In this presentation, Nilan Peiris from Transferwise, talks about how building a culture around your cause can create explosive word of mouth growth.

1. Mission-Driven Growth—How
Building a Culture Around Your
Cause Can Create Explosive Word
of Mouth Growth
Nilan Peiris, Transferwise

2. @nilanp
Mission Driven
Marketing.

3. @nilanp
What I’ve
learned
building a
unicorn with
Word of
Mouth.

4. @nilanp
What I’ve learned ….
1. About getting to traction
2. About marketing
3. About Word of Mouth

5. @nilanp
What I’ve learned ….
1. About getting to traction
2. About marketing
3. About Word of Mouth

6. @nilanp
INTROS

7. Death Zone

8. Revenue

9. Revenue

10. Revenue

11. Revenue

12. How do I get
out of the
death zone ?

13. A typical founder
conversation

14. Anonymised using
characters from
The Wire

15. x

16. GROWTH
Dude - we’re running
outta cash in 6 months

17. GROWTH
Lets go see the Man -
he can give us funding

18. Introducing the Man

19. GROWTH

20. Come back
when you have
traction…

21. GROWTH
We need to get
traction, we need to
find customers, you
know what we need ?

22. GROWTH
Marketing

23. GROWTH
Word.
Marketing is what we
need… but marketings
expensive. You know
what we need ?

24. GROWTH
Money… lets go see
the Man.

25. @nilanp
What I’ve learned ….
1. About getting to traction
2. About marketing
3. About Word of Mouth

35. Revenue
Marketing $$$$

36. Revenue
Marketing $$$$

37. THE INFINITELY
SCALABLE
MARKETING CHANNEL
DOESN’T EXIST
Revenue
Marketing $$$$

38. What is the problem
marketing is solving ?

40. MARKETINGS JOB IS TO FIX THIS

43. Affiliates.

46. SEO.

48. Facebook.

53. @nilanp
Lets not building marketing teams
that are focussed on spending
money…

54. @nilanp
… lets instead build marketing teams
that are better at solving problems

55. 1. Marketing channels are saturated
2. Category defining startups have no
latent demand
3. Alignment between marketing and
product is all important
@nilanp

56. Marketing channels are saturated.
No margin, No clicks

57. Category defining startups have no
latent demand
If you are building a category defining
product
No one has been trained to Google you

59. Product.
Marketing.

60. @nilanp
What I’ve learned ….
1. About getting to traction
2. About marketing
3. About Word of Mouth

61. @nilanp
Would you recommend us to
your friends?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Detractors Neutral Promoters

62. @nilanp
Would you recommend us to
your friends?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Detractors Neutral Promoters
Total
Promoters - Detractors
= NPS

63. @nilanp
The NPS Richter scale

64. @nilanp
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

65. @nilanp

66. @nilanp

67. @nilanp

68. @nilanp

69. @nilanp

70. @nilanp

71. @nilanp
If promoters >
detractors you WILL
grow

72. @nilanp
N.B. This is hard.

73. It works !
(But barely)

74. It works !
(But barely)
It works with
no significant
issues !

75. It works !
(But barely)
It works with
no significant
issues !
It works. Wow
that was slick

76. It works !
(But barely)
It works with
no significant
issues !
It works. Wow
that was slick
You’ve just blown
my socks off that
was incredible

77. Every app
on your
phone has
an insanely
high NPS

78. Systemising Word of Mouth at
TransferWise

79. TransferWise was started
to solve a problem
@nilanp@nilanp

80. @nilanp
$100,000 ➤ $1,000,000,000

81. @nilanp
60 ➤ 700 TransferWisers

82. @nilanp
Word of Mouth is the biggest
driver of growth

83. We believe our customers will
become evangelists after using our
product

84. Why do people recommend our
product ?
@nilanp

85. RATIONalRational Emotional

86. RATIONalProduct Cause

87. RATIONal
Speed
Price
Convenience
Cause

88. To achieve advocacy your product
needs to be an order of magnitude
better than the alternative

90. HINT: But don’t do this as “growth
hack”

91. RATIONal
Speed
Price
Convenience
Cause

92. Money without borders.
Instant, convenient, transparent
and eventually free
We’re powering money for people and businesses:
to pay, to get paid, to spend, in any currency,
wherever you are, whatever you’re doing

93. You can’t copy
that !

94. So…
10x product
+ Cause driven marketing
= Explosive Word of Mouth growth
@nilanp

95. ONE question:
@nilanp

96. So how you do build a 10x product ?
@nilanp

97. Money moves just fine
around the world today

98. Its just slow, expensive
and hard to use

99. We’re building an alternate
network that’s faster,
cheaper, easier to use

100. If we were just a
pretty UX no-one
would use us

101. @nilanp
Brazil

102. @nilanp
Singapore

103. United Kingdom

104. So how you do build a 10x product ?
Solve really hard problems that
haven’t been solved before
@nilanp

105. So…
10x product
+ Cause driven marketing
= Explosive Word of Mouth growth
@nilanp

106. TransferWise
@nilanp

107. Want video access
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This
could
be
you!
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