Sean Ellis
15 statements across 3 episodes · 4 bullish · 2 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement Dec 27, 2023 by Sarah Tavel · said 24 times in 6 episodes since 2023 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Sean Ellis's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Jag Duggal (8), Itamar Gilad (6), Rahul Vohra (4), Lenny Rachitsky (4), John Cutler (1), Brian Balfour (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2025 4 mentions in 1 episode
2024 12 mentions in 2 episodes 6 per episode
Everything said about Sean Ellis, oldest first
Dec 27, 2023 negative
Tavel: Sean Ellis 40% test beats NPS for finding product-market fit
“I don't like NPS for this. And I have a whole blog post on this. I like Sean Ellis's question of like, how disappointed would you be if this product disappeared? And I think it's, if you have at least 40% of people Respond that they'd be like very disappointed…”
Sep 5, 2024 positive
Ellis: Starting with a deeply passionate niche improves long-term startup survival
“I prefer kind of a more passionate Customer base that's, and work from there just because I think your biggest competition when you're really innovating is, is just like being irrelevant. And so if you're like deeply relevant to anyone, I think that gives you …”
Sep 5, 2024
Product-market fit is defined by whether a product is a must-have
“It's a simple question that helps you figure out, you know, does anyone consider your product a must have or, you know, ideally who and how many people consider it, but ultimately it's about trying to figure out, you know, do, is your product a must have, whic…”
Sep 5, 2024 negative
Sep 5, 2024
Ellis: Dropbox beta users flipped from 90% tech enthusiasts to utility seekers
“Through the six months I was there, I would ask, I'd ask one question, like multiple times a month to, I broke kind of the early beta users into a bunch of different lists, and I'd ask, which best describes you? I like to be among the first to try cool new tec…”
Sep 5, 2024 neutral
Sep 5, 2024 positive
Lookout raised its PMF score from 7% to 40% in two weeks
“And so the next cohort of people that we surveyed were at 40% saying they'd be very disappointed without the product. So that was really took two weeks to make those changes. Six months later, it was 60% on, on the Score. And then I think they hit the billion …”
Sep 5, 2024 positive
TikTok's founding growth team based their early tactics on Sean Ellis's writing
“I met with the original founding growth team at TikTok. They're based in Singapore and they had, I can't remember what the previous product was called, but they started with the previous product. And then when TikTok came, they were in place to be the initial …”
Sep 5, 2024 neutral
Ellis: Modifying products for lukewarm users risks diluting core user value
“If you start paying attention to what your somewhat disappointed users are telling you, and then you start tweaking onboarding and product based on their feedback, maybe you're going to dilute it for your must have users. And that ultimately it becomes kind of…”
Sep 5, 2024
Sep 5, 2024 neutral
Sep 5, 2024
LogMeIn lifted downloads 300% by offering paid trials alongside free tiers
“Our next test, once we articulated what the problem was, our next test gave us a 300% improvement in the download rate, which was a, we gave them a choice, download a trial of the paid version or download the free version, put the graphical check mark next to …”
Sep 5, 2024 positive
LogMeIn scaled marketing from $10k to $1M monthly after fixing activation
“And so in three months, we improved the signup to usage rate by a thousand percent. So we went from only five percent of people using the product to 50%. I went back, tried the exact same channels that previously only scaled to 10,000 dollars a month. Now they…”
Sep 5, 2024
Survey active users who used the product at least twice recently
“What I recommend is a random sample of people who've really use your product. So they, they've gone in, they didn't just sign up, but they went in and hopefully like hit that activation moment. They've used it twice at, you know, two plus times and they've ide…”
Mar 23, 2025