Superhuman's growth hack 💸
Each week, I deconstruct ideas on product, growth, and building the future.
Hello friends,
In today’s edition of Elliott Poppel’s Newsletter, we explore the growth hack that helped Superhuman achieve word-of-mouth virality.
But first… I’m hosting a private whiskey tasting for founders and investors at Flybridge Capital during NYC Tech Week. ​The event will feature a world-renowned whiskey sommelier from Flaviar Whiskey Club.
Superhuman’s growth hack 💸
In 2019, Superhuman had around 15K users paying $30 per month with a waitlist of more than 220K users. A year later, the company grew to around 50K paying users and reportedly made $20 million in revenue.
Superhuman has raised $108 million from firms such as IVP, a16z, Tiger, and First Round and from celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Will Smith, and The Chainsmokers.
One secret to Superhuman’s viral growth is 1:1 onboarding. It’s a case study in ‘do things that don’t scale.’ Let’s examine why it works so well.
Personal onboarding call
30 min video call w/ email productivity expert
Personalized attention and support
A+ user research
Share your goals and pain points
Discuss what you want to achieve
Identify your biggest email challenges
Customize Superhuman setup for your needs
Learn Superhuman’s workflows
Expert walks you through the app
Teaches faster ways to get through email
Keyboard shortcuts speed everything up
Practice using Superhuman
Apply what you learned with expert guidance
Strengthen productive habits through repetition
See your inbox become streamlined in real-time
Ongoing support
Relationship doesn't end after onboarding
Expert follows up to see how you're doing
Reach out anytime for tips and tricks
tl;dr
Education creates power Superhuman users
Personal touch increases user retention
A+ experience drives WOM virality
Thank you for reading,
Elliott
👋 Hi, I’m Elliott, founder of General Collaboration, a Chrome Extension that interconnects apps like Notion, Google Docs, and Jira so you can @mention anything from anywhere and see all your @mentions in one place.