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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable)

1 Sept 2022 20 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Yuriy TimenLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

belief 9evaluation 4prediction 3recommendation 2preference 1commitment 1

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Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

20 published records

01 / recommendation

Mentions personal use of The Splendid and the Vile.

“Ooh, that's something that I think is very wrong to recency bias, right? It's like, what are some of the books you've read recently that you've enjoyed? But I would say there are a couple of books that stuck with me over the years. I think on the business side, where on the business side productivity side, it's a book called Essentialism. I forget the author's name. I think his last name is McKeown or something. And it's basically the book about cutting out the noise and finding a singular focus and doing that really well. It's a book that was a game changer for me at Grammarly being sort of new in my career, having really aggressive goals, not being scared to say no. Taking on a lot, just feel it thinking like, "Well, I'm only working 12 hours a day. There's 12 more left. I can do it." And then when you end up stepping into a leadership role, which happened for me, I mean, that happened prior to grounded, but really I was able to grow into that role at Grammarly. That book was incredible and I used it a lot. I pretty much got copies for everybody on the team, like 40 plus people. So that is a book I swear by. I read a lot outside of work and business. So I don't know if it's appropriate, but I'll say that. It's Frankl's, A Man's Search for Meaning is just a remarkable memoir on perseverance and I think that biggest takeaway is you can't control what's happening around you, but you can control your reaction to it. And then I'd say the book that I read recently, because I was very affected by the Russia invasion of Ukraine. I'm originally from Ukraine. I believe you are as well. So it hit very close to home and there have been a lot of references drawn between the President's Zelensky and his response in the war and Winston Churchill's response in 1941 when Hitler started marching through Europe. And so I read a book called I think The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

I think SEO is pretty specialized skill set. There are some basic principles that always hold like best content wins and don't do shady back linking and make sure that you're on page.

“I think SEO is pretty specialized skill set. There are some basic principles that always hold like best content wins and don't do shady back linking and make sure that you're on page.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / evaluation

The only thing that's worse now is when you didn't give it the appropriate shot, right? And you prematurely were erroneously concluded that it doesn't work and it's remarkable how often you find that to be the case when I talk to companies, "Oh, YouTube, we tried it.

“The only thing that's worse now is when you didn't give it the appropriate shot, right? And you prematurely were erroneously concluded that it doesn't work and it's remarkable how often you find that to be the case when I talk to companies, "Oh, YouTube, we tried it.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / prediction

There was no way to adjust budget in quarter because you weren't getting the data feedback loop that frequently. But media mix modeling is now making a comeback because there are so many offline channels that are part of folks channel portfolio today and that plus a lot of the online channels are becoming less trackable like Meta for instance, with the iOS 14 shift.

“There was no way to adjust budget in quarter because you weren't getting the data feedback loop that frequently. But media mix modeling is now making a comeback because there are so many offline channels that are part of folks channel portfolio today and that plus a lot of the online channels are becoming less trackable like Meta for instance, with the iOS 14 shift.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / prediction

Even then it's going to be a small trickle that compounds over time, if you're successful or you may spend three to six months leaning into an SEO strategy and then realize that it's not going to back out typically at least in historically a company probably isn't like Series B before it starts feeling like it passed a luxury of making these kind of medium to long term investments. But I think that's shifting right now, but that's maybe a topic for later or even for another bot but a lot of the strategies that I think we're reserved for Series B are trickling down to Series A companies because they have to diversify way for pay, but maybe more on that later.

“Even then it's going to be a small trickle that compounds over time, if you're successful or you may spend three to six months leaning into an SEO strategy and then realize that it's not going to back out typically at least in historically a company probably isn't like Series B before it starts feeling like it passed a luxury of making these kind of medium to long term investments. But I think that's shifting right now, but that's maybe a topic for later or even for another bot but a lot of the strategies that I think we're reserved for Series B are trickling down to Series A companies because they have to diversify way for pay, but maybe more on that later.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / recommendation

" And that's where onboarding, sorry for the long answer. That's where onboarding is really, really important because there's such a huge difference between landing someone on that initial editor page, be it Airtable, Canva having that left to their own devices versus getting as much information or as much relevant information front and then customizing that landing experience for them.

“" And that's where onboarding, sorry for the long answer. That's where onboarding is really, really important because there's such a huge difference between landing someone on that initial editor page, be it Airtable, Canva having that left to their own devices versus getting as much information or as much relevant information front and then customizing that landing experience for them.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

I think the problem that I find is when a company can't have which camper in or where they try to say that they're in both, but really it's like, "Okay, you're funneling a hundred K a month.

“I think the problem that I find is when a company can't have which camper in or where they try to say that they're in both, but really it's like, "Okay, you're funneling a hundred K a month.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

It was only good for correlative insights. And the only way to determine causality is through real controlled experiments, randomized control experiments through incrementality testing, which is typically really hard to do cleanly and also companies have always been often wary about doing it because you have to turn off a channel potentially in a key demo and you're like, "Yeah.

“It was only good for correlative insights. And the only way to determine causality is through real controlled experiments, randomized control experiments through incrementality testing, which is typically really hard to do cleanly and also companies have always been often wary about doing it because you have to turn off a channel potentially in a key demo and you're like, "Yeah.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / evaluation

It's Frankl's, A Man's Search for Meaning is just a remarkable memoir on perseverance and I think that biggest takeaway is you can't control what's happening around you, but you can control your reaction to it. And then I'd say the book that I read recently, because I was very affected by the Russia invasion of Ukraine.

“It's Frankl's, A Man's Search for Meaning is just a remarkable memoir on perseverance and I think that biggest takeaway is you can't control what's happening around you, but you can control your reaction to it. And then I'd say the book that I read recently, because I was very affected by the Russia invasion of Ukraine.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / prediction

I think in the short term paid acquisition and just paid media dollars are contracted and we're seeing it already with Metas advertising revenue, Snaps advertising revenue.

“I think in the short term paid acquisition and just paid media dollars are contracted and we're seeing it already with Metas advertising revenue, Snaps advertising revenue.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

19 / preference

If you get them to try five different things, they may not try them anyone individually fully enough, because I like to say the only thing that's worse than a channel or a tactic that you tried not working.

“If you get them to try five different things, they may not try them anyone individually fully enough, because I like to say the only thing that's worse than a channel or a tactic that you tried not working.”
Speaker
Yuriy Timen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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