Internal reflection that has triggered.
I was at the LinkedIn office this week with their product, marketing, business, user research teams who had flown down from all parts of the world. These were top leaders who are building for India specific initiatives.
I was among the panel panel of creators who they had invited for understanding what is working well and what isn’t from a creator standpoint. I felt dumb in the panel of people who had an average 15 years of minimum work experience. For example a leader who have served the TATA group for 12 years as senior advisor.
One of the pieces every single creator on the panel mentioned how they hate LinkedIn Video - one person even went far and said “LinkedIn is the new Facebook”. I was listening and spoke last on this question among the panel.
I felt scared to contradict so many veterans who had more work experience than my age. But, I genuinely felt the need to say - here's a crisper version of what I said and something for you to ponder upon as you build for your users.
“Out of 1000 people on LinkedIn 10 people create content. Most LinkedIn users (outside our echo chambers) prefer short form video (LinkedIn PMs confirmed the data). Most creators who were on panel, if they don't follow video they will perish from the platform (US market already has proven this). I genuinely as brands & creators we should change our opinions when we get new information. Today's understanding of what user wants should be the only truth brands & creators look at especially if you are early stage product. Just follow the user, don’t question it.”
And as I spend more time on what I said - I see how this is also true for GrowthX. When we started, members wanted only weekend sessions, only live, and not cheatsheets. But member preference is changing & its early sign of next 10,000 members who will join GrowthX.
Our members want to do good work & grow in your career - format will be around their goals not around our notion of what product can deliver. One of the experiment you might have seen is GrowthX now has live sessions every week for busy leaders, recorded ones for those who want to consume over the weekend and the 4 week live sprint who want to experience intense peer learning.
We will keep following the user & truly solve for our member outcomes no matter the format, structure & social stigma. This feels simple but a really big reflection, personally.
Don't marry your past opinions so much - move on when you see consumers wanting different things and change for the right reasons.
Cheers!
This week, LinkedIn announce GrowthX as one of the Top 20 Startup. We ranked #4 of the list with the likes of Zepto, Sprinto, Lucidity, Jar & more.
Tomorrow will also mark the 4th anniversary of our Slack community, & over that period over 3 million messages (yes, we did the math) have been shared by our 3,500+ members. Each message in the community starts with a simple promise, a promise of change, a promise of transformation. This win wouldn’t have been possible without each of you supporting us from the sidelines (maybe not just a member yet)
Thank you for being here, for doing all that you do and more. While we are not building GrowthX for such milestones, we are proud of where we have come in just 4 years and full of excitement for what’s next. Here’s the LinkedIn announcement
We made the GrowthX pitch crisper : Take a look.
Keep raising the bar. See you.