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How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

Overview

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Highlights

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How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Oct 05
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Oct 05
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Albert Cheng has led growth at three of the world’s most successful consumer subscription companies: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. A former Google product manager (and serious pianist!), Albert developed a unique approach to finding and scaling growt...

Highlights

Albert Cheng, a growth leader at Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com, shares how his background in music and product management converges on the principles of deliberate practice, experimentation, and psychological insight. His approach to scaling consumer apps centers on empowering teams to rapidly test ideas, learn from failure, and double down on what truly moves user behavior—revealing a mindset shaped as much by piano rehearsals as product metrics.
00:00
High-agency individuals can outperform those with deep experience.
10:50
80% of game reviews on Chess.com happen after a win, not a loss.
21:25
Interspersing paid suggestions in free versions nearly doubled Grammarly's upgrade rates.
41:42
Duolingo's mascot-driven marketing brings a significant portion of new users
46:51
Stockfish is far better than top grandmasters like Magnus Carlsen in terms of Elo rating.
54:34
The goal at Chess.com is to run 1,000 experiments a year.
1:05:23
Most new users on Chess.com are beginners who quit after losing early games.
1:07:49
High-agency people have high clock speed, energy, and a beginner's mind, making them ideal for fast-changing environments like AI.
1:12:58
Don't search for solutions without a clear problem in marketplace businesses.
1:20:18
Nothing is more important than your reputation

Chapters

How a piano prodigy learned the rhythm of product growth
00:00
What happens when 80% of game reviews come after wins?
10:50
Why showing paid features to free users drives upgrades
21:25
What does great retention look like—and where does growth really come from?
29:03
Can AI make people love chess more than ever?
44:16
How AI is supercharging the experiment engine
51:52
What it takes to run 1,000 experiments a year
57:14
Why initiative beats experience in high-speed teams
1:07:49
When is a company the right size to drive change?
1:10:26
What a failed shuttle service taught about solving real problems
1:15:17

Transcript

Albert Cheng: Growth is the job is to connect users to the value of your product. Growth sometimes gets this reputation that it's just pure metrics hacking. Lenny Rachitsky: You've worked at three of the most successful consumer subscription products in t...