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12 months later, here's my unbiased... Review of Reforge Growth Programs Is Reforge worth $2000/year? Could I, should I download Reforge for free? Reforge vs the alternatives An unbiased review of Reforge Growth programs An overview of what Reforge looks like on the inside 👀 What I don’t like about Reforge Some guest passes Is Reforge right for me? I have taken seven programs from Reforge 1. Growth Series 2. Growth Marketing 3. Monetization and Pricing 4. Growth Leadership 5. Advanced Growth Strategy 6. Product Led Growth 7. Retention and Engagement I’ve chain-smoked many MANY courses in the past It’s more than 60+ online courses so far and I can confidently say, I’ve seen the best and the worst of online courses. I’ve taken a little too many marketing and product courses: altMBA by Seth Godin , growth.design's psychology course, CXL , Demand Curve , Copyhackers , Common Thread Collective for FB ads, 90DaySEO , Foxwell , Chase Dimond for Email , Social Savannah Tiktok , Ahrefs and Moz courses for SEO, the super basic Hubspot and Google courses, Interface Design from Shiftnudge , Programmatic SEO from Preetam Nath, Content Marketing 201 from Amanda Natividad, Attribution and Marketing Mix Modelling from Vexpower and so many more . It’s endless, really. The point that I’m trying to drive home is that I’ve seen enough courses to have an opinion about Reforge. This article is 100% un-sponsored. No affiliate links, whatsoever either. No self-promotion either. It’s 100% unbiased and written on a whim. No ROI on this article but hopefully I’ll get to know you and make some friends. Anyway, let’s answer the questions you have before this starts to feel like a recipe blog that takes forever to get to the actual recipe. Reforge pricing and costs Membership to Reforge costs $2000 / year for unlimited access to all their programs and live cohorts. Live cohorts happen twice in a year (in April and Oct). The teams plan is their newest addition. You can request to chop off the cohorts from the individual plan to get the pricing down by 50% or so. Probably at the time of renewal. For the teams plan, Reforge reached out to me to partner. If you're actually interested to purchase, hit the chatbot button and let me know if you want an intro. It helps me and it'll help you. Is Reforge Worth it? Yes. It’s worth more than $2000. Reforge gives you access to all of their programs for an entire year. They also add new programs twice a year. So you technically have access to 22 courses for $2000. That’s $90/program or 166/month. Realistically, you won’t do 22 courses, nor would all 22 be relevant for you. You might end up doing 4–5 at best, even if you are pacing yourself. That would bring us to $500/course , which is a teeny tiny bit expensive until you look at the content. I honestly had a lot more wins ( see portfolio ) only after I joined Reforge across full-time work and consulting projects. The level up in my skillset was tremendous. We have a 'content creation' problem The problem with growth as a field is that there’s too much content. Everyone wants to produce content, and become a course creator or a ‘thought leader’. My Twitter feed is endlessly long with incredible content but as an industry, we product more content than we can consume. Compare this to the ML/AI industry where there just aren’t enough courses to complete or newsletters to subscribe to. The ML industry is nascent. Growth on the other hand is loud. There’s a lot of content and we have to be very mindful about who we learn from and how much. Reforge bypasses this problem. It curates content. I don’t have to worry about where I’m sourcing my knowledge from. I don’t have to calendar-ise my learnings or go out of my way to follow so many people and ensure that the Twitter algorithm shows the good threads to me organically (which it usually won’t). For a fee, Reforge ensures that I get the best content that exists, all wrapped in a consumable/memorizable fashion. What Reforge offers 1. One live program with an EIR each year Previously, they offered two-three live programs. Now, it's brought down to one. 2. Slack Community A vibrant and helpful Slack community. Earlier, I get to ask questions directly to people who’ve created the "hockey stick" growth for their companies. Now, it's not really possible to do. They've made a few changes. Slack is downgraded to the free tier so message history is covers only the last 30 days which was a bummer. Secondly, all the program cohort live discussions was moved online in their portal and it's not easy to access. I don't even know where to look for it. 3. Events All past events are recorded. This includes workshops and case studies with operators who grew the tools you use every day. The sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ knowledge is hard to find. In the new UX, you can't really filter. So, it's much harder to find case studies to watch. 4. Templates and transcripts Which seems like you won’t need it, but it is pretty helpful. A lot of newer courses don't have the video recordings btw, so check with Reforge if there's a particular course you're interested in taking. 5. Discussions [obsolete] This is long gone. They don't have this available. Now you can't ask educators questions related to the course directly In the past, you could ask clarifying questions from the best operators. It is very different from asking questions to someone in a free Facebook community. I used Reforge to help me cross that inflection point in my career, and the EIRs to help me along the way. 6. The devil is in the details Reforge is by far the most organized, and detailed program I’ve ever taken. It’s the little details that blow my mind, honestly. Reforge isn’t rough around the edges. It’s painfully built and they’ve thought of so many little things. For example: Live events are shown in my time zone and auto-added to my calendar in bulk. No timezone madness. No missing out on events because of a tech issue. I never have to ‘duplicate a template’ and make a copy of it. It auto-duplicates in Google docs, directly in my Google Drive. Reforge reminds me of Zedd’s $16 million new house. Purchased because the interior designer added a little something in the kitchen. Watch for just for a minute at around the 6:12 mark. It'll auto-play when you hit the play button. Imagine how much thought someone would have put into the bigger picture if they cared about these minor details. 7. Reforge Certifications Reforge doesn't offer certifications. They give letter of completions. LoC for Live Programs (open to see) When you complete 80% of a live cohort and attend most events, they'll let you take a pretty screenshot at the end of the cohort. Or you can download a plain looking PDF like this one. LoC for Self-Paced Programs (open to see) For the self-paced programs, you can ask for a letter of completion . This will do if you need it for company reimbursement. 8. Reforge AI This is a product I helped beta test and develop. You can personalize and ask it questions. I spent 3-4 hours helping develop the product in the initial days and it's turned out well! 8. New Design I love the new design and the UI actually. And they even used Streamline icons for the entire redesign and all presentation slides! (Streamline's the company I work for btw). Your time will never be cheaper An overly simplified graph The longer you wait, the more expensive your time will be. You're either going to learn what Reforge teaches on your own, or you can shortcut and learn earlier (without the practical experience). Everything in life is a tradeoff. 1) If you feel Reforge is expensive today, it'll be financially cheaper in the future but you won't have the time! 2) If you enroll today, you won't fully understand what they teach but you'll still know how to open the emergency exit to save everyone from a flight crash. My POV. That's all! Could I, should I download Reforge for free? Members get banned if they download Reforge. If they copy something from the platform more than three times, they can get permanently banned and will lose access. So, exporting stuff isn’t allowed. Hard to Torrent I had a friend who had copies of every other course but he still couldn’t get Reforge. Of all the courses that exist out there, Reforge is the hardest to find on Torrent. Second, you won’t get a certificate which can help nor do you get to meet new people. Want free Reforge-style content? If you’ve applied and gotten rejected or are looking for a simpler entry point, I have some ideas: Reforge EIRs and Partners maintain their own blogs, newsletters, podcasts, books, Twitter threads, and so on. Whether or not you take up Reforge, you should subscribe to their newsletters mentioned on this Growth Marketing Resource page. The content is highly overlapping, and these blogs are is created by the same people who created the original Reforge content. EIRs are frequently invited as guest speakers, so keep an eye on YouTube. There will be plenty of material to look at. The disadvantage is that you must compile everything yourself. Reforge's own blog is extremely useful. Because Reforge’s in-app search isn’t very good, I occasionally use Google search, and more often than not, they have a blog post about the topic I was looking for. I believe that much of their premium content is available on their blog. It’s disorganised and difficult to consume, but it exists and should be a good starting point because there are so many blog posts to read. Search like this: site: reforge.com/blog otherwise its hard to find Request a guest pass. If you’re stuck on a topic and really want to use Reforge, ask someone who is a paid member for a guest pass, and they might be able to send you a 7-day access to three lessons from within a program. This isn’t the best method, but if all else fails, use these. Growth Programs Guest Passes Growth Series " Retention separates the top 1% " Growth Series " The Psych Framework for User Motivation " Monetization and Pricing " Use cases" Product Programs Guest Passes Product Management Foundations " Feature opportunity validation " Product Market Fit " How to measure Product Market Fit " Admitted to Reforge but aren’t sure? Consider this: Good products cost money. You want them to profit. It’s in our best interests that Reforge profits so that they can invest in developing a better product. Reforge is a learning tool. It should be exclusive because knowledge is our most precious competitive advantage. If you and your competitors are both using the same handbook, is it really a competitive advantage anymore? The high price protects you. It’s a blessing in disguise and a total silver lining. They also used to offer a paid monthly annual contract for students from India but it seems discontinued since the past 6 months. The Slack community It's well worth the money if you are able to network and make a few good friends. Reward entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship is INCREDIBLY hard. It’s tough, and if you don’t support people who truly add value to the world, they risk going out of business, and you end up with the bottom feeders. That’s a terrible incentive for the world we live in. Great products deserve to win and we should help them gain attention and then some more. 😇 Reforge Program Review Reforge is not flawless. Don’t sign up for Reforge thinking it’s all roses and sunshine. It’s not. You cannot copy from Reforge, or export the lessons. It takes two times longer than they say it will, so your weekends are booked out. If you have consulting gigs, you might have to drop them too. Not everything is easily applicable and requires you to research on your own, bring in data scientists at times, or just roll with it. Your subscription will not stop if you have a major life event like a marriage or a baby. You may not study for months and really get no value during those months. There’s no way to pause it. I took Amanda’s Content Marketing 201 last month and I plan to take altMBA in Jan, so I know I cannot continue with Reforge in those two months and will have to deal with my anxiety and FOMO issues. What I hate most about Reforge It's really hard to consume. Content is very dense so a little hard to get through. Imagine this... You're watching a Netflix series, and each episode is barely 10 minutes long. Worse yet, each episode has a 3 minutes recap without a 'skip recap' button. If you want to binge watch Reforge, it's a bit of a pain. I have to force myself to get through it. I think they could've simplified the content, used brain-friendly language, and condensed the material by half. I live in the age of Instagram Reels and Tiktok where dopamine hits are instant. So I wish they made the content a little more exciting with hooks, baits, and storytelling. I know it's not easy to make educational content entertaining but, if they fix it, I'd be encouraged to study far more often than I do today. But that’s honestly fine, IMO. Reforge is super into feedback, and they really try their best to improve. Some things are business model constraints and some things are there to improve monetization. You will hate some things about Reforge but it’s really up to you what you focus on — the value you can get out of it or the issues. Oh and one last thing, if you have no prior experience in a certain topic, it can feel too theoretical. Some of the reviews about Reforge claim that it doesn't teach real skills and feels high-level. That's somewhat true. Reforge has an Experimentation and Testing program that I'm trying to take. But it feels like there's just too much theory, making it really difficult to consume. That's probably only because I cannot tie back the learnings to my experience to make it feel exciting. So, if you don't have tactical experience in a certain topic, and you try taking Reforge, it might feel exhausting to consume it. Why Reforge over literally any other platform? Very valid question. Let’s dive in. Reforge vs CXL CXL is more tactical and useful during the early stages of your career. Reforge is more strategic, that does NOT teach you tactical skills. Reforge will not show you how to run ads, for example, there are many courses that can do that for you. Reforge vs Demand Curve Demand Curve is for founders and startups. It doesn’t have a lot of depth. It covers YouTube Ads and SEO in the same course which I think is not deep enough for seasoned growth practitioners. On a more positive note, Demand Curve won't drown you in theory. It's more suited to founders who want to get started quickly. Reforge vs Niche Programs I do take a few of them. Vexpower is one I really like for attribution and other cool skills. But it’s not a “this or that” decision but more of a “this AND that” decision. Every course I took added a lot of value to me. CXL helped me land my first job. Reforge will help me tip over that inflection point in my career. And frankly, you should have a learning budget set aside and force yourself to spend it. Reforge vs growth.design growth.design is more specialised, and easier to consume since it's a niche program. More alternatives I created an interactive guide for choosing growth marketing programs. If you filter for blogs and podcasts, it'll show up high quality blogs and podcasts that have similar content like Reforge, although a bit unstructured. If you have questions, drop them below in the comments. Thank you,

Collecting Cancellation Data Stripe has this functionality in their billing settings that you can use to capture cancellation reasons. Once you have this set up, you get two types of data: MCQ options that people choose from Freeform text input field when people choose 'Other' option. Exporting Cancellation Data from Stripe Stripe will let you hover over each cancellation to see what they said. But you won't be able to export this data as a CSV. You'll have to use Stripe Sigma which comes with a 30 day free trial. I don't know SQL nor did I have the time to learn how to use it. So, I used ChatGPT. Fed ChatGPT some example codes from the template section of Sigma, and asked it to create one for this use case. Took me 20 minutes of trial and error but the outcome was pretty nice! You can paste both of these in the editor as is and then hit RUN. SQL Snippet #1 - Freeform field SELECT cancellation_reason_text, COUNT(*) as count FROM subscriptions WHERE status = 'canceled' GROUP BY cancellation_reason_text SQL Snippet #2 - MCQ field data SELECT cancellation_reason, COUNT(*) as count FROM subscriptions WHERE status = 'canceled' GROUP BY cancellation_reason Analyzing Churn Data Download the MCQ version and create a lovely bar graph to see the primary reasons why people cancel. For the freeform field, it'll require a bit more work before it's usable. You'll have to Import that data in Ch atGPT and ask it to run cluster analysis and 'group by themes'. Then, you can ask it to convert it to a table format, add numbers based on how many times the theme recurs, and expand on each! Making Decisions with Churn Data You'll know why people are cancelling before paying hundreds of dollars for a churn prevention tool. But once you know why people are cancelling, you can take better steps to across the product, starting with segmenting them at the onboarding. ⭐ I used this data to build our Churnkey cancellation flow. (Edit as of Jan, 2024: I joined Churnkey. Everything else on this page is unchanged.)

Is CXL worth it? CXL is pretty darn awesome. Some content is slightly outdated, some of it is a drag. But other than that, I think the growth marketing minidegree and all-access pass is superb. Hi, I’m Khushi Lunkad. I'm a growth marketer working for SaaS and Ecommerce companies. I discovered my passion for growth marketing in 2018. Since then, I have completed over 60 online courses on Coursera, Edx, DataCamp, Hubspot, Facebook Blueprint, Google Academy, Copyhackers, Chase Dimond, Foxwell, CTC etc. If after reading this review, you realize CXL isn't right for you, I put together an interactive list of growth marketing and growth product courses tagged with budget, seniority and goals. Check that out as well! It’s been 20 months since I completed CXL’s minidegree and so far, I’ve managed to work with the best minds in the world. People know what CXL is and what is stands for. Review of ConversionXL’s growth marketing courses : CXL’s beginner’s courses were more actionable than the advanced courses from Google Academy. Their All-Access Pass is a little pricey and may be an opportunity cost for some. Most of the teachers at CXL institute are good at both — their work and teaching. Some (1–2) teachers are good at what they do but their teaching styles didn’t suit me. Know the Certificate requirements before you sign up. CXL does not take the quality of their education lightly. And I compare this with 60+ courses , some worth $4000 and some completely free that I have taken. You need to get 90% of the questions right to pass and the questions are tricky. But, it’s actually one of the best entry-level courses out there, no joke. The videos are incredibly well-edited and concise = 0% rambling. I’ve benefited greatly from the training at my job and consistently impress my colleagues by just applying the learnings. Every video has a transcript that you can search. Most lessons come with downloadable slides, lots of templates and reading material. The instructors share everything that they’ve got without any hesitations. But, this is what an instructor at CXL shared with me 😐 "CXL is very tactical. Some courses are also very beginner level. Some are good, of course. But I think overall Reforge is far more advanced." - An instructor at CXL So, what should you do? I don't really want to confuse you, but it is what the industry believes. CXL is tactical. It will get you started in the field and you won't find a better starting library elsewhere. Top experts in the industry, including the head of growth marketing at Loom and an EIR at Reforge, reviewed my resume. They noticed CXL and praised its credibility. Completing a 100-hour course shows hard work. So your efforts won't be in vain. CXL is better than free courses and some paid courses Here's what I regret: I was on Peep’s mailing list for quite a while and I wish I had decided to take this course earlier on rather than taking free courses on Google with their analytics and adwords. I didn’t store information properly in the initial days. But you can do better . CXL is even better than paid courses like Growthschool . Boy was I pissed after spending $300. Who is CXL not for? CXL is probably not for you if you have no experience with marketing. A basic foundation in marketing is necessary to make the most out of the course. If you’re a founder trying to learn marketing instead of hiring someone else, please don’t do that. CXL is too intense. Hire a marketer, a consultant, or even a mentor. This course isn’t for you if you just want a certificate, even though you get one. This course is for you if you want to get ridiculously good at data-driven marketing. If you’re not at all technologically savvy. If you're too senior in your marketing career, and already know your way around most of the stuff. If you want to specialize say in Google ads, then CXL might not be the right choice. You're better off going for a specialized course like God Tier Ads . View a list of all the courses I've taken. If you checked any 2 of those 6 statements, please reconsider before investing your time and resources. Other important details (I’m doing a brain-dump) I think they also give you access to a Facebook group. CXL shifted between a circle.so community and a FB community; not sure if any of them are still active today. The FB community helped me back in 2020 but now I have over 10+ Slack channels to get help. The growth marketing minidegree was amazing and we didn’t have a lifetime access deal like you have today. The current Black Friday deal is probably their best deal ever. The all-access may be in terms of optionality. But you can also have a decision paralysis with so many options, so know what works best for you. Everything is pre-recorded. CXL also has personalized/live courses called Sprints if you prefer. After every lesson in a course, the instructors give you an empty templates to refill based on your data. Super practical. I found some courses to be really interesting and useful like this and this . If you can start with any one course, I'd recommend this one. It made me cry tears of joy. I honestly did not like a bunch of courses like this and this one. Some courses can be outdated even if you wouldn't expect it like this one so use your judgement! Although, I see a lot of fresh courses that weren't available when I took so that's nice. CXL Alternatives Demand Curve’s Growth Marketing Training — Demand Curve is all text, no audio/video. CXL is audio/video/text/AMAs. Julian Shapiro’s content is really good but if you don’t have a startup, then you may not be able to extract the most out of Demand Curve’s training. [Edit: I took Demand Curve in early 2022, it's better for founders, not marketers. ] Reforge — quite expensive at $2000/year but considered the best in the industry. They give you access to 22 programs but you need to apply and get accepted. [Edit: Fun fact, I got a scholarship on April 28, 2022 ] Read the full post Growth Hackers : Their courses are backed up by a popular personality in the growth marketing world — Sean Ellis. But the courses aren’t taught by him. They are taught by partners. CXL does have 1 course by Sean Ellis :) Udemy : I haven’t personally ventured into this space because I found out that Udemy has a bare minimum instructor vetting system. If I have to try tens of instructors to find the right one, then it’s a waste of time. CXL Scholarship — They have a scholarship program as well but you need to apply, get accepted and then write a 1000 word blog post each week. Edit Jan, 2023: Scholarship is no longer available but they launched another alternative which costs $100. CXL course review by other nice people Take a look at some real reviews posted. Bottom Line Look, if you’ve made it this far, it only points to one thing — that you’re serious about your future. CXL is one option to get started, and probably the easiest because of their 7-day trial . Next, take some time to understand how the industry works. I have an article here . If you want some course recommendations that aren't already on my course list, just ask me . I'm pretty resourceful as you'll see below. 😄 My recommendation is to start with CXL. They have a 7-day trial. You don't have to start the search process all over again. Maybe you’ll find the missing piece and use CXL as a stepping stone to a better future. Remember, CXL is not a magic bullet. The more you get into growth marketing, the more you'll realise what you don't know. CXL is the best way to get a step in the door. It's not the final step you'll take. Put simply, where you source your knowledge is far more important than how much you consume. Can I download CXL courses for free? 🙈 CXL is tactical, which means their courses constantly need updating. The problem with this is that you could download content that is already outdated. That'd be twice the amount of time you'd have to spend learning and re-learning. If you're lacking budget, I'd recommend CXL's New Scholarship Program. It costs a one-time fee of $100 and then they help you get hired too (which may or may not work. I've tried recruiting once from their pool but I didn't hire anyone.) If you want to take one or two courses, go for the $1 plan and skim through it. CXL also puts a LOT of content on their blog which in my opinion covers most of their content, but it's a bit too much to read through. Blog's free. You could force-download the content from their site using shady methods but it'll take longer to individually download the content than for you to consume it. Plus, you'll never watch it if it's downloaded on a hard drive that you have to keep plugging in to your laptop to watch. You won't have transcripts to read along the videos. The templates and files won't be easily accessible. You'll lose a lot of motivation along the way. It just won't be worth the effort if your time has literally any value but you could get access and download the content. I'm not sure if CXL's free courses are good or not. Better to go for the best quality of education out there if time and money constraints can be easily sorted out. About other minidegrees from CXL CXL Analytics Minidegree Content is outdated. They are still using UA instead of GA4 (as of July 4, 2023). Here's the feedback I received: My experience with GA and GTM is that the industry is shifting to Mixpanel Marketing Analytics and Segment. GTM is so unintuitive that even my developers struggle to use it, so no wonder we'll do too. CXL CRO Minidegree If learning is the goal, this minidegree is great. Content won't ever be outdated. However, it doesn't teach you how to do in-product experiments and CRO is sort of owned by Product . You need to stitch marketing site data to product metrics like activation, retention, and engagement metrics, which I don't remember CXL teaching. It's still useful and is a good alternative to the $1500 growth.design course. Edit I'm adding this note on the 31st of July in 2024. I have an affiliate link down below so I can see how many people are purchasing the course and getting a refund. The money is not super important to me but lately, I've been seeing a crazy trend of a high refund rate. One out of every two purchases are eventually refunded so it points to one thing that people aren't really satisfied with the product or they're abusing the platform. Do with this information what you will. Thanks. Liked this cxl course review? First of all, thank you for reading my experience at CXL Institute! I put in hours of effort into making the most comprehensive and honest review of CXL’s minidegrees. I’ll continue to improve it as time passes. Please leave a comment below if you feel like it. Or just say hi . It's good be friends :) And if you're feeling extra generous and thought this article helped you to make a purchase decision, please sign up using my affiliate link . 🤗 Why I wrote this article and why I want to improve it further? I wasn’t able to find any honest review of whether CXL Institute is good or not. Everything out there was unoriginal, useless or incomplete. Ever since completing the growth marketing mini-degree , I wanted to write a sincere review.

How to lose a user in 10 seconds or maybe not? 💥 User state 1: Aw dang, I have to check my inbox. And almost every company uses this in some form or another. 💥User state 2: Holy wow, this email auto-magically opens up I don't have to see my other emails and get lost in it. Nice filters. It's also a good use of the my overall user psych. 😢 I'm disappointed that I have to login with my Gmail. 😅 There's an open in Gmail button. 🤭 It opens up in the correct inbox. I have 9 email addresses. 🤩 It made the search for me, so I don't have to. All it took was 3 clicks. That's it! I've seen another variation of this without the newer_than:1hr filter which shows you all emails from the same sender. The Gmail button appears only if the user has a Gmail address. I'm assuming the folks at Growth Design ran my my email through MXToolbox (or something similar) to determine the hostname from my domain name to make that journey one step less.

User research is a sweet pain. Almost addicting? 🙁 Over the past few months, I've conducted hundreds of user research interviews. For marketing like mapping out our JBTD and Buyer Journey For community and sales like customer stories and case studies For product like activation and retention For monetization like Van Westerdorp and MaxDiff Here's my template: With every result, I am more humbled. So humbled that I even ̶w̶r̶o̶t̶e̶ stole a song. I have this thing where I get users but just no retention Activation's become my attention When my product team works the graveyard shift All of the projects I've cancelled stand there in the room I should not be left to my own lousy onboarding They come with prices and vices I end up in crisis (tale as old as SaaS) As a kid, my parents discouraged me from songwriting. And I'm forever grateful to them for that. 😅 The weapons we choose is half the battle won I've tested with our own users, and I've tested with users from 3rd party platforms. Here are some tools that were on my radar: Usertesting.com — Usertesting costs $110 for a remote, unmoderated interview. For live, moderated interview, it was $220. This was for startups. Userinterviews.com — $45 for a B2C study. $99 for a B2B study. Live testing. Userbrain.com — $39 for an unmoderated test. Tester pool isn't great though. Hotjar Engage — $90 +$20 for a 30 minute moderated interview. Maze.co — $5-10 per unmoderated test. They have a startup program too which gives out free credit. Dscout , Suzy/suzylive for quick turnaround; qualtrics or ipsos for bigger surveys. We used Tally (cost-friendly alternative to Typeform ) for some surveys but not many. I found that the drop of rates in Tally were higher, even when identical surveys were set up in Typeform. 😢 Also, Tally can't help with thinks like MaxDiff surveys but works for Van Westerndorp, for example. Userzoom.com — Enterprisy. Someone who used it once told me that their experience wasn't great. Wynter — for message testing. It costs $900 per test to start out. It's per test though, not per interview which is a better value metric than the others. Although, that makes it harder to compare. Respondent.io — Enterprise, and I couldn't see a clear differentiation. But respondent.io did have a recommendation. tremendous.com/ — would've helped manage the payout process but we didn't use them. Internal tools: We triggered in-product notifications and emails. Inspiration I really like how Todoist does feedback sessions. They don't pay, but it is displayed under "support". And they use a lot of segmentation with Calendly. Only a 15-minute call is less commitment and they also offer an async option if you're not interested. Call option wouldn't show up for free users. Lets be friends on Twitter ? My content is absolutely non-educational.

Chalk is a highly commoditized product. The industry is saturated. There's no first mover advantage. But have you heard of Hagoromo Chalks? If you aren't a mathematician, I bet you haven't. The cult-like following "A brand of chalk achieved cult status among mathematicians. Some call it the Rolls Royce of chalk, the Steinway of writing utensils. Some say it’s unbreakable, others say it leaves no dust behind." CNN It became the math world's best kept secret. Professors went wild over a cult chalk. So much so, they started to hoard a lifetime supply of chalks. When rumour had it that the company would go out of business. The price It costs 0.5-0.9 cents per piece. Competitors and cheaper alternatives cost $0.1-3 cents. Their target audience hates cheap chalk. Because the quality is nowhere near Hagoromo Targeting the right persona Mathematicians use a lot of chalk. They possibly use more than all other teachers combined. So, this persona's usage is quite high. Which means, they consume fast and don't churn fast. So, how did this happen? Positioning. And product. The perception is that Hagoromo chalk is the best chalk on the earth. How do they tell this story? Through others. Hagoromo went viral when Stanford professors took to Youtube to praise the chalk, calling it the Rolls Royce of chalks. AKA word of mouth from an opinion leader. Then, they hired Youtube channels to tell their story. Their website? It's not fancy at all. It's just simple copy. Light humor. You don't need dozens of testimonials if one speaks volumes. Have history? Let it shine. The bottom line "Create a cult. And let the cult to do the marketing for you. The people in suits call it it branding." Some other examples A few that I can think of: Liquid Death — They sell water, possibly at a higher price. Oatly — The sell oat milk. Highly commoditized industry. Oatly is also the most expensive solution. Hexclad Pans — Same marketing as Hagoromo chalks but for pans

If the SaaS community ever did a Spotify Wrapped... Reporting bugs isn't included in anyone's OKRs... Bugs were the bane of my existence... It's worse for startups without a dedicated QA person. As a marketer, I dog-food our product a whole lot than other team members and have attained the unholy lifetime achievement of the best bug hunter. Not willfully, I might add. Until the day I saw a twitter ad promoting Jam... Which is a linear channel than feeds into Jam's growth loop. Their homepage was delightful to see... Cute annotations and really good copy! I wonder who wrote and designed? And a really intuitive, helpful product overall... Jam is honestly product-led. The Jam Dashboard has 'Copy Link' as the primary action on hover (see first image) And copy link is shown as the primary call to action yet again when I open any jam video. Driving habit and retention by piggybacking They encourage you to connect Jam to the tools you use everyday. The integration helps build habit loop and piggyback on products that have better retention than Jam might. Invite your colleagues but not during the onboarding Jam's comment section covers half the screen. I think they could make this even better if I could send an invite directly from Jam. Imagine if all I had to do was tag first_name@domain-name.com for my colleagues? Jam's Growth Loops Until I'm corrected by someone else... I think Jam's making all the right product moves. Like a small boat in the ocean, it's sending big waves in motion! 🎵 Or not. Up to you! Thank you for reading!

If you want to create this natural frequency identification graph in Mixpanel , I have step-by-step instructions below. 1- If you want to group core actions together, you will need to create a custom event to group those events together. Example: For our product, both copy and download an asset are inter-changeable. If you only have 1 event, you can skip this step. 2- Then create a cohort of users older than 28 days who performed the core event at least once, which you can do using the following query. 3- Then plotting the Frequency report by creating a retention report and select frequency from the top left. 4- That will result in a frequency curve, which isn't a histogram but still pretty much gets the same data. Use breakdowns to slice and dice the data. 5- You can convert this frequency curve to a histogram using any free online tool or Google sheets. I used Google sheets, and spent 15ish minutes converting it. You plot: days used, active users. Calculate active users from the cumulative users exported from Mixpanel . It's better to google if you aren't sure how to do this. Tons of articles on how to convert. I hope this helps!

Great marketing starts with great positioning. Get 8 Product Positioning Framework Templates Positioning Perceptual Mapping 5 Types of Positioning Storybrand framework Brand Equity Model April Dunford's Positioning Framework 3Cs of Positioning 12 Brand Personality Archetypes Brand Matrix Tip: Just use one or two frameworks and delete the rest. Ok, so let me explain each framework in a sentence or two. This will help you quickly guage which framework is right for you. Remember: you only need one or two frameworks. Trying to use all is like mixing apple pie and lasagne. No matter how much time you spend, it'll still end up terrible. Perceptual Mapping Positioning Template This is created by Philip Kotler. He's the father of modern marketing so this is a solid framework for brand positioning map. Storybrand Template This is inspired by how film makers tell stories. It's pretty popular, and is relatively easy to use. Your product isn't the hero of the story, the customer is. April Dunford's 'Obviously Awesome' Positioning Template April Dunford wrote a book which I consider to be a modern version of the legendary book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind", written by Jack Trout. While Jack Trout's book is considered 'The Bible' in the ad world, it still lacks some actionable items. April Dunford does a good job at bridging that gap with her book, and she has positioned more tech companies than anyone else. Keller's Brand Equity Model (CBBE Model) Template Another framework taught in marketing schools. You won't find this unless you have majored in marketing. This comes from my rather fat text book from uni days. If you want to learn it, I suggest looking up 'brand equity' model. Positioning Strategy Template (3Cs and Types) These two frameworks were taught to me when I was majoring in marketing. It'll help narrow down how you compete. So, it's a level higher up than hardcore positioning. 12 Brand Archetypes Template If you want to figure out what's your brand personality, the brand archetype framework is a solid start. It's the most complex of the personality-type positioning templates though. There are easier ones available if you google 'brand personality templates'. 1. To choose your brand archetype, work inside out. 2. Choose which of the four quadrants your vision and mission lie under. 3. Then, choose one of the three in that quadrant. 🚨 A brand can have more than one personalities but avoid more than 3. Brand Positioning Matrix Template I really haven't heard this one before but I saw another brand do this and decided to just add it to my endlessly long list. This is a partial template. Use these positioning templates in powerpoint Use these gorgeous product positioning framework templates in Powerpoint if you don't know Figma? 1. Duplicate Figma File. If you don't have a account, you'll have to create a free one. 2. Just edit in Figma directly. Change the text. It's easy 3. Select the framework 4. When done, right click on any framework and copy. Right click to copy as PNG, and paste in PPT. You can deselect the text, if you want to directly have the text file in powerpoint. 5. Paste as PNG in Powerpont Thank you for reading!

The best innovation in marketing happens outside of marketing. I found out that in 2022, a former Japanese Prime Minister , Shinzo Abe, was assassinated . Why? He had connections with the Unification Church — a controversial religious corporation in Japan famous for its brain-washed followers and mass weddings. The story of the man who assassinated the Prime Minister highlights the manipulative tactics of the Unification Church. He recounts his mother's decision to donate their life savings to the Church instead of using it to save his younger brother from cancer, ultimately leading to his brother's passing and their bankruptcy. But how does a cult manipulate people to donate their life savings to the church instead of saving the life of a family member? The opportunity cost was wild. But she still chooses. And she chooses death and bankruptcy. Love bombing to acquire and activate Cults use "love bombing" as an emotionally draining recruitment strategy and that it is a form of positive reinforcement. [ Source ] This works because humans have a natural need to feel good about who we are, and often we can’t fill this need on our own. The unification church (although a bad organization) spread like wildfire. Love bombing was one crucial element of their strategy. Love bombing is when you shower someone with affection and attention. We can borrow the foundational principles and truly influence consumer behavior for greater good. I'm not totally sure how yet but I'm going to find it out how to creatively apply this in a way that positively impacts the world. But for now, I leave you with this thought — religions and cult organizations are really good at consumer behavior. We have to figure out how to bring that over to marketing. Do you have any ideas how? Please let me know !

The Market Gmail didn't really have a first mover advantage, and yet, it holds the majority of the market share today. How? Monetization Model Supports Growth A little while before Gmail came, Yahoo downgraded users to their 2 MB mailbox plan wanting them to upgrade to their premium option. Hotmail was a little generous at 5 MB. Gmail offered 1GB instead. It shook the internet community at the time. "A 1-gigabyte mailbox! Impossible!" Making a too-good to be true launch offer helped garner organic PR mentions. They launched on April Fool's Day which added confusion to the mix and helped get people talking. The timing was really stellar. Be 100X better than the current offering to get people talking. This can be achieved either by saving people 100x the time, the money, or improving the performance by 100x. Easiest to measure is the money. Never Market Alone — Use Employees? Instead of simply providing accounts to reporters and tech media outlets, Google decided to try a different approach for the rollout of its new email service. The company gave its employees special "invitation tokens" that they could use to bring their friends into the beta testing phase. As more and more people became interested in getting a Gmail account, some even resorted to selling their tokens on eBay due to the high demand. This exclusivity and limited availability generated a lot of media attention and buzz, leading to a viral marketing campaign. Those lucky enough to receive a Gmail invitation during this time often bragged about their access to friends and even shared screenshots on their personal blogs.

Growing your following as a food blogger Hi! This post is about @shereshe. She creates food videos. It's one of my favorite Instagram accounts. She created a series and ate her way through the alphabet in India She piggybacks off of the most popular cuisines of India. Wraps it in a series format since there are 26 alphabets. And it got really popular. Indians would watch because there's of the curiosity gap, even if what she shares could be obvious, people would still watch. She shares history and culture — things even I don't know — and exceeds expectations. Tourists would be interested because this creates somewhat of a guided travel. I don't think that she's re-inventing the wheel. She isn't creating each recipe on her own, or trying to find interesting restaurants. Nope. She's just taking what works well, and resonates with an audience. She's piggybacking off of the popularity of the Alphonso Mango. A fruit's popularity. Wrapping it up in a series so it increases retention and creates a habit loop. Pretty clever. Always find a horse to ride. Never market alone. 🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴