Greg Isenberg discusses 8 major product mistakes he made while building Wall Street Survivor that cost $1.5 million to learn. The mistakes include developers writing poor copy, underestimating the importance of influencers, failing to take advantage of mobile opportunities, not embedding content on other sites, and prioritizing features over marketing and growth. He also provides insights on creating urgency through exclusivity, only launching at conferences when it aligns with product plans, and designing products and growth as carefully as development.

1. My million dollar
product mistakes
Greg Isenberg
@gregisenberg
Saturday, 16 February, 13

2. Background.
• Building products since I’ve been 13.
• McGill Computer Science Dropout
• Zynga, FedEX, AOL, TechCrunch
• Partner, Wall Street Survivor
• Now: CEO, fiveby.tv ,Venture Partner at
Good People Ventures.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

3. 8 biggest products mistakes in
building Wall Street Survivor
$1.5M spent to learn the following lessons.
This is my gi to you.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

4. #1 - Good copywriting is underrated
Big learning: Compelling copy is key to conversions and also making
your brand human, friendly and fuzzy. Developers can’t write copy that
well. That’s what marketers are for.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

5. #1 - Good copywriting is underrated
Mistake: Allowed developers to write
copy
Saturday, 16 February, 13

6. #1 - Good copywriting is underrated
Key insight: Great copy is a huge differentiator. It connect your
audience to your brand. It has a direct impact on retention and
engagement.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

7. #2 - Influencers are a big deal
Big learning: Scale users quickly by onboarding communities. For us,
we got schools, trading rooms and blogs. Influencers hold the key to
these communities.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

8. #2 - Influencers are a big deal
Mistake: Thought that PR would drive influencers.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

9. #2 - Influencers are a big deal
Key insight: The best way to onboard influencers is the old school way
by building a real relationship. Pick up a phone, email them or best yet,
take them out for drinks.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

10. #3 - How to sell to influencers
Big learning: Ge ing influencers onboarded is more difficult than we
thought.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

11. #3 - Influencers are a big deal
Mistake: Did not make a compelling enough offer to get influencers
involved
Saturday, 16 February, 13

12. #3 - Influencers are a big deal
Key insight: Influencers love feeling special so the best way to get the
involved is to give make them feel like they are VIP.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

13. #4 - Ride those waves
Big learning: New technology opens up opportunities for disruption
(ex: iOS and the app ecosystem, HTML5 etc...)
Saturday, 16 February, 13

14. #4 - Ride those waves
Mistake: Did not take advantage of mobile. Startups who were mobile-
first like Kapitall who were competitors owned the space by the time
we realized it.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

15. #4 - Ride those waves
Key insight: Always questions how outside innovations provide
opportunities for you to grow your business.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

16. #5 - Distribution, distribution, distribution
Big learning: Strategic alliances with partners helps create value-add
for their userbase and helps you get traffic (and SEO juice).
Saturday, 16 February, 13

17. #5 - Distribution, distribution, distribution
Mistake: Should have embedded “missions” on other publishers sites
from day 1.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

18. #5 - Distribution, distribution, distribution
Key insight: Embeddable widgets that allow users to distribute
content across the web, particularly powerful when its their content.
Find your most compelling feature that can be embeddable and do
deals.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

19. #6 - Create exclusivity, urgency and scarcity
Big learning: Who says FOMO doesn’t exists on the web? Invite-only
increases hype and WOM. People like to be apart of an exclusive club.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

20. #6 - Create exclusivity, urgency and scarcity
Mistake: Should have made our beta private and invite-only
Saturday, 16 February, 13

21. #6 - Create exclusivity, urgency and scarcity
Key insight: Emulate a land grab by providing users the ability to claim "land" on
a first-come-first-serve basis (ex: About.me's vanity URL registration before launch,
Convore's chat room creation/moderation)
Saturday, 16 February, 13

22. #7 - Dos/don’t at conferences
Mistake: Launched Wall Street Survivor at Finovate ’11 NYC. We rushed
launch, built features that were cool to demo but not valuable for the
customers.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

23. #7 - Dos/don’t at conferences
Big learning: Launching at conferences although good for morale, PR
and se ing a date to launch is not always good for the company.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

24. #7 - Dos/don’t at conferences
Key insight: Only launch at a conference if it coincides with your product
roadmap. Don’t match your product roadmap with conference schedules.
Tip: create a “canned” version of your demo in case internet goes down.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

25. #8 - Become a viral baker
Big learning: Just as design has a process and development has a
process as should growth hacking.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

26. #8 - Become a viral baker
Mistake: Growth hacks (invites, sharing features, landing pages) were
an a erthought to product development.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

27. #8 - Become a viral baker
Key insight: The most beautiful products don’t win, it’s the one’s that
are marketing machines from the core.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

28. UX makes or breaks
companies
(Case study: Songza)
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29. Example: Songza
Came late the game, entered an incredibly
crowded space and created a seriously
valuable business.
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30. Songza’s model isn’t
really innovative.
Key insight: they just slapped on a killer UX towards music playlists.
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31. (Not much different)
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32. Why it works?
1) Built context
2) Copy that resonates with users
Key insight: They understood mood ma ers with respect to music and
created funnels around moods.
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33. Songza’s mood is pre y happy now.
They are is killing it.
iPad: 1M downloads in
10 days
50% retention rate.
Saturday, 16 February, 13

34. Pandora (2.2B valuation) is freaking out.
“Pandora is threatened by Songza and
that’s one of the reasons shares are
down” - Forbes
Saturday, 16 February, 13

35. <3
Thanks!
@gregisenberg
gregisenberg@gmail.com
Saturday, 16 February, 13