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Albert Cheng

Published podcast speaker

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17
Episodes
1
Shows
1
Named items
1

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book / recommends

Ogilvy on Advertising

“But no, a book that I recommended recently at work is Ogilvy on Advertising. Do you know this book?”

Lenny's Podcast · 5 Oct 2025

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What Albert said.

17 transcript-backed records

01 / belief

I think that's the typical default path that a lot of companies take. And I was really struck by my experience working at some smaller startups or take Duolingo as an example, where over and over and over, I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy.

“I think that's the typical default path that a lot of companies take. And I was really struck by my experience working at some smaller startups or take Duolingo as an example, where over and over and over, I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

02 / belief

I would say though that something that is annoying to me is that we haven't yet figured out the bridging from the tinkering to the workflow quite as seamlessly as I would like.

“I would say though that something that is annoying to me is that we haven't yet figured out the bridging from the tinkering to the workflow quite as seamlessly as I would like.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

At the end of the day, users, I think within a company sometimes you can have this siloed approach where you break apart the product experience in 50 different ways and distribute them across different teams, and you assume that users interact with each of the different features with a different mentality, but oftentimes that's actually not necessarily the case.

“At the end of the day, users, I think within a company sometimes you can have this siloed approach where you break apart the product experience in 50 different ways and distribute them across different teams, and you assume that users interact with each of the different features with a different mentality, but oftentimes that's actually not necessarily the case.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / uncertainty

I don't know that I'm perfect at it, but I've learned to balance those things quite a bit more than I did in the past when I would just purely read from my questions and my rubric and not care about anything else.

“I don't know that I'm perfect at it, but I've learned to balance those things quite a bit more than I did in the past when I would just purely read from my questions and my rubric and not care about anything else.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / evaluation

And the third one is we did a lot of actually PR, prior to the service going out just to get the word out. And PR has its time in place, but I think doing it before you have validation that customers definitely want, the thing is quite risky and it can lead to a lot of sun cost once you get it out because you need to see it through, you want to see it succeed.

“And the third one is we did a lot of actually PR, prior to the service going out just to get the word out. And PR has its time in place, but I think doing it before you have validation that customers definitely want, the thing is quite risky and it can lead to a lot of sun cost once you get it out because you need to see it through, you want to see it succeed.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / commitment

I think starting with a growth model, so you have an understanding of how your company grows in the first place and which channels you're going to leverage is critical.

“I think starting with a growth model, so you have an understanding of how your company grows in the first place and which channels you're going to leverage is critical.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / disagreement

Yeah, it resonates deeply with me because I feel like growth sometimes gets this reputation I guess that it's just pure metrics hacking, like we're cold people that just are trying to move a particular metric up and we're going to do whatever it can to throw walls and pay walls and add friction in all these spots.

“Yeah, it resonates deeply with me because I feel like growth sometimes gets this reputation I guess that it's just pure metrics hacking, like we're cold people that just are trying to move a particular metric up and we're going to do whatever it can to throw walls and pay walls and add friction in all these spots.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / recommendation

I like to describe growth as the job is to connect users to the value of your product. And in order to do that, what I like to do is think about that user journey again, and essentially, staff teams that are oriented around each element of that user journey.

“I like to describe growth as the job is to connect users to the value of your product. And in order to do that, what I like to do is think about that user journey again, and essentially, staff teams that are oriented around each element of that user journey.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / preference

I think I want to say this a little bit delicately, like Duolingo, even though the product they're providing is around language learning, I think the original ethos of how to start the company was really around motivation.

“I think I want to say this a little bit delicately, like Duolingo, even though the product they're providing is around language learning, I think the original ethos of how to start the company was really around motivation.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / preference

You can try a bunch of different things, you can absorb them and then put them in practice right away, discard the things that don't work and evolve them for yourself and for the company's needs. And so I don't know, I think that was just a realization that I had as I was thinking through this podcast, and I think that's partly why I haven't done too much public speaking.

“You can try a bunch of different things, you can absorb them and then put them in practice right away, discard the things that don't work and evolve them for yourself and for the company's needs. And so I don't know, I think that was just a realization that I had as I was thinking through this podcast, and I think that's partly why I haven't done too much public speaking.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / evaluation

On the flip end of the spectrum, these tiny startups, they move incredibly fast, but I grew all my gray hair from those tiny startups because no one knows about your company, and so you're recruiting people one by one.

“On the flip end of the spectrum, these tiny startups, they move incredibly fast, but I grew all my gray hair from those tiny startups because no one knows about your company, and so you're recruiting people one by one.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

It's not their intuitive way of thinking about growing companies, but their mental flexibility and encouragement to evolve and add this as a tool for the company has been awesome, and they've been on the front lines preaching product-led growth and experimentation just as much as I have. So I'm glad that you brought that up because I think that is critically important for me, joining a company to not be at odds with the co-founders and the existing approach of the company.

“It's not their intuitive way of thinking about growing companies, but their mental flexibility and encouragement to evolve and add this as a tool for the company has been awesome, and they've been on the front lines preaching product-led growth and experimentation just as much as I have. So I'm glad that you brought that up because I think that is critically important for me, joining a company to not be at odds with the co-founders and the existing approach of the company.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

One exception is that Grammarly was a different type of product and that you install it and you don't proactively open it every day. So that was interesting to me because I assumed that you should always just focus on existing user retention, but for a product like Grammarly, it's actually the activation installation aha moment that's really, really critical and will carry the user for a very, very long time.

“One exception is that Grammarly was a different type of product and that you install it and you don't proactively open it every day. So that was interesting to me because I assumed that you should always just focus on existing user retention, but for a product like Grammarly, it's actually the activation installation aha moment that's really, really critical and will carry the user for a very, very long time.”
Speaker
Albert Cheng
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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