or copywriting efforts. Sometimes it is as easy as to put a smile on your customers' faces.
The Tiger King docuseries on Netflix have reached super-hyped status. One of the protagonists is called Joe Exotic, he is a sympathetic asshole. But I was not aware that he's a badass growth hacker too. Joe Exotic intimidated his archenemy and biggest competitor by renaming his tiger show. Just to add context if you don't know the show. Joe Exotic keeps more than 200 tigers in his wildlife park. On the other hand, there is that lady (Carole Baskin) who is catter than cats and trying to save tigers under the banner of Big Cat Rescue. And they're trying to sabotage each other, all the time. So to get more visibility to his tiger show and steal Carole's audience, Joe Exotic started a new show under the name"Big Cat Rescue Entertainment". In the end, Carole sued Joe in a $1M lawsuit. Now, this obviously is not ethical and can hurt your reputation, I'm not suggesting you do the same. But this case can inspire you to be creative with your brand name. It could be interesting to include terms that people are already searching for.
Fortnite's growth hacking strategy has changed the way of marketing around games forever. Here is the default strategy of every game until the Fornite era.
That's why we see a new Call of Duty, Battlefield, Fifa and similar games each year. Well, Fortnite was not even popular in its first year but they found ways to retain their existing customer base with three tactics.
Every ten weeks, developers brought new mechanics, weapons, maps, characters and so on into the game. They announce these seasons with trailers and encourage gamers to create hype. So if you're a Fortnite player, you'll know, every ten weeks you'll have a new game to play.
They regularly launched new game modes for a limited time to create FOMO. And gamers kept coming back to not to miss this one-time experience. Meanwhile, they monetized the game by selling in-game items like character and weapon skins or dance moves. In a very short time, they acquired a huge fan base and created their own celebrity streamers. The rest is history. Takeaway: Acquisition is often an overrated aspect of marketing. In growth marketing, it's equally important to keep your current customers happy and transform them into your fans. (Focus on retention)
Crimibox is an online interactive detective game that lets you become a Sherlock of your case. We prepared a FB chatbot quiz themed "Which detective is hidden inside". The assumption: If they are interested in knowing which kind of detective they are, they are potentially also interested in solving a murder case. Crimibox asked several questions in a chatbot and helped them find out their inner detective. At the end of the quiz, they offer them to solve a murder case and direct them to the crime scene. This scene was Kickstarter. Crimibox increased its subscriber number from 2K to 10K in 15 days and successfully launched on Kickstarter! Why did it work?
12. Shazam What do you do when you Shazam a song? You try to suck up all sound from the music and Shazam does something quite ingenious at that moment. It encourages you to hold your phone up to speakers. And this move gets everyone curious like "Why the hell is she lifting her phone to the speakers?". So yes, this is nothing but a word-of-mouth marketing strategy at its best. It's not possible to measure the analytics or conversion rate but over 1 billion downloads say something.
How could a brand single-handedly take down the traditional taxi business? By knowing the enemy and the customer. Hailing a cab after a night out is a pain in the ass, likewise in bad weather conditions. Uber knew that, and at the beginning, they focused on these key events. They also picked a subtle fight with yellow cabs by highlighting the areas where Uber excels like; easy payment, lower prices and no more taxi-hailing. People that were using the service were coming back, so they offered a $20 free ride to the new users to lure them in. After that, things went very fast, now we look at taxis like they're an endangered animal. Takeaway: There is always room to fit in with your product and outsmart the competition. Understand your competitors, customers and the environment to come up with smart tactics. 14. Hotmail Hotmail's growth hacking strategy is super simple and many companies like Apple copy-pasted it. Hotmail placed a default signature line to every outgoing email and invited receivers to create a free account. Afterward, Apple and others used the same e-mail marketing strategy to spread awareness and grow their customer base. 15. Hubspot Hubspot created a free tool that measures your site's performance by grading key factors like SEO, mobile performance and so on. Then it gives you tips to optimize your site. People shared this tool with each other, it got many backlinks and quite a lot of attention on social media platforms as well. No surprise, Hubspot grew its email list and grew to 15.000 users with the help of this one tool. Takeaway: Many brands create little add-ons, apps and tools that solve a problem for their target audience. Afterward, they launch it on platforms like Product Hunt to get free exposure. 16. Airbnb Airbnb leeched its competitor Craigslist's blood and used them as a distribution channel for a long time. Their growth hacking strategy consisted of two parts. One They encourage their audience to cross-post their listing on Craigslist with a link back to their Airbnb profile. This way, hosts increased their chance to get rented and Airbnb got new users. Eventually, it got tons of free traffic and generated thousands of users. Two Next, they contacted existing Craigslist hosts and asked them to sign up on Airbnb. These two strategies helped them to grow their customer base and traffic without spending a dime. It worked because it was a win-win. Another one from Airbnb You know how important the pictures are when it comes to renting or buying a house. The founders of Airbnb knew this too. To grow bigger, they started to photograph their hosts' apartments. After the platform grew big enough, they hired an army of pro photographers to make their customers happy. And make some more $. Takeaways: Your target audience is already hanging out somewhere on the internet, find them and think of new ways to transform them into your customers. Don't expect value if you don't provide value. 17. Dollar Shave Club Picking a fight with a strong argument is a deadly growth hacking strategy. Dollar Shave Club used video marketing to declare war to razor industry giants by asking these simple questions: - Do you like spending $20 a month on a brand named razor? - Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle and flashlight? And Mike, the founder, gives the solution to his audience in this witty video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI&t=1s The video went viral and got 26M views. Please watch if you're not one of the 26M people. Takeaway: Think of a problem in your industry and, use content marketing, show how your product could solve this issue. Especially video marketing is an effective way to show your brand personality and deliver your message. You can learn everything you need to start with video marketing by reading this eBook: 18. Dropbox Dropbox is known for its creative onboarding process and referral program. The marketing strategy is quite simple. The product itself offers storage space in the cloud and they reward people with more space by gamifying the onboarding process. Just like in the story Hansel & Gretel, they embellish this hard process by offering little treats. And the main course was their referral program where they offered 500MB free extra storage. It works like this. You refer Dropbox to a friend, she signs up and you both get 500MB extra storage. 1 stone, 2 birds. So the cost of customer acquisition for Dropbox is 500MB. This is definitely one of the nastiest growth hacking techniques. Takeaway: One, If you can give extra value, you can make the onboarding process fun and rewarding for your users. Two, design a double-sided referral program. Offer something to the referrer and the referee. That's all folks! If you like it let me know in the comments. And if you want to read it on a blog with pictures and videos you can go here: https://www.grow-force.com/growth-hacking-examples/ If you don't know a lot about growth hacking this free course could help a lot. [link] [comments]  |
| What industries do you guys think could utilize Pay Per View Live-streaming right now? Posted: 09 Apr 2020 07:08 AM PDT Over the last few weeks I was thinking about live-streaming becoming more popular during the current Covid times. Also realized that Twitch and Youtube don't really let you put a paywall in front of a live-stream. So I made a site for musicians where they could have live-stream shows that fans would have to pay to view. Here's the site: www.Noonchorus.com I've been shopping it around with musicians and labels but I think they feel that live-streaming is mostly a promotional tool and having a pay to entry situation would defeat the purpose. Anyway I'm curious what you guys would do with this technology, who would you be going after as clients? Any thoughts let me know! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:09 PM PDT I wanted to chat about Corona virus and learn more about what experienced business owners are currently, or considering doing to pivot. What are your biggest concerns, and how are you changing your strategy to address them? Also what industry are you in? I wanted to get advice from a variety of different industries to spark some ideas for myself. Thanks for your help! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:14 PM PDT Searching for photos, illustrations for your blog posts or social media content can be a daunting process for many. Not only can it be a time-consuming process at times it can cost you quite a bit as well, especially if you are looking at the traditional stock image sites. Fortunately, there are dozens of sites that provide amazing free stock photos that you can use for FREE in commercial projects. And it's not just limited to photos, you have sites offering free icons, illustrations, music, videos, email templates and more. This is a website that lists out a lot of these resource in one handy list. https://allthefreestock.com/ - Bookmark it, commit it to memory or Google it whatever floats your boat... All The Free Stock. I hope it saves you folks some $$. Stay safe out there everyone. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:17 PM PDT Am looking for a partner to work with me on a social media campaign, the person should be good with social media marketing and publicity. Dm me if you are interested in trying new things this period. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:04 PM PDT I finished a 5 year Marine Corps contract a year ago. Good times, but I though the academic world was eagerly awaiting my arrival! Incorrect. I go to a well renowned university on Long Island, and whether it's the hands on mindset I learned in the Marines, or my own personal competitiveness I just can't see myself staying here. I need to own something, watch it grow, fail, try again, learn, and apply myself to something that matters. I have 60k saved up and I'm asking for the advice of some successful go - getters to give me some kind of path to either invest, or begin something of my own. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:38 PM PDT So I made my first online shop a few days ago and I don't know what to do next. I have a cool website, cool shirts, I'm running Instagram Ads and trying to keep a good social media presence. I haven't gotten any sales yet and I don't know what to do next. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| US business bank account for foreign corporation Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:30 PM PDT If a foreign corporation opens a US bank account, is it required to file in the US? Are there any tax implications for that company in the US? [link] [comments]  |
| What is a "sensible" business to start for a small time entrepreneur? Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:35 PM PDT I see a lot of posts about "big idea businesses", people aiming to launch the next big app or startup. But I am racking my brain for a "sensible" business to start in a time like this for a small-time entrepreneur. I closed my bar & restaurant in Downtown Atlanta because of the pandemic, like many others. Bar is typically healthy, but we had just gotten out of the slow season, took out a couple loans to float through that and this stuff strikes just before the Final Four in Atlanta (which would have been big money). Brutal. So I'm holding the bag, rent / utility bills are stacking up, current government help doesn't really fit our situation, and generally the prognosis is not good. I hope for the best, but as my godfather always used to say "wish in one hand, sh*t in the other: which one fills up faster?" So I would prefer to prepare for the worst. I don't know how to do anything but run a business, so I would like to figure out an industry to focus on and start building something up. I'm 39, I don't have any marketable passions or skills as a handyman, I have experience in IT as a Project Manager but haven't worked in the field since 2017. That being said, I'm open to virtually anything that I could reasonably do well and that would pay good money. The majority of things that I have looked into so far (from web design to dog poop scoop services) already looks flooded with too much competition. I've talked with people that have big ideas for startups, but most people are going for that "hits-driven" model, where the business takes years to make money, then it goes as big as Facebook or bust. I also see a lot of posts in here and in smallbusiness that many people suggest not having a business partner. I just want to find something sensible / dependable that pays well (if possible!). I have experience running a successful brick-and-mortar business in an industry with thin margins. I will work, I will endure hardship, and I will try to keep my expectations in line with reality, but if you would please share any ideas or suggestions as to what industry or avenue a person in my position should pursue, I would be very appreciative. Apologies if this type of post is frowned upon. I did look over the rules, but could have missed it. Only just recently migrated to Reddit since the pandemic, etc. Thank you again. [link] [comments]  |
| Any self-made developers here? Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:59 PM PDT Having been laid off right before covid-19, I was at a crossroads of what I should do next. Having just finished university in October with a degree in Marketing/Strategy I found a job in project management that I was in for nearly 3 months. I got laid off 1 week before my probation and right before Covid-19. I started learning coding recently and am looking to become a web developer. Is there anyone else out there who didn't finish a degree in computer science but were able to start a career in web development, I guess I'm looking for some inspiration to keep pushing on [link] [comments]  |
| What is the best way to get an initial user Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:59 PM PDT I newly released a platform for performing customer interview (with your target audience), there are 2 app.
I read the best ways to source your initial customers is to use friends and friend's referrals to tryout your app (so that what I'm trying).
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:44 PM PDT I run an online store that sells natural soaps. It's going well and it is targeted at the gaming community as a joke/gag gift (it's actual soap but it's marketed to be funny with it's packaging etc). Any ideas on how I could hit larger sale numbers when people(customers) get their stimulous? I was thinking about running a normal cell with a certain percent off each soap but I thought I'd ask for any ideas first as I'm sure I could do something better :D [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:32 AM PDT Hey everyone! I'm running a small podcast called IM Gaming which focuses on a space that combines the video game industry (on all levels), entrepreneurship and a bit of gaming nostalgia. Recently, I began doing interviews with people active in this sort of a broader domain. I plan on doing relatively short pieces (up to 40 minutes) where I talk to people with similar ventures. It's nothing too specific or in-depth, just basically a regular talk about your ideas and plans (which means anything that is in any way related to gaming and has a clear money making angle). If you're one of them, let me know either here or through direct messages! Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| To send or not to send your pitch deck? Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:01 AM PDT Reaching out to VC firms where some have asked for pitch decks if you to email them while others have simply asked to reach out if interested in connecting Is the mandatory to always send your pitch deck during first contact even if they don't ask? Would they even open it or click your link? [link] [comments]  |
| How to cheaply validate a product or business idea Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:46 PM PDT I'm taking the opportunity during the shut down to scale a flipping business (bad time to scale a flipping business I know but no better time for me personally). So far I have 3 Etsy stores and an eBay store built out for this venture. The goal is to scale out to >2k total product listings within the next month. One of the product categories that has been performing far better than I thought it would during the shut down is vintage children's books and games. It's also extremely hard to source these things online which sucks so that is what it is (board games screw you over on shipping because of the awkward size). I have inventory coming in within the next two weeks to scale up this category pretty well but I still wanted to explore the overall category more in the interim. I've never tried the whole t-shirt thing. I'm very familiar with the model and the tools that are out there, just never wanted to give it a go. With inventory being hard for me to source right now in this particular product category, I figured now is the perfect time to see if there's anything at all to the t-shirt thing. All in it took me a few hours to come up with some design ideas, build them out, and setup all the templates and products. If you're not particularly tech savvy it would probably take you a lot longer for all that but that's what it was for me. Now I am doing my version of validating the idea to see if it's something I might actually want to shoot a cannonball at (bullets before cannonballs always). My validation of this idea will cost me ~$20 plus the few hours of my time put into all of this. To boil down my validation steps, they're basically:
If test ads are somewhat successful: Fire more bullets and refine the ads/products. If test ad performance is abysmal: Continue free social media campaign advertising for one month. If that generates zero sales, abandon the concept entirely. I go a lot deeper into all of these things on my Youtube video if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/E4RzNzgTcuU [link] [comments]  |
| I own a sports website with 500K pegeviews per month. Need ideas on how to monetize Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:41 AM PDT I own a sports website with 500K pegeviews per month. Need ideas on how to monetize except for Ad Sense. It's a sports website for quick reads and long form articles about soccer. It is not in english. Can you guys please give me Ideas of ways I can monetize and clients I can reach? [link] [comments]  |
| Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy Posted: 09 Apr 2020 10:25 AM PDT About a month ago I was asked when speaking before a group about what I thought the biggest mistake was that businesses were making on Facebook. I replied, "lack of coherent strategy" and went on about how too many business pages seemed like they were posting for the sake of posting, that they didn't appear to move in any particular direction, and that they were managing their social media presence on a day to day basis. If I could take back the answer (or better yet, elaborate further), I would. I was wrong. The actual biggest mistake that businesses are making starts a step before the strategy phase and would, in most cases, cure the ills that businesses are suffering from their strategy (or lack thereof). It really comes down to goals and the fact that most businesses are not defining their goals from the beginning nor are they adjusting them as their Facebook presence expands. THIS is the actual biggest mistake that they're making. Every Facebook page should have a goal or set of goals that they want to achieve. Many will give a quick answer and say that their goal is to reach as many prospective customers and clients as possible, but this isn't a real goal. Even in reach, it's important to establish why you want to reach them and what messages you want them to receive. Are you wanting to reach them with your sales and marketing messages? Are you wanting them to see your logo and expand your branding? Are you wanting them to see that you're involved in the various local and industry-specific conversations that happen on social media? Keep in mind – "all of the above" is not a valid answer. That doesn't mean that you cannot have a robust and diverse presence on Facebook that tackles multiple opportunities, but from a strategy perspective, your message will get lost if you aren't reinforcing it regularly. On average, only 16% of your fans are seeing your message at all and that's if you're doing a pretty good job at keeping your EdgeRank strong. While diversifying your message is important, keeping focused on a singular strategy should overrule the desire to be eclectic. Do you have any strategies that you've considered? Is there a technique that you've found to be effective or one that you think would work? I'm classifying the various strategy types into two categories: safe and aggressive. As with setting goals, determining strategies should be focused. Don't try to bite off more than you can chew. You'll end up spitting it all out on the table and embarrassing yourself. [link] [comments]  |
| How the “Slack vs Microsoft Teams” race evolves as the world switches to remote work Posted: 09 Apr 2020 06:33 AM PDT After my recent essay "Slack vs Teams vs Workplace: The intriguing dynamics of the work messenger market," I didn't plan to revisit the competition between Slack and Microsoft Teams just yet. Despite the rapid development of the work communication market, it is still a B2B market that is changing relatively slowly. However, something extraordinary has happened: We are in the midst of one of the greatest "experiments" of our time, and a great part of the world has switched to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak has greatly sped up the development of remote work tools. This situation has propelled us several years ahead in time, much faster than it was destined to happen, allowing us to look into the future of the market today. Another reason to take a closer look at Slack vs Teams is that recently, a lot of new data has surfaced about Slack. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, several large companies decided to adopt Slack as the communication tool for all their employees, including IBM with its 350,000-strong workforce and Uber, which has more than 38,000 employees. The number of paid Slack customers has grown by more than 7,000 over the past one and a half months, surpassing the growth in the entire previous quarter. This week, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield shared the sequence of the recent events in a series of posts on Twitter, all of them conveying a clear message: Slack is growing very fast. All of the above made me doubt the assumptions I've made in my past essays, in which I didn't put too much faith in Slack's chances of winning the race against Microsoft Teams. In light of the new data, I decided to take another look at the market and figure out what was going on. And here's what I realized: Slack is a great business, but it still stands no chance against Microsoft Teams in dominating the messenger market. The recent weeks have further confirmed this assumption. Slack is growing fast, but is still losing its market shareThere's no doubt that Slack is growing really fast right now. Slack has added more paid customers in one and a half months (7,000) than it did in the previous quarter (5,000). The Slack team struck a number of major deals (IBM with over 350,000 employees, and Uber with 38,000 employees). Every hour, Slack is breaking the records for simultaneously connected users. But looking at Slack alone won't help us to understand what is really happening. Instead, we need to look at the bigger picture and compare Slack to other players in the market. In a previous essay, we discussed that a good proxy of the new users' dynamics of Slack, Teams and Workplace is their app download figures. Feel free to read more about it here. Compared to February, Slack's downloads have increased almost threefold. To be clear, the figures are very impressive (it is a very rapid growth for a B2B product). The growth dynamics also correspond with what we see on the graph above, which partly confirms the validity of the valuation method. Now comes the fun part. The chart below compares the dynamics of app downloads for Slack and Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams has experienced a significantly quicker growth than Slack has. While Slack was enjoying its threefold growth, Microsoft was registering a 10x spike in comparison to its previous quarter. And let's not forget that we are talking about growth from a higher ground than Slack's. Slack's line looks nearly flat in comparison to its Microsoft rival. The influx of new users to Teams now exceeds Slack's figures by more than 10 times. In order to grasp the more general context of the situation, let's look at the increase in the number of mobile app downloads of leading services used for remote teamwork. Slack's growth rate (2.7x) is the lowest among the most popular remote work tools. Zoom (11.4x), Teams (9.3x), and Hangouts (7.5x) are among the leaders here. Hangouts' numbers are likely to be a bit overestimated since Google is now migrating its users from Hangouts to Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. It is important to note this is not an effect caused by starting low. For example, Zoom has grown 8.5 times bigger than Slack. Teams, has grown from a base that was three times bigger than Slack's. How the growth models of Slack and Microsoft Teams workI took a look at this issue in detail in one of my previous essays. Below is a brief description of the growth models of the two products. Slack built an effective growth machine by using their bottom-up model: Using word-of-mouth, the free version of Slack finds a foothold into teams and then starts to grow inside companies (sometimes organically, and sometimes with the help of Slack's sales team, and sometimes in both ways simultaneously). In contrast, Teams prefers a top-down growth model. Microsoft has a unique distribution channel: Microsoft products for business (Office 365) are used by over 100M users from various industries across the world. Microsoft also has close relations with CIOs and heads of IT departments of large- and medium-sized companies, who can easily preinstall new services on their employees' computers using special software. By leveraging these distribution channels, and also by taking advantage of the transition of Skype for Business users to the new service, Microsoft was able to show phenomenal growth for Microsoft Teams over the past two years. You can read more about Teams' growth model here. According to the latest data, Teams' DAU exceeded 44M users, and in recent weeks it has grown by 12M, which is equal to Slack's entire DAU in September 2019. Why is Microsoft Teams growing much quicker than Slack during the shift to remote work?To answer this question, let's look at how exactly the mass transition to remote work tools has affected the growth of Slack and Microsoft Teams. The first driver of growth is the increase in online activities of the current users. Due to the current circumstance and the impossibility of in-person meetings, users are forced to perform a greater number of tasks using messenger apps. I suppose that in this case the Teams' growth was greater because in the IT industry, where Slack has a strong position, companies had already moved a significant part of their communication online before the recent events. The same can't be said for non-IT organizations, where Teams is having a bigger success. The second growth driver was a sharp increase in the number of new users within organizations that are already using Teams or Slack (i.e. the growth of old cohorts). To make remote work effective with the help of a corporate messenger, one needs to make sure the whole team or company is using it. Transitioning to remote work has sped up the process of launching Slack and Teams to all users in organizations where one of these messengers is already being used. I believe that in this case, Slack's growth was stronger than Teams' due to bottom-up and top-down growth models strategies' aspects. With a bottom-up strategy, an average company's penetration is usually lower, which means that there is a bigger growth potential. The third growth driver is somewhat similar to the second one, but it is associated with the return of organizations that had at some point tried the product but stopped using it. For example, in Italy, Slack observed a 120% increase in the number of new "retaining teams." In Japan and Korea the numbers are 34% and 33%. Most likely, in this case the growth of the two products is comparable. The fourth growth driver is the new users from new companies that haven't used the service before. From my point of view, this is exactly where Teams has secured a significant advantage over Slack. The massive transition to remote work has amplified each messenger product's acquisition channels for new organizations. This means that a lot of new teams and small companies from the SMB (small and medium-sized business) segment are now coming to Slack. This proves to be correct if we look at the number of new teams Slack's CEO presented. A large influx of new teams is good news for Slack, but this is only the beginning of their long sale cycle. It may take these teams years to adopt Slack as the default communication tool in the whole company. Teams has a completely different customer acquisition model. Their main growth channel is built around direct access to its Office 365 customers—the Teams product is a free part of it. Due to the recent events, many companies are preparing to make the transition to a remote mode, and Teams happens to be the most accessible option for them. Unlike Slack's complicated way to enter the company, Teams can be easily installed on the computers of all company employees in just a few clicks by IT staff who can pre-install and update Microsoft products on devices. Sale cycle length, free vs paid, no differentiations on a product between the two products Unlike Slack, which is growing through the bottom-up model, Teams' growth cycle in a particular company (from the start of using Teams inside the company to launching it for all of the company's employees) is much shorter. Also take note that the average size of organizations that use Teams is significantly larger than Slack's. The price has to do a lot with it when it comes to choosing between the two work messengers. Teams is a free addition to Office 365 that most companies are already paying for, while Slack is a quite expensive standalone product. Price becomes an extremely important factor when choosing between the two similar products in the face of an impending recession and an economic crisis (these two are practically indistinguishable for people outside the IT world). You might think of IBM and Uber's decision to choose Slack as a counterargument to my statement about the price and similarity of the two products. First, these are IT companies, where employees—especially developers—make their voices heard, something that doesn't happen very often in other industries. Second, we are talking about companies where people have started using Slack many years ago, and the product has managed to organically penetrate in a large number of teams. For IBM and Uber, migrating to a new messenger would be more expensive than offering Slack to all employees. Slack's key problem within the context of their future growth is the following: Microsoft doesn't plan to give them a few years' head start in other large companies. When choosing Slack vs Teams under equal conditions outside the IT industry, Teams looks much more preferable. Closing thoughtsSlack is growing rapidly indeed, but slower than its main competitor. This means it continues to lose its market share in the corporate communication tool market. Microsoft Teams has a stronger strategic position and continues to take over the enterprise segment, consolidating a leadership position for itself. Another interesting question about a slightly more distant future was asked by Stewart Butterfield himself: In your opinion, which customer base is more resistant to the economic turbulence that looms on the horizon? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:22 PM PDT Hey guys, I've been thinking of starting a vr rental service. The basic idea is that we rent customers a package that consists of a valve index, a gaming laptop and Bunch of popular steam titles. half life: alyx, pavlov etc. Would you be interested in a service like this? What do you think would be the right price for a service like this? [link] [comments]  |
| Believing in your new idea vs Entering a crowded market Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:29 AM PDT I feel like everytime I come up with an idea im excited about starting, I do some initial research to see if a product or content like that exists already....and then I find like a hundred examples, sometimes with the exact name or branding idea I had in mind. I typically get discouraged from ever starting each time I see this. For those with experience, where is the line in believing in your idea vs what the competition looks like? Should I just start? Should I develop the idea more? or that I sign I should look elsewhere? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:14 PM PDT I know it's a weird time to ask about this, but what way do you give performance bonuses? Before I struck out on my own, I experienced several different methods.
I like #3 the best with #2 a close second. [link] [comments]  |
| Bailing Out Small Businesses: Implementing The 2020 Cares Act Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:12 PM PDT The Small Business administration and the Treasury Department are co-organizing the Payment Protection Program, a program designed to guarantee bank loans to small businesses. This is what this program looks like and why it's struggling to be implemented. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:43 PM PDT I do have some masks if anyones business, family friends need them.. etc. Reach out 50 minimum I do have bulk pricing. I hope I can help they're as cheap as I could get them for and they're ready to ship stateside. [link] [comments]  |
| iIf a recession were to hit... Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:58 AM PDT What business would you start in a recession? Like full on 1930s style depression. Apparently there is one heading this way fast and I know I'll lose my career over it so time to future plan, what's a good business to run or a way to make money in a recession? [link] [comments]  |
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