From 0 to $1B in 6 years in a crowded market

Want a 600% visitor increase today?
“I have a startup and need traction. So I tried one of the VIP growth-hacking ideas yesterday. Result – a 600% visitor increase!” - Altug Gurkaynak.

Get the 202 VIP growth hacks instantly on Amazon for $19.98. OR get them for free. How? By helping just 1 friend to join our invite-only community of over 27K growth hackers (from companies like Uber, Google, Microsoft, TechStars, Disney, etc.):

---

What are the best marketing/startups/entrepreneurship newsletters you'd recommend your friends to subscribe to? Please reply to this email. And now let's get back to today's growth hack.

Would you like to enter a crowded market, packed with competitors like Cisco, Microsoft, Adobe, Citrix, Polycom, etc.?

This is exactly what a guy from China, Eric S. Yuan, decided to do back in 2011 when he founded his company Zoom.
In just 6 years he grew his company to $1B.

How did he do it?

1. Eric S. Yuan is originally from China. In the mid-’90’s, he decided to apply for a U.S. visa but was rejected. He continued to apply again and again over the course of 2 years and finally received his visa on the 9th try.

2. He arrived in Silicon Valley in 1997 and joined WebEx, a real-time collaboration company with 10 employees.

3. It took him 10 years to steadily become a VP of Engineering, managing 800 engineers worldwide.

4. In 2007, Webex was acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion, and Eric went on to become Cisco’s VP of Engineering.

5. In 2011, Eric left the company because the new management didn't support innovation, the product became outdated, and customers unhappy.
So Eric decided to create his own customer-oriented video communication tool that actually works "and doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out".
Around 40 engineers from Cisco joined him. And together they started building Zoom.

6. From 2011 to 2013, they focused on building a product with the best experience in the market.
During the first limited access launch in 2012, Eric personally emailed every customer who canceled their service, discovering their reasons.

7. In 2013, they launched the product publicly and focused their marketing on these things:
7.1. The product itself is viral (you need to invite somebody to have a video conference), so the #1 goal is to make you happy with the quality.
7.2. Freemium (free unlimited 1-on-1 calls, free conference calls up to 40 minutes).
7.3. They removed all the friction: made the ability to join the call without signing up, without installing software, in 3 seconds, just by clicking a link. That boosted virality even more.
7.4. Offered the service to educational institutions globally. 1,400 joined.
7.5. This is huge! They established partnerships with software providers:
7.5.1. Added a video component to Redbooth.
7.5.2. Created a program named "Works with Zoom", which established partnerships with Logitech, Vaddio, InFocus and other hardware and software vendors.
7.5.3. Zoom managed to have its software integrated into InterviewStream, a company that provides remote video interviewing capacity for employers.
7.6. The media started to test the new service and write awesome reviews, spreading the word out even more.

Results:
+ In 2013, 3 million people participated in a Zoom meeting.
+ Now they have over 400 million people using their service.
+ Company now employs ~1300 people.
+ They raised some venture funding and achieved a $1B valuation.

Source: www.drift.com


Cheers,
Charlie Patel ;)



Unsubscribe | GrowthHackingIdea / StartupGrowth.com | 1460 Broadway New York, NY 10036