Alistair Croll
Co-founder & Chair, FWD50. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
authorfounderoperator@acroll ↗LinkedIn ↗alistaircroll.com ↗
Alistair Croll is the co-author of Lean Analytics and Just Evil Enough, focusing on startup metrics and go-to-market strategies. He previously co-founded Coradiant and the accelerator Year One Labs, and chairs technology conferences including FWD50.
1shows
1appearances
24statements
6resolved
5supported
0contradicted
83%fully supported
Everything Alistair Croll said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Product-market fit is overrated; founders must instead pursue product-medium-market fit
“That's another hot take of mine is I think the product market fits overrated. You have to actually think about product medium market fit.”
Zuckerberg tipped off Mark Pincus about timeline posting, driving FarmVille's growth
“Pincus and Zuckerberg were very good friends and Zuckerberg told Pincus that apps were going to be allowed to post to users timelines. This is why FarmVille grew almost overnight.”
Startups pitching investors without a zero-day go-to-market exploit will probably fail
“If you're talking to an investor and that you don't have a zero day, go to market exploit that creates attention and turns it into sustainable, lucrative demand. You are probably going to fail.”
Product managers fail by obsessing over features instead of go-to-market strategy
“The product managers are in, in many cases, missing the point. Like my sense is when you talk to a product manager, they're so consumed to the next feature and what to do. And that's the kind of concrete objective thing. I think many of them are doomed because…”
Discovering a zero-day marketing exploit is as important as building features
“Finding that go to market strategy, that unfair, unprecedented, we call them zero day marketing exploits is as important as building the right product feature, you know, having a seamless onboarding process and so on.”
Startups must be 'just evil enough' to provoke necessary behavioral changes
“It is so, so important to like understand the boundaries of what you can do if you are essentially disagreeing with the status quo in order to prove that your idea is better. So I've always talked about this idea of not being evil, but being just evil enough t…”
Growth hacks are superficial, but zero-day marketing exploits fundamentally subvert industries
“I'm not a big fan of growth hacks. A growth hack traditionally is sort of product agnostic. So when you move your mouse off the screen and it pops up a little window saying, Hey, why are you leaving? There was a time that was cool. Now it's just like that mous…”
Liquid Death requires at least 50% ad disapproval before launching campaigns
“They do not go ahead with a with a campaign or an ad unless it gets 50% disapproval. That's like their North star metric.”
Bait-and-switch is ethical only if buyers are delighted or promises kept
“Bait and switch can be evil unless the buyer is delighted with the thing you've switched them for, or you also deliver the thing you promised.”
Positioning is placing a product on a grid; reframing is drawing it
“So we actually think that positioning is simply where you are on a grid. Reframing is drawing the grid.”
Brand names no longer matter for products purchased on Amazon
“Brand names don't matter anymore. And you there, it's like someone threw up on a keyboard and that's the name of the company now for half the products you buy on Amazon, because that's not how you actually choose the product.”
Subversive marketing means leveraging systems in ways their creators never intended
“It's not that they did something evil. It's that they did something to use a system in a way its creators didn't intend.”
Blockbuster launched streaming before Netflix, but limited broadband made it unviable
“A lot of people forget that Blockbuster had streaming first. Streaming wasn't a good play at the start of the online video industry, because The penetration of broadband in the U S was very limited.”
Scott Belsky seeded Behance by interviewing top designers who refused invites
“He said that for the launch of Behance, he reached out and asked all these influential designers to join his platform. And they said, no. And then he said, oh, okay, pivot. Hey, I'd like to do an interview about you for my platform. And they said, oh sure. And…”
Bundling adjacent steps in the value chain dramatically simplifies consumer offerings
“Often it's just before or just after the product that dramatically simplifies the offering for the consumer.”
Reframing offers customers new evaluation dimensions rather than competing on existing ones
“Reframing isn't just about competing on existing dimensions. It's about giving the customer a different set of dimensions. And that won't happen for the whole market, but it'll happen for one of those segments.”
Companies gain an advantage by targeting shifted niche Overton windows
“And there is a tremendous advantage to understanding that one part of the market is already has an Overton window. That's different from the mainstream market. And then you can appeal to that and they will respect you for it.”
Anker escaped the Amazon commodity trap through packaging and product quality
“I think anchor and KER is a good example of a company that was just one of many power companies, but they did their packaging, right. And their products, right. And now they're like a well-known name. So it takes real work to escape that trap.”
Coinbase's worst-rated Super Bowl QR ad drove 20M hits, crashing servers
“Coinbase bought a 62nd Super Bowl app where they bounced a QR code around the screen for 60 seconds. Is it stupid? Yeah. I mean, they were ranked the worst of 64 Superbowl ads, but they got twenty million hits and their servers fell over.”
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser began as melamine foam for aircraft insulation
“Mr. Clean's magic eraser started out as melamine foam for aircraft insulation until the company noticed that people were wetting it and using it to clean stains off things.”
Repositioning Coradiant closed Fidelity, Salesforce, and LinkedIn in just three months
“Within three months, Fidelity, Salesforce, and LinkedIn had bought our biggest product just because I learned how to explain it to a different customer.”
Austria's opt-out organ donation policy reaches 99.6% versus Germany's 12%
“Austria's opt out. You're gonna deliver your organs when you die, unless you explicitly say you don't want to. In Germany, you have to opt in. They're not donated unless you explicitly do so. Germany has 12% organ donors. Austria has like 99.6.”
Chrysler classified the PT Cruiser as a truck to bypass fuel standards
“Every car manufacturer has to meet fuel efficiency standards for its car line and its truck line. And it turns out that Chrysler's trucks were terrible on fuel. So what happens is the automakers decided they would make this terrible little car called the PT Ch…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Alistair's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Co-founder & Chair, FWD50 | 1 | 24 | 83% 5/6 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |