Epic Growth Story with Denis Pushkin: how does Growth Hacking work in Skyeng?

Epic Growth Story - Gett and Epic Growth Conference flash mob, where product, marketing and design experts share epic growth stories. In a blitz-interview format, Denis Pushkin, Head of Product Marketing at Skyeng, shared how grocery marketing and growth-hacking work in one of the fastest growing companies in Russia.


Watch the interview and read the transcript under the cut.

Team growth in skyeng?

The whole Skyeng is a growth team. We have a high-level plan of the company, which does not change from year to year - to grow 3 times. Each person in Skyeng is committed to ensuring that the company has grown 3 times. For this, he develops himself, develops his products, increases metrics depending on his direction. I increase the number of applications for the first payment. The guys from the operations department are engaged in increasing retention, intensity of classes, and each investing a little, does only what Skyeng leads to growth.
')

Grocery marketing in Skyeng is it?

Grocery marketing at Skyeng is about money, just like marketing in general. Our focus is on attracting new paying customers. This is our main metric and all work is aimed at bringing Skyeng more money. I have a personal KPI - in 5 years to earn a billion for Skyeng. This super ambitious goal. To achieve this goal, all the processes are being built on product marketing. We are engaged in optimization of the funnels, we speed up the experiments, we build Big Data and Machine Learning models, predictions. Add crazy to our products and pricing.

Mindset product?

If we talk about what you spent on the team 10 million per year, and earned 60 million per year, then no one has any questions you are cool or not cool. Of course you're cool! You do X6 on the resources that you have. It expands your area of ​​responsibility, gives new opportunities. And if the product has a cash mindset, then it seems to me that it can achieve a lot.

When I hear that people say that it is impossible to count something in money - people are lazy. Everything is possible to count in money. Internal product or billing can be calculated in money. The knowledge that you give to people can also be counted in money. Yes, it is very difficult. There is no accurate counting. But to count and evaluate your own contribution in money is always possible.

How is growth-hacking in Skyeng?

We have a systematic process of testing hypotheses on a funnel, it consists first of customer development, then UX-testing, mathematical modeling, and only then the AB-test, as the most expensive element of hypothesis testing. But only those hypotheses that give 5%, 10%, 15% of revenue reach the AB-test. The main hack is to check only the most valuable. That is, what gives the maximum benefit, and leave everything else at other stages.

From the last, what we did was experiments with pricing. According to the results of complex AB-tests, success stories and failure, we will potentially increase revenue by 5%. For our business volume, this is a very high percentage and growth.

What should the product do in the first month of its work?

In the first month of its work, the product should climb wherever it can: in all processes, in any communication. The direct task of the product is to realize what is happening and to adjust the process. To do this, you need to communicate with all customers, with the company's stakeholders, even with those who are not directly related to your work. It is important to understand what is happening in the company, where the company is going, and how the product can help the company achieve its goals by its actions. And maybe even exceed its goal.

What kind of person do you hire?

In any company, and especially in Skyeng, the approach of hiring people who primarily share the culture of a company that has the cultural code Skyeng is being promoted. These are independent people, they can move themselves. You give a person a start and an opportunity, and he further either realizes it or not. These are proactive people, they do not sit and do not wait when they are told what to do, they want to achieve everything themselves. Skyeng provides unlimited opportunities for growth, and a person must either take advantage of them or not work in Skyeng.

Skyeng employee is internally free and open to everything new. At our level of development and with our size, there are very few practices that give great growth. We need to constantly invent something, we need innovations. And a person should be open to these innovations, even if he had done something with one method 10 years before. Perhaps in Skyeng, this method will no longer work. It is necessary to learn from the best on the market, read the best growers and methods of increasing revenue, retention, monetization, anything, - apply them and get a cool result.

How to work with information?

The approach that I advocate: the first is the focus, that is, to study only the information that is needed to solve specific problems. It makes no sense to read a book about customer development, if you are not doing this. It is a waste of time. The second is the rate of consumption of information. You need to spend a lot of time to read even one book. Books should be prioritized in backlog by importance according to objectives. I recently discovered Smart Reading. This is an approach where you can quickly (in 30 minutes) listen to or read a sammari from a book, and see if you want to dive into it or not. Smart Reading is not a method of obtaining accurate information, it is a method, as in the grocery work - the search for hypotheses and books that give maximum benefit.

Favorite app?

Any application is a tool. Of the tools that I constantly use and that have significantly improved the efficiency of my work, this is Google's Inbox. This is a product that, due to the automation of Machine Learning, could significantly reduce my interaction time with mail. I spend the mail a maximum of half an hour a week in order to throw out all unnecessary and leave only the most important thing. This is a very big boost in my productivity. The benefit that Inbox gave me is maximum, it's a super cool product that I really like.

Application - pain?

Unfortunately, I have to regularly use WhatsApp, but I would change everything there. WhatsApp is a product that gives me more suffering than good. I have to use it because it is used by other people. But if you choose, then I would prefer, for example, Telegram. Telegram has a huge amount of features for me as a B2C client user; and for me as a company that can provide services to its B2B clients. In WhatsApp, I can not do anything, I can not even log in to the browser without the phone being online. And it seems to me that in 2018 it is just a shame to have such a technology company like Facebook - such a technologically backward product like WhatsApp.

3 things you want to learn?

The first is the focus. I, unfortunately, cannot boast that I concentrate well and focus on some particular tasks. I love to spray a lot. This is my big growth point. There are two more qualities that I lack now, but which are essential for the product manager. They are associated with the selection of a very cool and strong team. The product function is to build a team that will achieve high results. And so far I lack the competence in hiring the most powerful and top-notch people who can give the best result per unit of time.

The second is to lay off weak employees who don’t meet Skyeng’s speed and pull the team back. This is the most difficult skill because it is difficult to practice. Any skill practiced by practice. And the skill of dismissal is difficult to practice.

What should be in the checklist for product manager?

In the check-list of any product should be the answer to one question: do you need to do it or not, is there a benefit or no benefit? If yes, then everything else will come up with the product.

Share your Facebook stories with the hashtag #epicgrowthstory. The best authors will receive prizes from Gett and fall into the selection of the best stories .