Growth for Startups

Alströmer says most startups do not yet have product-market fit, and launching alone will not bring users. He recounts Airbnb’s founders visiting New York hosts, taking better listing photos, and fixing problems they saw firsthand. Those early, hands-on efforts helped the founders learn what customers needed and improve the product.

To assess whether people value a product, identify the action that represents its value and measure how often users repeat it. For Airbnb, that is bookings and stays, measured annually; for Instagram, returning to view photos, measured daily. Alströmer argues that a retention curve that levels off shows some users continue to find value, while registrations, visitors, conversion rates, and survey scores are weaker evidence on their own.

Alströmer recommends working on growth channels after users show they value the product. He describes improving conversion through the product funnel and reaching users through channels such as Google search, referrals, viral loops, sales, and paid advertising. He advises most companies to focus on one or two channels; paid ads require revenue and a customer acquisition cost that makes sense against expected customer value.

Alströmer explains how teams can find drop-offs between product steps and improve issues such as translation, authentication, onboarding, and purchase flow. For referrals, he says to measure each step from the offer through invite clicks, sign-ups, and bookings. He also describes SEO as competitive: research the keywords people actually search for, make pages understandable to Google, and build authority through inbound links.

As a company grows, Alströmer recommends A/B tests to compare a new design with the existing one, while noting that most early startups lack enough traffic for useful tests. At Airbnb, a redesigned sharing sheet increased shares by about 40%, and a signup wall produced 2.6% to 6% more iOS bookings. He argues that experiments help teams make decisions with evidence instead of relying on the loudest opinion.