Episode 9: GOJEK’s Growth Dilemma

Welcome. To go figure my, name is Nadine McCarran CEO and Founder go-jek Southeast, Asia's first super app go. Jack does ride-hailing food, delivery, payments. Even, on-demand massages. You name it you do it go, figure is a podcast. Dedicated. To expose the inner workings, of ambitious. Tech companies in the emerging, world we. Like to talk about things we like and, talk about things together, there. Are a lot of myths out there that we want to dispel, so. Keeping it real is kind of a mantra hope. You enjoy. Hey, guys welcome. To go figure. Thanks, for being here thank you for having us thank you awesome I am here sitting with crystal. Our. Head, of growth platforms. And. Jasper. Over, here who is one of our heads of marketing, and today. We are going to be discussing. Growth. What. Does that mean to, grow a business, in the tech space what. Are the pitfalls of, growth. What. Are the misconceptions people. May have about it and, I'm. Sure this, will be quite. A lively debate because, everyone here is very opinionated well, what growth means so. Let's let's let's start with what growth means let's let's start with the scope itself, what is growth what is the user growth is that what we're talking about here. Is. It transactions. Growth what is it so my definition, of growth is market. Check rather a market, check what market is always based on two things one is penetration, and the other one is purchase, frequency penetration. Times bridges frequency is market share so that's, my definition of, growth, growing your market share in your particular category, I think. For me market, the the market share analogy. Works with. The already, established businesses but given, kojic is and so I guess, newer verticals. I think of growth as the, expansion. And education. As well as penetration, of the, true. Awareness. Of your product in the market and that would cover things like whether or not they understand, what your product does whether, or not they find it easy to use and whether or not it truly solves, a problem that they consider, a problem. Okay. Well, I think, that one. Of the. Biggest. Debates about. How to grow a business is. How. Much effort do we invest, in. Spending. Money to grow the business and how, much effort do we spend on. Non-financial. Improvements. In the product, or experiments. Right these. This is an ongoing debate, both take engineering resource. Which is the most valuable resource one, takes a lot more money obviously, than, the other but, both are valuable where do we strike the balance between financial. Incentives, and non-financial, incentives, in growing a business, I. Think. Incentives can give you the jump start to get a large, enough user base to understand how users are interacting with the product so promotions.

Or Discounts, can be used to leverage a. Position. In the market and put yourself against the competitor, and move, their user base to yours for you know that given point of time but, I think that to continue, spending. Without. A clear strategy or a reason why promotions. And discounts are really a tactic, and tactics, should be applied to a longer term strategy and so, with growth, what we do is we will use vouchers, or you, know discounts, or promotions. In order, to, attract. Users to complete, an action or encourage. Or incentivize, them to do, a certain, type of behavior whether. That be topping. Up for the very first time or doing. Your third. Right transaction. But, you still need that little, top. Of my nudge in order. To complete that behavior, but the behavior, itself in this. Example. Would. Be, part. Of a longer-term strategy so that you can evaluate whether or not that third transaction, really, is important, and not, just for the sake of trying to get people to 3 transactions, is. There like a specific. Moment. Or threshold, by which you decide ok now it's time to spend, money on this product and, could. You spend money on a product that is actually extremely. Wasteful, to spend money on it initially, well what's what's, the criteria, to use whether alright now it's time I. Think. When enough users understand, what the product is then, you can start spending money if money is being used to, in. In, a. Way, to replace, they go to market strategy I don't think that that's a good way to use money for. Example I think you, know movie paths are. We allowed to name. A. Movie, passes an example where you know you are using a high subsidy, model, just, to get people in the door but that the strategy never changes, or it never evolves. To pivot, users to different types of behaviors, so, for, us for example I can say where we decided. Not to spend. Money when, we run an experiment, we. Have. An understanding, that you know many. Of our power users use us in the morning rush hours now, that hypothesis. As a group we discussed, and, figure. Out that, morning. Rush hour is actually. The longer, commute time than evening rush hour because most people have to get, to work by a certain time but, most people can you know wait to leave work. At, a time that is less I guess, has less traffic and. So we, assume that given, users experience a high, amount of core value during. Morning rush hour because we are saving them so much time because we get them through traffic that. Is how we get the best power users and so we created a feature to. Provide. Vouchers. That, were only, usable during, morning rush hours, now. To, test, whether or not that incentive, worked. You're. Not really you're not really testing the instead of itself you're using the incentive, as a, tactic, to, understand. The strategy, of. Using. Early. Morning rush hour as a way to acquire new, power users, and, so, when we ran that experiment, you have an a/b test where the control group gets, to use the, voucher at any time of the day or only during, the rush hour period. And then the experiment, group is only allowed to use that voucher let's say you know between the early morning rush hours but. What, happened, was you know our users did not actually. Increase. Their power hood' their, power user likelihoods, and so, that was a signal to us that incentivizing. That behavior isn't worth it and so we killed that experiment, we just just for. To. Kind of highlight. The, scale of magnitude, of what your product, group does, how many experiments, are. Actually running right. Now today, on the go-jek platform. You. Give us a number dozens, probably I doesn't, right now, we launched at least one experiment, per day on. Average on, average a, new one yes but then experiments, are running in parallel parallel all the time with different segments, exactly, price points etc and, so, basically, I, think. What. What what's critical, I think for the audience to know is that growth. Is such an important. Part. Of go-jacks, success. And potentially. Failure it doesn't, work. Out well that we've created an entire product group at the same level as like food, like, from delivery or transport, called which, is what you lead growth, platforms. That, rapidly, becomes, the voice of truth, instead. Of Nadeem, telling, crystal we, need to launch, this kind of a promo on go ride using, like go PayPal jours etc, crystal, is the person who goes wait, a second, you. Are not the voice of truth my, experiment, will be the voice of truth and let's see if your assumption is correct, exactly, yeah and I think that a lot of that investment, is. Multiplied. There are impact multipliers, across the org helping, in this from, the performance.

Marketing Teams who run you know App Store optimization, experiments. To the data science teams who help with creating the framework so by which we constitute. Whether or not something is successful or statistically, significant, so there's, a lot of work cross-functionally. That goes into this okay you mentioned about performance, marketing there, this. Is this is one thing that I think is very interesting jasper, we've had mold, about. This and I think you've shed a lot of insight on this. Conventionally. Tech. Companies, a lot, of them have this mindset and we used to have that mindset as well in the beginning that. Digital. Marketing. Online. Marketing is. By, far a, superior. Form, of. User. Acquisition and. Awareness. Because, it's attributable, you, can directly link it to an install, or a conversion. On our platform, and many. People believe that you know offline, marketing, TV. Magazines. Billboards. Are. A waste, of money because you can't attribute it to shame. Right so. What. Is your opinion of this and is, that true, so. Like I think - I think there are two things in what you're saying but one is attribution, can you attribute a, action, to a certain channel that a user has seen and the other one is measurable like yes you can measure, digital. Clicks digital, actions but the attribution, if, someone, downloads our app and like. Books a first trip via, a performance, market in Japan that we ran on digital it doesn't, necessarily, say the hundred percent of the attribution, should go to that digital. That I could. Have what told you many times hey you start using our product because we've got a fantastic product, and then, you run into an ad you click on it and you start using it right so that means I could have told you a million times and the attribution is more on me on the offline telling, you instead, of you clicking on that app. So. That's more of the attribution, side or did like the measurability of things I, think if you look. At oh just because I served an ad to you digitally, doesn't. Mean that when you converted, it's because of that digital act it would come from a, variety, of, different offline. Things even a referral from a friend and. That lies the complication. With attribution, even to a digital marketing. Correct attribution. Attribution. On a channel, by channel base, is, not. Possible because, it's too, complex. People. Are very irrational, in the choices they make people. Buy Nike shoes not because they've seen an ad but because of like 40. Years of brand, building. They. They. Make a certain decision so like how do you attribute that purchase, to a certain. Campaign that you from in the last few.

Days It's, impossible, and. We even see that in the data as well when when marketing, ends up you know spending a lot more for a specific, season we'll see organic, go down and the, multi-touch. Touch. Points will actually show in the I guess performance, channels that you. Know it looks like a, lot. More users are converting, and our I, guess, the CAC is much lower because, they, have so many audiences, customer. Acquisition, yes I. See our acquisition, costs per for. The unemployment. So you're saying that actually. The. Effectiveness. Of, performance. Marketing performance marketing is just another way of saying online marketing, please, because old marketing is performance market yes so. Let's just say online marketing, so. Most. Companies, and probably, marketers, are overly. Attributed. The. Effectiveness. Of online. Marketing, right. Absolutely you know so they're taking credit, basically, for, something, that could be not. Caused. By. The, camp. Okay, that's really interesting so, when he's and the only reason why is because it's measurable, so people feel confident. In that excel, slide that I guess okay we've increased our user. Base because, of this because of the marketers, and, the. Planners. Of the market areas that have to, take. Accountability to the CFO, and the budget can clearly see, I spent, this much and this is how much transactions, I got right, and I can attribute it that when I serve this to this ad this is what happened correct if you look at so like this isn't really, when that person could have watched a TV ad or seen, say, a go-jek driver on the street or a friend recommended or, they saw a friend order go food, and he, just happened to be served that ad and then, decided, to download, the app and clear when I had nothing to do with that look at what we did in Vietnam it's. Probably the best example or in Singapore we, enter a market there's, a lot of noise I doing PR on, news, wherever, it is and we. See our user base growth, we. Don't have to spend a single dollar without, digital market without any market. Without any market, well like you could secondly say PR s marketing is but but it's. Just noise, noise, around your brand whether it's paid for it's. Free or it's, it's in digital it doesn't matter like consumers, will react to what they see and they will they, will act on it whether, it's a digital offline, or PR whatever it is but what's interesting though another we talk about like digital marketing I'm a big fan of digital marketing by the way so the things that I'm saying is not to like this digital, marketing at all but. If you look at the last ten. Years of of. Marketing, effectiveness, the. Moment, these big digital. Companies. Entered the marketing see you. Saw a shift in the average effectiveness, of marketing campaigns what's, going down so. The effectiveness, is marketing, as a function. Is decreasing. One of the biggest reasons for that is is what they call short, shorter. Shorter, ism's short, drizzle is, only looking, at short-term results instead. Of long-term brand building, long-term results, like weather like I was you're saying that the, window, of assessing. Effectiveness. Matters. Greatly, correct. So if you are just looking things from a one or two month time period and. Assessing. Impact, then you're not actually accruing, the true impact because there's a delayed, there's. An end massive, delay how big or you're not thinking of that so I.

Don't. Think there's a direct. Standard. But even when you do when you do a brand, built campaign, say. A big TV could be we do a big TV campaign the, actual, results of that. Go. On for like six months on, average. So you do a four week long big TV campaign outdoor dish so whatever it is entire campaign the, results of that might, have. A long tail of around six months on average and. You, think most marketers just observe a month to month numbers yeah, because when therefore the number is kind of, lied. In them in a sense again, if you if you look at a. Board, right you have a CEO CMO, CFO, and they're not a lot, of other C's, the. CMO, has to the shortest, tenure, of all, chief. Level, people, simply. Because I have to, deliver. Results now. If. They don't they get fired so. It's all down to shortness but if you look at when someone needs to look at coca-cola was, the German short tourism, short tourism short, short is amore short short tourism searches short short tourism care I've difficult, interests of the shortest. If. You look at like correct, one of the one of the probably. The best examples, of. Marketing. Brands brands, that are. Hundred percent are marketing like Coke as a as a product, doesn't fulfill any functional. Need whatsoever. It's very irrational to drink up a lot of people do it because it probably, tastes good, coke, was doing what poorly, up until I don't know from the 2011, I saw there like seals what decrease, the, new CMO stepped in completely, changed the strategy but, the impact, of that was only shown like choo choo off years later as you're changing like, a completely. Oiled, machine. In. Terms how people see you being a brand food your brand how easy it is to buy how easy it, is to recognize, stuff. Like that all matters, so, this this, super. Urgent need, to prove I, guess. Attribute. Ability, right if that's even a word to. Prove that I can attribute every, dollar spend which, is the great golden, hope of digital marketing right, that's what the dog the the mantra, has always been about digital marketing has. Actually. Skewed. The, perception, of marketing. Away. From, investment. Into. Long, term long term yes into. Short, term gains this right because the framework so small yeah but, then why, why. Even invest so so a lot of you know a lot of tech companies have completely. Dismissed. TV say, you know it's just a waste of money etc do you agree no, of course not why look, okay, so if you if you look at a user, base of any company. Right not just our company any company it, consists, of, people. That buy our brand, every now and then people that buy our brand every week and people that buy a brand, every every day the, majority, of your. Buyers are. None. Or very light buyers. People. Who use it infrequently. Yes. Energy. There's. A natural distribution whereby, the majority, of your users always are the less frequently correct I. Don't. Know the exact number but it's a very big group, it's. The majority it's the. Far majority right, so that. Majority. Needs. To be reached, and that's a very big book we're talking about like tens of millions of people needs. To be reached on a very frequent based that whenever, they feel like hey, I. I. Have, a desire to like, buy a cup of coffee or hey I want, to get from A to B using a rideshare option. That. Is the moment that. That. Whole group needs to think about a brand a brand, first. Instead. Of our competitors you, can only do that by using mass marketing, over. A longer period of time and building those brand, attributes which, you were talked about in. The beginning like, educating, large groups of people on what their like, consumer benefits or certain products are. Why. You should let's take our brand instead of a competitor brand and, you can only do that. Like the biggest group to influence is that light a non-user group and the best way to serve them is to use mass marketing. And. That is in this market the biggest challenge TV it's a simple sell above the line above. Marketing, it has by far the highest reach, to. Be there for her, it is like TV and therefore. It is affecting. Disproportionately. The biggest, number of users, that you need to move up to, the higher frequency. First, well, until and, without. The way to very, clearly, understand. What that budget translates, into right, because there's so many things going on in a company especially, with us you know we have multiple, campaigns running we have multiple, promotions, running so how how, does one know how. Much budget let's say marketing, should get or this campaign, should get like what are the best practices there. Good. Good question. I think, if like, if you look at companies like, coca-cola. Right the. Majority of the money goes into marketing because there are hundreds in we're not hunting bears nights and marketing. Companies, the majority of the budget will go to that. We. Are slightly different company, because we're still, a tech company we're a product or some company.

So. In. Order to say like how much money do we need to spend on marketing fairs or something else I don't know looking. At our user base and, like the frequency that we want to reach them say on a weekly basis I can say that we need X amount of money to do so, or. Like this is the entire category how much would it cost to reach them on a weekly basis say twice across, all the channels that we have they, would cost you X amount of rupiah. So for a full year it's, this. Amount. One. Of the things that was quite interesting, when when we had this debate before was this concept, of. Previously. We. Thought that if you hit a user again. And. And again, with a given image with, every, incremental. Intervention. You, are increasing, the, probability. Of that, user to convert and finally, become a user like say a project music but. In, reality. Given. A limited amount of resource, and if you're paying for these ads what, you are telling me are correcting, me on was that actually. It's extremely wasteful. To. Try. To attack, that, same user again, and again again to get to them to convert but, it's much more effective to spread, wide in. Order to because. There is a kind, of almost like a fixed probability. Random. Probability, of, someone converting. So, widening. The, number of people that see that is the most important, thing when, you're targeting growth correct, is that right yeah that, intuitively, makes sense but then why is there such a different. Conception then why are people paying. Digital. Ads to keep hitting the same user again and again again based on audiences. And segmentations. Doesn't, isn't that wasteful, based on your kind, of person do, you wanna do you want to get the real reason for that order. So. The real reason for that is that people thought those people that sell us those ads right those big digital companies, the. Easiest, way for them to make money is to reach a user over, and over and over again, because. They already have established those audiences, correct and they want to keep monetizing, because if they have to capture new users. All the time they might not be able to know where to find them or they might not have enough so if you look at like TV, channels for instance. It's. Similar to our. Buyer. Base so, you have, daytime. TV people like people that watch daytime, TV they watch a ton of shows they will watch like 10 hours a day and then you have your primetime, TV say, a live football game which, attracts millions of users but they only watch TV, say, every.

Once. Once a month very. Big group of flight TV consumption, happens in, primetime for, that, TV channel it's much easier, to sell, ads to those people that spend 10 hours a day because. They can just serve them ads and as an accent it's nice but it doesn't mean that I could miss the right to, target that because in that primetime. Football game you, have a lot of you like light TV, viewers were more expensive to reach via a TV right, so. If you talk about frequency versus reach and. Why. These. Big digital companies would say you. Need to invest in frequency is because it's easier for them to reach those heavy. Digital. Platform users than, it is to reach those light users. Doesn't, make sense yes but. From a strategic, point of view always. Invest in reach instead of frequency. There's, been a ton, of research into, that if you spend, that. Reach has a, up. To 2.5, x higher. Return on investment and investing the same dollar 8 that same person, Wow. So. If, you look at a curve, of. User. Frequency, from non user here, to power, user, here. You. Want to spend all your money down, here you, want to spend all your effort, and money down here right, and that's our the biggest bang for the buck that's really interesting so so what does that mean for for, growth platforms, right what does that mean for. Go-jek. Or any other tech company, like how, do you re, engineer. A, product. And the, marketing of that product, to, gear towards new, users, or very low frequency, users and do you think that makes sense yeah I think that the same principle does apply that you. Want, to focus your efforts on increasing. The frequency and conversion, and top of the funnel of those low frequency, users they, are the ones who will return the most value, for every dollar that you spend given. They are doing less, transactions, they have, done, I guess, they've maxed, out they have it maxed out on their ceiling of usage. Yet with the platform and so for us we do see, a better. You know cost per incremental transaction. That's one of our KPIs, on the, growth side when, we invest a dollar into a user who is doing you know one or two transactions. Versus, someone who's doing you know 20 to 30 transactions, because, the, amount. Of gain that you were able to get out of a low user frequency. Is much higher right there's, there's much more behavior, to shape and mould so, getting like a go food user who. Just, uses, go. Food maybe once, a week if. You just, get them to and they say they use it only on weekend, but see you get them to use it for a lunch on a week exactly that's there any doubling, exactly, a number of transactions, whereas, like, my. Cousin who orders, go food literally, every, night yeah, you know even, if your order. Is like probably like five, times a, week right, getting, him to order one. Extra, order is not going, to necessarily move. The needle and it's much harder to, make him buy. That extra order because he's already a power to use exactly and and so should we just ignore our power users so we know what you're saying we don't ignore the power users I think that the power users will. Symbolize a, set of, aha. Moments, that they, achieved. In order to get to where they are today and, so we do we can use power. Users, to better understand, what. Is the maximum utility, that a user can gain from our platform and, how does that manifest in, their different behaviors, was, it someone who first, used go, ride during. A rainy. During. The rainy weather if so, you know perhaps that's a good time for us to maximize our education. Our new. User acquisition marketing. Because, this happens to be a good entry point for the types of users who, are going to convert to our platform and find. It useful for a long enough period of time during, the rainy season so. It I think it it's, better for us to look at power users as a way of providing. A base of understanding, for. Us to better convert, the low engaged, users, can. You give me an example of how the. Story or the journey of a, power user could, inform, how. To, transform. A low, frequency user, into a power losing, you know it's an example so, I think that it will show in cases, like your. Cousin where they, are using this every single night because it provides. An option for them to buy. Food while they're on the way home already it's become a habit for them to once they get into the car they open up go food they look for a merchant that they know is near their home and they. Book while they're on the way there, now we look at that type of power user behavior, and we realize, that this is a potential, use case that our. Users who are light touch users perhaps have. Not created the, habit for yet and so we create features in the. Transportation. Page, to, show a user, who is travelling somewhere okay here are some different food options for you that are near your destination. We surface. That behavior, or we guide them into the behavior with better product, features because, our power users tell us what, they want our app, to be they tell us how, they use it and we should be creating features that actually eliminate, the friction that they are manually, doing as a power user so that's super interesting I'm, a sweet girl food I'm a go food user and.

I Always book it let's say I'm a power go food user and I use it everytime on my way back while I'm writing my, go check home ok, and you, are also a power go, ride user yes every, day you go back home but you never order go food so, the, algorithm, or our, model is basically saying. There is X percent, probability, that, if I start. Giving you for example like a voucher, for. Food. Food delivery, during this time that you may build the same kind, of habits, that I'm building and therefore, it potentially. Become like me I think that what it does is give us us an, insight, into what are. The use cases that we should reduce the friction for for our low engaged, users, right and it doesn't even have to be a voucher the voucher can be used as a way to test, whether or not users, will even adopt that behavior, because, the voucher removes. Existing friction of I don't even know what merchant I want to eat at I don't know what merchants are near my destination, and but, the voucher will serve as a way to force. The product, away. From, that friction right it removes the friction because it incentivizes the user to, just get past that friction because they, got every money I've never ordered food delivery before and that's a friction that's a mental exactly, airier corrected to try to get me and so once once you see that the uptick. Of users adopting. Or let's. Say redeeming, the voucher that, has a one win a one hour window expiry, from the time you booked your ride then you, start to be, able to prioritize that, this feature should be built that we should create. The feature that will. Make. The product so, great that you don't need the voucher to, remove the friction for the user so. If you draw again that chart or you've got power users, you've got low frequency, users and non-users here. On. The top side these, guys over here this is your, basically. Your role model yes these. Are the guys you dissect, analyze. And, see which behaviors, and aha moments, have baek's perience, and then you apply it to the low frequency, users but they're already then the low frequency, users are the, ones you want to move up this, chain right so. These guys have, a, much higher. Or lower, cost, per incremental, transaction, than someone may be in the middle between a power user and I'm sorry sir but, then why even work on this isn't, the biggest return. On investment. Really. The non users, so completely, new users, like, why are we just spending all of our effort, on non. Users, and getting them on our platform, I can give you an example from our experimentation, framework. So there's a limited, amount of, new users you cut every week we actually run out of customers, to run experiments, on from the new new user base so you'll hit a wall we literally hit a wall okay and so that's part of it it's just there's an operational. Wall from, how. Much money we could spend on these users but beyond that I think it's more about creating user. Life cycles there's not just black and white new, user and power. User right there are a lot of stages in between that and allowing. The team to focus on and identify, what, are those different user stages, will give them the insights, around, how to create those step-by-step. Journeys, for a user to become a power user perhaps, right. Can you talk a little bit about user, journey this seems to be quite a buzzword, but in the growth, perspective. Like. How. Many user journeys, do you have mapped out right now across the gojek, platform. I mean, depends who you ask I mean again. Everyone.

Is Has. Pretty open access to the data and the research teams, and so they're free, to create their, models, for what is the best go food user what is the best transport, user and then we have platform, wide user States which, we work on with, the data science teams with the research teams the, marketing teams that, platform, way means across, all of the super exactly, right so go checks quite unique there in a sense that it's. Not just a journey within your gopher Jeremy but how, does the user behave, across. Multiple, services. And how we can integrate that and that's this concept, of the Golden Triangle users. You, know we've, been refining, this concept for some time maybe you want to explain why Golden Triangle users, are so special yeah I think that you know every. Company will will. Have a, very. Easily, communicate. Able, aha. Moment, for the company to rally around and it doesn't eat this, simplicity. Beats, out the complex, more, even, more accurate. Aha. Moments and so Facebook, has you, know seven friends and ten days we, have you know multiple. Served three sir at least three use cases within, 30 days right, many different services within, 30 days and. Exactly. That's kind of the Holy Grail is that our turn rates drop. Significantly you. Become a user for life and that's, an aha moment so, just for the audience that mean. And. Listeners, that may may, not understand. The concept of aha moment an aha moment is a. Discovery. Basically. Based, on analysis, of, user behavior, that. Most, of the times you would never guess right, it's. Kind of hard to guess but there's certain things that happen in a user journey that, lead them to, either end, up, using this product, consistently. Or, it. Could be negative as well it could be a series, of negative, events that, end up churning. The user out right, so you can have a positive aha, moment and you can have a churn, aha. And. The framework that we use is actually what, is it that retained, users, do that. Turned. Users do not do, so it's a disproportionate. I. Guess. I. What's. The word when you like could, compare, and contrast between you know what do you retain, what does the majority, of the retained user base do that, the majority of the churned user base does not do right, it's even stronger than just pure correlation, of what do most retained. Users do because you, could say that you know a thousand. Trips it, is, highly correlated with retention but, most of our retained users don't do a thousand, trips right so. What we're really looking for is the biggest, overlap between the, most of our retained users that the most of the churned users do not do you're looking for those types of behaviors. And when we look into each service, type I think that the reason why we have a an, organization, that is both, embedded and core is because there are two pieces right to every I, guess, marketing lifecycle there's always two pieces to every product development lifecycle right, where go. Food wants, the best possible, go food users ever and they what they consider to be the, top, of the funnel of awareness, understanding. Consideration. Etc. Falls. Under things like, purchasing. Go food or using. The search feature or, using the categories, feature or, using reorder, there is a depth, to the, product. Of go food that. Perhaps on a platform level we, don't necessarily consider. Right. On the platform level we we consider, awareness. And consideration, as things more. Shallow right does the user use go food and go, pay, do they use pay later do they use multiple. Send. Service, types and shop service types because. The. Way that we have to do the I guess the structure of the grow team would. Be more around is the. User highly. Engaged, in the platform versus in that particular, product and I think there are a lot of fair trade offs at debate.

Between. The two that's, really interesting so the. Signals. For, retention. Not, only. Is. Defined, by how many different services, on our super app that people use, but within each of those services how, deeply penetrated, are they on the. Feature settings that is and why, is it to. Me I think the logic is that the more. Invested. I am the more I penetrate. The. Feature sets of an app and the more I use it on a regular basis, the more psychological. Investment, I put into this platform and, therefore. The. More, attached. I will become to it is that generally, true and like honestly hopefully, the more core value you extract by using more of those features right otherwise those are bad features, but. The more times that you use let's say the on the way home food. Service. To see you know what food is near your destination, or the more times that you use but say the categories, are the recommended food items hopefully. The more value you are extracting, from the platform. Let's. Talk about a little bit about market, share and its impact on. Product. Growth right. Is is, market, share something, why is it important, and if. So like how closely, do, you need to monitor, it and follow it right, in, certain high subsidy, environments. Market share is extremely, volatile and it can go up and down depending on who's running up from at any given time right but. How. How, do we think about or, how do other startups, also think about market. Share as. A, signal. Either. Leading indicator, or lagging indicator, of growth like how, important, is that. Key. Like. If you, were. Like Indian, you as a as a brand whatever what, your brand maybe the. Only thing you want is to grow, right growth, is. The. Fundamental. Driver of your business if we don't grow and your competition grows, faster. They. Will outgrow you and in the end crush you is, that simple that because they work earn more money than, we do and. They, will have more resources to like. Again crush us. So. That's, not always the case but it'll, be the last show over, the law very long term yes that's always. The case in, technology. Space. Probably. More acutely in the short term it's different, that's, just what we discussed, earlier like it it depends on what your strategy. Is right, for. Any, for. Any other. Company, probably apart. From ours is you. Need to, drive. Penetration. Meaning, getting new users in on a weekly daily monthly, basis, in order to grow your market share because when. You grow your penetration, the, average, purchase, frequency, of your consumers, meaning loyalty will increase. With that. Ally, say, that again, when. You increase your penetration, of market. Chain. Household. Penetration, so like the number of users you have on your platform when, that increases.

Right There. Is a direct, correlation with an increase, in average frequency. Of your consumer, base so. The loyalty, will, be increased and the reason for that is the, bigger your base becomes the, more light, uses you have in your base which. Usually, are hundred, percent while, you use it because they only make one purchase say in a year so, the, bigger that base is the more loyal that base becomes that's, the code there's a law called double, jeopardy marketing. So the higher your penetration, is the, higher your. Average. Purchase frequency, of your consumers is. The. Delta between the two is that that. Penetration. Is the, difference in penetration, between your competitor, will always be bigger than in. The average purchase frequency, that's relatively small, so. In order to grow market share you can only do it through penetration, and the, average. Per average. Purchase frequency, will follow it's actually pretty simple if you think about right if you're a nun user, so. You've never tried the product before you, become a first-time user which is the biggest group and. Then you either decide hey I like this product or not so you move down the line of one purchase to purchase three pictures and you become like that thing that we call power use it so the more people you get from zero to one the more likely, it becomes that someone turns into a power user. Because. Assuming everyone, over, time on. Average, has the same probability of becoming empowered, if. You look at like it's. Not like all, the, people in the beginning who adopt early are the only power users no that's not how it works that's right you could have a really late comer come from the back and, still. Have. An. Equal. Probably probability, of becoming a power user yes they just discovered it lead in their sin every cohort, averages, out we've seen that too like we have this I use you see men the data so can you just explain that for a second so every, cohort, there is a baseline, of given. Their spend in the first month we can project what they're spending will be three months down the line and. There is just and those, ratios don't, change those ratios don't change but what does what, hasn't worked is on a per user basis, so on a cohort level I, think that you, know Jasper is absolutely right because we, we see the users as an, IRA database, they come in at the same.

Density, Or distribution. Of types of users or their capacity, of power usage. Assuming. You don't change, significantly. The different channels of acquisition, you, have, a pretty. Clear baseline from month one what they will be like in month three as a cohort. That's. Really interesting because, intuitively. You would assume that all, the power users are generally. Yeah there are early adopters right, yeah but that's simply not the case it's no, I think what, we do see though is that early, users aren't, the best users to research, their. Motivations. For using the product or how. They want the product to evolve, because they are of, a very different user type I think the early adopters. Whenever, we do research or user testing, on let's say home, screens or on new features we, are very, careful to have a mix of people. Who have never used our, product before as well, as loyal, users as well as people who you know are in, the middlee because. Users. Who are later adopters. Tend. To have less input on what our product. Should look like or what features they want because they don't understand the product and they aren't part of that early revolution. Of people who had, a desperate need, for the solutions, that we provided, so. They think that it, this, is a more of a problem for research. Or evaluating. The decisions, that we make on a new feature basis. And like in this where it becomes interesting right when we talk about what. We call holy Oh judges are our power, users because. Like which we share our. Buyer. Base without direct, competitor like it's the exact same people exact, same demographics, exact same psychographics. It's. It's. It's. It's, basically. The same category, group so. When we talk about power users in almost like feature is an example for this feature. Is a sneaker hat he's a massive, power user when it comes to sneakers he, has a preferred brand DJ a creative feature a feature re CD of our. Credit hat he loves sneakers, he loves sneakers he's an absolute sneaker hat I think he purchased like a new pair of probably every every week right Thank You al man it's really very trendy, is redic he has a room to size up this with all this his sneakers in it and he has a preferred brand his preferred brand is Nike, but. That doesn't mean that he occasionally. By. Adidas, as well hmm. But he he, probably has on every 10 pair maybe. 7 pair of Nike and 3 Perdita's hmm, so, when we talk about like, the misconception, about loyal users is that a loyal. User of a brand only buys your breath that's not to simply. Not true, like of all coke users, I think, it's like the numbers 67%. Also drink Pepsi Wow.

Like Who would what. Yeah that's not intuitive to me at all that's not like, that's super counterintuitive, but that's, that's. Reality like, loyal. You know your users as we asked the definition, saying okay you only buy one, brand in a category do not exist actually the more the more power user you become the, more brands you use like. I said I can't if you're a very light user so you only use the, only buy pair of sneakers once a year you. Will probably. Buy the same brand over and over over because, that's the only brand you really really know in that category so let's think that through so. What's. The mechanism that's. Happening, there if I am using if, I'm a power user, of the right healing app let's see I might find myself in situations whereby. I can't, get a ride higher. Frequency, and therefore I might try yeah turnitin. Service. I would, also be a lot more conscious, of the promotions, that, are going on at the tire a more educated user, I'm a more educate users so I am aware, of when, the other side is promoting, and not and I may want to optimize, even. Though I have a general, preference. For. For one breath. So. It becomes, a bigger part of my life and therefore, my, my. Propensity, to, dabble in. Competitor. Products is higher whereas. If it's a very or a, smaller a relatively, smaller aspect, of my day-to-day behavior I don't. Need the cognitive, load. Dunja. Optimize all. Of them see what. You're telling me is that winning, those light users, is more important, because they are probably just, only gonna use you it's fundamental. For like I said for two reasons one seems, a little counterintuitive, another, what everyone knew about PI are users, and that's that's, that's so cool that you're blowing our mind right now it's, confusing, so, power users, are to. Study to, learn but. Don't. Spend money on them. Then. Why are their loyalty. Programs, why. Are their loyal spread questions, they, are. Can. I say, yeah. Yeah. But we boil Democrats, is that are complete measure. General. Loyalty, programs are. Why waste some money because they're very expensive has, anyone, ever done the analysis, a second this is what we pump, into it not. Just from a marketing. Perspective but, from a, overhead. Cost investment, in tools like the whole shebang and what the outcome, of that could. Eat are you the same thing on offline, marketing that it's not attributable. But you need it like it's just it's a hygiene. For a product so how we how we attribute, it like. That and that's what I'm saying it's not channel by channel you look at the total investment over, a period, of month in. TV, outdoor digital, combined and look what the outcome is and, that's similar to loyalty programs like you look at we should look at the total investment going and what. The our why's that comes, out well. What if it's more long-term facing. Right what if we have the same problem, of the attribution. Being much, more future. I guess recurring. It. Also depends on the level of engagement. To, that program, that some people have like for example I'm, super, happy in my airline smiles program, and I will make sure that, I, don't, lose my status by. Even, changing, some of my dates in order to make sure that I can hit that airline so yeah, it's not you, know I'm, not gonna go, out of my way to, increase. My travel, time but, push. Comes to shove I will try to always. Take that airline in order to maintain my, status, so I don't. Know if I 100%, agree with you but, maybe so sorry I'm, getting really excited about that's like that if. You look at airline programs right you're probably talking about seeing four elements, the. Majority, of the, people on Singapore Airlines in which statuses, buy. Their flights based on company, budgets it's, not out of their home pocket, so. If you look at if you because I was a huge fan about what my, previous companies used I could fly business class all over the world well hey what's possible I get like massive, amount of miles and I went like from was it's like gold platinum, to whatever. Whatever has and I was like this is so cool but the moment you have to book your own flights pay. For it from what your own wallet I didn't. Fly eschewing I just, picked another what picked another airline so. How does that loyalty work that if it's, if. It comes out of your own pocket, see. Look, think about look so you think there's a generally, and overvaluation, or, overvalued. Nature, to loyalty programs agenda a 100%, understand, it like it doesn't but the, cool thing about dsq. One and that's actually the only one I really, really like because it's actually a marketing, tool not, necessarily to change behavior, but you show I mean like you would tell your friends like they do darling I'm a Goldman I don't, match with the elevator I love my.

My SK Milo like like, whatever I love my Gurudev miles like I'm all time for miles like whatever, your miles steady is like you would like, that that gives you a bit of bragging, rights okay no large user would give a crap about that like, power users will give a crap about that but, let's think about like like a simple coffee shop right. Look. At user babe a power users go like I go to liberica, every, single day here and I get my cappuccino, these, loads you programs at some coffee shop would say okay you get your tenth a cup of coffee for free that's. Basically 10%, discount why would you do that I would, go to you I would buy the tenth cappuccino, anyway. I don't need to be a sense of highs for that. You. Know what I mean it's that's a loyalty program in itself it's a tall order because that's considered one, of the most successful loyalty. Programs of all time yeah, what. You're saying they would have made that purchase anyway. Yes so you're giving a 10%, discount I get, that on nothing the reason what I like. But, but here's the thing I think what you're missing a despite, the fact that I would have ordered that, coffee. Or, built that ride or, book that plane anyway. There. Is, a, massive. Component. Of Net, Promoter Score. In, the feeling I get from that additional. I would. Say that you know my my, willingness, to promote, that brand to another person which by the way for all of those out there people. That don't know ultimately. Your, product, is going to grow not for marketing but from word of mouth okay, no matter what, it is it's, going the conversion, point will happen through word-of-mouth ultimately. That's that's not at me in this age free. To challenge me on that yeah no you're absolutely right like worth of mouth is one of the most I gave away wait let me finish my point yes I thought so because. Of that and because of the importance, alternately, a word-of-mouth where is all the ads that you see everywhere is just reinforcing, that moment for a conversion the. Fact that if oil tea programs can make you feel special a, special connection. To a brand, I think, it can very powerfully. Increase, that. Word-of-mouth. Score. Or MPs, or whatever it is that, would be my my, my, exception but let's let's talk a little bit about the word of mouth because if. You. Know people. Are still, skeptical people think I think a lot of not only people who advertised. Marketers. Even. Growth people. Founders. All the same and I was. Also guilty of believing this previously, it's just, like this, is how a user thing they look, at an ad maybe, on a social media site, etc, look. At it a few times and that's, all they're looking at and then at one point they click on that ad go. To a App, Store download it, and then I am that user right.

This, Is apparently. The, furthest. From the truth that could happen right that's, not how, it actually happens when we actually did a lot of this research what. Happens when you ask a person how. Did. They start using about the service I, mean. I don't know exactly, a number but more than seven nine times out of ten that, person says oh I, heard. Saw, what, my friend talk about it or use it in front of me or go right and it all happens in the offline space, and not in the billboard offline space or TV ads or and, literally. Coffee. Shops. Family. Gatherings, class. Work. Environment. It. Is the. Unnatural. Beautiful, conversations. Between humans, that ultimately, lead to that conversion and. You cannot. Avoid. That that's. Sorry you cannot. Increase. That without. Having. Product, excellence absolutely, so. At the end of the day no, matter how much money you've got no matter how much cash you got and, how much promotions, you're ready you, will not be able to run, hack. Your way or spend your way around great. You. Need the viral loops I think viral loops help sustain. Those, conversations. So for example what Dropbox, did was, a, natural. Extension of, their products, core value which was sharing, and collaborating, their, referral, program, was, a natural, extension of that because hey, you're already sharing this document, why, don't you join me on this platform as, well and that becomes a viral loop because you're already talking about working, on a document, and this. Discussion. About. Joining. This platform is a very natural. Evolution. Therefore, so, I think designing, those viral loops - or - to, match the organic. Occurrences. Are super, important and let's, see like, what are some of the things that are content. Worthy for viral conversations. Getting. A promo. Or discount, generally. No one really brags that much about, getting a discount right you don't go to work and go like yo, I got five rides free it's amazing, you know like and that. Doesn't. Happen as much as you would think right well, unless the promo is buy three get four and then you start tying your frets a I want to buy this food but I need, three more people who else wants in those. Are the virally requires, participation. Of someone else I do it yes sending, a referral, code and, then sending it all teacher getting, back sending a voucher something. That requires an engagement or a conversation, but product, feature development has that same effect because it's like a mini release, of a, product or service so if there's a new thing even though you, use it once every ten times. Within. That product experience, once. You found. Value, in it, hi, that's a that's a that's a buzz worthy, talk yeah so product, development, has that. Absolute. Very fundamental. Relationship. With word-of-mouth marketing yeah. It's. Not Marines, we just did we, just finished you know some some home screen research. Testing, user testing, and we. Got a respondent, who was saying hey. You're. You're asking me about how I feel about go news you know I never I've never actually seen go news on my platform but someone, was telling me about a news story that they read on go news I tried, to look for it can't find it how can I get go news, and so this was super inspiring to us it it shows that you know you, you need those different product development, tidbits. That are fitting, into the organic, lifecycle, of a customer that's, right and. There's no there's no business model there's no virtue to good news there's no cost to put you know. Content. On on our admin, and, so that's an example of a non-financial. Kind, of incentive, yeah right. I just. Want to tap into that worth of nothing like is it like within the marketing tools that we all have like I said worth of miles is probably the most important. One in terms of like influencing, a consumer, decision. To make, it pretty awesome agree yeah, yeah I, think a. Customers thank you again like split between, very. Light users which. Is again the majority of any company, space and power users who, are say.

Subscribers. To a loyalty program. Very. Like users will. Not resonate, with that loyalty. Program with about so if you have a hundred consumers, and five are your power, users of that and. Say 80, 80, users of that hundred are very light users they, will listen to a different kind of word-of-mouth then as. You're saying with your loyalty program so you have five people talk, about a little to program and the other say, 95. Out of 100 would, talk, about other wait a month hey I've tried this product like for the very first time it's, bloody awesome like. There's a different kind of wave of mouth then hey I've, got my tenth a cup of coffee for free or whatever it is and that's that five only. Like, a small base of your group who actually I, would resonate I would stretch that even further I think the propensity to. Share. Negative. Like, a negative NPS, Tabasco. It's much higher from a power user for, sure right because, if you're used to help with it time what are you gonna complain about like, what are you gonna talk about you're serious I'm not gonna say about how awesome it is anymore it's already become like like water or, me like a just take it for granted but. I am exactly, that user I am as I use you know go ride every. Day twice a day and most, of the times when I'll talk to someone about it even, if I'm the CEO of the company is, the complain I'm like, doesn't. Worry this good as you should like this or is it but, you're right and on, the other end, of the spectrum if. That. User. Had. That light user had a good, experience or the first time experience. The. Potential, for a viral T and word of mouth is higher yeah and that group is just much bigger right like I said if we talk about 100 people. Usually. Like. 80 80, or 90 people of that are infrequent. Users and, only 10 or 20 are, heavy. Used like, like you are so, that that, group is just simply so much bigger than that small group so, that the voice of that big group is, much bigger than that smoker so, that 80 people are able to influence many more people then that small group I would challenge that a little bit because even. Though the base of the new user groups eyes are the light touch. User group size it may be by. Absolute. Volume much, bigger are, they more likely, to speak about the product that then. The power, user at that volume and at that level, of credibility. I guess because, as a brand new user I guess I would have much less touch of my top. Of mine for a product or I would, have just, you know less invested, let I'd care less right why, would I talk about a product that I've just used once versus, someone who is addicted to the product like I'm a huge guava, past fan I use it every day and I've literally. Gotten you know like three different people on my team to, use it as well but, then you have people who maybe. Went to one class and they're like oh yeah I use it once like but it doesn't come up in conversation, like it's not something that they're, not motivated to talk about it right I suggest it like, because like. That's. Pretty awesome right this could be a pretty awesome test because I would. Like to know actually why. Do we not focus on social if we think viral, loops and offline and word-of-mouth and, people and communities are so important why are we not investing, more effort, in the product development lifecycle around, social social. Has being a channel, let's say I have a social feed on my app that, shows or, I'm allowed to post I just bought food from here just got ten percent discount from there, just bought offline here just drop dropped off here, would. You, be able to use a product. Test like that as an experiment to see whether or not brand new users are they willing to post or not versus a power user I'm willing to bet power users are more likely to. Submit to that in the spirit of being a scientist, I would like to make this a wager between YouTube so, that was cool experiment, we should design, an experiment sure but I think that one, thing that we're not factoring, here about power users that I'd like to challenge you on is, that, gojek. Is, very. Unique in the sense that the, service, that. Most people use which. Is transport. Food. And pay. Happen. In the real world in the physical, world they, are not things that are done in.

Quietly. On your own in your smartphone. Okay. In order to get on the back of a motorcycle or, into a car you literally, you. Know get have a motorcycle, come in there and when, you book even, when you're in any social setting, everyone. Can see like, I am literally if you just walk down to our ability I can immediately, see what everyone is booking right, and what you have they're using. Food. Is an even crazier barley, you don't have to a power user doesn't have to do anything the power user just has to order food and it arrives and everyone, else who he's with at that time will see and pick up that him, or her pick up that, food package in front of them so, when. You have a business, that fundamentally. Lives in the offline world the. Word of mouth is not, just, a function of literal, word of mouth it's also visibility. Of that transaction. Driver. Jackets, were like the biggest, reason, most, users knew our platform, right that's why it's super sure that, but that's that's marketing, but that's, literally that's all part of marketing like this right like the like, the Koch rep like, you you will walk in a supermarket and you go down the aisle the first thing you see is coke rap but, that that's marketing that's like brand codes that we trying to imprint in people's brain, so again, the moment when someone wants to. Purchase. Food. Of i ago food or like he's hungry or he wants to go from hate to be marketed. Marketing's, function, is to, be that first brand, that pops into their head that's. Our phone like our fundamental. Role that we need to play and, your first a line yes, first, in mind in a purchase okay so not in general because like when i say what's. Your like name named. It what top, watch brand a lot of people will say Rolex but that's, not like top of mind awareness is not that relevant because when I'm, gonna buy a Rolex. Is nothing by myself. At the top of mind awareness is really hot so it's more like in like during that occasion moment what is the brand that what comes up first that, mental share needs. To be highest for. Us in order to win, and mass. Marketing, reinforces. That alright mass marketing, is it builds. Dose I mean when. I say coke immediately, there's a red thing that goes into your mind when it's a Nike you see the swish immediately. In, your head so those coats. Whether it's our logo, whether it's our color whether. It's shapes, like the coke, wave like those are things that we need to imprint, in people's brain over a long period, of time well good thing we were the first green jackets, there. And. Like, and it doesn't matter that your competitor, and might, have the same color it doesn't matter at all because like these coats together form your brand, I mean, like Twitter.

And Facebook have the exact same color, sort. Of blue right. But that doesn't matter because I have a say Facebook you think about player blue ass. Mark, Zuckerberg probably, that, would be like your three brand cups and with Twitter you would think oh yeah blue little birdie and. Controversy. During the elections in the US that's like a like. Well. Guys we've, run out of time but. Incredibly. Awesome, discussion. Love the lively debate I think we'll be continuing to debate this. Many. Years to come, but, I think that the. Key insight, here is that all. Of the. Notions, that people, assume, about, channels. That are fundamentally. Better than each other or, approaches. That are fundamentally, better you that there, is no, absolutes, in this there, are just, a series of it depends, on no right and and. And I think that nuance in, both, digital, offline. Marketing, growth. Experimentation. Financial. Incentives spend non-financial. Incentives spent all, of these things have to be assessed, and experimented. Accordingly, so, that you get to the closer source of truth don't. Believe, in dogma in paradigms, and just, run the experiment, and see what happens and over, and over again because, the landscape changes. Your consumer, base changes, so exactly thanks. Guys for coming hope to have you again on the show let's. Run the experiment, let's do it. Hey. Guys hope you enjoy the podcast, if you liked it please hit like subscribe, and. Follow us on social media thanks. So much for tuning in.

2019-07-10 03:15

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