Alex Moore

CEO

@awmoore

baydin | 2013

Polynomial GrowthHow to use Calculus 101 to gauge your startup’s early growth trajectory.

VC Math is a Funny Thing

VC Math is a Funny Thing

VC Math is a Funny Thing

The next Facebook! Lifestyle Business.

Yawn.

Your startup’s user base will not look like either of these

Your startup’s user base will not look like either of these UNLESS

• Your product is a free viral consumer app with network effects (why are you here?)

• Something is wrong

A Real-World Example: Amazon

baydin | 2013

1997 2013

Not Linear

baydin | 2013

1997 2013

Not Exponential Either

baydin | 2013

1997 2013

Why it matters

baydin | 2013

1997 2015

Exponential Growth

Amazon Revenue

Projections

Boomerang: Not Linear

baydin | 2013

July 2010 April 2013

Not Exponential Either

baydin | 2013

July 2010 April 2013

Marketing Channel discovery and saturation should dominate your early growth.

baydin | 2013

1 2 3 4 5 60

500

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Marketing Channels

AdWords

baydin | 2013

1 2 3 4 5 60

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Marketing Channels

AdWords FB Ad

baydin | 2013

1 2 3 4 5 60

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Marketing Channels

AdWords FB Ad Slideshare SEO Landing FB Tweak Banner Ad

baydin | 2013

1 2 3 4 5 6

POLYNOMIAL GROWTH!

Boomerang Daily New Users

baydin | 2013

7/1/2

010

7/23/2

010

8/14/2

010

9/5/2

010

9/27/2

010

10/19/2

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11/10/2

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12/2/2

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12/24/2

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1/15/2

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2/6/2

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2/28/2

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3/22/2

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5/27/2

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6/18/2

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7/10/2

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8/1/2

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8/23/2

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9/14/2

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10/6/2

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10/28/2

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11/19/2

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12/11/2

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1/2/2

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1/24/2

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2/15/2

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3/8/2

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3/30/2

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4/21/2

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5/13/2

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6/4/2

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6/26/2

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7/18/2

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8/9/2

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8/31/2

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9/22/2

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10/14/2

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11/5/2

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11/27/2

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12/19/2

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1/10/2

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2/1/2

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2/23/2

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3/17/2

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4/8/2

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4/30/2

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5/22/2

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baydin | 2013

Some channels that worked

baydin | 2013

Chrome Web Store

EmailMarketing

Infographic SEO Landing Pages

Chrome Web Store

baydin | 2013

• Up to 12,000 users per day when featured • Consistent 400 users per day

Email Marketing

baydin | 2013

Email Marketing

baydin | 2013

• Search + Direct traffic increase due to user emails:• 55%• 24%• 18%• 12%• 6%

• Super Cheap

#1 Tactical Tip: Send More (High-Quality) Email!

Content Marketing

Borrow someone else’s audience

Great lift (25k visits) but not much sticking power

$1200 + 4 days of engineer time

SEO Landing Pages

baydin | 2013

• Found 20 good keywords with AdWords + Moz tools

• Seeded with AdWords to test conversion rate

• Analyzed search terms to find other opportunities

• Fixed cost – additional traffic is free and growing

SEO Landing Page Traffic

baydin | 2013

Marketing is hard because of Failure

baydin | 2013

• Video (clickthrough rate too low)

• Display Ads (4% conversion to download)

• AdWords (low search volume)

• Facebook Ads (only 3rd world clicks were cheap)

• Domaining (low pagerank because sites too new)

Mechanics of polynomial growth are easy

baydin | 2013

1. Pick a customer acquisition channel See DMC’s AARRR slides for channel ideasSpend at least one month running

experiments

2. Measure the results.Invest more? Invest the same? Stop

investing?

3. Pick another customer acquisition channel

baydin | 2013

If your growth does not yet look polynomial:Draft or hire someone to focus on marketing!

tiny.cc/polynomialgrowth

Alex Moore

Baydin

@awmoore

My Growth Looks Different

Raising Money

baydin | 2013

1. The illusion of exponential growth is key to attracting investors.

2. Your lever is your marketing budget. Expect to lose money overall creating this illusion.

3. Don’t believe your own bullshit!

Have not hit Product-Market Fit

baydin | 2013

1. Look at conversion metrics

2. Talk to your customers

3. Iterate on your product