Wish's superpower is leaving no room for taste or opinion. It's what happens when a machine builds a company based on data. The founder didn't plan to sell cheap goods to low-socioeconomic customers, but where the data took him.
The most sophisticated growth team no one talks about: @WishShopping
1. The #1 shopping app in 40+ countries
2. Rumored to often be the #1 spender on FB and Google
3. 2 million items sold daily
I sat down with @cplimon to learn about the notoriously secretive company. Read on 👇
Wish's superpower is leaving no room for taste or opinion. It's what happens when a machine builds a company based on data. The founder didn't plan to sell cheap goods to low-socioeconomic customers, but where the data took him.
cursed wish ads pic.twitter.com/eMlx4LqgKA
— big meaty claws (@leisurepIex) June 4, 2019
Most of Wish’s initial sales came from places like Florida, greater LA county, and middle-America. Specifically, zip codes with 95% Spanish speakers. Later, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe (avg household income $18,000/year)
Even though Wish grew primarily through paid ads, they recognized they also had a perception problem. e.g. The top Google search result for Wish was "is Wish a scam." So they invested in brand campaigns, partnering with respected brands.
The founder, Peter, is the Michael Jordan of growth & performance marketing. He understands how every moving piece impacts every other piece. But with that, he maintains complete control of what everyone does at the company.
Wish started as a free wishlisting product (get it?), and with that acquired a ton of free demand. They then went to the merchants of the most wishlisted products (in China), and offered this demand to them if they would sell their products on the platform.
Wish helped invent what is now one of the most significant products within Facebook ads: Dynamic Product Ads. This gives companies the ability to upload a giant list of product SKUs, which FB pulls from to run ads dynamically.
* Efficiency: Probably had a record of GMV to headcount ratio, several million GMV per employee for a long time
* The right timing: Wish was possible because of the combination of growth of smartphones + emergence of FB ads + Peter's unique skillset
* Stunts: Wish also sponsored the Mayweather/MacGregor fight, and some of the world's most successful soccer players
https://t.co/VavQ59kUl4
More from Lenny Rachitsky
Earlier today, I gave a talk at the @SubstackInc's writer conference about building a writing habit. Below are the ten concrete strategies I shared that have helped me publish a post every week for 1.5 years 👇
0/ First of all, just sharing advice about this topic gives me serious impostor syndrome because writing is still pretty new to me, and I have much to learn. But these are things that have helped me, and I hope they'll help you.
1/ Strategy 1: Commit publicly
This was maybe 50% of my initial motivation. Having told people I was going to write weekly made me feel bad when even thinking about skipping a week. It gave me just enough nudge to keep
1b/ You don't need to make this super public. Just sending an email to a few friends regularly with your concrete goals about writing (and anything else) works wonders.
1c/ If you *really* want to be motivated, ask people for money. Nothing motivates you more than people paying you for regular
0/ First of all, just sharing advice about this topic gives me serious impostor syndrome because writing is still pretty new to me, and I have much to learn. But these are things that have helped me, and I hope they'll help you.
1/ Strategy 1: Commit publicly
This was maybe 50% of my initial motivation. Having told people I was going to write weekly made me feel bad when even thinking about skipping a week. It gave me just enough nudge to keep
I'm kicking off an experiment. Inspired by the great @joulee, and building off of the great inbound questions I continue to get from ya'll -- I\u2019m going to start using my newsletter to answer your questions. \U0001f44b
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) September 12, 2019
Sign up belowhttps://t.co/z1F1efMcue
1b/ You don't need to make this super public. Just sending an email to a few friends regularly with your concrete goals about writing (and anything else) works wonders.
1c/ If you *really* want to be motivated, ask people for money. Nothing motivates you more than people paying you for regular
Life alert: I\u2019m adding a paid plan to my newsletter \U0001f91e
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) April 7, 2020
After much prodding from readers and friends, I\u2019m going to take the leap and give this life-path a shot.
Consider subscribing and joining me on this journey \U0001f64fhttps://t.co/gtFm4POGSQ
Matt Mochary has been CEO coach to @naval, the founders of OpenAI, Notion, Rippling, Robinhood, Coinbase, Reddit, Plaid, Flexport, Opendoor, partners at Sequoia, YC, Benchmark, and many others.
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
More from World
Good question: what proofs has BDA provided of his authenticity?
Let's go through some of them.
- BDA predicted the Saudis would assassinate Suleimani. They did.
- He said the dog that got Badghadi's arm deserved a Medal Of Honor. The next day the President posted a joke image showing him giving the dog a MoH.
- He said one of his ops in Syria would severely disrupt a CIA drug trafficking operation. This was proved true within a few days:
https://t.co/Hranupwcxj
- He sent gold to Brazil to help pay for an anti-trafficking operation there. That op became public soon afterwards.
- On May 31 this year, he predicted the President would be giving a speech the next day. June 1, the President gives a surprise address at the Rose Garden.
- He predicted the US would be making diplomatic moves on Greenland. True.
- He said the US would be pulling all troops out of Afghanistan. This was confirmed within the month.
- He claimed earthquakes would be hitting Iran's nuclear facilities in December. Yep.
- There were FOUR facilities hit, not the three made public. Also true.
Let's go through some of them.
Do you really believe this? And you believe BDA is a time traveler too? You say BDA has accurately predicted things. Please point me to the proof. I have not seen any proof so far.
— I am Justice. God's Kingdom is coming. Wake up. (@GlynAlyn) October 13, 2020
- BDA predicted the Saudis would assassinate Suleimani. They did.
- He said the dog that got Badghadi's arm deserved a Medal Of Honor. The next day the President posted a joke image showing him giving the dog a MoH.
- He said one of his ops in Syria would severely disrupt a CIA drug trafficking operation. This was proved true within a few days:
https://t.co/Hranupwcxj
- He sent gold to Brazil to help pay for an anti-trafficking operation there. That op became public soon afterwards.
- On May 31 this year, he predicted the President would be giving a speech the next day. June 1, the President gives a surprise address at the Rose Garden.
- He predicted the US would be making diplomatic moves on Greenland. True.
- He said the US would be pulling all troops out of Afghanistan. This was confirmed within the month.
- He claimed earthquakes would be hitting Iran's nuclear facilities in December. Yep.
- There were FOUR facilities hit, not the three made public. Also true.
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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".
The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.
Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)
There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.
At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
Imagine for a moment the most obscurantist, jargon-filled, po-mo article the politically correct academy might produce. Pure SJW nonsense. Got it? Chances are you're imagining something like the infamous "Feminist Glaciology" article from a few years back.https://t.co/NRaWNREBvR pic.twitter.com/qtSFBYY80S
— Jeffrey Sachs (@JeffreyASachs) October 13, 2018
The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.
Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)
There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.
At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
