"Ignore the benchmarks. Find the patterns in the stories of people who do get your product. Figure out what converted them and got them so excited to keep using your product every day or every week. In the early days, your main focus should be to attract and create more and more of those “core users” who deeply use your product. Over time you can try to increase averages, but first, you just need a core and strong base."

"I like to look for bouncebacks. Bouncebacks are users that have tried your product, bailed immediately and didn’t find it useful, came back to try again for some reason (at least 1 week later, or even better, 1 month later), and then got hooked."

"1) What prompted you to sign up and try out our product in the first place? 2) What did not meet your expectations or what was hard to figure out? 3) Why did you come back to give the product another try? 4) What worked the second time that got you using it more frequently?"

"Revamp your messaging to focus more on the messages that brought people back and got them engaged. Update your product and onboarding to simplify whatever the users did the second time to get fully engaged."

"We rapidly rebuilt our onboarding to focus much more on following and finding the right people which caused significant increases in how many users were activated after signing up. We revised our messaging to talk much more about finding and following the right people on Twitter instead of talking about tweeting and broadcasting."

"The tools were rudimentary at the beginning, and the builders were naively optimistic that a more open and connected world simply would lead to a better world since everyone had a voice."

"Now we live in a world where likes and follows dominate our perception of ourselves."

"When everyone is a media channel, people don’t share their true selves, and social interactions get warped into social competitions."

"Facebook itself is repositioning its efforts around more private communications — since in private conversations people express more of their true selves, and share more now than they do on their feeds or “media channels”."

"The main revenue driver for top social companies today are all based on advertising, of which a major factor is the time you spend on the app. Revenue models built on time spent are zero-sum business models."

"going to a concert together, eating dinner, or just hanging out at someone’s apartment. These are the real experiences we have together. They matter in the best of times and the worst of times. These are the true moments that create the best memories."

"The next wave of social products isn’t going to be about “media”, it’s going to be about experiences. I couldn’t be more excited."

"we never looked at numbers or metrics in the abstract -- total page views, logged in accounts, etc, but we always talked about users."

"While big numbers are a nice signal of, well, big numbers, I don't think they are an indicator at all for whether a product is really working."

"whatever it is, it should be a signal that they are using their product in the way you expected and that they use it enough so that you believe they will come back to use it more and more."

"The most basic element common to all these different types virality is inception. The goal of all viral efforts is to insert (or “incept”) an idea of what a product can do into someone else’s head, and to get them so excited about it they want to try it and use it."

"Many successful companies have done distinct things to help make their products go viral, all in completely different ways."

"Word-of-mouth virality"

"This one is straightforward: It’s simply a product being so good that people can’t help telling their friends about it."

"One other key to word of mouth virality is making sure your product is easy to find later. Having a name that is easy to remember, *and to spell* certainly helps (Google is easier than Googol — the number it was named after)."

"The other key is to make sure your product is easy to describe."

"If you don’t have a pithy way to describe your product, you should assume your users won’t be able to either."

"Demonstration virality is when the nature of a product is such that, simply by using it, people are showing it off."

"Infectious virality is when a product is designed in a way that people will work to get other people using it because it will make it better for both of them."

"Invitations are the key to spreading infectious virality. However — false invitations or overly spammy invitations often have a deleterious effect on virality."

"But infectious virality doesn’t and shouldn’t apply to all products. Being invited into a product that isn’t naturally social doesn’t really work."

"You don’t want to try infectious virality unless it really is applicable — that you want each user to bring another user into the product experience so that it will be better for both of them."

"If your product is about creating content or having experiences that are easy to show off, it’s often much better to focus on demonstration virality."

"Remember, at the end of the day, there’s only one metric that really matters: How many people are actually using your product. Not downloading it, not clicking on it, not trying it for a day. Actually using it."

"Purpose: what is the core purpose of the product (or “what problem do users have that your product addresses”)"

"Once you have a hypothesis for the what/who/how/frequency of your product, the next step is to build your actual funnel."

"You should be able to break down your product into specific skills or tasks someone needs to understand to get the most out of your product."

"In the adoption phase of the product, we focused primarily on 1–4 to get people going. Over time, we started to build features to encourage users to approach step 5 as they got more comfortable."

"The first step tends to be the “Hook” which is the reason people hear about and get intrigued by your product."

"The key transition then is to help someone come to Twitter and learn the purpose of having Twitter show them “what’s happening in their world” every time they check it."

"the only thing founders need to think about is: Are people using your product? Are they using it how you expect (i.e performing the core action)? And, are they performing the core action at the frequency you expect?"

"We separated the userbase into three buckets, cold (doesn’t come back), casual (might come back), core (highly likely to keep coming back). Core users are the best."

"you first have to know that not all virality is the same."

"The most basic element common to all these different types virality is inception."

"You need to understand what’s inside your core users’ minds, and use that knowledge to help them share your product through whatever means makes the most sense."

"The goal of all viral efforts is to insert (or “incept”) an idea of what a product can do into someone else’s head, and to get them so excited about it they want to try it and use it. That’s the most important component of any type of virality."

"how do you make sure that the flow of interested people actually converts to new users as seamlessly as possible?"

"The goal of all viral efforts is to insert (or “incept”) an idea of what a product can do into someone else’s head, and to get them so excited about it they want to try it and use it."

"One other key to word of mouth virality is making sure your product is easy to find later."

"Incentivized word-of-mouth virality"

"Demonstration virality"

"Demonstration virality is when the nature of a product is such that, simply by using it, people are showing it off. One great example is Instagram:"

"This is similar to word-of-mouth, but with a little added incentive for people to refer their friends."

"Even Uber benefited from demonstration virality early on. You’d show up to a meeting in a black car"

"Infectious virality"

"Another example is Pinterest. If I create a pinboard of fun GIFs or wedding ideas or recipes, and I share it, the act of sharing is a built-in advertisement for Pinterest’s awesomeness."

"For example, Snapchat users have a big incentive to encourage their friends to download Snapchat so they can send photos back and forth in a more authentic and safe way."

"Invitations are the key to spreading infectious virality."

"When someone invites you to a service only because they invited their entire address book, it doesn’t feel personal or connected."

"Being invited into a product that isn’t naturally social doesn’t really work. So use this method carefully and make sure it really applies to your product."

"Outbreak virality"

"Finally, some things just spread because they’re fun to share, or because they’ve got a lot of popular momentum and people want to look cool by sharing them."

"it also benefited from this virtuous circle of fun, popularity, and sharing."

"“I’m just going to add an invite flow to my product.” That doesn’t work in most cases."

"If it’s not well positioned and well integrated, an invite flow is just going to produce a bunch of ineffective invites that won’t convert into new users."

"if your product costs money and has value, an incentivized word of mouth strategy can really pay off."

"When you successfully create that moment of inception, and get the idea of your product into someone’s mind, you do need to follow that up with a smooth new-user flow."

"you need to be sure that it’s reaching the right people, gets them interested for reasons that align with the intrinsic value of your product, and leads them to the right actions."

"Remember, at the end of the day, there’s only one metric that really matters: How many people are actually using your product."

"LinkedIn and Facebook are the canonical examples of infectious virality where people invited you to be their colleagues or friends on the service."

"In a similar way, Pokémon Go took off this summer in part because everyone was doing it, and it was just fun to tell your friends about it and to participate yourself."

"Great product managers listen to user feedback all the time"

"it only matters if you can ultimately help the team get to a point where you can ship it."

"Help your team (and company) ship the right product to your users"

"The best product managers spend all of their time on the highest priority things that help their team."

"(a) coordination"

"(b) communication"

"the best product managers build a process to collaboratively decide on the right priorities so the whole team is bought in."

"As a product manager, it is imperative that you understand the company’s overall goals and objectives and exactly how your team fits in to the broader vision."

"Great product managers understand the very tricky balance between getting it right and getting it out the door."

"the team has to make a call that the product is ready enough"

"Great product managers have a good feel for what seems right or wrong, and are also good at listening to early feedback from testers and others who try it."

"the best product managers can measure whether the product shipped is the right one."

"The best product managers are the ones who simply roll up their sleeves and help their team through this journey."

"At Twitter, we found that if you visited Twitter at least 7 times in a month, then it was likely you were going to be visiting Twitter in the next month,"

"How many people are really using your product?"

"we always talked about users. More specifically, what they were doing and why they were doing it."

"how many people were using LinkedIn to search for and find other people, and how many people were on LinkedIn being viewed."

"we talked instead about how many people were looking at their timeline and reading tweets or tweeting."

"Once you can define a metric to answer this, then you can really track your growth on a day-to-day, week-over-week, month-over-month basis."

"The moment someone is trying your product is the MOST ATTENTION you ever get from that user. Take advantage of it."

"I have learned that longer flows are better than shorter flows. This doesn’t sound right, but trust me, it’s true."

"You may be surprised that an onboarding flow with a better “flow completion” rate may significantly underperform one that has fewer people complete the flow."

"The only true end of onboarding is when a user is habitually using your product."

"The best way to make your onboarding better is to try it. Try it often."

"Question every step. Act confused. Think about how nervous someone is about doing something wrong with your product."

"The most important question to ask these users after completing your new onboarding is: “What do you think the product does?”"

"If their description after going through your onboarding is pretty accurate, then it means you are onboarding them well."