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Facebook's VP of Growth Says You Are Optimizing for the Wrong User

By Alex Schultz · Startup Growth · 1 min read

Alex Schultz says every company optimizes notifications for power users. That's the wrong move. The user who matters is the one who got zero notifications last month.

Key Points

Every company worries about sending too many notifications — but power users aren't the ones leaving
The marginal user who gets nothing is where growth comes from
Churned users had one thing in common: low friend counts

Think about the user on the margin. Don't think about yourself when you're thinking about growth.

The Notification Mistake

Schultz: Every single company when they talk about notifications goes — I'm getting too many notifications, I think that's what we need to optimize for. Okay, are your power users leaving your site because they're getting too many notifications? No.

Then why would you optimize that? They're probably grown-ups and they can use filters. What you need to focus on is the marginal user — the one person who doesn't get a notification in a given day or month or year.

Are your power users leaving because of notifications? No. Then why would you optimize that?

Building Product vs. Driving Growth

Schultz: Building an awesome product is all about thinking about the power user. Building an incredible product is definitely optimizing for the people who use your product the most.

But driving growth — people who are already using your product all the time are not the ones you have to worry about.

Building an awesome product is about the power user. Driving growth is about everyone else.

Churned Users Had Low Friend Counts

Schultz: We looked at new users, resurrected users, and churned users. The resurrected and churned numbers for pretty much every product I've ever seen dominate the new user count once you reach a couple of years of growth.

All those users who were churning and resurrecting had low friend counts. They didn't find their friends. They weren't connected to the great stuff that was going on on Facebook.

The number one thing we needed to focus on was getting them to those 10 friends. Think about the user on the margin. Don't think about yourself when you're thinking about growth.

Think about the user on the margin. Don't think about yourself when you're thinking about growth.