How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
Albert Chang, one of the top consumer growth minds in the world, shares his expertise from leading growth and monetization at three wildly successful consumer subscription products: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. (01:00) In this conversation, he breaks down his explore and exploit framework for finding growth opportunities, reveals his biggest monetization wins including how Grammarly nearly doubled upgrade rates by showing free users a taste of premium features, and explains why his goal at Chess.com is to run 1,000 experiments per year. (21:00) Albert also discusses how AI is transforming growth work, from text-to-SQL Slack bots to rapid prototyping, and shares counterintuitive lessons about hiring for high agency over experience.
- Core themes: Growth experimentation at scale, consumer subscription monetization strategies, AI-powered growth tools, building high-performing teams through agency over experience
Speakers
Albert Chang
Albert Chang is recognized as one of the top consumer growth minds globally, having led growth and monetization at three of the most successful consumer subscription products: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. Earlier in his career at YouTube, he developed streaming and gaming features used by over 20 million people. His unique approach to growth blends marketing, data, strategy, and product management, with a focus on running high-velocity experimentation programs.
Key Takeaways
Master the Explore and Exploit Framework
Chang's core methodology involves alternating between exploration (finding the right mountain to climb) and exploitation (focusing resources on climbing that mountain effectively). (09:56) The key insight is applying this not just at a macro company level, but at the micro insight level. When Chess.com discovered that 80% of users reviewed games after wins rather than losses, they flipped their approach to show brilliant moves and encouraging messages after losses, leading to 25% growth in game reviews and 20% growth in subscriptions. The critical step is taking successful experiments and sharing insights across the entire organization for broader application.
Build Retention Before Focusing on Acquisition
User retention is gold for consumer subscription companies, with Chang recommending day-one retention rates around 30-40% as a minimum threshold for viability. (30:31) Without strong retention, companies are forced into unsustainable models where they must convert users to paid plans immediately. Successful consumer subscription products like Duolingo and Chess.com grew primarily through organic word-of-mouth rather than paid acquisition, emphasizing the importance of building products people naturally want to share and return to daily.
Show Don't Just Tell Your Value Proposition
Chang's biggest monetization win at Grammarly came from sampling premium suggestions within the free experience rather than only showing basic spelling and grammar corrections. (22:38) This approach nearly doubled upgrade rates because users finally understood Grammarly's full capabilities as a powerful writing tool, not just a spell checker. The lesson applies broadly: make your free product a true reflection of everything your product can offer, giving users a taste of premium value rather than hiding it entirely behind paywalls.
Hire for Agency Over Experience
Chang consistently found that the highest performers were people with high agency, clock speed, and energy, rather than necessarily deep domain experience. (67:47) In rapidly changing environments, especially with AI transformation, learned habits often need to be discarded in favor of beginner's mindset and faster learning speeds. Look for candidates who ask thoughtful questions about your product, demonstrate energy in their communication, and show genuine engagement rather than just checking experience boxes on paper.
Scale Experimentation Through Systems, Not Just Volume
Chang's ambitious goal of running 1,000 experiments annually at Chess.com isn't about the number itself, but about building systems that enable company-wide experimentation culture. (57:45) This requires expanding beyond just product experiments to include lifecycle marketing, App Store optimization, and content experiments. Success comes from enabling no-code experimentation tools, proper instrumentation, and creating feedback loops that turn experiment results into actionable insights for the entire organization.
Statistics & Facts
- At Chess.com, over 75% of new users classify themselves as completely new to chess or beginners, with less than a third winning their first game. (66:08) When users lose a game, retention is 10% worse than when they win, highlighting the critical importance of early positive experiences in habit formation.
- Grammarly's freemium model serves over 90% of users on the free service, with paid subscribers making up the remaining portion. (21:41) Chang's team discovered that only a small percentage of free users were accepting all suggestions and hitting paywalls, leading to their successful sampling strategy.
- At Duolingo, the product experience changes multiple times per day for each user through their experimentation program. (35:56) Chang noted that roughly 80% of daily/weekly active users are existing users, with new and reactivated users making up similar-sized segments, emphasizing the importance of resurrection experiences for mature products.
