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2020 Year in Review – Issue 58

www.lennysnewsletter.com

2020 Year in Review – Issue 58

Most popular posts, tweets, and a reflection on the year

Lenny Rachitsky
Dec 29, 2020
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2020 Year in Review – Issue 58

www.lennysnewsletter.com

I started this newsletter a year and a half ago, as an experiment.

At the beginning of this year, six months into the experiment, I had 6,000 subscribers, a couple dozen posts, and no real plan for where all of this was going. I still thought I wanted to start a company, and this newsletter was still a distracting side-project. As the year progressed though, the picture became clearer.

Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Life alert: I’m adding a paid plan to my newsletter 🤞 After much prodding from readers and friends, I’m going to take the leap and give this life-path a shot. Consider subscribing and joining me on this journey 🙏 lennyrachitsky.com/p/this-newslet…
lennyrachitsky.comThis newsletter is growing up 🌱Starting in two weeks, only paid subscribers will get this newsletter weekly. In addition, paid subscriber questions will be prioritized, plus they’ll get a few other goodies (see below). Free subscribers will now receive this newsletter only about once a month.
1:44 PM ∙ Apr 7, 2020
275Likes22Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
After ten months of a free newsletter, and now six weeks into paid, this thing is for real: 🙏 ~450 paid subscribers 👋 ~13,000 free subscribers 🤯 ~$56k ARR (before fees) For anyone thinking about newsletter'ing, some early learnings in the thread below 👇
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12:07 AM ∙ May 26, 2020
2,853Likes253Retweets
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Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Crossed 1,000 paid subscribers today. Now making a living off 1,000 true fans. What do you know.
11:46 PM ∙ Jul 29, 2020
3,163Likes74Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
I'm now earning a higher salary from this newsletter than I did at my last tech job (PM Lead at Airbnb) 🤯
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Crossed 1,000 paid subscribers today. Now making a living off 1,000 true fans. What do you know.
3:43 PM ∙ Oct 21, 2020
2,072Likes56Retweets

Today, with nearly 45,000 subscribers, over ~3,000 paid subscribers, a Slack community of over 2,500 helpful-smart-driven people, and ~100 posts, I’ve never been clearer on what I should be doing: this.

To all of you who subscribe, share, ask questions, and share words of encouragement: THANK YOU. I could not be more grateful to you for allowing me to do this work 💖

Here’s what we accomplished this year:

  1. At least one post every single week of the year (64 in total)

  2. 700% YoY growth in subscribers, sitting somewhere in the top 15 most popular Substack newsletters

  3. Launched a paid plan, which went from zero to over 3,000 subscribers in ~6 months

  4. Launched the private Slack community, which continues to be one of my proudest achievements with this whole endeavor

  5. Added a second weekly email, which highlights the best advice from the community itself, curated by Kiyani

What you can expect in the coming year:

  1. More in-depth deep dives, including a “grand unified theory of growth”

  2. A live online course for new product managers

  3. A personally curated guide of the best resources for anything product, growth, startups, working with humans, or anything else that stresses you out at the office

  4. More investment in the community, including a regular cadence of fireside chats with the most interesting people in growth, product, and startups

  5. And generally, more of the same: actionable and concrete advice delivered to you weekly

I can’t wait to get started.

To leave you with something concretely valuable this week, I’ve collected the most popular posts (and tweets) from this year, along with a fun bonus. Enjoy, and see you in 2021!

Most popular posts this year

Growth

  1. How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users

  2. How today's fastest-growing B2B businesses found their first 10 customers

  3. What is good retention

  4. Strategy and tactics for increasing conversion

  5. Magical growth loops

Product Management

  1. My favorite product management templates

  2. A comprehensive survey of Product Management

  3. Getting better at product strategy

  4. Flywheels, flywheels, flywheels

  5. Managing up

Building a company

  1. How to price your SaaS product

  2. A playbook for fundraising

  3. What it feels like when you've found product-market fit

  4. How to know if you've got product-market fit

  5. The Transition: Layering sales onto a bottom-up self-serve product

Most popular tweets this year

Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
What to look for when evaluating a start idea 1. 🤤 Product-Market Fit 2. 🌎 Market size 3. 💥 Why now 4. 👋 Distribution 5. 🤝 Team 6. 🛡️ Moat 7. ⚙️ Business model (read on)
3:52 PM ∙ Jun 24, 2020
2,436Likes491Retweets
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Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
What’s the best career advice you got in your 20s?
12:43 AM ∙ Aug 9, 2020
2,357Likes360Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
What is good user retention? Advice from the experts: • Consumer Social: 25%👌 45%🔥 • Consumer Transactional: 30%👌 50%🔥 • Consumer Subscription: 40%👌 70%🔥 • SMB / Mid-Market SaaS: 60%👌 80%🔥 • Enterprise SaaS: 70%👌 90%🔥 (Read on)
3:11 PM ∙ Jun 29, 2020
1,988Likes310Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
The jobs of a Product Manager (a sneak peek at tomorrow's post)
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7:30 PM ∙ Sep 14, 2020
1,701Likes229Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
The clearest sign of finding product-market fit is feeling "pull" from the market. But what does "pull" look like? 👇 Read on 👇
5:00 PM ∙ Sep 30, 2020
1,286Likes232Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Looking back at the most successful consumer startups of the last 10 years — most companies achieved initial scale by excelling at just one of three growth "lanes": 1. Performance marketing (e.g. FB ads) 2. Virality (e.g. WOM, invites) 3. Content (e.g. SEO) 👇 Read on 👇
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4:56 PM ∙ Oct 7, 2020
1,148Likes240Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Increasing your retention rate is like hosting a great party: 1. Invite the right people 2. Welcome them thoughtfully 3. Make sure they have a great time 4. Catch them before they bail 5. If they leave, show them what they're missing
3:45 PM ∙ Aug 21, 2020
1,122Likes157Retweets

Bonus: My favorite mother-in-law’s takeaways

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter and have no idea what I’m talking about, I gave my mother-in-law a free subscription to my newsletter, and ever since she’s replied to every single issue with her insightful and heart-warming takeaways. Here are some of my favorites:

Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
A testimonial from my mother-in-law
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5:11 PM ∙ Feb 25, 2020
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
My mother-in-law’s take on this week’s newsletter
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Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
This week's post: When NOT to run an experiment The fact that you *can* run an experiment and know the precise impact of your changes is…incredible. Don't take that super-power for granted. But this doesn't mean you should always run an experiment 👇 https://t.co/HfSP6bv4Xy
9:09 PM ∙ Dec 2, 2020
36Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
My mother-in-law learning SaaS pricing strategy
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Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Early-stage bottom-up SaaS founders – this thread is for you Below 👇 🔬 Most important metrics to track 🛠 Tools to track these metrics 🎨 How to best visualize and share these metrics
6:39 PM ∙ Oct 28, 2020
204Likes5Retweets
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
My mother-in-law is an avid reader of my newsletter, and replies to each issue with her takeaways. Here's how she's applying her learnings about PMF...
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Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
🔥 New post: The moment 25 of today's most interesting companies realized they found product-market fit Stories from @netflix @Uber @Airbnb @Superhuman @SubstackInc @Tinder @Instacart @stripe @Dropbox @datadoghq and many more Takeaways in thread below 👇 https://t.co/R5RvHrUNeZ
11:57 PM ∙ Sep 29, 2020
Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
My mother-in-law’s takeaways on this weeks newsletter are in, and they are great
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Twitter avatar for @lennysan
Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan
Founders often ask me how to create buzz around their launch. I finally have an answer: Do something remarkable. *Something worth remarking about* In this week's post, I share examples and strategies of remarkable ✨ A few favorites in thread below 👇 https://t.co/0W1b38vTcH https://t.co/bh8RpI9tKc
9:47 PM ∙ Dec 9, 2020
85Likes3Retweets

Thank you again so much for your support, and see you next year ✨


🔥 Job opportunities

✨ Sponsored job of the week: Product Manager at UserLeap ✨

  1. Product: Cerebral, Descript, KUDO, Hipcamp, Prenda

  2. Growth: BasisOne, Coda, Levels, Prenda

  3. Design: Ashby, Office Hours, Runway, Stytch, Watershed

  4. Engineering manager: Cerebral

  5. Frontend engineer: Levels, Practice, Tome

  6. Backend engineer: Coda, Transform

  7. Fullstack engineer: Cascade, Centered, Icebreaker, Iggy, Primer, Runway, Snackpass

  8. iOS engineer: Pairplay, Primer, Stytch


How would you rate this week's newsletter? 🤔

Great • Good • Meh


For full access to the weekly posts, past archives, and private community, consider subscribing 👇

Sincerely,

Lenny 👋

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2020 Year in Review – Issue 58

www.lennysnewsletter.com
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Dave Goldblatt
Writes Things That Are Dope
Dec 29, 2020Liked by Lenny Rachitsky

The newsletter is awesome, but the community is incredible. Big ups, can't wait to see what you do in 2021

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Shifra Steinberg
Writes Absurdus
Jul 25, 2021Liked by Lenny Rachitsky

Hey, Lenny! THANK YOU for this post and the inspiration it gave me to start my own Substack a few months back. :)

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