Hedleston: DocSend has used zero paid acquisition for its growth
Russ Hedleston · a16z Podcast | When Organic Growth Goes Enterprise · Jan 2, 2019 · at 22:07
Russ Hedleston, co-founder and CEO of DocSend, discusses how engineering and product-centric founding teams leverage product-led virality instead of paid acquisition channels.
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“My two co-founders and I are all engineers and product people, and so we've basically used our product as the marketing engine for the company so far. We haven't done any paid acquisition.”
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Hedleston: DocSend increased prices and saw conversion rates go up
“We actually just increased the pricing and added a couple of new plans. And we thought the conversion would come down, but we'd make more money. What happened was that conversion went up. And we made way more money.”
Hedleston: 42% of DocSend signups are word-of-mouth and 28% from shared links
“42% of our signups are still word of mouth. About 28% of our signups are from someone viewing a link and then getting interested in coming into the product.”
Russ Hedleston: Prioritize features spreading external awareness to accelerate viral loops
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Russ Hedleston: Max Out Paid Acquisition if Unit Economics Work
“And if you can get the unit economics anywhere near reasonable for paid acquisition, you should Probably put everything you can into that channel, knowing it's just a component of your overall strategy.”