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Suhail Doshi's Simple Formula for Startup Growth: Five Things That Equal Everything

By Suhail Doshi · Leadership · 5 min read

People visit. People sign up. People do something valuable. People come back. People spread it. These five things basically equal growth. Even thousand-person companies get the basics wrong.

Key Points

Three questions every product must answer: is it easy to understand, easy to get started, are people coming back?
Five levers of growth: visits, signups, valuable action, retention, and spreading
Even if you're Airbnb with thousands of people, optimizing each of these steps is never-ending

Starting simple will last a very long time. With just this formula you should be able to assess anything going wrong in the company.

Three Things That Matter

Doshi: I tried to think pretty hard about what the heck did I care about when I started a company. The first thing is — do people even understand what I made? Mixpanel had a really hard time with that in its first 18 months. We had to change a lot of things.

The second thing — do they find it relatively easy to use the product on day one? That's a never-ending mission. And the last thing — are people coming back and using my product? This is one of the most important things that early founders make a mistake with.

Do people understand it? Is it easy to use on day one? Are people coming back? That's what matters.

The Five-Part Growth Formula

Doshi: I broke it down into a formula. People that visit some page or the app. People that sign up. Of those people, how many did something valuable — watching a video, making a recipe, taking a scooter ride. How many come back some period of time later. And how many people spread it — tell a friend, share it, maybe you have a sales team.

These five things basically equal growth. These are your levers. With this formula, you should be able to assess anything going wrong in the company. If your landing page is confusing, you'll figure that out. If your signup process is too difficult, you'll figure that out. If your product isn't valuable, you will figure that out. It's just that simple.

Visits. Signups. Value. Retention. Spreading. These five things basically equal growth.

This Process Never Ends

Doshi: Even if you're Airbnb and you're thousands and thousands of people, this process of optimizing each one of these steps is never-ending. No matter what scale you're at, you will always be changing something. And you'll probably have competition, so you'll have no choice.

Starting simple will last a very long time. Once you can measure those five things and assess what's wrong, you should be able to take action and fix any of them. Put a team on it. It is really that simple.

Even if you're Airbnb, this process of optimizing each step is never-ending. Starting simple lasts a very long time.