Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

The hierarchy of engagement | Sarah Tavel (Benchmark, Greylock, Pinterest)

308 snips
Dec 27, 2023
Sarah Tavel, a General Partner at Benchmark and former product manager at Pinterest, shares her expertise on startup growth. She introduces the Hierarchy of Engagement framework, emphasizing core actions and user retention over vanity metrics. Tavel outlines strategies for marketplace growth, discussing three key vectors and the importance of focusing on niche markets. She highlights real-world examples from Pinterest and other platforms, illustrating how understanding user engagement can lead to sustained success. Tavel's insights provide a valuable roadmap for founders in the dynamic startup landscape.
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INSIGHT

Core Action over MAU

  • Focus on the core action of your product, the action that demonstrates user understanding and drives retention.
  • Monthly active users (MAU) is a vanity metric; track users completing the core action instead.
ADVICE

Define Active User

  • Define a clear "active user" definition based on a specific action, not just app opens.
  • For Snapchat, it's sending a snap; for WhatsApp, it's sending a message.
ANECDOTE

Pinterest's Core Action Journey

  • Early Pinterest struggled to define its core action, considering follows, clicks, likes, and pins.
  • They experimented and analyzed various metrics before settling on "pinning."
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