Truecaller's Growth Machine

Nick Dahl is a Growth Strategy Lead at Spotify focused on user growth in emerging markets. His work includes driving the product strategy for the company’s global expansion and he recently helped double their international footprint by launching 80+ new markets and 36 new languages to make the service available worldwide.

Before joining Spotify, Nick was heading growth & partnerships at Truecaller where he helped scale the company from 10 to 150 million daily active users. Nick holds a Bachelor of Science from Stockholm School of Economics and was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30 as one of Europe’s most promising disruptors in the technology industry.

1. Truecaller’s Growth Machine
Reaching 300M Users
Nick Larsson
Truecaller

2. medium.com/@nicklarsson
Intro
Four years ago when I joined Truecaller, our founders, Alan and Nami, had already built one
of the fastest growing tech companies in the world. Starting out as a caller ID and spam
blocking app, we’ve now broadened the product to a communications platform to make your
conversations safe and efficient. Since then, we have reached many more milestones
together and I’m glad they trusted me to be part of their journey.
Among other things, we have grown from:
•30 to 300 million users
•30 to close to 200 employees
•3 to 35 partnerships with companies like Google, Samsung and Huawei
•And as I’m writing this, we're adding more than 400,000 new users every day
I’ve been asked by friends and founders what has been our secret recipe for growth.
Although there is no silver bullet that works for all, I hope that sharing some of our
experiences can help other startups apply our learnings in their daily operations.
/ Nick Larsson
---
I’ve published this deck with included notes on my Medium page and you can read the full
version here: https://medium.com/@nicklarsson

3. medium.com/@nicklarsson
Truecaller User Growth
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350 300M
registered users

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Content
Growth Intro
Truecaller’s Growth Model
Linear Channels
Partnerships
Acquisition
Activation
Engagement
Retention
Metrics
Building your Growth Machine

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Growth is a Team Effort
ProductMarketing
AnalyticsBusiness
Development
Growth

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The Growth Funnel
Awareness
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral
Awareness
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral
Traditional MarketingGrowthvs
Marketing
Product
Sales

7. medium.com/@nicklarsson
Truecaller’s Growth Model
Word of MouthReferralsShare a Spammer
Linear Channels
Acquisition Loops
Retention LoopsNotificationsWho Viewed Your ProfileAfter Call Screen
PartnershipsPRSocial MediaCRMSEO & ASOApp Store PromoPaid Marketing
And more…
And more…
North Star MetricDAU
Framework courtesy of Brian Balfour

8. medium.com/@nicklarsson
Truecaller’s Linear Channels
Acquisition
PartnershipsPRSocial MediaCRMSEO & ASOApp Store Promo
Partnerships with
OEMs & Carriers to
reach new users
Building brand
awareness and trust
Amplify campaigns
and listen in to user
feedback
Educate users about
feature updates and
improvements
Localize and optimize
keywords and search
terms
Features on home
page and in app
categories
Paid Marketing
Only temporary to
gain first traction or
extra momentum

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Partnerships with Industry Leaders

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Product Partnerships & Market Expansion

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Truecaller’s Acquisition Loops
Word of MouthReferralsShare a Spammer
New user hears
about Truecaller
Tells friend
about the app
Experiences the
AHA moment
Installs
app
User invites friends
via SMS etc.
New user gets
notification to
invite friends
Both users gets
free Truecaller Pro
Friend
installs
Truecaller blocks a
spam call
People see on
social media
and % of them
installs app
% of users share on
social media (e.g. Twitter)
Screen to share
“Beware of
Spammer” post

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LTV = ARPDAU x LT -CAC
Buying Speed
When CAC < LTV
When to Buy Growth
Buying Growth
When CAC > LTV12
Definitions
CAC = Customer Acquisition Cost
ARPDAU = Average Revenue Per User Per Day
LT = Lifetime Days
LTV = Lifetime Value
To have long-term sustainable growth, you need a positive return on your acquisition with CAC < LTV

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The AHA Moment
Call #1Call #2Call #3
Identify 3 calls for the user

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Measuring Engagement
FacebookTruecallerTwitterFB Messenger
DAU/MAU ratio comparison
Measuring engagement using
DAU/MAU ratio
Source: App Annie 2017
DAU/ MAU %

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Increasing Engagement
Educate users
Improve speed and app performance
Go deeper in existing use case
Go horizontal to broaden use cases
Drive community engagement

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Engagement Improvements
Truecaller saw a
30% increase
in DAU/MAU ratio
DAU/ MAU %
DAUMAUDAU/MAU
Truecaller’s DAU/MAU ratio
Time
Source: Truecaller internal data

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Truecaller’s Retention Loops
Who Viewed Your ProfileAfter Call Screen
New feature / time
based notification
User takes
action in app
User clicks
notification
Push / pull
notification
User A searches for
user B
User B opens
app / logs in
to website
User B wants to know
who viewed their profile
Email sent
to user B
User gets incoming
call
User calls
back
Screen shows option to
call / SMS / save contact
App shows
who called
Notifications

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0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
% of active users
Retention with Product-Market Fit
Good Retention
Bad Retention
171430 6090 days

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North Star Metrics
CategoryCompaniesHypothetical North Star Metric
Social &
Communication
Facebook: MAU (MonthlyActive Users)
Pinterest: WAU (WeeklyActive Users)
MarketplacesAirbnb: Nightsbooked
Uber: Rides taken
ContentSpotify: Total time listening
Medium: Total time reading
Retail Amazon: GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)
Walmart: Purchases per visit

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Example of Metrics Hierarchy
North Star MetricRevenue
MAU MonetizationEngagement
Acquisition and Retention teams
Output Metrics
Input Metrics
Engagement teamMonetization teamTeams
New UsersChurnResurrectionActive daysSessionsTime spentAdsSubscriptionsOther revenue
sources
Framework courtesy of Ben Grol

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Growth is the sum of many things coming together
Word of Mouth
Organic growth has
been a key strength
Broaden Use Case
From passive Caller ID
app to active
Communication Suite
Partnerships
For acquisition in new
markets and defensibility
in established markets
Community
User engagement in
spam reporting, tags,
suggesting names
Growth Tactics
Invite programs,
product localization