Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Growth tactics, retention strategies, and becoming a better writer | Julian Shapiro (Demand Curve, Hyper, Webflow, TechCrunch)

September 25, 2022

AI Summary

5 min read

Julian Shapiro shares practical growth tactics, retention strategies, and writing advice drawn from his experience at Demand Curve, Hypergrowth Partners, Webflow, and TechCrunch, emphasizing psychological mechanisms that drive user behavior in product-led growth.

Growth Tactics

Shapiro outlines growth as optimizing funnels through small, testable changes, focusing on mechanisms like the "growth ceiling" where acquisition slows despite demand. Key tactics include viral loops, where users invite others via seamless sharing (e.g., Dropbox's referral program rewarded storage, leveraging reciprocity psychology), and cold DMs that convert 20-30% by personalizing with mutual connections and specific value propositions. He stresses testing one variable at a time, like email subject lines, and using "opportunity scoring" to prioritize channels by TAM and fit, avoiding over-reliance on paid ads which scale costs faster than LTV.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: No Guest**
2 (01:45) **Recent Market Volatility**
3 (07:20) **Fed Policy Outlook**
4 (14:10) **Tech Sector Deep Dive**
5 (22:35) **Earnings Season Preview**
6 (29:50) **Geopolitical Risks**
7 (36:15) **Portfolio Strategies**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Julian Shapiro is widely known as the founder of Demand Curve, where he’s helped thousands of companies figure out their growth strategy. He also wrote the growth marketing column at TechCrunch, was CMO at Webflow, and even created an animation engine called Velocity that’s now used in apps like Uber and WhatsApp. In today’s episode, Julian dives deep on product-led acquisition (PLA) and why he believes it’s the best way to grow your company. He shares specific marketing strategies for growth and retention and speaks about his framework for creating novel, engaging content, and how to choose topics for that content. He also discusses a framework called the Curiosity Faucet, inspired by prolific creators such as Ed Sheeran, John Mayer, Taylor Swift, and Neil Gaiman, to help you unlock your own creativity.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/growth-tactics-retention-strategies-and-becoming-a-better-writer-julian-shapiro-demand-curve-hyper-webflow-techcrunch/#transcript

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Where to find Julian Shapiro:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Julian

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-shapiro/

• Website: https://www.julian.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/