🔍 How The Browser Company Builds In Public

I came across this amazing piece by Ryan Law called “How to Write a Case Study (That Actually Closes Deals).” He concludes that such case studies need to:

Connect the events back to some larger, generalizable “thing” that the reader can use to their advantage. The payoff needs to be more than “wow, this company is smart!”

This resonates so much as it is exactly our mission at Marketing Examined. We are not writing case studies to close our deals, but we sure hope they are helping you too 😊

Today’s case study is on a company I have become a big fan of using its still-in-beta product for the past two weeks. The product is incredible, but their building in public tactics are the gems I want to share with you in this case study.

P.S. We have a surprise gift for you at the end.

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And they’ll walk you through the whole process here.

Building in public is all the hype now. But for whom and for what? To keep yourself accountable for making progress? To attract talent, investors, and advertisers by showing impressive KPI? All valid.

If you build in public with the main goal of building a community (not as a side effect), co-creating with your community for fast product iteration through feedback. The Browser Company is a master at this.

With the first product Arc Browser still in beta, the company has already allured a close-knit community (10k Youtube subscribers and 25k private member-only Twitter followers) by building in public for the community.

“Why is it hard to communicate with humans at any tech company?” The Browser Company’s mission is to make it extremely easy, “Ask us anything, anything time” is the CTA of one of their first onboarding emails. They walk the talk.

The Browser Company created “Internet Concierge” for their users, who they call members, to make sure they can reach the Arc team, get help and send feedback in any way they want.

1. Hit reply to any emails from them to ask questions. No need to go to a support page to fill out a form.

2. What is SMS used for? Helping members. They can shoot a text message to the Arc team for feedback or issues anytime.

3. Member-only Twitter account

The Browser Company created a member-only Twitter account - only verified Arc users are allowed to join for exclusive content. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of creating a discord community in the beginning, this is an easy way to bring your community together.

4. Build-in functionality for feedback collection within the product
Users get to share feedback about the product without disrupting their browsing experience. This setup allows the team to collect invaluable feedback because they are genuine, in-the-moment reactions.

The Browser Company values feedback and takes it seriously. They actively engage with the community to share, react to, and build upon their suggestions.

1. Feature community review on Youtube

On The Browser Company Youtube channel, they created a section called “Arc, reviewed by you,” specifically sharing Youtube reviews on the product from their community. Not only are these great assets for social proof by showing how much they value their community reviews, but they also encourage more members to create content about them.

Don’t have content for your Youtube channel yet? Start by collecting youtube review videos on your product.

2. CEO records reaction to reviews

When the top tech Youtube Channel MKBHD reviewed the Arc Browser, the CEO of The Browser Company recorded an honest reaction to the review, cheered to the praises, and admitted where they could do better.

We rarely get to see the CEO of a software company publicly show their genuine interest in community feedback.

And the people have spoken: “CEO actually caring about the community is excellent marketing.”

3. New releases every Thursday from user feedback

In a previous case study, we discussed Beehiiv’s fast product iteration from user feedback.

The browser company follows the same strategy with releases every Thursday- mostly thanks to their community feedback.

The Browser Company is extremely transparent about what’s happening in the company. They produce tons of behind-the-scenes content, revealing the processes and challenges for their community to get an exclusive look into the company’s inner workings.

You rarely see other companies share what they share:

- The ongoing process of building a mobile browser

- Unedited recording of an internal meeting

- CEO’s raw voice memos

- Monetization plan

- Asking members whether to ship a product

The “juicy content” fuels The Browser Company’s community engagement and trust in the company. Scrolling through their Youtube and Twitter comments, you can see that the community is invested in the success of the company. They deemed themselves as the co-creator of the product - because they were invited along the journey together with teams in the company.

• How to Write a Case Study (That Actually Closes Deals)
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Experiencing is believing. Rather than you hearing me singing praises about The Browser Company and their amazing browser product, it’s better you see it for yourself.

The surprise gift is I have 10 Arc browser gift codes for you to access the product right now 😇

- https://arc.net/gift/7adcab9e (5 seats)
- https://arc.net/gift/9aa70eb0 (5 seats)

Alex & Chi out