Exploring Chess, Manipulation & Product-Led Growth with Claudio Descalescu
plus how I was mistaken for someone else 😆
Hello from your friend in Bucharest, Romania.
In this issue: how to find product market fit with Claudiu Dascalescu, quotes by Pat Summit, how your alone time gets ruined, and more!
Innovators Can Laugh
Claudio Descalescu is the chief growth marketer for ArchBee, a Y Combinator-backed tool that allows users to easily and quickly document product documents, APIs, and SDKs. On this episode, we chat about his hobbies which includes chess and jiu jitsu and about his favorite book on manipulation written by Bogdan Ficeac called "Totul Despre Manipulare", and his experience as the first hire at Y Combinator startup ArchBee
The conversation then shifts to a case study about product-led growth and how it can be used to find an ideal customer profile (ICP) and grow faster. Claudio references Superhuman as an example of finding product market fit through surveys that asked questions such as how would you feel if you couldn't use Superhuman anymore?
Claudio then goes on to explain how he codifies the feedback he received and used it to create three new sections on the homepage. He also talks about some of his growth frameworks like running ads to different audiences and using similar wording in those ads, which has resulted in more engagement compared to what was previously seen.
Additionally, personalization platforms such as OptiMonk were discussed as a way of creating different messaging based on a user's IP address, resulting in an increase in conversion rates.
Finally, he shares lesser known tools that can scrape search results for a specific keyword and generate copy based on existing search results.
Archbee has around 400 customers and are projected to reach about $2 million in USD in revenue for 2023.
🎙️ You can listen to the episode on Apple, Spotify, or other player here. Hope you enjoy!
Funny Clip
Jivko Djamiarov and I share experiences of when people mistake us from someone else including our kids! See the clip here.
Overheard on LinkedIn
✍️ John Ozuysal shares a good thought piece on how many topics a startup should focus on every quarter.
🪝 Roxana Irimia shares 5 hooks you can use that capture attention.
🤔 Hanna Larsson shares memories of her first job and how it shaped her. (I share memories of my first job in the comments).
Some Fav Quotes
⛹️♀️ "You can't always be the most talented person in the room, but you can be the most competitive."
🏆 “"When a player makes a mistake you always want to put them back in quickly. You just don't berate them and sit them down with no chance for redemption."
➡️ Pat Summitt, University of Tennessee Women’s Basketball Coach, 8 national championships and 7 national Coach Of The Year awards.
Funny Cartoon
The End
Yay for snow! Just saw the first snowfall outside my window here in Bucharest this morning (even though it lasted just 15 minutes). Crazy how this past weekend my family and I went to Brasov to have fun in the snow. I was very excited for my kids to experience their first snowboarding lesson, but guess what…
There was no snow on the beginner slopes! So, no fun in the snow : (
Glad I didn’t tell them about the lesson or hype it up. I don’t like promising things I am not sure I can deliver (that’s how I roll, lol).
Have a great weekend and kick some butt!
Eric M.